Christmas Streaming Party with Cali Lewis

The Christmas Party with Cali Lewis was a smash hit. The streaming concert was fun for the people watching online and all the people who came to Cali and Neal’s house. Philip Nelson from NewTek brought an HD Tricaster and it was the first non-NewTek live stream with and HD Tricaster.
Cali and Neal are going to be replaying the event at CaliLive.tv

John P took some amazing pictures of the night. Video is on the way, but in the mean time, check out some of John’s pictures on his Flickr page.

It was such a whirlwind night, and I have so many people to thank for making it a hit. Dave Peterson was so awesome helping get the party ready. It was a hoot sharing the kitchen with Dave, Cali, and Neal as we made yummy food, even though my jalepeno bacon snacks lit everyone’s tongues on fire.

My wife and daughter had so much fun being around my friends and are so thankful to finally be a part of one of these wonderful annual events.

I have found that the older I get, it becomes more rare to find those people who you truely connect with. Mind you my “day job” is piano bar at night and most of the people there are pretty wacky anyway.
But luckliy I have this “alter life” going on thanks to the web, tech, ringtones, new media, ustream, etc.
This has brought me to a world where there are people whom not only I admire but they admire me. Who knew?
For a few years now, I have had the honor to know, work with and become great friends with Cali and Neal from Geekbrief. (I hate using the word honor lightly and maybe that isn’t really the word, but there ya go)
Now it is no secret that Geekbrief.tv is one of the best shows on the web. You’d have to be living in a hole to not know how entertaining, fun, uplifting Cali Lewis and her husband Neal Campbell are.
Let me rewind and give a brief history:
Already hugely popular back in 2005, Cali gave me a call and asked if I’d help them on a video project. They had heard of me from my jingles I did for Adam Curry.
The project never aired, but I did make them a GO Daddy Commercial jingle.
We actually all met at the New Media Expo in 2006. (By the way I advise at some point everyone must meet their online associates in person sooner or later. After all, humans need contact)
Over the years, I have been involved in some of my best musical creations because of Cali and Neal. Numerous musical stingers for Geekbrief, Digg the Code, and the iYule.
Probably one of the most fun things though, is how my Ustream shows have exploded.
It started with Cali twittering that I was in my studio streaming, which then meant hundreds of people logged in to watch me and eventually an impromtu concert eruptped. To say it was magic is cliche, but I don’t care. It was magic. And everytime I do a Usream concert, Cali and Neal go out of their way to make it better than I could. They promote it and even come to Nashville sometimes and set up lights and cameras and get Ustream to make it look good.
This goes beyond being collegues. This is a true friendship, and I have come nowhere close to being able to thank them properly or even repay and do for them what the have done for me.

Christmas Concert Live on Ustream

Once again, it is time for my annual Christmas Party, and as always I am so honored to have the party hosted by Cali Lewis from GeekBrief TV. It will be live December 22nd, 2009 on CaliLive.TV

Cali recently posted the best explanation of this event on one of her sites.

She wrote this:

Geoff Smith

The first thing you need to know is who Geoff Smith is. A lot of you will know him and have enjoyed his music, and if you don’t know his name, you’ve probably heard his jingles. He’s an amazingly talented musician who made his mark on the new media world by creating jingles for different podcasters. Some examples are Drobo, iJustine, and TWiT. He’s also written and performed songs that make geeks dance, likeDigg the Code.

One evening in 2007, Geoff tweeted that he was in his studio working on a new album, and he had Ustream going. Neal and I joined the chatroom at Ustream and I tweeted that I was watching Geoff work. Pretty soon, we had a crowd of people watching and talking in the chatroom, and Geoff wasn’t getting ANY work done! Someone asked if he could sing one of his songs so he did, then someone else asked if he knew the words to a Beatles song, and he started singing it. And that’s how the Geoff Smith Late Night Concerts began. It was pretty incredible to watch Geoff play the piano, sing, take requests from the chatroom (he knows pretty much every song ever made) and in addition to that, watch the chatroom explode with excitement. People loved “singing” along in the form of chat. It’s hard to explain, but when the night ended, people said it was one of the best experiences they’d ever had.

It became a regular thing. Geoff would jump on Ustream, everyone would join him and tweet they were there. Amber Mac, iJustine, and Leo Laporte have all showed up and enjoyed it as well.

Annual Streaming Christmas Party

Last year, we went to Nashville where Geoff lives and plays at the Big Bang Bar, a dueling piano bar. We set up all our cameras and lights, brought our Tricaster along, called in extra bandwidth for the night, and went live. 80 people were there in person to watch Geoff do his thing and request songs. About 7,500 people joined us on the Ustream throughout the night, and thousands more watched the recorded version as we streamed the concert during the holiday season. It was a night we’ll never forget!

Christmas Party 2009

This year, Geoff is joining us to do it all again! Everyone’s invited to the live stream, and we encourage you to spread the word so it’s a more dynamic experience!

The party will be December 22nd at 9:00 PM EST, 8:00 PM CST, and 6:00 PM PST (that’s 2:00 AM GMT, December 23rd). Bring your smile, bring your song requests and hook up your computer to good speakers!

Join the video and chatroom at CaliLive.TV

Switching Granny

In addition to the live stream, we’ll have some local friends here at the house joining in. We would love to be able bring Switching Granny (the official grandmother of GeekBrief.TV) and her husband, Tommy, back into town for the Christmas Party. It’ll cost $1200 for the flight. Dave Peterson, who is flying in from Seattle, has offered to cover their hotel. If anyone in the Geek Brief family wants to help make a grandmother’s holiday,email me, @reply me on Twitter, or leave a comment below.

Christmas Album Featured

Once again, I am so happy to announce that my Christmas EP is featured on the very awesome, CD Baby Pop Discover Music newsletter for 2009.

Thanks again to the great people at CD Baby in their support for independent artists.

Also my Christmas Ringtones are available again, and this year I am combining my RingtoneFeeder Christmas tones with the iYule video that I did with Cali Lewis a few years ago. Check them out here and now also directly in iTunes as well.

More Places To Find RingtoneFeeder

I am so excited by the success of my company, RingtoneFeeder.com.

People have come to really love the vast variety of 15 second songs that I have made and are loving the idea of subscribing and getting a really great deal on ringtones for not only the iPhone, but now so many other handsets.

And now I am excited that there are now several compilations available directly on iTunes, and Verizon.

I never thought I’d be making ringtones, and maybe simply calling them ringtones doesn’t do them justice. They are custom made songs, in so many genres such as 60s Pop, Modern Rock, Comedy, Jazz, Holiday, Funk, Electronic, pretty much any sound alike style I can come up with. In the same way that I approach my jingle, commercial, and even personal songwriting, I use all the musical ideas and tools I can think of to do something different every week.

Not only can one subscribe and get new tones everyweek, but you can have access to my back catalog of over 300, as well as pick an choose certain one-off collections such as the Top 25, Alarms, even in Spanish.

I am just really proud of these, and to be honest, I consider all these ringtones, just more original song releases. I also have so much fun making the weekly videos that go out along with the ringtones. They are like little music videos of ringtones.

In a world where musicians want to find new ways to make and distribute music, this is an area of adventure that I really have enjoyed and still do.

My Interview with The Impressions

I recently got to sit down with Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductees, The Impressions, and talk about the new Christmas Album “I’m Coming Home for Christmas”. I was privileged to not only co-engineer the record and play some bass on it, but I wrote the title track called “I’m Coming Home”.

Last month I blogged about the history of the Impressions and the leadings up to this Christmas Album. You can re-read that here.

Here is the actual audio with myself, Fred Cash and Sam Gooden.

Listen Here:

Listen To The Impressions Interview

This album is out now (on sites like Amazon and iTunes)  and it will be a great addition to people’s Christmas music collection.

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