Almost four years ago I moved to Los Angeles.  Fresh out of grad school, where I had spent inordinate amounts of time stressing about the failing music industry, I haphazardly decided it might be a good idea to try my hand in the movie business.  I’d been trained in audio and music, and figured I could make a living in movies.  But after 6 months of delivering tapes around LA for 10 bucks an hour, I figured I should try to put my skills to some other uses.  Along came an amazing opportunity at the X PRIZE Foundation, where I spent a year honing my skills as a community manager.  And I followed that with two years of leading the most amazing team ever at Warner Bros. Records, helping to build the Community Department into the thriving group that it is today (Can you believe WBR has a Community Department?  Believe it.).  I’d found home, back in music where I belong.

But the time has come for me to move on again.

I’m extremely excited to announce the next chapter in my life, a little venture I call Tiny Jetpack.  There will be much more detail to come, but for now just know that I’ve decided to use my 1337 social media skills in a bit of a different way.  (Ahem, and if you’re a band or brand that needs any help in that area, drop me a line.)

Wait, there’s more.  I’m moving to Nashville, Tennessee, with my beautiful girlfriend.

I’ll go on record here for a moment and say that I love a great many things about Los Angeles.  The diversity, the incredible food, a never-ending supply of live and recorded music, a rich history, and proximity to so many incredible things, among them the ocean and a plethora of national parks and monuments.  I moved to LA because of a vision I had for my own life, for the life I could be living.  I chased a television fantasy of the American Dream (and I’m openly admitting that).  I still believe that Los Angeles is the home of that Dream for a great many people, a place where you can find opportunity, culture, financial security, and more.  However, I now know I’m not one of those people.

I work in the music business, for better or for worse.  I love it.  It makes me feel complete in so many ways.  Even on my worst days, the most stressful and awful days, I still get to see photos of smiling fans online, and I know that I’ve done something right.  I know that I’ve helped, in some small way, to give back to fans, the way music once gave to me, and often still does.  But Los Angeles is too expensive, too hectic, too cutthroat for my tastes, and Nashville seems to be the opposite of all of those things.  The music business in the US is based in three cities, LA, NYC, and Nashville, and of the three Nashville is the place where I can see myself, and my beautiful girlfriend, thrive.

And so I’m leaving Hollywood for Dollywood, the Wiltern for the Ryman, Chucks for boots, Dodgers for Sounds, traffic for, um, no traffic.  And maybe I’ll eat a salad every now and then just for the nostalgia.  I love you LA, but we just weren’t meant for each other.

My grandfather once told me this story, I vividly remember, his old age having claimed his vision, and me sitting next to him trying desperately to sustain a vicious onslaught of bad breath and overgrown nosehairs (I can’t help it, I loved him, but that’s what I remember).  He sat me down, not more than 10 years old, and told me about a train full of butter.  Yep, butter.  Wait, you’ve heard this one?  Oh, well this butter was being sold at pennies on the dollar, and it just happened to right around World War II, when apparently butter was in pretty high demand.  He could have bought that butter, and sold it at his grocery store.  But he didn’t.  And he spent the rest of his life wishing he had.  Now I have no idea whether this story is true.  I can only imagine he’s probably not the only person to ever tell this story either.  And for that matter, I have no idea why anyone would want an entire train full of butter (except that its tasty and delicious).  But I’m taking his moral to heart.  Opportunity knocks, and it’s always better to regret something you have done than something you haven’t done.

Let the fun begin!  I’m staying at WBR until the end of the month, and Courtney and I (and three kitties) are heading out Route 66 on May 31.  It’s coming up fast, and we’d like to invite you along for the ride.  We’ll be blogging the whole way.

And finally, I’ll leave you with this little song, ‘Belt of Orion,’ by a band I’ve had the utmost pleasure to work with over this past year, The Belle Brigade.  For whatever reason, it seemed particularly poignant.

Rock on.

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