Disaster strikes my Les Paul AGAIN!

We entered the studio yesterday to continue working on our cd. The schedule called for finishing all the guitar overdubs, background vocals and for Joey to begin laying down his lead vocals. Upon opening my guitar case I discovered that the head piece had broken in exactly the same place as it did two and a half years ago
(see this post).

Instead of bumming out over it and letting it ruin my plans I shrugged it off (until today that is) and took out my 12 string Rickenbacker. Switching gears like that actually brought out an interesting guitar interplay with the existing tracks and low and behold, POWER POP HEAVEN!
I brought my ailing axe (nice alliteration, huh?) back to Sam Ash and was told by the guitar tech that I was lucky that it broke on the same "seam" and that he could fix it, but this time more permanently than before. The drawback? It will take two to three months! So now my question is; should I bring my 12 string to IPO NY or use my Telecaster?

What are your thoughts?

Unbilled Appearance

Last night we played an impromptu set at one of New York City's oldest continuously open drinking establishments, Desmond's Tavern on South Park Ave.

It was an evening of rockabilly, ballads, and of course Power POP! (we supplied the power pop).

The purpose of the gig was to act as "dress rehearsal" for our upcoming International Pop Overthrow appearance at Kenny's Castaways on November 7th.

This will be the third year in a row that we have been part of IPO and as I have mentioned on a number of occasions, IPO is the highlight of our year. David Bash, thanks for being you.

Jellyfish - Bellybutton

Yea I know. I'm preaching to the choir here. Can I help it if this is one of my top all time favorite albums? (no kidding!)

For those of you who don't know (yea, right) Jellyfish was the quintessential MODERN Power Pop band. This album from 1992 defined a sound and left a benchmark for other lover's of Beatles cum Brian Wilson (with a touch of Queen and XTC thrown in) guitar driven melodic rock and roll that has not been reached often enough for my taste.

Members Roger Manning Jr. (keyboard wizard), Jason Faulkner (guitar genius also known for his work with The Caulfields) and most importantly lead vocalist (and drummer!) Andy Sturmer who produced The Merrymaker's Bubblegun (but that's another blog entry!).

I had the unique pleasure of seeing them and was amazed to discover that they sounded even better live! Andy had his drums set up at the front edge of the stage, sang every song and played all of those fantastic drum fills WHILE STANDING! Astounding!

So click on the pic to download the zipped folder, Bellybutton. A Power Pop CLASSIC!

Last minute gig this Friday

Punk is not dead and apparently we are considered punk? For that reason we were asked to be on the bill of a punk rock show at a hip little downtown club called Fontana's. Here's the flyer...

Still working on our new CD

Been working on our new disk since March. It's a long and arduous process but so far the results are more than promising. In fact I am VERY excited by our new recordings and more importantly by how the band has embraced my new songs and made them their own (mine too!).
Besides our new band member David on keyboards (with us since his guest appearance on our previous CD)
we had the pleasure of working with the fabulous sax player Danny Ray, who literally blew us away with his contribution to our song "Almost In Tears".


Besides manning the drums, Rich also was manning his video camera!

Dave The BoogieMan Power Pop Plus

Dave the Boogieman is dedicated to spreading the Power POP word via his internet radio show on Radio New York International, which airs every Sunday night.

This past Sunday he featured two songs from our recent CD, "Now and Then". Click the play button to hear!

The show starts at 7:30 Sunday evenings. Click here! to connect to their server. Past shows can be downloaded, burned to CD's or uploaded to your IPod by clicking here!

International Pop Overthrow New York

For the third year running we are appearing at The International Pop Overthrow in New York, a Power POP festival that travels the world and makes stops in many major cities. David Bash who runs the festival has dedicated his life to promoting what he calls "melodic rock". More power (pop) to him!

The festival runs from November 3rd through the 8th. We are appearing Saturday November 7th at 10 PM (prime slot!).