This weekend I participated in the annual Parkinson’s Unity Walk in Central Park as part of the Light of Day team. Light of Day raises funds for Parkinson’s research with concerts all around the world, and you can read more about their amazing work at http://www.lightofday.org. With the help of some generous Shore Fire colleagues, I was able to double my fundraising goal this year!
This week we celebrated the birthdays of superstar publicist Chris Taillie and social media wizard Mike Baumgarten. The cake came from our favorite Brooklyn bakery One Girl Cookies – a Chris Taillie creation with vanilla cake, chocolate frosting and raspberry filling, yum! – and the cheesecake was from the incomparable Junior’s.
Chris and Mike blow out their candles
Ray, Rob, Josh and Alison enjoy the party
Happy Birthday Chris and Mike!!!
Shore Fire Media is proud to announce the opening of its Nashville office, the expansion of its Digital Media department, staff member promotions, and the addition of new staff members.
“The past year has been the best, most interesting, and most dynamic in our history, and our staff additions and promotions will prepare us for another year of growth. And we love what’s happening in Nashville these days, and are delighted to expand our role in the city.” – Marilyn Laverty, Shore Fire Media President
Jacquelyn Marushka has joined Shore Fire as General Manager of its new Nashville office. Marushka comes to Shore Fire from Sony Music Entertainment’s Provident Label Group where she rose to Vice President of Public Relations over 14 years with the company. During her tenure at Provident Marushka spearheaded publicity for a roster of award-winning artists while managing corporate media relations for the company’s three labels, publishing and distribution arms, and film and home video division. Marushka is an honors graduate of the University of New Mexico.
Mike Baumgarten joined Shore Fire’s growing Digital Media department as Digital Strategy Manager in 2012. A graduate of Michigan State University, Baumgarten previously worked at Crush Music Media Management. Baumgarten aids in the digital and social media efforts of Shore Fire and its clients. He reports to SVP Mark Satlof.
Additional staff members who have recently joined Shore Fire or been promoted include:
Carrie Tolles has been named Director of Publicity, previously holding the position of Senior Account Executive since April 2011. Tolles joined Shore Fire in 2005 from the Associated Press. She heads publicity for a diverse roster of clients including Mavis Staples, St. Vincent, Bon Iver, Grizzly Bear, and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis. When she’s not checking out new music she can be found in the yoga studio or exploring a far off corner of the world.
Elizabeth Lutz has been named Director of Publicity, previously holding the position of Senior Account Executive since April 2011. Lutz joined Shore Fire in 2008 after working for Weber Shandwick Worldwide in Boston. Lutz, a fearless client proponent, leads the media relations for several artists including Bonnie Raitt and Zac Brown Band, the Independent trade organization A2IM, and the start-up Artist Growth in addition to work on other music, charity and technology accounts.
Andrea Bussell joined Shore Fire in 2012 as Senior Account Executive, from a position in the book publicity world at Nation and Basic Books.
Jon Bleicher has been named Senior Account Executive. Bleicher joined Shore Fire in 2010.
Ray Padgett has been named Junior Account Executive. Padgett joined Shore Fire in 2012.
Josh Page has been named Junior Account Executive. Page joined Shore Fire in 2010.
Shore Fire also announces the addition of Publicity Coordinators Rob Dekker, Bryant Kitching and Alison Smith to our staff.
Community service is something one often plunges into after a crisis – just about everyone in New York donned a pair of work gloves after Sandy blasted through – but during day to day it often gets forgotten. It certainly does for me at least, one of those things in the vague category of “I really need to do more of at some point.”
Shore Fire gives employees a nudge in the right direction though with time off to volunteer, and some extra vacation to boot. As a result, a few weekends back, I found myself in a Greenwich Village church basement ladling 300+ bowls of beef stew. The group was all strangers, a bunch of alumni from my college, and the occasion that seemed so novel for us was just yet another Saturday in the life of the soup kitchen.
Three hundred patrons came through that morning, chatting with each other sometimes, or maybe keeping to themselves. I have no misconception that I made some radical difference in anyone’s life – or even a small one. There were no grand personal awakenings or stunningly meaningful encounters. Nothing you’d write about on a college essay. But unglamorous day-to-day community service matters too, and something I was glad for the encouragement to do more of.
March is birthday month here at Shore Fire, with 6 birthdays in 4 short weeks. This week, we had a big party for all six March birthday boys with delicious treats from Robicelli’s, Haagen-Dazs and Momofuku Milk Bar!
Happy Birthday to (l-r) Chris, Rob, Josh, Andy, David and Jon!
In honor of International Women’s Day, we wanted to share photos from a conclave of sorts that we held at Shore Fire to anoint the future leaders in their fields: our junior staffs! Five heads of Brooklyn businesses brought their teams together for lunch, networking, fun and career strategies.
From left Barbara Barna Abel, Karen Auster, Deb Garcia, Vigdis Eriksen, and Marilyn Laverty
We are now living in a post-2013 Grammy award world: Justin Timberlake is officially back to taking up 10% of our daily thoughts, projection dresses now exist to confuse and titillate us, and LL Cool J (no further expository necessary).
We here at Shore Fire had some fun live-tweeting and making GIFs of the event. Here is a recap of our night:
We had our own on the scene reporter, Elizabeth Lutz, giving us red carpet scoops, live-schmoozing the red carpet, and, really,finding the most interesting people.
Elizabeth’s live commentary was a strong backbone to our back-in-Brooklyn live-tweeting from the bright lights of our TV and safe haven of the couch:
Words can only capture so much of the magic that is Grammy night. For the extra oomph, we made some GIFs that show the wonder/weird/fun (not .fun) of the award ceremony:
For a full recap of our Grammy night visit our Twitter & Tumblr pages:
http://shorefiremedia.tumblr.com/
We’re really impressed by the redesign of Billboard’s print magazine this week. Here are some of the big changes we’re most excited about:
- New focus on Backbeat: Now in the front-of-book, Backbeat is larger and incorporates news on events and gear, in addition to the week’s top industry photos.
- Takeaways: Each story in the new “Topline” news section (which also encompasses Executive Turntable) concludes with a one-sentence summary.
- More opportunities for execs: Both the “My Day” and “Questions Answered” Q&As debuted in this week’s issue featuring industry executives.
- Expanded reviews: Apps and live shows are now reviewed alongside albums and singles.
- More robust charts: the Hot 100 and Billboard 200 charts doubled in page-space, and now include historical stats, photos, and artist Q&As.
- Emphasis on infographics: most notably in the backpage Coda feature, which details the week’s biggest Hot 100 airplay movers.
Plus:
- A new iPad app: builds off of the print mag with interactive photos, videos, and music via Spotify.
Editorial Director Bill Werde wrote that the relaunch aims to enable readers to “learn something that will help your business every issue.” Now we’re looking forward to the the .com redesign this Saturday.
This holiday season, Shore Fire took part in New York Cares‘ Winter Wishes program. The program gives underprivileged children, teens and seniors all over New York City a chance to write letters requesting holiday gifts, and gives volunteers the chance to fulfill those gift wishes! For many of the letter writers, it’s the only gift they’ll receive this holiday season, and Shore Fire staffers answered the call, fulfilling wishes for Basketballs, Beyblades (by far, the hottest toy request) and everything in between!
Over the weekend, Chris Thieke and I took a trip to Long Island City to drop off the gifts….
The wrapped gifts, ready to go!
Madelyn and Chris dropping off the gifts
Thanks SO MUCH to our staff members who participated, and helped make the holidays brighter for 21 kids, teens and seniors this year!!!
And for those in the NYC area, we highly recommend Winter Wishes if you’re interested in giving back next year.
Yesterday we celebrated our November birthday duo, Matt and Anthony! They chose Cecil & Merl cheesecakes from James Restaurant in Brooklyn in the two available flavors: lemon ricotta and pumpkin. There was a pretty serious debate over which flavor was better, but I think the fact that there is a little bit of pumpkin still in our fridge, and no lemon ricotta, speaks for itself.
The Shore Fire standard: Blowing out the candles
The leftovers
Happy birthday, guys!!!
This weekend I participated in the annual Parkinson's Unity Walk in Central Park as part of the Light of Day team. Light of Day raises funds for Parkinson's research with concerts all around the world, and you can read more about their amazing … continued
