Here’s the studio where we listened to songs from the New Jack Johnson CD, To The Sea. Immediately following the recorded songs, Jack and his band sat down and treated us to 3 live songs: No Good With Faces, My Little Girl (a tender little love song for his baby daughter), and fan fave Better Together.

Now everyone could relax and kick it, as all of our work was done! Jack and bandmate Zack Gill mingled with journos (some MTV and amazon types), friends (like the guy who owns Fuel TV), family (I met Zach’s brother & sister-in-law) and celebs (OK, maybe he’s only a celeb to me… more to come on that)

I used the chill time to examine with bar. Stocked with necessities: champagne and tequila.

And prowl the premises: this is Emmett Malloy’s office. Emmett surfs, runs Brushfire with Jack, and just finished a highly anticipated documentary on The White Stripes. He keeps a tidy office for one of the busiest men the the biz.

So as a I was prowling around, I ran into the one bona fide celebrity in the joint: former UW Coach Rick Neuheisel! Rick’s a guitar player and music fan. He and his son came to hear the new jack and were probably trying to make a discreet mistake when I cornered them both.

His son misses Seattle a lot, Coach not so much. He’s the head coach at his alma matter UCLA now and is loving the Passion Bucket! I asked him his thoughts on Pete Carroll to which he replied he was sorry The Bruins wouldn’t have a chance to beat him (Trojans beat UCLA last year). I asked him how he recruits players these days and he said everyone makes Hollywood movies and sends him dvds.

He asked me where I went to college and my brian kept saying “Just say Harvard, just say Harvard” but my mouth told the truth: Macalester College, St Paul Minnesota. I’ve never been embarrassed by my schoolin’ before, I mean Kofi Annan and Walter Mondale are Mac grads, but Macalester is not known for it’s football program.

He asked if I was a Dawg fan. And I said yes, to the extent that I love sports and I live in Seattle. He’s was like, “Well who do you root for??” and I confided I was, at heart, a Big 10 girl. He didn’t seem offended. In fact, he could not have been nicer. Honestly, I was too embarrassed to ask for a photo (which is kind of weird because I made a whole movie with Jack Johnson) but I did take a photo of the spot where we met, inhabited by 2 beautiful women: Trina Tombrink of Universal Records and Haley Jones, now at KPRI in San Diego.

- Shawn

This past Monday night, I was invited to Los Angeles to hear the new Jack Johnson CD, To The Sea. When I rolled up to the office of Brushfire Records (that doubles as a solar powered recording studio), people were chatting on the lawn, a guy was cooking up tacos in the back yard, and Jack Johnson was warmly greeting guests.

Casual dress, casual grub, a keg, all contributed to the house party vibe. Nobody was asking Jack for photos or tweeting while talking. Our small group of media folk (there were maybe 30 people tops) were invited to sit on folding chairs in a small studio to hear several new Jack songs off the album. Here’s what we heard:

You and Your Heart (the single- a great, uptempo love song)
At Or With Me (fantastic energy with a fuzzed out electric guitar)
From The Clouds
When I Look Up

The evening didn’t stop there. I’ll be back with more details tomorrow, but I wanted to leave you with some art from the hallways of the studio. It really speaks for itself.

And in case that’s not your cup of tea, you know, art-wise… how about this?