Why Elvis Matters

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I was eight (and a half) years old on Tuesday, August 16, 1977.  That was the day that Elvis Presley died.

I don’t remember where I was when I first heard the news, but the specific memory of his death is distinct in my mind.  What I do remember is humbly asking my mother “Who is Elvis?”  It’s likely she doesn’t remember my asking her that, but I do, as clearly as I remember her reply, “He was famous, he was the King.”

Mom and Dad had only one Elvis album, and if it weren’t for the event of his passing my curiosity would have likely never been sparked, but as it goes it was, I listened to that album. At eight years old I was captivated by songs like Hound Dog, Don’t Be Cruel, Heartbreak Hotel and Jailhouse Rock, and although the music was twenty years old, it was new to me. Elvis was my entree to popular music.

In 1977 we didn’t have the luxury of the internet. I couldn’t put imagery with the sounds I heard, nor did I need to. MTV wouldn’t be a reality until August of 1981, and back then we relied on our ears to discern the sounds we liked and didn’t like. My ears told me that Elvis was good when I was eight years old, but it took me another three decades to understand how good… to really understand why Elvis matters.

John Lennon said, “Before Elvis there was nothing”.  I could probably hinge this whole article on that statement, but it falls short of the bigger picture of perspective.  At the end of the day, Elvis was an extremely talented singer with seething sex appeal and a demure yet charming disposition, who won super-stardom’s lottery – being in the right place at the right time.

So if there was nothing before Elvis as Lennon suggests, wouldn’t that make it easy to achieve greatness in an environment with no competition?  One might think so, yet few of his contemporaries achieved even a fraction of the success and notoriety of Elvis Presley.  Putting his movie career aside, when Elvis performed on stage he did it in a way that inspired a generation of performers, changing the way that live performance happened along the way.  Above all else, Elvis Presley matters because his successors, as well as his predecessors say he does.

He helped to kill off the influence of me and my contemporaries, but I respect him for that. Because music always has to progress, and no one could have opened the door to the future like he did.
~Bing Crosby

I’m sitting in the drive-through and I’ve got my three girls in the back and this station comes on and it’s playing “Jailhouse Rock”, the original version, and my girls are jumping up and down, going nuts. I’m looking around at them and they’ve heard Dad’s music all the time and I don’t see that out of them.
~Garth Brooks

It was like he came along and whispered some dream in everybody’s ear, and somehow we all dreamed it.
~Bruce Springsteen

If it hadn’t been for Elvis, I don’t know where popular music would be. He was the one that started it all off, and he was definitely the start of it for me.”
~Elton John

It’s rare when an artist’s talent can touch an entire generation of people. It’s even rarer when that same influence affects several generations. Elvis made an imprint on the world of pop music unequaled by any other single performer.
~Dick Clark

Elvis is the greatest cultural force in the twentieth century. He introduced the beat to everything, music, language, clothes, it’s a whole new social revolution – the 1960’s comes from it.
~Leonard Bernstein

A lot of people have accused Elvis of stealing the black man’s music, when in fact, almost every black solo entertainer copied his stage mannerisms from Elvis.
~Jackie Wilson

I remember Elvis as a young man hanging around the Sun studios. Even then, I knew this kid had a tremendous talent. He was a dynamic young boy. His phraseology, his way of looking at a song, was as unique as Sinatra’s. I was a tremendous fan, and had Elvis lived, there would have been no end to his inventiveness.
~B.B. King

Before Elvis, everything was in black and white. Then came Elvis. Zoom, glorious Technicolor.
~Keith Richards

And the list goes on and on.  Elvis Presley’s mannerisms and performance style inspired – by their own admission – The Beatles, Robert Plant, Jim Morrison, Mick Jagger, Rod Stewart and countless others.

MTV’s Unplugged is Elvis, live performance as we know it is Elvis, the record industry itself is Elvis, today’s popular music, as well as popular music in general is in essence the echo of Elvis Presley.  The most telling quote of all was that of Bing Crosby, “No one could have opened the door to the future like he did”.

As each generation goes by, it becomes more and more difficult to understand the immense  contribution of Elvis Presley.  As a Gen-X’er myself, and for the Y’s, iPodders and everyone that comes after will, like me, exist in a post-Elvis reality.  Our perspective is clouded by, well, by perspective itself.  We are that future that Bing Crosby speaks of, and so is our popular culture.  The “before” is just too foreign to us, and takes more than a casual glance or fleeting thought to truly perceive.

To imagine the world before Elvis Presley would be like trying to imagine a world before the invention of the air conditioner… after them things just got a whole lot cooler.

-Craig Sumsky

www.cuttingedgedjs.com

Cutting Edge @ September 2, 2010

My DJ, My Wedding

Client Testimonials, Weddings Comments (0)

Hello faithful Cutting Edge Blog readers! For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Justin and on occasion I am a Cutting Edge DJ/MC.

In the months leading up to my wedding that took place a couple weeks ago, people who knew me would always end up asking me one question: Are you going to DJ your own wedding? Now after my wife said no to that idea for the twenty third time, it became apparent that I had to find someone else. But who? One of the other people I worked with many, many times at the company I work for of course! And that person was my good friend Richie at Cutting Edge. Now it helped that I had known Richie since High School, but that wasn’t the reason I picked him. I picked him because I knew he was great at what he did.

Being a DJ myself makes it difficult to attend a wedding as a guest and not look at it like through the eyes of DJ, critiquing what you would do differently and what song you play in all situations from cocktail hour until the last song. Any DJ out there knows what I’m talking about. Once you think like that you can’t turn it off. So I knew if I did that during my own wedding I wouldn’t have much fun unless I put the DJ part of in in competent hands. I also didn’t want to worry about anything like introductions, parent dances and the all important cake cutting. So I went to the guy I knew could pack a dance floor from beginning to end without me having to break a sweat. And I can truly say that the only sweat I broke was on the dance floor, having the time of my life! Both my new wife and I have said many times over the past few weeks that we had more fun at our own wedding than any other we had ever been too!

So as a consumer and a satisfied costumer, I would completely recommend Cutting Edge to any wedding couple out there looking for a DJ that makes everything from beginning to end so easy to deal with. Any song you want, any insane request, any idea you can’t think of yourself. Your guests will have a blast from start to finish!

Justin Kutcher

Photo Courtesy of Kylene Lynn – www.kylenelynn.com

www.cuttingedgedjs.com

Cutting Edge @ August 30, 2010

Are We Losing Our Music?

Music, News Comments (8)

You may recognize the image above, but simply because your brain tells you that the colors and shapes are familiar.  At second glance one can see that although familiar, it is blurred, distorted and “compressed”.  Now what if I were to tell you that unless the music that you listen to is on a CD or vinyl, that the image represents the visual equivalent of the loss of sound wave, or frequency in the music most of us are listening to?

The MP3 format has become the new standard, for both the mobile DJ and the casual music listener. It’s not unusual for a DJ to carry from 500 gigabytes to a terabyte worth of music with them these days in an MP3 format, replacing the cumbersome and laborious CD collection.   In an article published by About.com titled Vinyl vs. CD (a very good read I might add) the author says this;

“It is a strange music world we live in. There has been and is a major upheaval in the way consumers discover, purchase and listen to music. People listening to music on their cell phones and fitting their music collections in their pockets with portable iPods and MP3 players. Digitization, it seems, is the new distribution process for most with file sharing, ring tones, YouTube, iTunes, MySpace, Satellite radio and downloading is the only option for some.”

Although true about digitization being the the new medium for distribution, and ultimate convenience finally being within our grasp (both DJ and consumer), is the sacrifice really worth it?   This brings me to the next article I read regarding the subject (another very interesting read), by John Atkinson, Editor of stereophile magazine titled MP3 vs AAC vs FLAC vs CD which makes this statement:

“The MP3 codec (for COder/DECoder) was developed at the end of the 1980s and adopted as a standard in 1991. As typically used, it reduces the file size for an audio song by a factor of 10; eg, a song that takes up 30MB on a CD takes up only 3MB as an MP3 file. Not only does the 4GB iPod now hold well over 1000 songs, each song takes less than 10 seconds to download on a typical home’s high-speed Internet connection.”

But apparently this is not the first technological “upgrade” that has resulted in us being robbed of some sound quality.  According to Gary Freiberg from Vinyl Record Day – a non-profit dedicated to the preservation of vinyl records – the analog recording (vinyl record) has a wider frequency range than the digital compact disc, and in speaking with him, he agreed it would be fair to say that the compact disc is merely a compression of analog.  It would seem therefore that the loss started back in the 80s when the CD supplanted the vinyl LP record album.

It all seems pretty dismal, but there is still hope.  My first suggestion would be to stop downloading all of that music from iTunes and Amazon, and to start buying CDs again.  Unless of course you are downloading “lossless” digital file formats (WAV files for example are truly CD quality, but take up a great deal more space).    This would take the capacity of your 8GB iPod from 2,000 songs down to about 260 songs (or 26 albums), and I highly doubt anyone will make that sacrifice, so for now we’ll all keep using MP3s.

But technology will improve, storage space will increase, file sizes will shrink and it will all become more easily affordable in the next few years (it always does).  If you own the CD, you can rip the songs in any format you like.  No matter what you may read or hear, the MP3 is not CD quality, but you can at least choose to rip a CD at a higher bit rate than most online downloads offer.  This in itself is a significant improvement in sound.  Eventually, when the storage space in an iPod jumps to the multiple terabyte range, you could conceivably delete MP3s and re-rip your music to a non-compressed file, and re-achieve CD quality.  Or of course you can keep buying inferior MP3s, and perhaps repurchase the larger files when the technology finally catches up with the convenience that is causing us to lose the fullest possible sound in our music.

For now, I’ll keep my CDs.  I maintain control over the bit rate at which my MP3s are created, and when the MP3 goes the way of the dodo bird, I’ll still own the CD master files which I’ll be able to use to create the improved and lossless digital files.    As a DJ, this will allow me to improve my sound quality, without spending the money time and time again… I own the masters.  For those hardcore vinyl and CD enthusiasts, more power to you!  Keep up the good fight!

On the other hand, there are those who say the loss doesn’t take away from their listening pleasure, and for the most part I would tend to agree.  Perhaps on a bazillion dollar home theater surround  system with flux capacitors and warp drives the loss is clear as a bell, but with most music listening these days happening with little headphones, it seems we can still enjoy our tunes without missing a beat .

-Craig

Image reproduced with the permission of Source Interlink Media

www.cuttingedgedjs.com

Cutting Edge @ August 18, 2010

DJ Brian: Full Circle

Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, Our Staff: Past and Present, Weddings Comments (5)

I see life like a meandering line, ever changing its course and surprising us with the unexpected. In this case, the line has brought me full circle, back home to Cutting Edge Entertainment.

During my first go-around with Cutting Edge, I was known as “The Dancing DJ”, ever bouncing and fist pumping along with the crowd from behind the DJ booth. I love music, and as they say, if you love what you do for a living, is it really work? I consider myself lucky; not just because returning to Cutting Edge means I’ll get to spend my weekends laughing and working alongside some of my oldest friends, but because we get to share our love of music and fun with one another while making new friends along the way.

Musically, my tastes have changed little through the years. Before becoming a disc jockey I spent several years attending jazz dance classes as a way to exercise and expand my musical horizons, which then led to a love of musical theater and further my love of all things “pop”.

Beginning with the influence of artists like New Kids on The Block, and of course Michael Jackson (Billie Jean being the greatest pop song ever produced IMHO), my music experience evolved beyond mere notes and lyrics, or rhythms and melodies. It was the performance aspect that truly inspired me, it was what hooked me in, and hasn’t let go ever since.

But there was still that pop obsession…

My High School years led to *NSYNC and The Backstreet Boys, and was again not just about the tunes, but the costumes, choreography and concerts. The recent decade hasn’t fared much differently, adding Usher, Ne-Yo and Justin Timberlake’s solo career to the multitude of party-worthy entertainers whose songs I find myself revisiting at events and parties.

I try not to think of myself as an MC, or Master of Ceremonies, but rather as a guide leading my audience through a day that can often be as equally overwhelming as it is memorable and joyous. Your event experience is only enhanced by a DJ who – through the input of the client – can become part of the excitement while allowing the party to occur organically. Name a few songs and/or artists and they’ll become my “Rosetta Stone” to decoding your musical tastes. Your guests will dictate the energy and together, through the music, we will create a story that will last a lifetime. This is the theory I’ll use when helping you plan and execute your party. Every step is vital, every beat is crucial but EVERYTHING should be filled with fun and excitement. Working together with the client has proven a tried and true formula for the success of any event.

So… full circle and back at Cutting Edge Entertainment after almost half a decade. Here is where I stand today; here to entertain you, to laugh with you, to rock the party and share in the fun with you.

So, remember that meandering line I mentioned earlier? Was that marked at the end or was it only another beginning?

-Brian Lacivita

Photo by Kevin York – www.kevinyorkphotography.com

www.cuttingedgedjs.com

Cutting Edge @ August 17, 2010

Client Kudos

Client Testimonials Comments (0)

Over the past few months I’ve had the opportunity to DJ for many parties, and I’ve received some great thank you notes and testimonials from some amazing clients. I thought it might be a good idea to share two of my most recent ones.

The first testimonial we received was from Danielle and Chris. I previously wrote a blog post about their wedding (click here to see), after which they emailed me this Thank You, with some very kind words.

Thanks to Cutting Edge DJs our wedding reception was such a blast! Everyone was up dancing from start to finish! We had the party of our lives and Richie kept the music selection fun and interesting. All of our guests had a great time and gave us great complements on the music selection! We could not have asked for a better DJ! The entire planning process was relaxed and laid back, too….just like us! Thanks Richie!
~Danielle and Chris

Danielle and Chris were amazing to work with, and I hope to see them again at future events.

The second testimonial is from a 90th Birthday party I did in the beginning of August, at the Buck Hotel.  The following Monday I received an awesome email from Marcia and Ken (Ken being the son of the birthday girl).

Last evening, Saturday August 7th we had our party for our Mom’s 90th birthday at the Buck Hotel in Feasterville, Bucks County Pa.

Richie Abrams was our DJ for our event.

We just wanted to tell you how amazingly wonderful he was in EVERY way!

We told him we were totally pleased but wanted you to know directly from us that he did a wonderful job and we would highly recommend him to anyone.

He entertained the young children while the adults finished appetizers, as well as when dinner was progressing and they were getting a bit antsy. He has a great way with children. And with adults he is at ease and comfortable, and made the guest of honor feel comfortable also.

He has a great voice for conversing and his choice of music and dancing numbers was wonderful! He got out on the dance floor to teach the gathering several group dances also. He has great enthusiasm and rapport with everyone.

We can’t think of anything he could have done to make the evening any better and we would heartily recommend him to anyone who wants a great DJ for their event -of any kind.

Please call on us if you ever need a personal recommendation.

Blessings and thanks again. It was a pleasure doing business with you.

~Ken and Marcia Leahy

Ken and Marcia were nice enough to provide a photo they took of the guest of honor Lorraine a.k.a. “G.G.” along with her great grandchildren. The theme of the party was “Through the Decades”.  Some of the kids were dressed up as hippies from the 60s, disco dancers from the 70s, and goth from the 90s. The kids, adults, and especially G.G. were out on the dance floor the entire night.

I love getting Thank You notes and emails. Stay tuned, because I have many more to share with all of our blog readers in the weeks and months to come.

-Richie

Photo of Danielle and Chris courtesy of Andrea Funkhouser Photography

www.cuttingedgedjs.com

Cutting Edge @ August 16, 2010

A Beatles Journey: McCartney in Concert

Music, News, The Beatles Comments (2)

On Saturday, August 14th of 2010, I attended the Paul McCartney concert at the Wachovia (soon to be Wells Fargo) Center in Philadelphia. This was the first time I had ever seen any of the former Beatles perform live. I was accompanied by my friend Kevin York, who took all of the photos you see here.

Paul rocked, plain and simple, but you expect that from a former Beatle I suppose. By far the greatest concert (yes, the greatest) I’ve ever been to.  McCartney learned how to “Mach Shau” in Hamburg half a century ago. It was ten songs into the show when Paul broke into the Wings hit Let Em In that Kevin looked at me and said with enthusiasm, “He’s still got it.”  I guess that’s what sums it up best…  He does still got it.

The last two concerts I’ve seen of older groups have been  Van Halen and The Eagles “Hell Freezes Over” tour, and in both instances I’d been fairly disappointed.  I feared the same of this in some ways, and I was glad to be dead wrong.  This was no “reunion” tour of a band that hadn’t played together for a decade, this was a performer who has never stopped touring.

McCartney’s rapport with the audience was one of familiarity and intimacy.  The audience was  bantered with, serenaded, and Rock n Rolled.  He jockeyed between the piano, acoustic and electric guitars, his legendary Hoffner bass and even a ukulele.  The set list was chocked full of Beatles and Wings classics, as well as as well as some welcome surprises that were not on the list, like Give Peace A Chance and Hendrix’s Foxy Lady.

Might I add that Kevin York was able to capture these vibrant images with a pocket camera, which proves my point once again that what a real photographer can achieve with a $500.00 camera is far greater than what the amateur (like myself) could accomplish with a professional grade camera.

In the first rough of writing this article, I found myself going on and on about McCartney’s “epicness” referring to him in most cases as a superlative. Then I went droning on and on about the concert itself, filling it with lots of exciting and powerful Rock n Roll appropriate adjectives.  So yeah, Paul McCartney put on an epic show, and it was likely the greatest concert I have ever seen, and the most fun I’d ever had at a concert.  I danced, I sang, and I smiled from start to finish.

To the folks who have already seen Paul McCartney perform live, this is no great revelation, and to those of you who haven’t, McCartney really is a performer you shouldn’t miss.  Did I forget to mention that Paul McCartney is a superlative and epic Rock n Roll God and perhaps one of the greatest performers of all time?  Oh yeah, that too.

Bravo Sir Paul, that was really cool.

-Craig

Photography by Kevin York
www.kevinyorkphotography.com

www.kevinyorkphotographer.com

www.cuttingedgedjs.com

Cutting Edge @ August 15, 2010

Jordyn’s Record Hop: Club Jordyn

Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, Sweet Sixteens Comments (0)

A Record Hop is sort of like a “kids only” party to celebrate a First Holy Communion or a Bar or Bat Mitzvah. If it is for a girl it can be very much like a Sweet Sixteen (particularly in the case of a Bat Mitzvah, being somewhat older than Communion age). In either case, the kid party can be as big or as little as the imagined concept (and budget) allow. In this particular instance, it was a Bat Mitzvah Record Hop, with really creative ideas, that allowed a larger production to be created, while staying within a budget. Before you read further – if you haven’t already – you might want to check out the first two parts of the Jordyn’s Record Hop trilogy.

Part One: Meet Jordyn

Part Two: The Setup

Jordyn’s parents made some very clever and strategic decisions when it came to planning their daughter’s party. First and foremost they concentrated on the theme, while keeping budget conscious. They chose a large, yet reasonably priced facility (The Richboro Senior Center), and through the help of their event planner, were able to achieve a very cool and hip atmosphere that really gave it an authentic “clubby” feel. After that, the only things really left were the DJ entertainment and the food.

As the guests arrived, the “bouncers” checked IDs (of which, thirteen year olds seldom have, which added to the silly fun) before being admitted into Jordyn’s exclusive “Club”.  Once inside, they were treated lighting, DJ and music, a trendy club/lounge atmosphere and some great kids food and drink.

As you can tell by the photos, what was a fairly utilitarian space was completely transformed, from concept to completion. Lighting, DJ, atmosphere and a little creative juice (in addition to some great input from Jordyn) were all that were required to pull the whole thing together.

The Team

Event planner – Renee from Events by Monroe: Jason and Wendy has the foresight to choose a planner for the event. To bring together the theme, the ideas and concepts needed action, and Renee had resources for things I would have never imagined. Neon Lycra covered high-top style tables, cool hanging globes, dimly lit centerpiece lighting on the tables and a red carpet with velvet ropes are just a few of the thematic touches that I would have very little idea as to where to begin finding, much less finding while staying within a budget. Renee and her assistant stayed the whole night to oversee that everything was maintained, while serving cleverly named mixed drinks (non-alcoholic of course), that were not limited to the typical Shirley Temple (a personal favorite of mine). The time and money saved by using a planner typically far outweighs the cost of the planner themselves.

www.eventsbymonroe.com

Food/Caterer – The Gourmet Vendor: For many years Brad Orenstein’s “Gourmet Vendor” has been a favorite of mine. Although they call themselves a “Hot Dog Cart” company, they are not only that (and the best around), but they really offer a whole lot more. Pizza, cheese steaks, cotton candy and ice cream are just a few of the food options on their menu. Great for corporate picnics, backyard parties, and, of course, kids parties (most kids would choose pizza and hot dogs over “fancy food” any day of the week. Additionally, Gourmet Vendor staffs their food carts, serving the food (hot or cold) as opposed to the mess of self-serve. And unlike the so called “fancy food”, Gourmet Vendor’s prices are affordable, and even adding on menu options still stays within a very reasonable budget with excellent service.

www.gourmetvendor.com

DJ and Lights – Cutting Edge Entertainment: That’s us!  Yes, this was a more expensive setup on our end (lots and lots of lights), and would have otherwise been a larger portion of the total budget for a production of this size, but as The Beatles say, “You get by with a little help from your friends”  (let’s just say Jordyn’s father is a good friend ). Seeing the smile on Jordyn’s face all night long was our reward.  She is a gracious and beautiful young woman, and was a delight to work with. Quite honestly, if her parents were to come to us in three years to help plan her Sweet 16, we would be hard pressed to top this one.

www.cuttingedgedjs.com

Photos courtesy of Photographer Erin Duffy

Cutting Edge @ August 14, 2010

Jordyn’s Record Hop: Lights, Camera, DJ

Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, Our Staff: Past and Present, Sweet Sixteens Comments (2)

Jordyn’s Record Hop was held at the Richboro Senior Center, which is of course, in Richboro, Bucks County Pennsylvania. The theme Jordyn and her parents came up with was “Club Jordyn”, kind of a kids nightclub. Along with other event professionals, it was our job to help accomplish this, particularly the “lights and DJ” aspects of the night club.

We invited photographer Erin Duffy to ride shotgun with us to create a sort of photo documentary of what goes into putting together one of our production events. To this end, all of the credit for pulling it off (on our end) goes to Carl, our Production Manager. Carl is sort of the unsung hero of Cutting Edge, and with the help of event planner Renee Grande and a crack Cutting Edge team, we transformed the room at the Richboro Senior Center.

Carl checks things out upon arrival.

The unload begins.

And continues…

So much stuff to unload.

As Carl diligently checks in all the lighting gear.

Nate, Adam and Carl take a short break while Marc calls his mom.

Carl screwing around (figuratively) as he picks out the screws and bolts that will connect the trussing structure.

Adam putting together the legs of the trussing structure, attaching the corner blocks.

And then it’s time to raise the structure.
Once the sides are up, both are bolted together.

Once the truss legs are raised, they are quickly secured together.
Here, Carl bolts together the unattached pieces while standing on a scaffold.
(the structure stands at eleven feet).

Adam is happy to see things looking up, while Marc realizes his laces are untied.

Nate, in a moment of confusion asks, “Wait, has anyone seen my iPhone?”
As Marc and Carl begin to hang the lighting from the truss.

Dancers Ashley and Emily arrive and greet Jordyn and her mom.

Carl takes command, giving instructions to the crew and telling Adam (the DJ) and Joe (the other DJ) to start hooking up the sound system.

Carl reading the instruction manual,
“Wait, okay, am I doing this right?”

Dancer Qadir.
Is he doing a flip, or falling off the truss?

Carl positioning lights, while DJ Adam tests the sound in the lit up DJ booth.

Photographer Scott Duretz snapping a few photos as the team finishes up while ladders, scaffolds and road cases are stowed away.

And finally “Club Jordyn” is ready for the guests to arrive.

Many hours of preparation go into the setup (and later, the tear down) of this sort of production.  Special thanks to our team: Carl and Marc on production, our DJ team Adam and Joe, and MC Nate on sound and production assistance and the event coordinator Renee Grande from Events By Monroe for making this all possible.

A very special thanks to photographer Erin Duffy, for helping us to create this play-by-play photo documentary and capturing these images that helped to tell the story of what goes into creating a Cutting Edge Entertainment DJ and lighting production.

To view the prequel to this  blog post, see “Jordyn’s Record Hop”.

Photos courtesy of Erin Duffy

www.cuttingedgedjs.com

Cutting Edge @ August 13, 2010

Jordyn’s Record Hop: Meet Jordyn

Bar/Bat Mitzvahs Comments (1)

It was many years ago, in college, that I first befriended Jason Friedman. Two decades have come and gone since then, and we’re still good friends.   Jason married Wendy (his high school sweetheart), and had two great kids, Zach and Jordyn.   Looking back, it really is hard to fathom that Jason would come to me so many years later to provide entertainment for Zach’s Bar Mitzvah, and most recently, his daughter Jordyn’s Bat Mitzvah Record Hop.  Jason isn’t the first of my friends that has turned to me to play the role of DJ, or coordinator, and he won’t be the last (Dean Rubenstein’s daughter Shara’s Bat Mitzvah is coming up in November).  It’s likely the greatest honor a friend could entrust me with.

Bar and Bat Mitzvah’s are a very special and important landmark in the life of a Jewish boy or girl, and naturally we treat each party with care. In the case when it’s a party for a friend of mine, it takes on greater significance, because it’s personal. Certainly not as personal as if it were my own child, but since, so far, I don’t have any children of my own (or at least none I’m aware of), it’s the closest thing.

In Jordyn’s case, we were very lucky.  She’s a pretty special kid.  Working with her parents to plan the event was fun, but the real highlight was Jordyn herself. Jordyn is bright, charming, witty, insightful and had some really creative, exciting and specific ideas about her Record Hop party.  Basically, a Record Hop differs from a Bat Mitzvah party in that it skips over the traditional formalities and gets right down to the party itself.  In this case, Jason and Wendy let Jordyn play a pretty big part in pulling together the concept and theme of her party (very wise of them), which allowed for the event to take on Jordyn’s personality, which, in my humble opinion, is really awesome.

Although this is just a short blog post about Jordyn, and how very cool she is, we will be following it up with a second blog post not only about the party, but about how the staff of Cutting Edge Entertainment put it all together. The theme was a nightclub… “Club Jordyn”, and I don’t think that we could have made it any more authentic. DJ, dancers, and a massive night club lighting rig (which you will see in the follow up) are what went into making the celebration truly unique…

Just like Jordyn.

-Craig

P.S. I just had to throw in this last photo, taken by photographer Michael Duretz. Jordyn might kill me for it, but I think it truly shows her zany, silly and goofball side, which is truly part of her charm.

Learn more about Jordyn’s Record Hop

Part Two: The Setup

Photos courtesy of Michael Duretz – www.michaelduretz.com

www.cuttingedgedjs.com

Cutting Edge @ August 12, 2010

In Defense of Unpaid Internships

News, Random Thoughts Comments (2)

Guest post by Joe Pulcinella

There is a lot of talk going around Washington about cracking down on photographers and other creatives for the “crime” of using unpaid interns. The classic argument (among others) is that we have minimum wage laws to protect the workers of America and to force young people into performing tasks for free would undermine the government’s best intentions to allow everyone to earn a living.

Ok, I’ll go so far as to say that I, like most people, don’t want to see anyone “forced” to work for free. But to ban unpaid internships would hinder, not help, those young people who would like to break into the industry. Let me explain why by addressing some the arguments against unpaid internships.

“Everyone should have a right to earn a living wage.”

The misconception with this reasoning is that not everyone needs to earn a living wage. One example would be young people who are still living at home and would greatly benefit from exposure to the workings of a small business. This experience is worth much more to a young person than a few hours of minimum wage could ever be.

“Employers would force young people to work for free.”

An employer/intern relationship is a consensual one. The compensation (in this case, a learning experience), is already agreed-upon by both sides. In the absence of this right of an intern to offer her services for free in exchange for knowledge, the intern may very well not have an opportunity to learn at all since most creatives are sole proprietorships without the resources to pay inexperienced people to learn on the job.

“The intern has no bargaining position with the employer.”

This couldn’t be further from the truth. The intern always has the ultimate bargaining chip in that he or she can simply walk away if the experience is not to their benefit. A good intern would be a valuable commodity in the creative community, and if afforded the opportunity to learn in exchange for a little labor, could start their own business and effectively compete in the industry themselves.

This is by no means an exhaustive refutation of the arguments against unpaid internships. It is only a starting point. So to deny an intern the right to offer service in exchange for experience would serve only to keep new entrants out of the market. To require an arbitrary, minimum hourly wage would only eliminate these valuable positions and encourage unemployment among young people. Keeping a free market truly free would not only benefit employers and interns but also our clients.

Joe Pulcinella
Photographer
www.photojoe.com


Joe is a professional wedding photographer, and this is the second time he has authored a guest post here on the Cutting Edge Entertainment DJ blog.  I really enjoy Joe’s writing style and fresh perspective, and in this case I would have to say I agree with him.  As a DJ, the time, knowledge, experience and relationships I have honed, evolved and invested are priceless, and to think that I should have to pay someone to share that is absurd.  In contrast, I believe that in many cases an unpaid internship can be more valuable in the real working world than a college accreditation or even a degree.   As an example, if you were to ask a bar owner if they would rather hire a bartender fresh out of bartending school versus a bartender with real experience, nine out of ten times the answer would be the latter.

Thank you for your post Joe, I look forward to more in the future.

-Craig

click here to check out Joe’s last guest post
www.cuttingedgedjs.com/blog/2010/02/09/be-in-love-with-photography

Photo Of Joe Pulcinella courtesy of Rosemary Taglialatela
www.2daysphotos.com

www.cuttingedgedjs.com

Cutting Edge @ August 11, 2010