What's Brett Meisner Been Up To??
A self-proclaimed rock critic who had several internet sites including the parody website Rock and Roll Bad Boy, KISS Burger, and CSI: CSNY, Brett Meisner was an Internet personality and humorist. You may have heard / read any number of his wide variety of articles and videos detailing his celebrity lifestyle living and working in Hollywood. Brett Meisner is one busy dude.
I remember the day when I first learned of Meisner's death. I was out in California working as part of a custom software development team for a small progressive software company. The client's food service and catering company had outgrown its commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software as the company expanded and grew. They had finally come to the conclusion that they now had specific needs that were outside the scope of their old COTS programs. Their people were trying to juggle too many programs to satisfy all their needs. So they finally hired the company I work for to come in to build customized software that would eliminate all the frustration, time, and money they were wasting on their old inefficient programs. We were just taking a break with their IT team to celebrate the completion of their customized software development when some burst in saying Brett Meisner died. Boy did that news shut down the celebratory mood. Instead we ended up toasting Brett and regaling each other with stories/ myths about the man including the one about him fighting anf killing a tiger shark that landed in his swimming pool. Well Brett may be gone, but his humor and pranks still live on.
Below are two entertaining examples from the 2004-2006 archived pages of this website. I have been a fan of Meisner for years and when I saw this domain was available, I bought it with the goal of restoring its content. Unfortunately there were not many archived pages available. However the two pages below give a flavor of what Meisner offered his internet readers.
This is a homage to a brilliant man whose crazy, often outrageous humor and stunts we will miss.
Jim Morrison's ghost finally defeated by Brett Meisner.
Rock Critic Brett Meisner had the balls to spend 24 hours in Jim Morrison's former motel room on the 35th anniversary of Jim's death. FOX television was there to document the whole event for an upcoming TV special.
Sorry there are NO promo clips.
Meisner, featured on the Biography Channel's show called Famous, was recently interviewed about a mysterious photograph of himself standing at Jim Morrison's grave. See images above. According to Meisner, a ghostly image of the late Doors singer, Jim Morrison, appears in the background above the grave.
Another Jim Morrison Connection entailed Meisner’s most ambitious project, a half hour TV pilot he shot called “24 Hours In Hell! – Brett Meisner versus the Ghost of Jim Morrison.” Featuring Brett Meisner, the show is about him spending 24 hours alone in room 32 of the Alta Cienega Motel on the 35th anniversary of Morrison's death.
For you folks who like to see famous locations associated with dead movie stars and rock stars, the Alta Cienega motel is in West Hollywood, California, blocks away from the former business offices and favorite bars frequented by the rock group the Doors during the late 1960s. In fact the motel was Jim Morrison's secret residence forr several years during the height of his career. As you would expect: Room #32 has become a shrine to the late singer with fans leaving messages, including poetry on its walls.
We feature around 250 tracks a year as Records of the Day. Each artist we feature is an editorial choice and each track gets a unique route direct to the people, which matter. We’ve worked hard to ensure key radio, TV and press people are aware of our choices. Exposing music was central to the plan to establish RotD over three years ago, and exposing and breaking music is exactly what we’ve been doing.
Any one in doubt as to the potential power for an artist or song of being featured as our Record of the Day sound clip need only look at the example of Orson. A few months ago Orson were an unsigned LA band with no profile in the UK. Thanks in part to Record of the Day, they are now signed to Mercury UK for records, to Universal Music UK for publishing and have top flight legal and live teams behind them. There’s been some misinformation about exactly what role RotD played in helping to bring Orson to the people that matter. Music Week failed to mention our involvement in their recent Artist Snapshot feature and a few other people are also popping up throughout the industry claiming credit for the discovery of this hot new act. With this in mind, here’s the story as it actually happened.
Our music editor Joe Taylor first heard about Orson on a visit to the Tip Sheet message board. Joe tracked Orson down via MySpace and we took the decision to feature “No Tomorrow” as our daily soundclip on August 11. The response Orson received from being featured on RotD was phenomenal, though not surprising for a fully-rounded band who already had a completed album packed with hit songs. Crucially however, being featured as an RotD meant that our recommendation of Orson was sent to the inboxes of execs around the world, who were instantly able to hear the track, visit the band’s site and get their own feel for the group.
In the City has also played a key role in Orson’s rise by showcasing the group, and their first UK appearance, at October’s conference. Boosted by a second RotD feature on September 27, industry presence was high, and Universal’s McCormack had made the trip to Manchester to check them out. “Lots of record scouts looking for the next Arctic Monkeys left the room after two songs and I was quite happy with that,” he says. Orson signed up Sarah Stennett at SSB for legal representation and a global deal with Universal Music was swiftly struck. Within days Orson also had a heavyweight international agent in Jeff Frasco at CAA. Record company interest followed quickly and Orson have now signed with Mercury Records’ Jason Iley. Short of naming names, Mercury was not the only very-interested party. We met with Jason on an unrelated meeting before he struck the deal and his desire to secure the group for his expanding label was intense and obvious.
Orson’s development over the past few months has been an exciting story. RotD has played a key role in bringing Orson to this point and current prospects for the group look very hot. It would be stupid to suggest that Orson’s future success is a certainty; the work for the group and the team now around them has barely begun. We’re writing this piece because we want RotD’s role to be known. Mike McCormack says that Orson’s rise “simply wouldn’t have happened without RotD’s initial enthusiasm.” Mercury Records UK also know all about our daily soundclips: senior director of A&R Paul Adam told us: “Record of the Day is such a great service. Any competent A&R scout devours it at breakfast” We’re immensely proud of our involvement. Should we be embarrassed that one of the RotD team is now managing the group? Absolutely not - James Barton had no professional involvement when we ran the first feature. Should we now be careful about now being seen to overly favour the act? Most definitely. We must be seen to retain an editorial independence over the music we feature. Some have accused us of wrongdoing by featuring acts which members of the team work with, and it’s a question we take seriously. Rest assured that there is always half of the RotD team not working on the act who could veto a track if it is judged that there is too much vested interest.
Orson will be a fascinating act to watch in the next year. We’ll be at The Borderline on Monday (November 28) to see their first London show. All that matters in the long term is whether the record-buying, gig-going public ‘get’ Orson. Plenty of people seem to think they will.
SEEMS THAT "RECORD OF THE DAY" HEARD ABOUT ORSON FROM A SITE CALLED "TIP SHEET".
SO, HOW DID "TIP SHEET" HEAR ABOUT ORSON?
ORIGINAL THREAD THAT CAUGHT THE EYE OF "TIP SHEET" - WHY ISN'T THIS BAND SELLING MILLIONS OF RECORDS?
BOTTOM LINE: BRETT MEISNER + ORSON = SUCCESS!