Rock For Hunger Fest 3 Thoughts

I am tired. Almost 18 hours at the Plaza yesterday and 25 bands, 30 vendors, 10 big sponsors, hundreds of t-shirts, raffles, auctions, drama, running around and one hell of a good time, it's all over.

While the show might be, Rock For Hunger's work is not. This show was another demonstration that the youth, Gen-Y, care about issues that have a direct impact on their life. I saw it in their faces, in their excitement and in conversations. They care.

I'll get into that some more later in the week, but for now, here's some highlights from my day:

• Michele Wright is an awesome person, personality and co-host. Last year I was a one-man show host running around with way too much on my plate. Being able to trust her to jump in and do the job that she did was amazing. I'll post a link here to all the interviews and photos she grabbed including one with Chris, Michele, Kardinal Offishall and myself.
• The future of Orlando music is its indie singer songwriter scene and true musicians. Not so surprisingly, the Whole Foods Stage (ironically the smallest stage in the atrium and completely acoustic) was the place to be all day. From Kaleigh Baker to Peter Baldwin to Chris Burns to Emily Sessoms to Ranyai to, well, myself. Everyone on the stage had the place in a frenzy. Maybe it was the passion, maybe it was that the other stages were too loud or maybe the energy and talent was just too powerful to ignore. Anyway you look at it, the kids on this stage have a very bright future.
• Talk 4 Hunger is a success. The 1st issue of Talk 4 Hunger, our new monthly newspaper program to give the homeless jobs and create a steady income for Rock For Hunger debuted at the Festival, doubling as the official program. I will post an online version as soon as I get my hands on the files (cough, Logan) and you can see some inspiration articles from Logan, Chris, Ben and myself as well as learning about the bands and the festival.
• People care about where their money is going. Knowing that every dollar feeds 4 people is powerful. Now you know, so please contribute accordingly.
• Raffles with 3 stages is difficult. After calling 10 tickets and no peeps from the crowd I had to improvise (note: to the lady I pissed off, the money is feeding the homeless, not me or my bar tab!)
• Stage managers are live-savers. Thanks to Adam Purdy, Logan Lenz and Dustin Owens for keeping the egomaniacs in check.
• Lisa and Ana ran the merch like pros! Thanks girls.
• Chris needs to sleep for a week. You might say I am a work-a-holic, but you sir are just crazy. Thanks for all your hard work and dedication. It's taking longer than we want it to but everyday we are rocking for hunger!
• I have that fire to get back on the mic. It's itching, we'll see how life lets me react to it.

That's it for now. If you have pics or videos, please, please throw them up on Rock For Hunger's new site or email them to me. Now is the time to get involved, not tomorrow or next week. Make a difference today.

Greg Rollett

To Be Me - Free MP3

I am playing around with Bandcamp.mu for my Gen-Y Rock Stars Newsletter and well, I tested it on myself. Below is a never heard before track I did sometime early last year. If you like it, well, my gift to you is that you can have it! It's a free download in the format of your choosing:
MP3 128k
MP3 320k
MP3 Vo
MP3 v2
AAC High
AAC Low
OggVorbis
FLAC
Apple Lossless (iPod)

If you really like it, you can use that share button and throw it up wherever you'd like!

You can also choose to let your audience pick their price for the download, a la Radiohead style. The best part is that the artist keeps everything. No sign-up fees, no percentages, nothing.

Pretty sweet concept. They also claim to have some analytics, so I am hoping that some of you listen and download so I can share some of the stats and tracking.

Enjoy the rest of your Friday and happy Halloween!

-Greg Rollett
(oh, I have video from last night ready to go - should be up around 5 or 6 tonight, some good stuff too)

My Freestyle Over Living on a Prayer - Rock For Hunger Show

Last night I put on my hip-hop shoes and put together a short performance for Rock For Hunger at 10,000 Villages in Winter Park, FL. It was a great night with performances from Emily Sessoms (I will get her video up on the R4H Blog asap, she was amazing) and Leo from Urbe Prima as well as some great food provided by volunteers that included some delicious meatballs, veggie ziti, a honey baked ham and a handful of Halloween cookies.

After our set was done we had a few regulars that wanted to hear some hip-hop Bon Jovi. I decided to spice it up and get the crowd involved in a little freestyle. You didn't think I still had it in me, did you?

Anyway, here is what came out.

Oh and we raised a ton of money, sold some tickets to Rock For Hunger Fest 3 and I even sold some CD's. Happy Halloween peeps.

-Greg Rollett

Live Music in Orlando

In the busy land that is my life, I have somehow been coerced into playing some really cool shows with some really talented folks. First up is this Saturday night, amidst the 4th of July Hangover, I will make a return to the Social, the indie haven of Orlando. I will be playing alongside KG and the Band plus Atlanta recording artist Laura Reed. We are going by the 80's indie hair power pop inspired, 'G-Ro and the Skateboard Sneakers.'


Some great posts on KG and the Band:
KG and the Band | The Backbone of jamblr
Rock For Hunger Artist of the Week

Buy your tickets here or shoot me an email to get them without the surcharge. It's going to be an acoustic hip-pop offering from my alter-ego G-Ro. Listen to his rantings at his Myspace page.

Later in the month we get our hip-hop funk on at Central Station's Rock Bar with Fusebox Funk, Madd Illz and Daylight District.

Lastly, here is a super secret teaser of the logo for our Facebook App that should be done end of this week. If you want to be apart of our BETA testing send an email to rollettmarketing@gmail.com and I will be sure to hook it up.
Thanks guys and a more powerful and insightful Social Media or Gen-Y post will come sometime later!

-Greg Rollett

WWE World Champion: G-Ro

For the past week Orlando has been consumed by Wrestlemania. If you weren't following my live Tweets, well then you might have missed the fact that I indeed walked out of the Citrus Bowl as the WWE Champion!

Office Space

Today was a historic day for Rollett Marketing, Rock For Hunger and Endagon Entertainment. We embarked on a journey through downtown Orlando and checked out an office!

How cool you ask? Very. The office in all of its glorious uncut and poorly edited visuals can be seen in the video below.

What is even more exciting is the prospect of Rollett Marketing grow into a company large enough to need office space. We have been building our client list and preparing for a marketing and sales surge and are now seeing the possibilities of what full time attention can do for our lil ol start-up.

Wish us luck and enjoy this special edition of MTV (er G-Ro's) Cribs (Office building edition).

Click To Play

And it seems like I have been talking about these guys a lot lately, but I did want to show off my new copy of New Day Revolution, the new book from the cool kids at Cool People Care. There's a rumor circulating that these are available in all Barnes and Nobles, so go pick one up!

Places to Find Me this Week

Another slow week for me on the blogosphere: Sorry about that folks.

Exciting news is that this Thursday Rollett Marketing, Endagon Entertainment and Rock For Hunger are going office shopping. Wish us luck! The steps are being taken to make this a full time lil gig.

Ok and here are my weekly goings on for last week:
Music and Downloads from Rebel Riot Films
Don't Just Make Resolutions, Have a Plan to Obtain Them on the Orlando JobSpot
5 Job Fair Resume Tips on the Orlando JobSpot

Welcome to Monday morning folks!

-g-ro

Pleaces to Find Me This Week

It seems like I don't get much time for this blog lately, but that doesn't mean that I haven't been actively writing and getting some thoughts out there about Gen-Y, Music, Social Media and Non-Profits. I'm going to start putting together link lists on Fridays to let you know where I've been and what I've been up to online. Try and catch up!

What's going on with Gen-Y, Non Profits and Technology over at the Rock For Hunger Blog
Amber J. Adams caught up with me to ask about Moving on: New college grads face challenges of relocation.
I chatted about elves at the Orlando JobSpot
Also on the JobSpot I dug deeper into the Social Media and job thing
Photo recap of the Jackson Center Holiday party over at Rock For Hunger

I do have a great video interview that I was apart of from some students at Rollins College going up this weekend.

On a personal knote: Go Knights! Looking for our 1st ever bowl win tomorrow! ESPN here we come!

Greg Rollett on ADCast Speaking on Behalf of Rock For Hunger

About 2 weeks ago I had the great pleasure of making an afternoon trip over to Tampa to do a taping of AdCast for AD2 Tampa Bay. Holly Clark played an amazing host and made me fell right at home. I was happy to be speaking on behalf of Rock For Hunger, an organization that I am proud to be on the board of Directors and serve as their Director of Marketing and Communications. During the interview I had the chance to talk about our upcoming concert, Rock For Hunger II, some of our sponsors including Create Magazine and the Orlando Employment Guide, as well as our Monday night feeding the homeless project. Check it out:

Exclusive Interview With Swamburger from Epitaph/Anti artists Sol.Illaquists of Sound

I recently had the opportunity to speak with Swamburger from Sol.Illaquists of Sound at his shop the Culture Mart of Magnolia Downtown Orlando, Florida. I also had the pleasure of being at their sold out concert at the Social in downtown Orlando Saturday night. Swam is a man of many words and has done great things for his band and this community. He has been a part of our skate, hip-hop and art scenes in Orlando and has been a big reason for our growth and development. We had a great discussion on our community, Rock For Hunger, the impact of his music and art and where he sees our community now and where he thinks its going and what it needs to survive and become the city we all know it can.

Musicians of all kinds should take notes of what he has to say. Sol.Illaquists of Sound has toured the country numerous times and continues to build and amazing reputation from their live show to their marketing to their message. Please take a watch and be sure to catch S.o.S. in a city near you real soon!

Be sure to hit up the Sol.Illaquists of Sound myspace page and say what up and keep up to date on what they are doing.

Also check out Rock For Hunger for updates on all of our shows, events and news on our 2nd Annual Rock For Hunger Festival November 9-11th at the Backbooth. Be ready for Hip-Hop 4 Hunger presented by G-RO next Thursday Aug. 2nd with the AB's (formerly Asamov) at the AKA Lounge. Get advance tix at the top of this page!