Ah a fresh Sunday morning, being that it’s May 1st, that means a new Contest for this month in the Clubhouse.

To recap on my abscence of updates in the past couple of weeks. I’ve been holed up in the studio finishing the edits on the old catalog of songs for licensing. I was contacted by a music licencing company, so I wanted to get it as close to finished as I could before I sent them anything. I’ve also been contacted by some Podcasters as well.

I had a quickie of a writing session with a friend of mine, Jody Gnant. She flew in for a few hours so that we could write a song possibly for her next album. Her style is Bohemian Geek Soul music if I’m not mistaken, and it just so happened that I had a really cool little chord progression in a feel that seemed to fit it quite well. We also discussed the concepts in my business plan and finding an investor- she’s got a great mind for bouncing ideas off of. She gave me some great ideas for getting the story of it out too the press, which I’m already putting into place. Remember, if you know of an investor, send them to the link above.

The band and I are working on the tunes for the show coming up in May. We’re adding a few covers by Green Day, Prince, The Rolling Stones, and T. Rex. It’s cool because we’ll have a very strong 3 hour show. And by the time we book the House of Blues in Vegas we’ll have a 4 hour show. Man, I almost feel like Rush or U2 or something, by having that much original material. We’re also working on booking more shows and I’m starting to put the feelers out for a booking agent. We’re already looking in to Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, etc… scouting the west for the next couple of months. Stay tuned for more shows.

Movie Pick of the Week: The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. I’ll let you in on a little secret. I’m a big fan of the books. Yes, in case you didn’t know the movie is now here. When I saw the first trailer I was super excited to see this movie. It took a little getting used to how they portrayed the story in the movie. It was much faster paced than I expected. In reality though, it was spotty. The story had holes all over the place, and if you didn’t know the books, yes that’s books plural, you’d be lost. I think they scraped to many different parts of the books together. They also changed some things that would have been more funny had they kept them the same as the book. Despite the shortcomings of the supporting cast, and the story holes, Hitchhikers does have some really good laugh out loud stuff to it. Provided you enjoy british humor.

Been a busy little bee for the past couple of weeks. I got called upon to do a bunch of audio editing – in addition to the self imposed stuff I’ve been doing. Now I’m mastering audio for a new book coming soon on Drum Loops. I’ve also finished up some audio editing for a financial course. Now it’s back to my regular self imposed editing as I’m almost finished with making my licensing library.

I did play a show in Huntington Beach a week ago friday. I played in a songwriters in the round. I shared the stage with Warren Sellars, James Grey, and Dee Biggs. It was an interesting evening. I did what I could do to keep up with these songwriting heavyweights. All of whom who’ve had cuts on some major records it seems. In the end I apparently woke the crowd up and stole the show. Heck I even got a great compliment from Warren, on stage and in front of the whole crowd. That was cool. James Grey talked to me after the show and has asked if I’d play some other venues on his bills. So expect to see more of me in the O.C.

Another cool thing was I was approached by and Artist in an earlier round who proceeded to tell me he never wanted to be on the same stage with me at the same time. He felt I was “too good”. A rather nice compliment. Overall the evening was a success and I enjoyed my time there at Martini Blues.

I’ve also been toying with the concept of giving the option for HTML e-mails to those signed up on my e-mail list, however, I’m not sure I’ll go through with it just yet. It’s an involved process and I don’t want to use an outside company as I value your information. In fact, I’ve just been upgraded to an SPF account on my e-mails at my domain. Meaning you can authenticate that I actually sent you an e-mail, the spam stops here.

Movie Pick of the Week: The Upside of Anger & Robots. I’ll be brief, I know it’s a Monday morning. First, The Upside of Anger is an outrageously good movie. I’d put it up on par with something along the lines of Ordinary People. Its a movie about life and how we as people deal with it when shit goes wrong. The two main characters are played by Kevin Costner and Joan Allen. Awesome performance. Unfortunately I doubt it will do well at the box-office as it has no cars blowing up. On to Robots… Now, I got the chance to see this in IMAX. Visually this movie is astounding along the levels of The Incredibles. Storywise, this movie falls a little flat. There’s tons of gags, and a hint of something heartfelt, but it really failed to pull me in. It was enjoyable for the references to Star Wars, and other movies and did have some touching moments but they were kinda few and far between.

Jody

All the recording has been finished up with for the new CD. The last of the drums were done yesterday with a new drummer and recording went like a breeze. I should be finishing up mixes by thursday and getting the last of the surround sound mixes done friday or monday. Then it’s off the mastering house.

Obviously I’m busy over the weekend with the video shoot for the song All The Things. It’s an exciting week to say the least.

I’ve quietly put “A Natural Leap Forward” up on CDbaby. Right now it’s custom copies of the CD and DVD with the full artwork. So it should be making it’s way onto iTunes and other services very soon.

Two other pieces of the puzzle are falling into place too, in the publicity and booking departments we have some great interest happening. So keep your fingers crossed. Also in process of writing a business plan to raise the capital to do a proper campaign with the new release.

Come back again.

Crackin in the studio working on the new songs for an A’n’R person I’ve recently met. Changes where made to one song (already posted a clip here on the site), currently finishing up lyrics and recording vocals on two more before I send them in.

Management is working on getting the people in line to be putting a tour together, will keep you posted.

Check back next week for the next song demo clip to be posted. Don’t be shy and email me your thoughts about the new songs or any of the old CD’s.

L8