A Note To My Neighbors

I realize that anyone to whom this applies will not be reading my blog, but I cannot go any longer without saying this:

My yard is not your dog's toilet.

Furthermore, if you feel okay just letting your hound walk onto our property and drop a giant smelly nugget, the least you can do is bag it up...and then not put it in our trashcan to fester all week long and stink up the house.

Some people have no manners.

Last Day of Kenna/ First Day of Hannah

I got back from Orlando on Sunday. What a whirlwind trip. We were in Florida for just about 24 hours. I was playing keys for Kenna at the Hard Rock Hotel for the Pepsi Smash event. We opened for the All-American Rejects. Here's a pic of the stage (courtesy of Amberwithafro):


They filmed the concert, but I'm not sure where or when it's airing. Kenna dragged me into the interview afterwards. They asked him when the new record is coming out. He looked at me and said "tell 'em Mike."

And I was like, "umm, next week or so?" How would I know? I'm just a "for hire" for a one-off!

Kenna said "October 16th" (I think that's what it was), and then again said, "tell 'em Mike."

And I, embarrassed, repeated, "October 16th."

So if you happen to see the show on TV, you'll probably catch me all redfaced under bright light.

In other news, today was our first Hannah Montana rehearsal. There's a lot of music. She's basically opening for herself, playing a set as Miley Cyrus before coming out and doing a whole set of Hannah stuff. So I have to learn and program synth sounds for about 30 songs. That'll take some time. I've got 8 down so far.

From what I hear, almost the entire tour is sold out at this point. The show at the Staples Center here in LA sold out within 2 minutes. And we'll be playing to some seriously large (10,000+) crowds every night. Sounds like a blast!

The band is rehearsing in a big soundstage and the dancers are rehearsing across the hall. We won't be joined by Miley until Saturday. I think we can get the band solid by then. I've got to get programming now though!

Gigs! Gigs! Gigs!

The gig last night at Genghis was a total blast. I shared the stage with Andrea Stolpe and Samantha Murphy. It was a perfect combo of different songwriting styles and personalities. I hope I have the pleasure of sharing the stage with them again very soon.

I've decided to take the Hannah Montana tour. Unfortunately, there was a miscommunication. They thought I had all my own gear. As a result of the MIDI project studio becoming so feasible, I sold all my synths a few years ago. Now I keep all my sounds in my computer and control them from a keyboard that has no sounds on it. This is a problem. I have to buy new synths for this tour. I still don't know if Disney is going to cover them, but it certainly won't be a dealbreaker. I'm heavily entrenched in Research Mode right now.

Next weekend, I'm playing a one-off gig with Kenna in Orlando. I love Kenna's music, so that should be a lot of fun. And they're running all their sounds out of Logic, so I don't even need to provide a keyboard for that. I'll just show up and play. My favorite. The lugging and setting up of gear is the main thing about live shows that I don't like. It's like moving, minus the U-Haul.