The April showers have brought on May flowers… Well sort of. At the moment whilst I’m waiting on some business things to fruit for touring, I’m busy writing lots of new songs for the next CD (no date for anything on that, just doing lots of writing). I’ve already got 26 songs mapped out. Eventually I think I’ll have some 40 songs to sift through by the time I’m actually done with Practical Insanity and off the road.

I’ve also been writing some material with Jan Linder-Koda and Heather Bradley. So far we’ve got a couple of songs geared for kids. One is called Peanut Butter and is very catchy. We’ll be pushing it to the likes of Sesame Street and other venues. Could even push to license it to a major peanut butter maker. We’ll see. We picked up jodyjanandheather.com to be the official site and name of the group.

The writers of the song Live Like I’m Rich (from the movie Material Girls starring Hillary Duff) have agreed to release the song digitally to iTunes, and other digital outlets. I know that it’s already been sent off, I’m just waiting word on when it actually hits iTunes. So when I know, you’ll know. For any Hillary fans wanting to find it, you won’t need to wait much longer. Same goes for all the fans that contacted me wanting to get this song.

In addition, I wrote a sports anthem called Do You Want To Play. Originally it was for the Women’s Professional Football League. It never got off the ground. I’ve recently re-recorded it. Gave it a more rocked out feeling, a little heavier, and re-wrote the lyrics to fit several sports leagues like the NBA, the NFL, the NHL, and a few local Los Angeles teams like the Lakers, the Clippers, and the Kings. I’ve put the collection of them together to be released on iTunes and they should also be available before the month is out. I’ve even clipped out the hook so that you could purchase it and make it your phone’s ringtone.

Celebrating Earth Day.

I know that I’ve recently planted some trees and of course the tour bus has been converted to run on Used Vegetable Oil. How about you? What have you done to promote keeping Earth Green and to prevent Global Weirding?

I’ll have more musical news in the near future.

Have a great day and enjoy being Green.

Well, I’ve been off the reservation for about a month. I’ve been down for the count with being sick with the flu. I had complications with my ears. Fortunately I’m bouncing back. During that time I also got to find some time to finish the mPod player. It’s the new thing on the right hand side that looks like a sideways iPod.

Go ahead take it for a spin. All the songs and videos are in there. I would appreciate knowing what you think, so play with it a bit and send me some feedback. Just so you know, it works exactly like an iPod. Well, pretty darn close anyway.

In other news, I’m working on the corporate structure of the record label and hopefully before too long I’ll have good news about Practical Insanity making it’s way onto Radio and the Billboard charts.

Stay tuned!

Things are beginning to move along briskly. Funding is coming in the door and I have some meetings with PR firms this week. Seems there are three or four that are highly interested in working with me. I guess it helps when you’ve got a name like Maurice Starr backing ya. In addition we’re working on the live portion of things, meaning that we’re talking to some agents to finally get the show on the road. There is rumor talk that I could be opening for someone rather large, but I’ll believe it and share it with ya when it comes through.

In the mean time, I’ve started scratching out ideas on roughly 25 songs that will be the inklings for the next CD once Practical Insanity has run it’s course. I never seem to stop writing. That’s not a bad thing I guess.

Also, I’ve been talking to Byron Turk, the director of my award winning video ‘Falling In’, about the next video which will be for ‘Closer To Ourselves’. I’m excited to be in a forward moving situation.

Stay Tuned!

Happy New Year

2007 has finally been rung in. Woo Hoo, I hope your Christmas, Hanukka, Kwanza, etc, all went well. Did you have a great New Years too? I was so excited I launched a new website, which you’re seeing right now. I’ve still got one more thing left to finalize on it in terms of the multi-media experience but the rest of it is fully functional.

I’ve put a direct way to log right into the Clubhouse right from the home page. Look towards the right of where you’re reading now and you’ll see the login area with the knock knock button. Once you’ve entered your name and e-mail and use the secret knock knock, you’ll be wisked into the Clubhouse where you can submit for the monthly contest, as well as see and hear more of me.

The Christmas CD has been getting some fantastic feedback. At this point though, it will be put on the shelf and await it’s next promotional push in June/July for licensing and store purchases.

Still in talks with investors and Maurice Starr. Maurice has a few more meetings in the works with management and other people as well. So it’s an optimistic start to the year.

I’ve started sifting through roughly 23 song ideas for the next CD. Getting them organized, thinking about the title, the direction, the feel, etc.

The Single of the Day blog is growing every month I’m starting to average over 300 readers a day, not bad for no advertising yet. At the rate its going it will climb to a few thousand in a couple more months. So as of January 1st, meaning now, you can read it directly here on my official website. I figure it’s the least I can do for you since you’re showing me support.

Stay tuned as more good things are on the way.

Cruising into December…

Things have been going well on the musical front. In case you missed it, I had a great showing at the JPF Awards. Took down best music video for 2006. Woo Hoo.

Moving along with Maurice Starr. I flew out to Florida a few weeks ago and spent several days there. We met with a couple of investors. Played them the music and also showed them the video. It didn’t hurt that I was armed with a fresh win for the video. Maurice also introduced me to Louis Perlman while I was there. We hung out at his place of business to chat about the music and the video as well. He liked what he heard. We’ll see what happens.

In the meantime, Maurice has been setting me up with meetings here in Los Angeles. There’s also been several phone calls to CAA and Octone, working on going for the opening slot on Maroon 5’s next tour – keep some good thoughts going for me on that. Someone is going to come around soon. I can feel it.

The Christmas project is nearing completion. In fact one song, Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer has already been finalized and mastered. I’ve shipped it off to Dr. Demento as per a suggestion from my buddy Grant of Throwing Toasters. We’ll see what happens there.

I finished the artwork from my dad yesterday. Chris is finalizing the last of the mixes tomorrow. Then it’s off the mastering house. Early next week it goes off to iTunes and should hopefully be available for your holiday pleasure this year.

Stay tuned and keep an ear out for me.

And the winner is: Best Music Video for 2006 from the Just Plain Folks Awards!!!

That’s right Falling In has been named Best Music Video in the largest music awards in the world. I also received 2nd place for Tracking Motion in Best Rock Instrumental. I also received 3rd place for Best Children’s Storytelling Album for the music I write for The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd.

Practical Insanity was nominated for Best Rock Album and Falling In was nominated for Best College Rock Song (I lost to Vertical Horizon – so I can’t complain, I love their music), but it ended there. But hey Best Music Video, I can’t believe how amazing that was to finally receive a win for my music.

In other news. I’m on a plane on Wednesday to Florida to go meet with Maurice Starr and potential investors. Armed with the JPF showing, I think I’m definitely going to have a great shot at picking up that investment money. Why not? I mean out of 25,500 plus CD’s and 350,000 songs and I got 5 nominations, two placements, and a win. That’s impressive!

All the while the Christmas project is getting mixed. I should hope to have it done by the end of the month.

Stay tuned for more news…

And the award nominations for 2006 continue to roll in…

This morning I’ve received word that I am nominated for four (4) awards in this years Just Plain Folks awards (JPF). So the things I’m up for awards are:

Best College Rock Song: Falling In
Best Rock Instrumental: Tracking Motion
Best Rock Album: Practical Insanity
Best Short Music Video: Falling In
*** news update: Childrens Storytelling Album: The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd

This is a pretty cool thing to me. Why? Because it’s THE largest music awards in the world. It’s larger than the Grammys – the only thing is, you’ve never heard of it until now. That’s right, there are music awards out there that have way more entrants than the exclusive club of the Grammys, et al. This year’s JPF awards had over 25,000 CD’s entered which is somewhere in the neighborhood of over 350,000 songs. To even get a nomination out of that much music means you must be doing something good.

I know I face some stiff competition in all the categories against artists like Vertical Horizon and others. Keep your fingers crossed that I end up holding a JPF award at the ceremony. I’ve been nominated in several of the past ones, but it would be fantastic to finally get a win. So far my best placing has been third.

*** News Update: I was informed by the good people doing Dr. Floyd that I’ve gotten a 5th nomination in the JPF Awards for doing the music of their Podcast which is nominated.

Update to the California Independent Film Festival – I’ve been informed that Falling In has now been nominated for Best Music Video award at the 2006 California Independent Film Festival. This is pretty cool if you ask me. I’m sure Byron Turk is happy too.

I’ve got about 18 songs vocally recorded for my parts on the Christmas Project. I should hopefully get all my vocals finished next week. I’ve also been fortunate enough to meet Dannielle Gaha. She’s an amazing vocalist from the land down under aka Australia. She’s come on board the Christmas project to lend her vocal talents and it’s already adding an amazing dimension to the tracks we got completed.

Material Girls and the song “Live Like I’m Rich” has been getting me a little attention over on myspace. I don’t think I’ve ever had so many friend requests from the demographic that follows Hillary Duff. I ain’t complaining, I think it’s cool.

I also just did a mix for a movie called Prozak. It’s an interesting short film shot on a digital still camera with short bursts that emulate video. They’re going for an Oscar, so we’ll see how that goes.

Byron Turk, the director of the ‘Falling In’ video, has informed me that the video will be screened at the 2006 California Independent Film Festival later this year. How cool is that?!?

Recording for the vocals on the huge Christmas project has commenced. There are 3 songs that are finished and ready for mixing. That’s 1/10th, which leaves 27 to go.

More recording with Devin Bronson later this week.

“Live Like I’m Rich,” the song I was hired to sing in the Material Girls movie staring Hillary and Haylie Duff has been seen and heard. I actually got phone calls about it opening day last friday. I also decided to trek down to the local movieplex and check it out. Obviously the movie isn’t gear toward me as a demographic, but it is a heartwarming little story. I believe the song is about 1/3 the way in. It was right after they burnt their house down on accident. I watched for my name in the credits and was able to snap a quick shot of the screen with my cell phone. However, I’ve been graced by a friend who was able to get an actual slide of my name on the screen. Woo Hoo. I’ll be blowing that up and putting it on the studio wall.