Val Emmich update

Hope you all saw VE's tweet that he shaved off his hair lol. Check out the photo above that was taken I think two years ago by Jason Cupp. He's quite a photographer, I think.

You can listen to a rare track by Awake Asleep(VE's band back in college). The title is, Lost and Found. I love the music to this song. I can't quite pinpoint what band this song reminds me of. Maybe Smashing Pumpkins with a bit Bush. Yes, I'm going old school. The lyrics is good too.

I've also added a new page, "Author" which is just a bunch of notes Val wrote about his novel and writing one. It also includes a sketch he did for the bookcover. It's very cute.

All this at ValEmmichFans.com

Val Emmich update

More photos from the Canal Room 10.20.09 by Michael Meyer. Click here.

Remember when Val tweeted about growing a beard for a friend's film? Well, the friend is Matt Schuman. The short film is "Me Time". More info at ValEmmichFans.com. We wish you luck Matt!

Drew Roy

I have a new crush. Drew Roy. Discovered him on iCarly. He's young for me but who cares. He's sweet eye-candy.

Photos from the Canal Room

Val Emmich at the Canal Room 10.20.09 for CMJ Music Festival/Blackbird Agency. More pics at ValEmmichFans.com. Also check out Ian Witlen's photos of Val from that night. He really captured Val's The Clash's London Calling moment. Ian will be posting more photos up later this week.

Val Emmich Previews new songs at The Canal Room

The concert last night was part of the CMJ music festival. It’s a week long music series – conerts scattered throughout NYC and I think some in Brooklyn and NJ. Students purchase a badge for $225 and they attend as many show as they’d like. It’s a slew of bands.

In the Canal Room last night was:
Dick Prall
April Smith & The Great Picture Show
Amber Rubarth
Laura Warshauer
and Val Emmich

There’s another guy but I didn’t catch the name. I missed Laura Warshauer’s set. Dick Prall was pretty funny onstage. He kept asking the crowd to move up to the stage. It looked so empty. And everybody was talking. The musicians with an acoustic set had a difficult time to be heard on top of all that noise. I couldn’t understand the lyrics because of it. He had good music and voice, but that’s all I could get out of it, besides his humor.

Amber Rubarth had a Jewel feel to her but in a folk and very adorable way. Not annoying like Jewel. It was difficult to listen to her lyrics, but from what I did understand, seems like a good story to each song. I’ll have to check out her some more.

I listened to April Smith and The Great Picture Show on their myspace page a few months ago. I like their sound. Very authentic. Think big band swing style. They sound so much better live. They have an amazing presence onstage. She looked like Ginnifer Goodwin up there. I am definitely a fan now after this.

Ah an Val Emmich. He wasn’t in the best of moods. I mentioned earlier that the crowd was loud. The crowd at the bar is always loud. One song into the set, Val started to talk about his new songs but the crowd at the bar was just too loud and he yelled, “Hey!” I heard some woman say, “fuck it”. I don’t think it was towards him but he didn’t finish what he wanted to say. After that, he tried to not show something was bothering him. I was right up front, he didn’t look too happy through out the set, but he really did try not to get things tug at him. At one point he went crazy with the mic and the stand fell when the song ended and he couldn’t get it stay the way he wanted. The stand kept swinging around after that. I think management noticed his mood and asked if he was okay. He said “yeah”. A few little things just kept fucking up. He was annoyed with his mic stand. His guitar string broke in the middle of “Hurt More Later”. He closed the evening with a smash. No joke. He smashed his acoustic guitar. I don’t think he’s ever done that at a show. No one expected that. Even his band was in shock. The guitar was shattered. It was crazy. He went crazy on it. When it was over, he just ran off the stage with a guy(the one that asked if he was all right) and they walked into the darkness for no one to bother him.

I don’t know what happened but it didn’t effect the music at all. The new songs we fucking great. I can’t wait for the new album. They played five new songs plus Eastern Standard Time. I say, plus EST because they’ve been playing that song live for a year now.

Oh and I should mention who was in Val’s band:
Eric Micali – drums
Rob Fitzgerald – bass
Ron Haney – guitar
Wayne Dorell – keys/guitar

Anyway, photos are coming. Rob gave me the set list. I thought of writing them down but half their set was new songs that I didn’t know the title of.

1. Home
2. Sidekick (first preview of studio diaries) – this song sounds completely different from the youtube video. I guess because the guitar can be heard much more live than the studio version. I can’t wait to hear the studio version.
3. Get On With It
4. Eastern Standard Time – I love this song lots.
5. The Boy Who Cried Wolf
6. Change of Scenery (the 3rd installment of studio diary) – I really like this song. There’s a line that you hear from the video “the girls I meet”. At the end of the song, the line changes to “the boys I meet”. Cute.
7. Don’t Let Go (2nd preview in studio diary) – this song sounds different than what was previewed as well. Still sounds good though. I like the lyrics and the sound is catchy.
8. Resume – he mentions that the song is happy but the lyrics is sad. And if he were to write up a resume for a job fair this is what it would sound like.
9. Hurt More Later
10. High Noon – I can’t get enough of this song
11. Gone
12. Down – with the full band. I never heard this song live with the full band. Very different. It’s good different.
13. Shock [fades to Break/Absolutely Still, Now Is No Time] I thought I heard Separate Things too.

Val Emmich show tonight!

The above photos were taken by me at the Canal Room in May 2009. I had such a great time of course. Val previewed five new songs. My favorite was Eastern Standard Time, which you can watch a clip of a video of that song taken by a fan from Germany(thanks Julia’s friend!). I’m attending Val’s show tonight. It’s too bad my camera broke :(

So let me get into what happened the night of May 19, 2009 at the Canal Room. I got there super early, because I always do at every concert I attend. I am so used to arriving at a Wallflowers show an hour early just to be in front of the line so I can stand right up by the stage. In this case, with Val being an indie artist you don’t have to do that with him. I ended up being the only one there, which I don’t mind since a lot happened while I waited. I stood there talking to the bouncer. Even the bouncer commented to me, “wow you’re early.” I explained to him it’s because I’m a hardcore fan. And laughed it off.

I’m standing by the door, Val walks by with his friend. I just flashed a smile at him. He was busy talking to other people. He went inside. A few minutes later, I look to my right and I recognize a face walking towards my way. It’s no other than The Incredible Hulk himself, Edward Norton. He was on his mobile with a woman attached to his arm. They walked passed me and they walk into the restaurant right next door.

Still standing by the door and out comes Eric Micali, Val’s drummer. He stepped out to smoke. When I see my chance to say something, I took it. I said, “Eric, right?” He nods and he asked me if he knew me. I just shake me head. He keeps looking at me, said that I look familiar. I tell him that I love his work. He smiles with delight and almost blushing. It was adorable. We talk for awhile about the weather and how it was a Tuesday and nobody was able to join me(like tonight). A few of his friends walked by and talked to him before they went inside. He turned back to me and continued our conversation. That was the sweetest thing. I blurted out, “Ed Norton just walked right by and went into that restaurant.” Now, I just seen Mr.Norton and I HAD to tell somebody, anybody. It happened to be Eric. He looks over and said, “really? Wow. Talk about random celebrity sighting.” Then we talked some more. I don’t remember what we talked about. Then he said that he’s going inside to sleep a little bit before the show. I told him to have fun with that. He laughs and went inside. On a sidenote, the next day I went to his myspace page and commented to him about Ed Norton and how Norton apologized for not being able to make it to the show.

Prior to the show, Val and I had passed messages from one another on facebook(both PM and on our walls so you can read it if you have me added). I asked him where I can get a VE shirt and if he didn’t have any I would be forced to make DIY shirt. He encouraged me to make one and so I did. I showed him my design and asked for more logos. He was touring at the time so his replies took awhile. He eventually replied to me 3 weeks later, which took me by surprised. And this is what makes him Val Emmich. He really cares for his fans. I adore him for taking the time. Not all musicians do this. And when I say all, I am including indie artists too. So I showed him my design for the shirt and he insisted that I wear it to the show on May 19th.



Here’s the design on the shirt. It’s simple and clean. I wore it to the show.

After his set, I managed my way up there before a line started forming to get to him. He was already surrounded by his friends. People were just trying to get his attention. it didn’t take so long for me to scavenge my way through the crowd really. I told him my name and immediately he knew who I was and looked at my shirt. He was fucking amazed to say the least. He grabbed anyone he can from his friends and just said, “look what she made!” He even dragged his manager, Ralph, who suggested to Val that I start designing his shirts. Val also said that next time, I come in with a load of shirts, sell them at his show and I keep the money. I just laughed but he actually looked serious. It was cute how excited he was with the shirt I made. At some point one of his friends got his attention and I was just standing there next to him. My time with him was up, so I shook his shoulder to get his attention again, turned to me and told him it was nice to finally meet him. He gave me a hug which took me by surprised but it was sweet.

So that’s my experience from that night. I made a few more shirts and I’ll probably wear one of them tonight. As of right now, the Little Daggers shirt is available for girls only(babydoll). If you’re interested please contact me at info@valemmichfans.com. I will try to post a photo of the shirt itself using my phone.

Val's live recorded performance

Stan is the MAN. Just added this old interview clip with VE + The Rescue Effort, pre-SDK 2. It's up @ ValEmmichFans.com.

Now about the webathon earlier. I was so disappointed with the way blowupradio.com and penguinrocks.com sounded with Val's live performance. What were they doing while recording the show? Fiddling with the mixer? I have better live bootlegs than that done by amateurs lol. That was so poorly presented. And it wasn't even 30 minutes! It was cut short to 20 minutes! WTF. To all VE fans who hasn't seen or heard him live yet, please don't go by that recorded performance. Val sounds so much better live. I recorded it and I might just put up Darling Denise or The Lucky Ones since they came out the best. Still a little choppy though.

Edward Norton for Maasai Marathon

Edward Norton is involved in the Maasai Marathon. It's a long run in NY.It supports the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust. To learn more about this cause please visit the official site. Also, follow him on twitter. He has contests and giveaways for donations.

On a totally unrelated note from the marathon. I bumped into Mr.Norton once in NYC. I was actually waiting outside The Canal Room for a Val Emmich show and I see Mr.Norton walking by, talking on his mobile and goes inside the restaurant right next door. I wish had the balls to invite him to Val's show. I have an ongoing joke with Val's drummer, Eric Micali about this. Eric was the first person I saw after spotting Edward Norton and so I had to tell Eric.

Awake Asleep

Awake Asleep are: Val Matt Emmich – vocals, guitar; Harris Katz – guitar; Andy Gesner – bass, backup vocals; Chris Shingola – drums. Photo is from the back of their album, Going Through the Notions.

Can I Watch You Pee? in my opinion is the highlight of the album. The lyrics is entertaining, amusing and smart. The song has a Weezer with a twist of FooFighters to it. Track three, Bite Your Lips is pretty catchy too. I’ll be streaming some songs in ValEmmichFans.com

Mila Kunis

I thought I sent this to a fan site but I didn't. I just read an article that she's addicted to porn? And it's been unconfirmed that there's porn videos of her.

Abbie Cornish

Visit abbie-cornish.com. One of the few fan sites I contribute to on a regular basis.

Jakob Dylan

Oh Jakob Dylan. You still have my heart. Just added 30 photos from Aspen, CO show 07.29.09 @ Jakob-Dylan.com.

Ryan Phillippe for W Magazine

Kind of bored right now, so here's a photo of shirtless Ryan Phillippe