Brad Barrish

When my mom asks me what I do, it’s difficult to explain. Frankly, it’s somewhat challenging to explain to anyone. Sometimes it’s easier to show. Back in July I traveled with a filmmaker to the Topspin Fulfillment warehouse in Shepherdsville, Kentucky. I love warehouse logistics, but I’m also a little weird. To me, getting to see a 650,000 square foot warehouse is akin to taking electronics apart as a kid. It’s exciting and you get to see things that no one else does. Aside from it being the biggest record store on the planet (guess what’s in aisle 33), there are robots, lasers and all kinds of other nerdy things to see. Part of my job is making sure that when artists use Topspin to handle their fulfillment and customer service, it’s done really well. Most artists will never get to see the warehouse, so Nick Tamburri (the filmmaker) and I made this for them. I’m really happy with how it turned out.

(Source: https://player.vimeo.com/)

The Way Things Work Now

Or to put it a different way, welcome to Topspin, Stacy Peralta. Bob really nailed the spirit in his post on the Topspin blog this morning, but I wanted to add a little something personal about this as well. A couple weeks back I got to go to Skate One. The only way to begin to explain what it was like for me is to say that it was my personal Wonka factory. It’s as if someone said, ‘C'mon, Brad, we’re gonna take you behind the curtain to see the wizard’.

Getting to visit Skate One, talk to all of these incredible people who are going to make this Bones Brigade project work on the logistics side, build a skateboard that has the first batch of Mini Logo trucks and shake George Powell’s hand was overwhelming, to say the least. I’ll be honest, I was choked up and I’m getting choked up right now, writing about it. The Bones Brigade were my heroes at an important and very impressionable time in my life. I am who I am today because of them and because of skateboarding and all of the music, magazines and culture surrounding it. It literally changed my life and had a massive impact on the person I am today. Getting to share that with Stacy when he was in our office a while back meant the world to me, even if it was slightly embarrassing. I’ve worked with a lot of rock stars in my career, but Stacy is the most meaningful to me. And luckily, he is also one of the coolest.

I always tell people that my job at Topspin is the best job I have ever had in my life. And now this. We have the incredible fortune to work with some of the most talented artists on the planet, but this one is personal. I am so honored to be part of this project we’re doing with Stacy and it’s pretty rad to work at a company where others share that same deeply personal connection to this film. While I’ve already seen the film, I can’t wait for everyone else to see it. Holy shit. Here we go.