I was proud to help out for the 4th straight year by donating goods and $ donation to the Standup for Skateparks charity event in Beverly Hills at billionaire Ron Burkle’s green acres estate.  I know, you are all asking – who the hell is Ron Burkle?  If you ever shopped at Ralph’s food stores, then there’s one connection.  How about owning a piece of the Pittsburgh Penguins or owning 20% of Barnes and Noble; there’s more!  Anyhow, lucky for Tony Hawk that Ron provides his humble abode to let Tony invite 850 guests at a price of $400 donation each to mingle with celebrities (if you are lucky or brave) like actor Mark Wahlberg or mega producer Jon Favreau or UFC champion Chuck Lidell or rockstar Perry Farrel of Janes Addiction, watch some live music by the Black Keys (yet, literally 20 feet in front of you on a tiny little stage), watch some amazing skating on the vert ramp (amazing that they are allowed to bring the massive ramp and tear up Ron’s yard) with Shaun White, Tony Hawk, Mitchie Brusco, Bucky Lasek, as well as bmx freestyle by Matt Hoffman, get a ton of free shit from a variety of vendors (t-mobile, art of board, dub, nixon, birdhouse, pinks, wahoo’s, best buy, etc.), chat with pro skaters like Mike Vallely, Jamie Thomas, Kevin Stab, etc., and a ton more….  The live auctions this year were off the hook with autographed guitars by Pearl Jam, Taylor Swift, Rancid, Janes Addiction and the coolest one that I bid on at $1275 (beating out Ron Burkle) and won = the 1950′s Fender Telecaster toured with and autographed by all members of Green Day.  Other auction items included a tricked out Ford Explorer that went for over $40k, a customized triumph motorcycle by Roland Sands that went for $30k, a ton of autographed pro skateboards (paul rodriguez, nyjay houston, ryan scheckler and shaun white) completely framed by sk8ology, as well as the opportunity to get your own pro skateboard made by Tony Hawk’s team for $250.  Our BambooSK8 skate board autographed by the band CHERRI BOMB on Hollywood Records went for $70 the last bid we saw, but hopefully more.  Needless to say, despite the down economy, things were looking up for charity this year as people reached deep into their pockets.  We can all feel good about helping to get skateparks built in low income, at-risk neighborhoods throughout this great country of ours.  The foundation has helped 405 parks get build already in 49 states; Connecticut is the only one remaining.  http://standupforskateparks.org/

http://www.cherribombband.com/

Imagine 4 girls that range from 11-13 years old who can play their own instruments, write their own songs, record and produce their music, handle their own marketing direction and much more…  They are better than any cookie cutter project that Disney can assemble.

There have been massive changes on the A&R front over the last few months. Among the most notable changes include the return of Rob Cavallo as Chief Creative Officer for Warner Music in California, Ed Johnson joining Warner Bros. from EMI Music Publishing, and Darby Bowen joining Epic.  Over in the UK, there was a lot of activity as Zack Strubel joined Columbia, Jos Watkin joins Parlophone, Scott Jason joins Polydor, and Steve Proud joined Warner Bros. Ollie Hodge returns to Columbia-UK from his short stay at Columbia–NY, Angus Blair exits Island, Marc Jones exits Columbia, and Gary Harris exits Warner Bros. In New York, Steve Ralbovsky’s label Canvasback Music joins Atlantic from Sony while Pete Giberga exits Epic, Daniel Davis exits Atlantic while Jamaal Meeks exits SRC. And the big label news (as in not so quietly kept secret) is that Universal Music Group’s CEO Doug Morris is making plans to have Universal’s international chief Lucien Grainge take over as CEO sometime this summer (Morris is expected to remain as Chairman).