Former Get Up Kids Tour Manager Keeps Leonard Cohen Rollin'

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sturgess66
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Former Get Up Kids Tour Manager Keeps Leonard Cohen Rollin'

Post by sturgess66 »

An article about Joey Carenza - and Leonard - a blog called ThePitch.com
http://blogs.pitch.com/wayward/2009/11/ ... _cohen.php
Former Get Up Kids Tour Manager Keeps Leonard Cohen Rollin'.

By Jason Harper
Mon., Nov. 9 2009 @ 2:50PM

Our sister paper, The Riverfront Times, ran an interesting profile ( http://www.riverfronttimes.com/2009-11- ... ard-cohen/ )of St. Louisan Joey Carenza, who, for the past 18 months, has been around the globe with the one and only Leonard Cohen, who brings his tower of song to Kansas City tonight at the Midland by AMC.

Image
Amy de Souza

Turns out there's an even-more-local connection to Carenza. His tour-managing roster includes at least one stint with TGUK. Here's how he got started.

Indeed, Carenza parlayed his time with [St. Louis ska band] MU330 into gigs as a guitar tech and tour producer with a wide variety of bands; notable ones include Face to Face, the Get Up Kids, the Bravery, Ash and Sondre Lerche. The connections he built eventually landed him a gig producing some shows by Anjani Thomas, a jazz singer who frequently collaborates with Cohen. The success of these concerts led Carenza to a December 2007 meeting in LA with Cohen's manager, Robert Kory -- ostensibly to discuss the potential of a tour.

Seems that Carenza has gotten to know his current boss pretty well. In addition to talking about how the 75-year-old poet and singer prefers work to sleep, Carenza reflects:

"Rock stars, entertainers, are just people," Carenza says. "And [if] you work around enough of them, you really realize that. But if you do work around enough of them, you realize that every once in awhile, one or two of 'em, they're not just people. There's really something about them that puts them head and shoulders above the rest of them.

"And that's Leonard. He's a regular dude, and he's a guy, he's a down-to-earth person, but there's also something about him that's very much not like everybody else. That's what makes him Leonard Cohen, I think. He has that something extra that's sort of semi-intangible. You read his writing and his work, and that's very tangible. He's a beacon. People are drawn to it. It's no joke; he's the real deal."
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MusicCityGypsy
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Re: Former Get Up Kids Tour Manager Keeps Leonard Cohen Rollin'

Post by MusicCityGypsy »

I didn't know about his work with Sondre Lerche! thanks for the article...Carenza is one neat man!
"Rock stars, entertainers, are just people," Carenza says. "And [if] you work around enough of them, you really realize that. But if you do work around enough of them, you realize that every once in awhile, one or two of 'em, they're not just people. There's really something about them that puts them head and shoulders above the rest of them.

"And that's Leonard. He's a regular dude, and he's a guy, he's a down-to-earth person, but there's also something about him that's very much not like everybody else. That's what makes him Leonard Cohen, I think. He has that something extra that's sort of semi-intangible. You read his writing and his work, and that's very tangible. He's a beacon. People are drawn to it. It's no joke; he's the real deal."
I love that quote... :)
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