Lopez Blogs

Lots of magazines, websites and bloggers do their "acts to watch in 2010" (or whatever year it chooses to be) and quite rightly so too. Any excuse to promote new artists is a good one. I'd written up a list of artists i already followed in 2010 as well as those I had only just heard of through other similar lists. I've postponed those posts til later in the week - today I just want to focus on one artist in particular...

A TRIBUTE TO RYAN FERRADA...

Ryan was originally in this list as one of the artists I was rooting for in 2010. He had just released his amazing Room 501 album and I had a whole spiel written about how (along with Simon Curtis) I thought this would be one of the defining pop albums of the new year. Then after a self imposed internet and phone ban in vegas, I got to the airport to fly home to receive a few text messages informing me that Ryan Ferrada had passed away. I'm incredibly saddened by this news and wanted to amend this post to be a tribute to him. One of the great things about the internet is that it allows bloggers to interact with upcoming music acts in a way that was never before possible. I'm not naive enough to think that the few acts I interact with are friends, but some of them have actually grown into online buddies who I know I would hang around with if they lived near by. These people are few and far between and know who they are - Ryan was one of these people. We talked about lots of things and he was always a funny, charming, insightful, sincere, lovely fella. We chatted briefly before Christmas and he was delighted with his album and the upcoming plans for it. I'm upset by this loss and can only begin to imagine how hard it must be for his loved ones. My thoughts are with them. I think the best thing I can do is keep promoting Ryan's vibrant exciting music throughout the year. It deserves a wide audience and is a fine reminder of a genuinely nice chap.