Chris Sacca's 'What is left?'

Devotchka: Haunting Gypsy Tuba Guitar Jams

By no means am I a music reviewer, but I know when I dig a band. Devotchka is a new favorite of mine for sure.

This past week, I was in Aspen for the Aspen Live 05 conference, a music industry gathering to yap about trends, beefs, etc. chaired by Jim Lewi from CAA. (By the way, you have to admire a conference in a ski town that doesn't start until 3:45 each day. Way to be, Jim.)

One night, the itinerary took us from our gracious hosts at the Hotel Jerome to the famous Belly-Up music club owned by friend and local legend Michael Goldberg. As we were wrapping up the academic portion of the evening, in walked a sharp looking group, anachronistically dressed, and toting a smattering of band camp instruments.

Clad in ruffled formal wear, they took the stage and promptly removed accordions and violins from cases and readied a big sousaphone illuminated with Christmas lights. The lead singer, a shoe-in for Morrissey, gripped an old style mic and kicked off the most surprisingly entertaining set I have experienced in a long time.

The only way I can attempt to describe Devotchka's music is to relate the imagery it evokes for me. Some songs have me leaving Santa Fe driving down to that proverbial barren Mexican highway. Some having me lamenting a non-existent Czech girl who left me alone staring into my Budvar.  Even when apparently rejoicing, the scenes they paint are dark and hazy. Yet, I have had their disc on repeat all day.

A big part of enjoying these guys is seeing them live on stage. A groovy chick playing sousaphone when not tugging on an upright bass? A drummer who jumps in on trumpet from time to time? Accordion that makes the girls in the audience go crazy between violin solos? Driving, dirty guitar the foundation for an echoing croon? Toss in a theremin for good measure. Such fun times. The Belly-Up's stage was the optimal playspace for this cathartic crew.

It makes perfect sense that these guys have opened for Gogol Bordello, the Dresden Dolls, and Ozomatli. Each solid pairings, as diverse as they all are. And, it is very cool that KCRW had these guys in for a set. But, I was pleasantly surprised to see that NPR's All Things Considered had featured them, a testament to their originality and impact.

Pull the trigger and pick up any and all of their albums today, and be sure to check them out if they are in town near you.

At the end of the day . . .

I have a problem. I sound like I am from Silicon Valley. It only took five or six years, but I have a full-blown case of business idioms. I go home to Western New York for the holidays, start talking about a "ramp", and they show me the wheelchair entrance.

It started simply enough. My daily speech was sprinkled here and there with "thinking out of the box" or "we are on the same page." Hardly phrases native to this the Valley alone.

Soon though, I started "opening the kimono" and seeing "bricks and mortar" everywhere I turned.  Fast forward to the present, now I am regularly "setting the table", peering deep into the "long tail", and even doing "due diligence" when picking from the menu. I found myself talking about "organic growth" when not in a Whole Foods, drawing too many "hockey sticks" on the whiteboard, and virtually everything "on my plate" is a "win-win".

I know I am not alone. Fred Wilson has dealt with his own affliction by detailing it publicly on his blog. Brad Feld has also bravely lent some insight into his case. Doug Edwards detailed a strain very particular to Google. Hopefully, research efforts like these will help us all return to lucid discourse and abandon our daily metaphorical crutches.

Nevertheless, for those of you yet unburdened by this scourge who would like to dabble in the local vocab, I think I have your answer:

TOEIC Business Idioms from Silicon Valley is the complete guide to peppering your everday dialogue with bits and pieces that may help you pass as a true tech world cliche. I came across a copy recently, after seeing the cover teaser "Plug into the language of business!" Sure enough, this book does not disappoint. Phrases like "Burn rate" are clearly defined and then used in context. A pronunciation guide accompanies the included audio CD. Multiple choice questions follow each chapter so you don't find yourself mistakenly "getting burned" or "burning your bridges".

So, for the aspiring dealmaker in you, "get into the left seat"and "grok" this "non-trivial" book . . .

The Zeitgeist of Brian Sacca

A couple of years ago, I signed up for AdWords that triggered on my brother’s name, Brian Sacca. The ads weren’t intended to direct traffic anywhere. In fact, I had the ads point viewers at the Salinger Group website without much explanation. Taking out AdWords, and then watching the impression data in the account, is a great way to get a sense of the popularity of a certain term. For my brother Brian, an actor, comedian, and indie filmmaker, I figured this would be a cool way to track the buzz around his work.

Back in 2003, when I first started tracking searches on his name, there was an average of 8 queries per day looking for Brian Sacca. Brian has a pretty unique name so it was easy to link bumps in activity to events in his life.

He would do an off-off-Broadway play, get a good review, and traffic would spike to 22 or so queries per day and then settle back in around 17. When Brian was a member of Machio, the NYC sketch comedy group, the number of people Googling him hit new highs and leveled around 28 per day.

Interest really spiked when Brian’s troupe went on tour opening for Dave Chappelle. Brian had some extremely funny bits in the show that led over 40 people a day to be looking for him on Google. Soon thereafter, in April of 2003, Brian made his solo stand-up debut at Caroline’s in Manhattan, with dozens of follow-up shows at Gotham Comedy Club, Comedy Cellar, Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, etc. I could essentially tell his performance schedule by looking at the AdWords account traffic screens. It would spike every night he played. It was fascinating to see how people would head home and want to know more about him.

At that same time, Brian started a two-man stand-up act with his buddy Pete Karinen. The duo, daringly named Pete and Brian, were knocking audiences dead all over NY with really intelligent and unorthodox acts. Side-splitting and mind-boggling stuff. Because their material was so unlike anything being played elsewhere, there was a real audience hunger to follow these guys and see more of their shows. By the Spring of ‘05 daily traffic on Brian’s name started reaching 60 queries per day. So wild to consider. Every day that many folks were curious about who he was and where they could see him next.

Fast forward to the present. Pete and Brian recently staged “Pete and Brian’s One Man Show” in NYC for a limited engagement of three shows plus an industry preview night. The show was ridiculously funny, with all kinds of showbiz regulars calling it the “funniest thing they had seen in 20 years” and comparing Pete and Brian to David Cross and Bob Odenkirk.

Sure enough, searches for Brian have been about 85 per day for the last couple of weeks. What is particularly intriguing to watch is that despite the fact the show was only put on in NYC, almost 40% of these searches are coming from California now. Accordingly, the word from Brian is that the phone has been ringing furiously since the last show, with agencies and production companies on both coasts proposing ways to work together as DVDs of his performance circulate. Demand for these guys is high.

It appears that Brian may be reaching his tipping point into bigtime comedy success. Meanwhile, his geeky older brother is just enthralled by the real time zeitgeist from all this Google data.