Of course, then I started fantasizing about people googling “Oh, Leona!” once they’d seen (and inevitably coveted) the fetching shirt. Then I realized that “Oh, Leona!” is a fairly important part of my personal brand, and that I had never googled it myself. Then I did. And what I discovered was that:
A. My Website is the first search result. Go, me! (And take that, Leona Lewis/Naess!)
B. There is an old reggae song called “Oh, Leona”

This was very surprising! And inspiring. Who else was writing songs for me? I had to know!

Now, because I truck with musicians, I have actually had a couple of songs written for me. My co-contributor, Rob, altered a Scottish folk song about “Annie Laurie” to be about “Leona Laurie” for my entertainment once. My friend Ehren wrote a quickie song one night about how when I boss him, he will do what I say. (Best song ever, btw.) And a band who stood me up for a lunch meeting about me becoming their publicist tried to make up for it by sending me a song called “I’m Sorry, Leona.” (Then they did it again. So no link for them!)

Anyway, fueled by curiosity, I opened up the iTunes store to see if I could find that reggae song. I didn’t, but to my extreme surprise, I found nine (nine!) other songs about Leonas. So, of course, I bought them all and made an 8tracks mix to share with you:

AUDIO WIDGET

But that’s not all! The song I liked best in this funny mix is “Leona,” by Nadine from their album “Downtown Saturday.” So I looked for them, and I discovered that the album was released in 1999, and that Nadine is from St. Louis– where I was living in 1999! (Which means this song is probably about me. Obviously.)

So I continued with the googling, and I discovered that Adam Reichmann, the lead singer of Nadine, started performing in St. Louis again earlier this year, and that he’s pretty good. And now I know about him. Which is new to me. Which brings us full circle.

I’ll leave you with a video I found of him performing in January at Fred’s Six Foot Under (which sounds very atmospheric & claustrophobia-inducing). Enjoy!

Recently, I was thinking about how people discover new music. Word of mouth is king. Back when MySpace was cool, I would scroll through the bands my friends had in their top friends or through the bands other bands were friends with. I love the recommendations iTunes makes with their creepy new tool that knows my collection. Sometimes you just stumble across someone playing somewhere you were already going to be. And sometimes you start looking for something online and wind up down the rabbit hole.

Last night, I told Irina Slutsky from Geek Entertainment TV (via facebook) that I would buy her roller skates to wear on-air if she would wear a t-shirt with my name on it whenever she had them on. I think she might go for it, so I took the next logical step: I went to CustomInk.com and designed a fetching t-shirt:

Of course, then I started fantasizing about people googling “Oh, Leona!” once they’d seen (and inevitably coveted) the fetching shirt. Then I realized that “Oh, Leona!” is a fairly important part of my personal brand, and that I had never googled it myself. Then I did. And what I discovered was that:
A. My Website is the first search result. Go, me! (And take that, Leona Lewis/Naess!)
B. There is an old reggae song called “Oh, Leona”

This was very surprising! And inspiring. Who else was writing songs for me? I had to know!

Now, because I truck with musicians, I have actually had a couple of songs written for me. My co-contributor, Rob, altered a Scottish folk song about “Annie Laurie” to be about “Leona Laurie” for my entertainment once. My friend Ehren wrote a quickie song one night about how when I boss him, he will do what I say. (Best song ever, btw.) And a band who stood me up for a lunch meeting about me becoming their publicist tried to make up for it by sending me a song called “I’m Sorry, Leona.” (Then they did it again. So no link for them!)

Anyway, fueled by curiosity, I opened up the iTunes store to see if I could find that reggae song. I didn’t, but to my extreme surprise, I found nine (nine!) other songs about Leonas. So, of course, I bought them all and made an 8tracks mix to share with you:

But that’s not all! The song I liked best in this funny mix is “Leona,” by Nadine from their album “Downtown Saturday.” So I looked for them, and I discovered that the album was released in 1999, and that Nadine is from St. Louis– where I was living in 1999! (Which means this song is probably about me. Obviously.)

So I continued with the googling, and I discovered that Adam Reichmann, the lead singer of Nadine, started performing in St. Louis again earlier this year, and that he’s pretty good. And now I know about him. Which is new to me. Which brings us full circle.

I’ll leave you with a video I found of him performing in January at Fred’s Six Foot Under (which sounds very atmospheric & claustrophobia-inducing). Enjoy!