By Shereen Masoud-Jointe, Account Executive (Europe)
With everyone from the office working remotely these days, it’s easy to feel disconnected. As a way to build camaraderie from afar — and enhance our musical repertoire while we’re at it — we’ve started to put together a “HA-Jamz” global playlist.
Each day, a person from one of our global offices sends out a song and a backstory about why they chose it. We have quite the list going so far:
- Neri Per Caso — Donne
- Slowdive — Morningrise
- Cake — Commissioning A Symphony in C
- Jay Chou — 晴天
- Joey Yung — 天使
- Delta Rae — Anny Better Than This
- Sigur Ros — Hoppipolla
- Jonah Lake — Born By The Coast
- Grateful Dead — Brokedown Palace
- Tia Ray — Ready For Love
- The Black Keys — Lonely Boy
Some of the backstories have become elaborate, and they’re always entertaining. Here’s a clip from self-proclaimed music aficionado, Executive VP Steve Jursa—
“I have been collecting music — on LPs, 45’s, cassettes, CDs, Blu-rays and digitally (never went in for 8-tracks) — for as long as I can remember. I estimate that I have somewhere around 10,000 CDs and about 5,000 vinyl records. I listen to a lot of music!! From Frank Sinatra to Frank Zappa to The Beatles to Eminem to Bob Marley to John Coltrane to Mozart to Tom Petty to Johnny Cash … The list goes on and on.
“But there is one band that I always come back to and play more often than any other, the Grateful Dead.
“I first heard the Grateful Dead in high school and have been a fan ever since. Not only do I love listening to their music, but I really enjoyed the tribal community of Deadheads that attended their concerts. Over a 15 year period (1980-95), I probably went to close to 75 Grateful Dead shows. That may sound like a lot, but I know people who saw that many Dead concerts in a single year! Deadheads are an interesting, and ‘deadicated,’ group of people who went to great lengths to see the band they loved. I will save my numerous Dead show stories for another time (like the time I met Bill Walton); maybe over beers, when we can do that again.”
You can listen to our playlist here. And stay tuned — who knows what treasures will be on there next!
