HM Magazine Intern Diary: 6.19.09

Crazy day. Doug and I started the day by showing Kelly the new intern around a bit. She’s nice. She’s from Ohio so she and I talked about Ohio stuff for a while since my dad’s side of the family is mostly there and I have a good amount of connections there.

Trevor McNevan from Thousand Foot Krutch called right at 10 as arranged and we had a good conversation about everything from NHL video games to Aerosmith to Taco Bell to the song “Blue Monday” by… well… a band whose name made him a little uncomfortable to mention in an interview, though we laughed about it and he suggested I listen to it when I related that I hadn’t heard it in probably 10 years. Good memories. Let me just tease you with the tidbit that there’s a song on TFK’s new record, Welcome to the Masquerade that’s a nod to that song’s industrial flair. It was a really insightful interview and I can’t wait for you all to read it. Check out their first single off the new album, “Bring Me To Life.”

I also talked to Matt Mullins, Memphis May Fire‘s new singer. I felt like I got a lot of good info from him as well, and I think their Trustkill debut, Sleepwalking, is going to sell. They’ve got such a diverse sound, which is something we discussed at length, and I love Mullins’ style when he screams, how he changes up his diction tempo within words.

One band that was supposed to be on Memphis May Fire’s upcoming tour, Oceana, whose album we reviewed in the last issue, broke up yesterday, just as I was starting to get excited about the band. These things happen though. You should still give them a listen. They’ve got a unique post-hardcore, experimental sound, sort of like a The Receiving End of Sirens with more screaming. (Hmm, that’s my second TREOS reference this week; I think I’ve reached my quota.)

Speaking of obscure broken-up band references, my comment about Justifide the other day made me curious to see if I still had any pictures of me in my old Justifide t-shirt. Sure enough, here you go – proof that I’m not all talk (just mostly):

Now, before any of you freak out, that’s not my girlfriend – it’s an old friend of mine – and it’s the only picture I had of me wearing that Justifide shirt. We went to grade school together and she actually played a role in my becoming a Christian since she invited and drove me to the church that I was eventually baptized at a couple years after her initial invitation.

Haha enough nostalgia for one post. It’s probably a good thing I’m staying here during Cornerstone Festival. I love the Cornerstone experience and I always feel conflicted when I can’t make it but I’ve got a ton of work to do with our mid-July final deadline creeping slowly up – and at least I get to go to Warped Tour in San Antonio, which is while Doug will be away at C-stone. I’ve never been to Warped and I’ll be able to take photos and maybe interview some bands that I’ve never seen live like Thrice.

Don’t be that guy,
Corey Erb

“Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors.” – African proverb

HM Magazine Intern Diary: 6.10.09

Today’s the long day before a day off, so this will be brief so I can get back to work. I did some more background work on my features and worked on contacting all the publicists from whom I will need favors (you know, music) soon. I’m still waiting to hear from a couple, and I haven’t done any interviews for any of my four articles so I’ll have a ton of writing to do next week before my deadline of next Friday. I’ve done the most research of any of the four on Showbread so far, but I’m still preparing questions for my interview. What would you want to know about the band?

Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’,
Corey Erb

“It’s a visual world and people respond to visuals.” – Joe Sacco

Clinica Venamher interview and Soundslides

We spoke to Raul Salas, clinic administrator at Clinica Venamher the other day for our Soundslides to go with our first story.

We used the Canon HV-20 video camera to interview him, though we only are going to use his audio. This was an interesting experiment but I think we ended up with really good quality audio because the external microphone on the camera is probably better quality than the old Edirol R-1.

I also shot some photos with the Canon 10-D and a 17-35mm lens as Salas showed us around the clinic. It’s a small family-style clinic that runs on donations from people like Ernesto Ackerman, whom we recently interviewed as well. The “donated by” tags on a bunch of the equipment made for some interesting photos.

Hopefully the Soundslides will capture the clinic’s efforts to help out those Venezuelans and others who are struggling to make ends meet as newcomers to this country. It should be a good tie-in to Goal 1 – Eradicating Poverty.

Interviewing non-profit community figure

We recently interviewed Ernesto Ackerman, who is the president of the non-profit Independent Venezuelan-American Citizens and is involved in “Clinico Venamher,” a low-cost donor-driven medical clinic in Doral.

He was a really good source to speak about the Venezuelan community in Miami and he gave us some interesting opinions, comparing Venezuelans today to Cubans in 1959 going through the Castro revolution.

We shot a couple photos but since we were interviewing him at his business, Hillusa, a medical equipment supplier, it wasn’t a great visual backdrop.

We taped the interview but mostly for transcription purposes.

Keep an eye out for our Q&A with him coming soon.

He also pointed us to some other good sources that we’ll likely tap into in the near future.

Interviewing a Venezuelan soccer player in Pembroke Pines

We recently interviewed Melissa Guerra, a Venezuelan native who lives in Pembroke Pines and coaches girls’ soccer.

She came to Miami from Caracas when she was seven. She always liked watching her brother play soccer but was never allowed to play herself as in Venezuelan culture sports are considered exclusively for males.

Once her parents gave in and let her play sports, she never looked back. She quickly became too good for her soccer league and moved up to better leagues.

Eventually Guerra walked on her college soccer team and earned a scholarship with her hard work and play.

Now she passes along her knowledge and passion for the game to young women in the hopes that they won’t have to struggle to be able to play as she did.

My partner and I recorded her interview on an Edirol digital audio recorder and took some photos of the interview and of some of her old pictures from Venezuela and throughout her soccer career.

The audio slideshow will be done soon and up so you all can see it.

We may turn the interview materials into a longer feature because her story highlights the struggles women can have in Venezuela to gain equality with their male counterparts.