andrew-garcia
Andrew Garcia in the NY Times
Jon Caramanica, NY Times:
Any of these paths can end in pop success, but the most plainly relevant contestant this season is Andrew Garcia, a YouTube-era star in the making, one of thousands of people who for the last few years have in essence been playing “American Idol: The Home Game,” posting clips of their cover-song performances to the Internet in hopes they’d get noticed. In those clips, which still pepper YouTube, he’s a clear adept, able to breezily disassemble and reformat popular songs for his limited vocal range — a recipe for modern “Idol” success. His version of Paula Abdul’s hit “Straight Up” during Hollywood week has been this season’s most memorable and thoughtful performance by far.
“Idol” might make Mr. Garcia a star, but he’s done most of the heavy lifting already, a seasoned competitor on a show that prizes inventive revisions of pop standards. Mr. Garcia may not have a record deal, but in this regard, he’s no amateur.
Full Story: http://nyti.ms/aDTMhR (via @jondecastro)
Andrew Garcia on American Idol
We’re gonna f’ing DOMINATE the American Idol polls so hard for Andrew, it’s not even funny.
By the power of YouTube/Twitter/@BTVfam, we WILL get @AndrewAGarcia into the American Idol finals this season!
#HealPhilippines
Mainstream media sucks. Cuz according to coverage on the radio, news shows and even trending topics on Twitter, reality shows like The Hills and Jon & Kate Plus 8 are more important than reality like the thousands of lives devastated by Typhoon Ondoy.
That’s just bullshit.
So over the past few days, AJ Rafael was on a mission to raise awareness of the crisis. AJ’s goal: give recognition to the Philippines in the form of a trending topic of Twitter.
A couple days went by and all AJ had to show for it was a few dozen retweets, which is hardly a blip in Twitterland. But with a simple point in the right direction, AJ & friends were able to get #HealPhilippines to the top of the trending topics list on Twitter!
In just three hours of broadcasting on UStream, there were over 7,000 instances of #HealPhilippines showing up in the Twittersphere! That’s HUGE.
And to top it off, we managed to raise over $1,200 for those in need!
To everyone that was a part of tonight’s (and last night’s) fundraiser, thank you. Know that somewhere out there, a life will breathe easier because of what you accomplished in just the past couple nights.