We here at IQ Beats in little ol’ Seattle would once again like to congratulate our friends across the pond at London’s Heart for a great new set of Rajar figures. Since we have been working with the team at Heart headed by Francis Currie and Mark Browning, we have watched the station grow to enormous heights and are pleased to let you know that Heart Breakfast has taken the crown as the number one commercial radio morning!

We’re often on the phone to breakfast show producer Jamie Scott or Creative Producer Paul Jones as they ask for a bit of music for this or a sing for that and it proves that all the hard work and effort is worth it when you see a great set of figures they’ve achieved. Congratulations from IQ Beats to everyone involved in Heart Breakfast with Jamie Theakston and Harriet Scott.

Hear the Heart Breakfast Collection on iqbeats.com here.

And our acclaimed network imaging package for Heart here.

You may remember this post about commissioned music Patrick is writing for John Helde’s film Made In China. Through this process we’ve become acquainted with Qi Zhang, the woman that will be singing on the piece for John.

As it turns out, Qi (pronounced like Chi) needed to be recorded for a song to be broadcast on Chinese Central Television (CCTV) to promote the 2008 summer Olympics in Beijing, China so Patrick and Qi convened in Studio A for a couple hours of work with great results.

Those of you that have visited IQ HQ in person know all about it, but for those of you that haven’t yet had the royal IQ hospitality in person, we are located in a large media complex in downtown Seattle that houses the full-service Studio X recording facility (Nirvana, Halo, Danny Elfman, Pearl Jam, R.E.M., Alice in Chains, Soundgarden) and the Emmy award winning Bad Animals commercial post-production studio (Bill Nye the Science Guy, Seattle Mariners, Iraq in Fragments, Microsoft).

Today marks the day of the 7th Annual Bad Animals Golf Tournament held in Carnation, WA at the not-so-posh Carnation Golf Course. For a mere $50, who wouldn’t want to hang out with the Bad Animals gang (Wendi Wills, Tom McGurk, Charlie Nordstrom, Mike McAuliffe, Dave How, Sam Gray and Jamie the hot receptionist) with a bunch of their favorite clients? Certainly not IQ’s Michael Berlin and Kip Beelman, who were more than happy to represent the IQ Beats contingent for a day of tequila shooting, beer drinkin’, burger eatin’ and golf club swangin’.

Tonight saw IQ’s Kip Beelman holing up in Studio A to lay down some beats and vocals for Seattle MC and producer loOn-e (a.k.a. The Lunatic) of the THC crew. THC are also the same consortium of producers, MCs and DJ’s that our man Steve Scalfati has joined to produce remixes for artists like Ashley Tisdale, and Lady Sovereign.

With song titles like “Good Vibrations” and “Soulmates”, the roots reggae riddims were pumping while loOn-e was toasting positive lyrics and sweet harmonies. Lunatic’s work with THC runs the gamut from poppy Rap, to underground Hip-Hop, to Dancehall Reggae and now to the old-time sound of Roots Reggae. To hear some examples of THC’s original productions, pay them a visit here.

IQ’s Kip Beelman has just been released from a three day lockdown at Soundhouse Recording, locale of many an IQ drum session (Ben FM, The Wireless Group, New 92 and JR FM to name a few) and his former place of employment before he was snatched away by Michael and Steve to be successfully reprogrammed into a re-sing mixing machine.

On occasion a subtle twitch starts to develop deep inside that he needs to scratch like an incessant itch… Kip has once again put aside his cushy banker’s hours with weekends off to sink his teeth into the reality of 14 hour days producing and mixing records for bands. What the F was he thinking?!

While Kip is not exactly the world’s biggest proponent of Twee Pop, he is the utmost professional and did a great job honing in on just the right amount of twee and ensuring that everything was sonically up to snuff. You jingle aficionados will love to know that besides Twee, Tullycraft falls within a genre that gets classified as Anorak Rock.

Kip says the long days are easier to bear when working with Tullycraft’s Sean Tollefson and Chris Munford… Two of the nicest guys in the world. In addition to picking up the tab for three lunches worth of authentic Mexican tacos from Malena’s, the boys also hooked up Kip on a steady dinner diet of Pho? from Vietnam Restaurant across the street from the studio. What could be better? How about a steady stream of Milk Duds, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Filepile, Flickr and YouTube to keep the good times rolling.

Drummer Jeff Fell, Guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Chris Munford (in the back), Vocalist Jenny Mears, Guitarist Corianton Hale (pouring) and Lead vocalist/bassist and songwriter Sean Tollefson

Pictures are just in from a show on Friday, July 20th on the Capital Lake Fair main stage in Olympia, WA where Patrick sat in on trumpet for an entire set with Lee Oskar, the world-renowned harmonica player for the seminal band WAR and now a member of Lowrider. It sounds like Lee has assembled a great band it was an honor for Patrick to share the stage with them. With only one rehearsal, he has cited it as an exciting challenge.

Lee is on the far left and Patrick is on the far right

IQ Beats composer Patrick Napper has had his eye on Craigslist for quite some time as he has been on the lookout for a new flugelhorn and just came across a total steal!┬á An early 90′s silver Bach Stradavarius in mint condition that has now been liberated from the closet of some guy in Everett and will be gracing stages everywhere.┬á This is just like the one Patrick played back in school when he worshiped guys like Miles Davis, Maynard Ferguson, Freddie Hubbard, Bobby Shew and Chuck Mangione.

Here are some follow-up pictures from Michael Berlin and Kip Beelman’s big day out at Cruzan Rum’s Kenny Chesney Flip Flop Summer Tour that was previously mentioned here. The day got pretty rowdy, but all these images are PG-13.

Michael had this excitable lady lurch from the throngs asking permission to touch his hair. Being the gentleman that he is, he obliged.

The Bud Light girls stare down the next victim of el toro mecánico.

Once inside the concert we were horrified to find MANY uncouth ladies patronizing the mens restrooms.

Brooks & Dunn were rocking the house while Michael was in heaven.

Basically Ronnie Dunn is old. Basically no one rocked harder this day than Ronnie Dunn.

It takes a Jumbotron to make 5 foot, 9 inches larger than life.

Michael of IQ Beats, Della Pizzati of Entercom and Rob Walker of KKWF reveling in all of the The Wolf’s post-show debauchery at Fuel.

Many, many years ago on this day IQ Beats main-man Steven Paul Scalfati was welcomed in to this world in the most unlikely of places… Mombasa, Kenya. Mombasa turned out to be a bust (the surfing on that part of the Indian Ocean never lived up to the hype) so Steve’s early years were spent in Tehran, Iran. Um, I don’t know about you, but my guess is that there wasn’t a whole lot of Super Mario Bros., G.I. Joe or Garfield happening. Steve is quietly spending this birthday behind his Roland V-Synth and in front of Digital Performer working for Martin Dumschat, Arno Müller and the rest of the crew at Berlin’s RTL.

Happy Birthday Steve!!

Today IQ’s Kip Beelman and Michael Berlin rolled on up to North Seattle and paid a visit to old friend and client Jason McGerr, drummer for Death Cab for Cutie. Jason has a new studio of his own now called Two Sticks Recording that features a Pro Tools HD3 rig, Chris Walla’s Studer A-800, the old Quad 8 Ventura from John & Stu’s Place/Hall of Justice Recording and more outboard mic pre-amps than you can shake a stick at… Or two sticks for that matter. Also available are Jason’s 12 drum kits, 26 snares, couple hundred cymbals, guitar amps, piano and vintage organs.

Jason has played with numerous bands over the years, taught drums at the Seattle Drum School and seems to have found a happy place providing the beat of his own drum for Death Cab. It had been a while since Kip added his engineering prowess to “Soul Meets Body” for Death Cab’s latest and almost platinum record Plans, so they had a lot of catching up to do. Perhaps a little Jason McGerr on the next IQ Production library release?