Tomorrow, we’re doing it all over again with our second cross country road trip. The first one was a blast, full of good music (thanks to you), good coffee, good food, and great times, and we’re excited to do it all over again, this time for good. You can follow our adventures on Twitter at @iemediagroup. Also, we’ll be doing updates each morning on our YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/IncorporatedElements. We’re doing the same route this time as last time (Tacoma-Portland-Boise-Salt Lake-Denver-Kansas City-St Louis-Nashville), so if we’re coming to your area, let us know so we can shout you out. Also, be sure to subscribe, as we’ll continue these updates from the studio (and other musical locales) in Nashville once we get settled. So the fun will keep on coming long after this trip is in the books.

Thank you each and every one of you for your comments on Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube during our first trip-we see each one, and had a great time reading them. Keep them coming-we love hearing from you all.

Until next time…

Nashville or bust.

So with Nate and Eric moving cross-country over the next couple of weeks, we’ve been doing a lot of planning, trying to ensure that the process is smooth as possible. We thought we covered all of our bases-until we took stock in our travel time. We will be driving to Nashville from Washington state-not once-but twice, which makes for A LOT of driving. And we all three agree-every road trip needs theme music.

This is where you come in.

We need suggestions. Sure, we have our favorite music already queued up, but you can only listen to Pat Benatar’s greatest hits so many times before you need a switch. If you have music that you feel we need to have for the trips, let us know, and we’ll go to iTunes and check it out. We’ll try to keep you all updated via our twitter (@iemediagroup) which of your suggestions we’re listening to on the trip, and where in the country we’re listening to them. And if we really love the music, you may even get a shout-out.

Thank you for your help!

-IE

As many of you know, I.E. currently operates out of two primary locations: Nashville (Ric) and Tacoma, Washington (Eric & Nate). While we’re able to make this work pretty efficiently via the Internet and phone calls, it’s become evident that the only way we are going to be 100% effective is if we were all in one central location. So after 18 months of planning, the time has come…next week, Nate and I will be driving down to Nashville to begin the moving process.

With that, this week will mark the last week Nate and I will work out of our faithful home studio, Winona Drive Studios. After nearly 7 years, it has served us well. Take a good look-for us Washingtonians, this is where it all began…

‘Very subtly the Eurythmics’ Sweet Dreams was seamlessly slipped into another track from the new album, If I Can’t Have You, by DJ Rick, who was far better than the name suggests.‘

You can read the rest of the review here.

Or, you can just watch this clip from the show itself. Thanks to Jason Halbert for video footage.

Looking back on the night, I do have a clear favorite performance. She sang the obvious Kelly Clarkson selections (and a couple not so obvious choices) from her catalog, and did an excellent job with each one; however, it was her cover of the White Stripes song ’7 Nation Army’ that really got me. The video is a bit shaky, and it’s hard to recreate the actual energy in the arena on a Youtube video-but the performance is still pretty crazy. I’m just not sure I’ll ever listen to the original song the same way ever again.

Oh, and you may recognize the DJ who opens up the video. He sets the mood off right for this one. Check it out…