Red Empire Launch Party at Lola’s Saloon
A few months ago I met Lyndsay Cole, a Fort Worth Indie Rock Promoter and friend, at BG’s Coffee shop. At the end of the lunch I had joined Red Empire, an artist booking and management company. I would book/manage hip hop and she would book/manage rock artists. With her affiliations with Panther City Exchange, Arts Goggle, and more, I knew this was not only a good move for me personally but for Hip Hop in general.
We went about planning a launch party with sponsors, 13 or so bands/artists, food truck and a guest list full of the who’s who in FW music.
Night of, I arrived about 3:30-4pm and the place was already all a buzz. I milled around visiting with a few people I had not seen in a while! I started blogging/booking on the Rock side of things before migrating to Hip Hop so most of the faces were familiar and most were friends. At one point, Lyndsay goes, “Vaden Todd Lewis (lead singer of the Toadies) is here.” NO WAY! *side note* The Toadies were HUGE when I was coming of age and I practically know all of there songs word for word and have seen the Toadies perform at least a dozen times. It’s safe to say Toadies are my favorite rock band because they’re from Fort Worth AND they’re just plain amazingly awesome both live and recorded. I know they have only a degree of separation from me in many ways, but I had yet to meet them in this type of environment.* Lyndsay and I casually went and sat by the owner of Lola’s who was talking to Mr. Lewis and joined their conversation. At one point, Sallie and John Rody (owners of The Southside Pirate) came out onto the patio and Vaden leans over to the owner of Lola’s and goes, “Hey, that’s John Rody!” I found out later that Vaden Todd Lewis used to attend a few of John Rody’s engagements in the last few decades. John Rody has a famous fan! I went and talked to John and Sallie about all things Pirate Radio, and before Vaden and his girlfriend left, he came by to say hello to John. I took the opportunity to get my photographer, Rod, to get our picture with the thumb. Bucket list item- check.
Shortly after this amazing life changing event- I sat down with Panther City Exchange’s Tony Diaz. We had a lengthy conversation about including Hip Hop in the Rock Assembly and how that goes along with the vision of Rock Assembly as well as PCX. Even discussed bringing more Hip Hop headliners into Fort Worth through PCX + Red Empire/RRP collaborations.
I was too busy socializing to catch everyone’s performance but special shout outs to The Boxer’s Brain who had a nice little crowd to rock in front of, Stereo Control blew my mind, Bomb Quixote is THE BOMB, and Basic Beaches is anything BUT basic. Also shouts out to Illizem, Shon Gregory, Ritchy Flo, Keldrick and Chris for all coming out to support my venture with Red Empire as well as Aaron & Jamie of Blackbox, The Southside Pirate, Smokey’s BBQ, Panther City Exchange, and AutoNation of NRH our main sponsor!!
I’m super excited on where this is all going.
