Norman's Rockwell

Hey Soul Mates, the Rock Hall inductee class of '06 has been announced. Now, my high school mates (especially, Mike) can shut up about Jacksonville's own, Lynyrd Skynyrd making the Hall. Congrats to them. This is not my favorite group of Hall of Famers: Miles Davis, Black Sabbath, Blondie and the Sex Pistols. Of this batch, only Blondie was a contemporary presence for me. No disrespect to the fans of the other artists. Just not my cup of tea. I'm sure my buddy Mark though is still lamenting Chicago's absence from the Rock Hall. The induction ceremony should be interesting though, because a lot of country-rockers are going to come out of the woodwork to honor Skynyrd. Blondie, Sabbath and the Pistols are all relatively intact so their performances will be highly anticipated. I'm particularly anxious to hear what the Sex Pistols portion of the evening will entail. Who will induct them? Green Day? U2? That's sure to be the highlight of the night. That, and Ozzy...

Hey Soul Mates, just a really fast note to announce that Rush Hour Soul will be opening for '80's pop/R&B sensation DeBarge featuring Chico & James DeBarge. They had a string of top R&B and pop hits for Motown including Rhythm of the Night , Who's Holding Donna Now?, and All This Love . The show will be on Weds. Dec. 14 at the Rumba Room on the Universal Citywalk. Tickets are available through all Ticketmaster outlets and at the door. The promoters are expecting this show to sell out. The Old School Concert series at the Rumba Room is sponsored by Hot 92 Jamz (Mega Old School & Today's R&B). This is a great opportunity for us to open for an established act. And the venue is really hot. We hope that some of you will be able to attend. Tickets are $30. But don't forget, we've got our Free show on Thursday Dec. 1 at the Gig, too. I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Love, Power, Peace

Hey Soul Mates, we were here last year, too. I'm going to put in my two cents about the American Music Awards. It was an entertaining show again this year for all the wrong reasons. The absolutely stunning (though thick) Mariah Carey opened the show. She really sang, but she nearly killed herself losing balance in her high heels. Girl, leave the dancing to Ciara. Things went downhill from there. Most of the performances were either bad or country. My appreciation for the musicianship of the country performers was elevated by the wretched pop performances. Sad, horse-toothed Hilary Duff lip-synched her way through a "brand new song." Yawn. She practically tripped over her backing dancers and was clearly not singing. But she was preceded by the new brunette version of Linsday Lohan who did sing. Awfully. Her voice was weaker than diner coffee and the sound engineers did her no favors. Her movement was awkward and she kept her eyes closed for most of her routine. A clear si...

Hey Soul Mates, it's my Bicentennial blog. It's pretty cool to have reached two-hundred. I don't expect any one to go back and count (I certainly wouldn't), but Blogger keeps up with the tally. So, what have I got for you? Big news. Rush Hour Soul is now available at iTunes , the worlds largest retailer of music on the internet. All four tracks from the EP are on sale for $0.99. We hope that all of our fans will go to iTunes and purchase our songs. You've heard them on the various podcasts and snippets on MySpace, but now you can have them for your iPods and your harddrives. Now, you don't have to own an iPod to enjoy the songs. Anyone can download a free iTunes player from the site and use it to play music on your computer. The jukebox will work on both PC and Macs and it's easy to use. From there you can even burn your own CDs with our music. And it's legal. We hope everyone will go get A Talent For Loving, Done Lost My Mind, Everyone's Ingenue ...

Hey Soul Mates, the last few evening were chock full o' culture. Last night, a bunch of us went to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Pretty good. I still like the third movie best. The length of this novel seems to have made it very challenging for the director to tell the story properly in 2:34. But, it was entertaining. I'm only 2/3 of the way through the book. But that has been my MO with the Potter series. Read the first two "acts" prior to seeing the movie, so I know what the heck is going on. Then I read the end after watching the film. It's been a decent way to do it. I'd really rather not know how any movie is going to end when I see it, no matter how engrossing the book is. And Potter 4 is a quick, fun read at 700+ pages. Thursday night, Bryan and I were busy trying to gain more friends on MySpace . We were doing pretty well, then we hit a ceiling to the amount of activity we could accomplish there. Kind of frustrating. But we did add 100 new f...

Hey Soul Mates, I know, I know. It's been a few days since last I wrote. What's been going on? Well, last night I was at the Clippers' trouncing of the Milwaukee Bucks. A friend invited us to a swank luxury suite at Staples. That was nice to see the home town win in fine fashion. Just wish the Clips would go back to wearing sky blue and burnt orange. Of course, they'll never replace my Cavs in my heart. Oddly enough, I ran into one of our venue bookers and was told that we'll have a date in mid-December opening for a nationally known music act. Details will follow. Tonight, should be cool. We are going to the Django Reinhardt festival at the Disney Concert Hall . I've only been in the hall once, when I spent a day downtown. It's a pretty fantastic building. I'm looking forward to the performance. I was really introduced the music of the gypsy guitarist Reinhardt in the Woody Allen film Sweet And Lowdown (my favorite movie of 2000). Then, when I was in F...

Hey Soul Mates, We had a really good time last night at the Gig. It was a hellzapoppin' show. Thanks to everyone who braved the forecasted rain. You made the place electric. I hope you will enjoy your holiday ornaments. We ran out, which is a very good thing. Here's the first photo finished. It was taken just before the set last night. We look kinda sharp. Hit it to enlarge us. There are more photos up on the website. Dunno if the color combo worked like we hoped, but what the hell? You gotta experiment sometime. Any particular hue you'd like to see us in next time? Maybe that will be the poll on the next evite. We kicked off the set with Talent as the curtain rose. We kept the pulse quick for the first 3 songs. Everything My Heart Desires has become a new favorite it seems. It's been getting a really good response. We pulled out an old cover in honor of the Stones' visit to the Bowl/the Red Cross drive I was involved with. My mic chose that moment to short out,...

Hey Soul Mates, it's a new day. The volunteering gig at the Stones' concert was a relative success. We collected several thousand dollars for the Red Cross Hurricane Relief drive. Here's the deal: the Rolling Stones recorded a new CD single called Hurricane . We were given CDs and donation buckets. All we have to do is tell people: here's an exclusive new charity single by the Stones, donate what you can; $1, $2, $10 and the disc is yours. That's how my basic, self-prepared spiel went. You wouldn't believe the cool reception we got. At the flipping Stones show! The band announced that they were collecting donations. They announced that the single would be the "premium" fans would receive in return. I got a lot of angry "I already gave's;" multiple eye-rolls; and "yeah, right's!" Now, we were within the policed perimeter of the venue. How can we be "selling" something that's not genuine? These people were makin...

Hey Soul Mates, it's Sunday morning. Just chilling with a homemade cup of espresso. Gotta get the motor running. However, I'm hoping to get out jogging in a little while. Managed to do the loop over at Lake Hollywood for the first time in months yesterday. The knee is ready! The voting on Next Big Hit got close last night and remains competitive, but our girls in NoVa put us over the hump for the time being. The voting for this week ends at 7 pm PST today. So if you haven't made your selection, now's the time. Tonight, the girls and I are going to the Stones concert at the Hollywood Bowl. This should be an historic event. It's their first appearance there since 1966. But, we're not going for the show, we are volunteering for the Red Cross to accept donations on behalf of the group. The Rolling Stones are being very generous (and considering their stature, and what they owe to black southern culture it's appropriate) and they are setting up donation collec...

Hey Soul Mates, I'm busy at the computer doing some design work for the promotional give-away for the next show at the Gig. Hope you are planning to attend. We have a special holiday something for our devoted fans. Tonight, I went with the girls to see the premiere of the high definition film of Duran Duran Live in London . Pretty spectacular (they used about 50 digital video cameras) and very loud. So many people bought tickets that the screening was moved to a larger theater with a bigger screen. I really enjoyed the four Duran Duran shows I've attended and reliving it via film was a nice reminder of how much so. They of course tore through classics like the Reflex, Is There Something I Should Know, Wild Boys, Notorious and Girls On Film . Plus, they ran down a couple of highlights from Astronaut (my #7 LP of the year, 2004). That John Taylor is a monster on bass. Sorely underrated. The audience was into it, singing along, screaming at the boys in the band and applauding at...