Norman's Rockwell

Hey Soul mates, thanks for supporting us all year. It's been a really good one. We've taken several important steps forward in our career and I'm pretty proud of what we've accomplished. There's still lots of work to be done. Thanks to everyone who recognizes the energy we do exert to put ourselves forth as entertainers. So, what's gone on in 2005? January, we started the year by joining MySpace and sharing an acoustic bill with our good friends, The Waking Hours. Several of newest die-hard fans got their first look at us at that performance. In the Spring, we prepared our newest songs for recording and went into the studio. Over the course of several weeks, beginning in May, our EP took shape. We started networking heavily to prepare the industry for the arrival of our new material. August saw the first of our two huge shows at BB Kings. A combined 400 people saw us at those gigs and they were sufficiently raucous. The second performance was our CD release sho...

Hey Soul Mates, it's Christmas Eve and perhaps you've got to make one last run out to a Loss-Leader to pick up a gift for someone. Well, here's my year-end run down of the best of 2005 in music. I'm going to be a little lazy this year and not write a whole lot about the choices. Why? Well, many of these LPs got the full treatment earlier in the year when they arrived. But I do recommend all of them and hope that you may enjoy them, too. In order of finish: 1. Get Behind Me Satan - The White Stripes. Simply the most interesting LP of the year. 2. The Emancipation Of Mimi - Mariah Carey. Call it a comeback. This is a contender for best pop album of the young millennium with Timberlake's Justified . 3. Late Registration - Kanye West. A tad long, but Gold Digger is the best single this side of A Talent For Loving . 4. You Could Have It So Much Better - Franz Ferdinand. Just a fun album of glammy Scots stomping. 5. A Bigger Bang - Rolling Stones. Their best in near...

Hey Soul Mates, our song A Talent For Loving is up for Best Song of the Year on Next Big Hit . Just visit the forum and vote for us. Let's see what we can have to show for 2005. I hope that everyone is having a good week in the run-up to Christmas. All my shopping is done. There wasn't much to do. Ha Ha. Love, Power, Peace

Hey Soul Mates, Happy Christmas Week. When I was in college, my dormmates used to tell me that all the time: You've got Beatles on the brain. Not a day went by in school that I didn't listen to a Beatles record or three. Well, it had been a while since I inundated my mind with Fabness. But the month of December has been a real throwback. It started slowly with the McCartney concert and the anniversary of Lennon's death. Then I got sick. And being home in bed, I got to watch a lot of TV. I thought I would catch up on some things lent to me including Let It Be . Over the course of a long weekend, I watched: The Beatles First US Visit and all the bonus materials Anthology discs 2-4 A Hard Day's Night, disc 2 supplements and interviews The Beatles promotional videos Let It Be How I Won The War Imagine Now, I'm working my way through the music. I hadn't listened to Beatles For Sale in years. All of my Beatles discs were just gathering dust. Having completed my colle...

Hey Soul Mates, you could call it a triumph for us at the Rumba Room last night. It was a FM radio-sponsored show; we supported a nationally known act. Pretty cool. We played our entire set for about 300 people who've never seen us before and didn't get a single cat-call or boo. In fact, the crowd was pretty good to us considering we played original songs. This was an audience that is used to cover bands preceding a national act with songs they've known for 20+ years. I'd say we acquitted ourselves handsomely. And we did look good in our reds and black. During the crowd warmup before our set, Bryan's guitar was knocked over and out of tune. Not an auspicious start, considering it took us a solid two-minutes of dead-air after being introduced to get going. But then, we got going good. We certainly rocked harder on our funky numbers than this group was prepared for. It being an R&B crowd, our slow jams were the highlights of the night. I thought that Everything My...

Hey Soul Mates, that's one of my all-time favorite movie lines. On occasion in real life, I've been able to say it. That bit of dialogue is from Silver Streak . My buddy Mike told me to say something about Richard Pryor . That man was funny. How about that? I always looked forward to going to his movies as a kid: Bustin' Loose, Wholly Moses!, Brewster's Millions, The Toy and See No Evil, Hear No Evil . Plus, if you got to see his latest movie, you were "cool." We'd watch the rest on TV: Car Wash, Bingo Long, Greased Lightning and The Wiz to name a few [I know one of Bryan's all-time faves is Moving ]. Just last month, I caught his big scene in Uptown Saturday Night on BET. These are not necessarily classics, but Mr. Pryor's performances were all enjoyable and there was a feeling of rebellion in watching him work. As a kid, it was like you were given a peek into the absurd, adult world through his humor. He was showing us how messed up America...

Hey Soul Mates, the Grammy nominations came out yesterday in the early a.m. I was going to comment on them immediately, but yesterday's blog had to be what it was. And today, I'm in no shape to write a lot. I've come down with a mother of a cold. My throat is constricted and I'm running a fever. Whoo. Add on to that, that I left 3/4 of a party-sized box of KFC crack-corn chicken at work, so I feel silly along with sick. Needless to say, I'm pretty pleased with the work that has been recognized in this year's Grammy nominations . I hope to have a full blog up by the end of the weekend. I'm off to bed for the next 48 hours. My apologies to whomever's Christmas parties I'm missing tomorrow. Love, Power, Peace

"Do you know who I am? I am Little Richard !" I overheard that shouted to a clerk at the US passport office on Wilshire Blvd. in Westwood, Jan. 17, 1996. That's the closest I've gotten to rock's true royalty. The Originator was about 30 feet away from me, decked out in a shiny black suit with gold trim, hair did and make-up applied. It was 7 a.m. and he was reading someone the riot act over a passport issue like they had taken away his name. And at 6' he was definitely not that little. Less than a year earlier, I had the opportunity to be in the audience for the American Music Awards at the Shrine. In a 40 year salute to Rock & Roll, Little Richard backed by the reunited Go-Go's opened the show with a ripping version of Tutti Frutti . And that's the only other time I've seen him perform. Happy Birthday, Mr. Penniman! We'd be living in nowheresville, population us, without you. His early publicity noted that was he was born on 12:01 am Chri...

Hey Soul Mates, we've begun a contest that is open to all of our friends on MySpace. So if you aren't a member, it's a decent reason to sign up. We are offering a free pair of passes to see us open for DeBarge on Wednesday, Dec 14, 2005. Visit our MySpace page for all the details. All you have to do to enter is leave the sassiest, funniest, best comment for us on our MySpace page. Check our blog there for rules, etc. The band will be judging the entries. We have a pretty creative bunch of fans, so I'm expecting some good reading this coming week. The winner will be announced in a week. Best of luck to everyone! I hope that we'll see a lot of you at this show anyway. It should be good fun. Enjoy your Saturday night. Love, Power, Peace

Hey Soul Mates, I'm speechless. Literally. I haven't blown out my pipes like that in years. My throat was acting up from lack of sleep and the hysteria at the McCartney show last night. But we made it to the end. I couldn't get near the high notes in A Talent For Loving and did the song 2 octaves lower than usual. Fortunately, we had a good crowd and we rolled with them like they were "student body right." Ha Ha. We put on a lively show, starting with Fall Out . We did an extended intro to Sucka and I'm proud to say, I didn't hurt myself leaping at the end of the song tonight. Our MySpace friend Lola from Georgetown had put in a request for Done Lost My Mind , so we dedicated it to her. And after plugging MySpace, our good friend Kurt, who works with the site, presented me with a paper rose. How sweet. We wish all of you could have been there. Those who were there, thanks for helping us rock the hizzie. Set List: Fall Out Everyone's Ingenue U Had Th...

Hey Soul Mates, we had a smashing time at the Paul McCartney show at Staples last night. Sadly, the rest of the audience didn't seem to be feeling it. The setlist may have had a lot to do with it. Paul opened with Magical Mystery Tour, Flaming Pie, I'll Get You (the flip of She Loves You ) and Jet . Not exactly a jump out of your seat hit parade. Regardless, the sound was crap and he was visibly perturbed about something. So it was a very slow start to the last night of the tour. Which is a shame. The crowd just didn't want to give back what the artists were giving. Macca's current backing band is a topnotch group, anchored by a vicious drummer who sang all of John's harmonies on the Beatle numbers. They really were better than last night's jaded LA audience deserved. I roamed between two sections during the show, Bryan had waaaaaaaaay better seats than me. His were next to the stage, front row. So we got to see Paulie from about 50 feet away. He looks good a...