Body Double (AKA Shut Up Already!)

Okay, I just have to chime in about this body double scandal. For those of you who haven't heard, OK Magazine has published this story:

According to several fans who dished out hundreds of dollars to catch the young singer perform live on her current sold-out national tour, it appears Miley may be using a not-very-convincing "Hannah" double to cover for her during a mysterious mid-song disappearance from the stage.

"When it got the to bridge of the song "We Got the Party," her dancers began to crowd around her," one ticked-off Miley fan tells OK!. "Then they covered her with a black sheet and she went through a secret door. Within a second, a new 'Hannah' came out of a different door wearing oversized white glasses. The whole time this was happening Miley's vocals were still playing. The new imposter had her back turned while she danced, trying to hide that fact that she was not Miley Cyrus. At this instant I became very suspicious."

"Needless to say I was furious!" says the irate fan. "I paid good money to see the concert. I was disappointed and I felt like I was played for a fool."

This story has become sort of a big deal, and people are accusing Miley of being a fake. Let me state for the record that Miley is the real deal. She sings her heart out every night.

Let me also explain how entertainment works. Entertainment is not reality. We're putting on a show here. Doubles are used frequently in big shows like this to speed transitions. This does not mean that Miley is lipsynching. Miley sings the entire song but the last chorus, which is strictly a logistical solution. Think about it from the perspective of executing the show yourself. If Hannah has to come back out as Miley in ten minutes, and in that ten minutes, has to remove the wig, change clothes, and do her Miley hairstyle, an extra two minutes becomes very important. So she needs to get off stage early, but there's no way she can be singing while she's changing her clothes, so it must be pre-recorded. There's no way around it. These things happen all the time. People are comparing this to Ashlee Simpson, which is wrong. This is how these big shows are put together. But the difference is, most artists don't have exclusively teenage fans who don't understand how shows are assembled.

Miley is not on stage lipsynching. And as OK Magazine said, the double is not that convincing, and the dancers are obviously covering Hannah in a black sheet. Not really scandal material so much as a tiny show detail to notice. No one is trying to cover this up.

Long story short - hey kids: you enjoyed the show, right? Miley entertained you. Right? Leave it at that and stop accusing the most genuine, talented, sweet girl in the business of being a fake. Don't you have homework to do?

The Gifts

Wow. I'm exhausted. It's been a wonderful whirlwind weekend of friends and family. We've been in DC and Baltimore - both right near my old neighborhood, so I tried to see as many people as I could.

We'll do these one entry at a time.

The first day in DC, I met up with my old high school buddy, Kevin Gift and his wife Laura. They have two sweet little babies now. Hallie, the smartest three-year-old I've ever met. She loves to chat. The second their car pulled up, she looked at me and said, "Hi Michael! Sit with me, Michael!" And then she wanted to hold my hand all night.

We went to an awesome restaurant where they brewed their own delicious root beer.

Hallie and mother Laura

Little one-year-old brother Xander wasn't having the best of times, but then it's pretty hard to be a one-year-old. Takes a lot of work to do anything. Such a nice guy though. Here he is with his Daddy.

Xander and father Kevin

We all tried to catch up in a very short period of time (about two hours), as there's not a very large window when you have two younguns.

Then we went out and bought me toothpaste.

Good Times Square: Part Two

The previous evening, I had given my hotel room key to my good friend, Ben Pedersen, so he could meet me to celebrate my birthday. After the performance with Miley, I left the ABC building and booked it back to the hotel room to find Ben watching the Jonas Brothers Rockin' Eve performance. It was pretty strange to see, on national TV, the place where I was only moments earlier.

We contemplated leaving the hotel and heading back to Times Square for the big ball drop ceremony, but it sounded like so much trouble, considering the massive crowds, the cold weather and the fact that we had a nice warm room with the very same thing on TV. Yes, we felt a little bit lame watching a broadcast from only a block away, but we were okay with lame.

Around 11pm I noticed that I was completely famished. And I had quite a hankering for some birthday cake. But we couldn't leave before the ball drop! So we waited.

Big countdown. 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1-Happy New Year!!!! Now let's get something to eat.

We thought maybe the bar downstairs would be open. Nope. Closed at twelve. So we ventured outside and down the street. It looked like a confetti factory exploded out there.

Times Square was total anarchy. There were policeman everywhere, "trying to keep order." Really though, they were doing the opposite. We saw an open-looking Planet Hollywood a block away, and headed that direction, following the rest of the crowd down the sidewalk, when we were stopped by a cop who said we couldn't go that way. I replied, "The people in front of us just did." To which he cryptically replied, "Exit only." How that applied to this, I have no idea. He said we had to go the other direction. So we did.


Only to be stopped by another cop saying, "You can't go this direction." And he pointed to where we just came from. I told him, "That guy just told us we had to go this way." To which he replied, "Exit only."

Okay whatever. So Times Square was out. Those people are crazy, and clearly have a strong desire to assert random unhelpful power.

So we started walking a different direction and noticed that almost every restaurant was closed. At this point, it was past 1am -- but STILL -- this is New York City! It never sleeps! Right? Apparently not true for New Year's Eve, which is the one night of the year they definitely should be open late. There were a couple places that were open, but only for private parties.

We found one cafe that was open and decided to try our luck. Our luck was not good. All the food looked really old and crusty. This was the place where all mediocre food goes to die. The Cafe of Broken Dreams. Oh, and there was no cake to be found.

After barely eating all day, playing an intense gig, and then walking for a couple hours, I was getting lightheaded. So I grabbed some yogurt. I was just reading about the health benefits of yogurt. And they said that plain is better for you. So I opted for plain yogurt.

I know I was hungry, but it tasted like paste from the dumpster. I ate a little, almost gagged, made myself eat some more, almost really gagged, and tossed it into an overflowing garbage can on the street.

We were feeling ragged and frustrated that we couldn't find one place in all of NYC that was open (other than the Cafe of Broken Dreams).

And then we saw it in the distance. Two blocks away. Golden arches.

Ben felt really bad about me eating McDonald's for my birthday dinner, but we really were out of options. I said, "At this point, I don't care. I'm just starving and feel like I'm gonna fall over." So we followed that golden beacon. When we arrived we saw that the entire restaurant was packed...but like, packed in a sardine kind of way that I've never seen in a McDonald's before. While I was okay with eating there for my birthday, I was not okay with waiting in line a half-hour for a stomach ache on my birthday.

So we thought, the only other option is to head back to the hotel and get room service, even though we knew the Mansfield was going to charge an arm, a leg, and two eyeballs for a piece of cheese. But at this point, a few body parts swapped for an hors d'oeuvre sounded like a logical choice.

I hated the idea that we left the cozy hotel room at midnight, wandered around for nearly two hours, withered, died, and returned to the room with nothing. But that's what we did.

When we got back, I was just about to pick up the phone for room service, when it occurred to Ben. "This is New York City! DELIVERY!" So we spent about fifteen minutes looking at places online, found a bunch of tasty restaurants and called them. Every single one was closed for New Year's Eve.

So, around 3am, I ordered room service. I'll miss my arm, my leg and my eyes, but we got some extremely delicious sandwiches, and the one thing I really wanted: Cinnabon Cheesecake.

Maybe this night sounds a little like a drag, but trust me, when you do this with Ben Pedersen, it adds up to one of the best birthdays ever.

Kind of a Big Deal on Broadjam

Apparently my song "Forget You" was the most downloaded song of 2007 on Broadjam. This is pretty amazing and strange to me for a few reasons:

1.) Broadjam is a gigantic site with tens of thousands of musicians featured.
2.) There was a lot of good music in 2007.
3.) The song "Forget You" was just a demo that I never intended to release, recorded only as a tool for another recording artist (my sister) to learn the song. But my demo was featured on "The Black Donnellys" on NBC, and all of a sudden people just started downloading it and never stopped. I have recorded a brand new version of it with a string quartet for my upcoming album.

As Chuck Lee Bramlet said about songwriting, "You never know which one of your bastard children is going to wander out into the world and make something of itself."

Too true.

What Should I Eat?!

Good ol' Iggy from the crew mentioned a few weeks back that I was sick frequently. His sweet readers became concerned about my diet. So Iggy has posted a poll, asking what you think I should eat. So, go vote. Only 22 hours left till the polls close.

In other news, this is all moot cause I've been healthy since before Christmas. I think I finally shook the unshakable cold.

Good Times Square: Part One

New Years Eve was certainly the most bizarre birthday I've ever had. I woke up around noon (this part was pretty normal, unfortunately) and did the daily food scavenge. Didn't find much in the minibar. So I went back to Cafe Europa, where I had breakfast with Jae and Robin the previous day. "Stick with the safe choice!" That's what I always say. Who cares if you're in a city filled with a multitude of delicious options?

Then I celebrated my birthday by going to the Sprint store and activating my brand new (to me) Treo. Very exciting. While I was in a celebratory mood, I decided to swing by Best Buy on the way back to the hotel to pick up a Spoon record I really wanted. As a present to myself. I went in and found the CD immediately. And then I looked up and realized that Best Buy + NYC + New Year's Eve = NO. The line stretched all the way through the store and out the front door. So I put it down and left.

Later, we all hopped in the van (minus Candice and Kay who unfortunately were replaced by dancers for the day, as there wasn't going to be much room on our tiny rooftop stage). Luckily, Times Square was only three blocks from our hotel, so even with traffic we anticipated a short ride. Unluckily, the police re-routed us at every intersection in some cruel display of misplaced power. It took us almost 45 minutes to get there. Stacy and I thought we should just get out and walk, but for some reason, nobody seemed to want to. This was absurd.

We showed our top-secret Dick Clark passes and were ushered into the ABC building into a tiny room that (strangely enough) had a washer and dryer in it. This was our dressing room.

They brought in some Virgil's Barbecue, but I didn't really like it. Despite everyone saying it was some world-class restaurant, nobody really enjoyed the food in front of us.

Around 5pm, they escorted us all up to the roof for a sound check. It was freezing up there.


The dancers quickly cobbled together a routine, adapted for the tiny stage. We were all very impressed with them.

(R-L: Christina Glur and Ashlee Nino)

To our right, we could see that a massive crowd had already gathered in Times Square. However, we weren't performing to them. Though it looks, on TV, like we're facing the crowd, this is what was directly in front of us:

A lot of people, equipment, and (oddly enough) a UFC billboard owned by CBS. (Why was this on top of the ABC building?)

Stacy began arranging his kit, Jaco was playing with his amp, and I was setting up my keyboard, when BAM, they just started the ProTools tracks and we had to go go go. Nobody even told us we were playing yet and off we went.

Everybody felt frazzled but we got it together quickly. By the time the song ended, we weren't sure if we'd just done a rehearsal or a pre-tape. I think it was both. We did it one more time and then headed back downstairs to the warmth of the Barbecue Laundry Room.

Jack then notified us that we had five hours till the show. Great. Let's go explore! Except, ABC + NYC + New Year's Eve = NO. We weren't allowed to leave the building. The whole place was on lockdown. Nobody really brought anything to do. Except Jamie. He had a deck of cards.

So this is what the next five hours looked like:

Notice, behind Jack is Times Square. We had a great view of all the people wearing their red hats (sponsored by Pontiac!) and the acts performing. We had a TV in the room with a feed of what was going on outside. So we could watch Carrie Underwood on TV and hear the bass and the crowd screaming from outside, and poke our head out the window and looky -- there's Carrie Underwood!

Mostly though we just played cards.

At precisely 9:50pm, we were hurried back up to the roof. Tiffany gave us heating pads to stuff into our clothes. I had previously bought some cut-off gloves from H&M, and I quickly stuffed the pads into the palms. I thought I'd leave my coat behind since we were only playing two songs and I wasn't going to wear it during the broadcast (who wants to look like a puffy porpoise on national TV?).

Little did I know we'd be standing there for a full 20 minutes before we played.

As I froze my bony booty off, I enjoyed this view of the revelers:

The revelers happened to be reveling without any alcohol this year, as Times Square is dry for New Year's. They still seemed totally drunk.

We got a 10 minute warning. Then 5. Then 2 minutes. We were all waiting for the 5-4-3-2 countdown before we start playing.

It didn't come. BANG! The ProTools started again. WHAT!? We all just ran with it. Live television, ladies and germs! When you watch it, you might be able to notice that we're all a little surprised at the beginning.

Needless to say, Miley was great. She was energetic and a total pro in the arctic weather. She's a little 15-year-old powerhouse.

My fingers were frozen, and I had a painful hangnail on my thumb which I had to slam all over the keyboard. None of this felt good.

But what a thrill it was to look to the right and see us playing on all the Jumbotrons in Times Square.

And then as quickly as it began, it was over.

Here it is, as seen on TV (only grainier):


Then we all practically ran out of that building.

But the night wasn't over yet. Part Two coming soon.

The Big Behind

Pardon the lack of posts lately. Totally not pro of me. I could make excuses, like: we had no internet at the hotel, I was tired, but excuses wouldn't...oh wait, I did just make excuses.

I'm not just behind on the blog. I'm behind on Myspace, Facebook, Pownce...and the list goes on. If you've sent me a message or comment and I haven't responded, don't worry, I will.

New Years Eve report coming later today. Now you can breathe. Don't worry. I would never abandon you.

Friends Marathon

I've got a little catching up to do here on the blog, so I'll delve into the New Years' Eve stuff in a later entry.

Coming in to New York City, I had this great idea to try and get in touch with a bunch of friends, regardless of the fact that I had very little time to do this. After our first Newark show, I went out for a late night meal with Koo Chung, Jinny Kim (they're engaged now!) and John Bonaventura (who's also engaged now, but his girl wasn't able to join us).

They were part of last year's tour. You know, this one:

We talked about life after the explosion, relationships, work...everything. And had chocolate cake. John likes to drink his wine on the rocks. He says that every time he orders it, the waiter brings the ice in a separate glass, cause no one can believe he would want to ruin a perfectly good glass of wine like that.

I mentioned to Koo that I've been looking to get a BlackBerry, but it just kept not happening, and Koo said he'd just bought an iPhone and didn't need his Treo anymore. Bang! I've got a new phone. And I love it. I've finally joined the texting world of five years ago.

After going to bed much too late, I woke up much too early to have breakfast with Robin Lai and Jae Ko at Cafe Europa.

They were also in the band of said exploding tour. It was wonderful to see them again, and it really felt like reuniting with fellow trauma survivors. That giant Arkansas fireball bonded us in a strange and permanent way.

That same day we played our second Newark show, and it was attended by one of my very favorite people: Ben Pedersen.

Afterwards, we headed back into the city, had warm bubble tea and dumplings at Saint Alps Teahouse, walked the streets of the East Village, checked out the bookshops, and found numerous things to laugh at. Like this:

Apparently it was garbage night in NYC, according to this ubiquitous sight:

Once again I went to bed much too late, half expecting to feel sick in the morning, but I've switched to new vitamins, and I've been feeling good for a couple weeks now! Yay!

NYE in NYC!

It's New Years Eve in New York City!

I've finally got the details for Dick Clark's Rockin' Eve tonight (strangely hosted by Ryan Seacrest). We're on at 10:10pm Eastern on ABC. We're playing "Start All Over" and "GNO (Girls' Night Out)."

Hopefully you'll put us on in the background of your party. Otherwise TiVo us and go dance the night away!

Apologies for the lack of new blog content lately. I've been extremely busy and having a great time in NYC the last few days. You'll hear all about it when I'm bored in Cleveland tomorrow.

Wanna Know Why You're Reading This? Let Me Tell You!

After 835 votes, the "Why Do You Read This Blog" poll is closed. Of all my readers:

-a whopping 45% of you are Jonas Brothers fans
-18% of you are Mike Schmid fans
-14% of you are Miley/Hannah fans (this is shocking!)
-9% of you just like pithy tour blogs
-6% are totally bored
-and 8% of you said "other" and left me fun comments. Some of my personal favorites were:

"I have no life"
"I like sarcasm"
and
"Mike Schmid is the next Sufjan Stevens!"

Thank you all for voting!

Long Island vs New Jersey

We just came off stage from night three of our four-night engagement in the NYC area. Long Island's audiences blew Newark's out of the water, enthusiasm-wise. But hopefully everybody was having fun tonight. Jamie said New Yorkers have pretty much seen it all, so I guess we shouldn't feel too discouraged.

The kids were still smiling, albeit in relative silence. And when I say relative silence, I mean screaming really loud. Just not as loud as usual.

Boy are we spoiled.

Our Wacky Schedule

For the ultra-curious, here's our typical daily rundown:

Anywhere between 10am-1pm - Wake up, scavenge for food (get room service? or go exploring the town?)
3:00 - Hop on the bus, go to the venue
4:00 - Sound check
5:00 - Dinner at catering, then find a way to fill the remaining time (massage, blogging, reading, just sort of sitting around)
7:00 - Show starts (Jonas Brothers go on)
7:40 - We've all got to be dressed and ready
7:45 - We form the Circle of Power with Miley and psych up for the show
Around 7:50 - We go on stage
9:35 - Show ends, we change back into street clothes
10:00 - Back on the bus, have dinner
11:00 - We roll out to the next city. Depending on the drive, this takes anywhere from one to thirteen hours. During this time we watch movies, chat and sleep in our bunks.
5am-ish: We arrive in the next city, wake up a little bit, groggily grab our luggage and head up to our hotel rooms. This is when I take my hotel portrait for the blog (that's why I always look so tired) and post it. Sometimes I'll write an entry too. Then it's off to bed.

And then we do it all over again.

DISCLAIMER: I don't know Miley's schedule, or the Jonases. This is just the band's routine.

A Wonderful No-Frills Christmas

This was a different kind of Christmas. A wonderful no-frills Christmas.

My Mom had just recently gotten out of the hospital after a difficult surgery (she's recovering quite well), so my parents hadn't any time to prepare for the holidays. And being on tour, I hadn't any time to shop either. So on the night of the 23rd, we hit one shop-filled strip and did all our shopping in a couple hours.

We decided to celebrate Christmas on the 24th, since I had such a short time at home, we thought why not spend less time on the anticipation and more time on the celebration? We also decided that wrapping presents was a waste of our precious time, so we put the gifts in previously-used Christmas bags and boxes, and put them under our cute little purple tree (my Mom's name and favorite color are both Violet).

Then our neighbor Susie delivered a boysenberry pie that she baked. My Dad thought we should make that my birthday pie, so he cut up a straw and put the pieces in for candles:

Of course we didn't light them on fire cause who likes to eat melted plastic?

On the 24th, we opened our presents by the purple tree.

We followed that up by doing a little more Christmas shopping, but not very much. Then we returned home and played with our new gifts, which meant much playing of Portal on The Orange Box (the cake is a lie!).

Also, the house was fairly dirty, as I've been gone for awhile, and my sweet parents swooped in (as they do) and made everything nice:

On the 25th, we celebrated my parents' birthdays, which were back in October, by eating yummy Italian food and seeing "Enchanted," which is much better than you might think (quite fantastic, actually).

Also, there was much more playing of Portal on The Orange Box. Delicious.

I flew back to New York after my short three-day break feeling quite rejuvenated. We're staying at a very old hotel with some very strange quirks. Today I turned on the shower and was greeted by brown water. Ahh, New York.

Merry Christmas to All!

I'm at home for a couple of days, enjoying the holidays with my family. I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas!

The Pillow Menu

Our final show in Worcester tonight was a giddy festival of fun. It was like the last day of school when everything is exciting and silly.

We all split off to separate buses to our various destinations (as everybody is headed in different directions for Christmas), meaning we got to ride with Ellen from makeup, Tiffany from wardrobe and Gabi from ticketing. This equals fun. We had lots of wine and bonded over all the music we like in common. We were blaring The Pixies, Travis, Royksopp, and other awesomeness for hours. It was nice to listen to something that wasn't Iron Maiden or AC/DC for a moment.

And now here we are at the Holiday Inn and I'm at a crossroads.

Upon entering my room, I encountered this:


It's like pillows in prison. How...different. But my confusion was dispelled when I saw this:

I then tested them all and found that none of them were comfortable.

I Don't Mean To Say I Told You So, But...

That movie that I was raving about in July, Juno, has finally been released in theaters, and it's getting rave reviews from everyone with a pulse. It currently has a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes. Seek it out. You won't be disappointed.

I can't imagine anyone not loving this movie. It's got something for everyone.

Ellen, Miley's makeup artist, happens to be a member of the Academy, and she lent us her Juno DVD screener so we could watch it on the bus. For two reasons:

1. Candice happens to be in it. She's hilarious.
2. Ellen knew the whole band would love it. And love it they did.

It's probably the only thing we all agree on.

Recap/It's All Blurring Together

We played a fairly sober show in Hartford, Connecticut. Jaime, Stacy and Kay demanded Pepe's Pizza, cause I don't know, it brough back fuzzy memories or something. So it ended up on our bus after the show. And it was a good dinner.

And a mediocre breakfast. And a sketchy dinner the next day. Honestly, we'll probably eat it today too. I think it's coming to the end of its lifespan. There sure was a lot of it, though.

Last night we played a rip-roaring rambunctious show in Providence, Rhode Island. That audience was crazy. They even stomped their feet for the encore.

Now we've just got a show tonight and tomorrow night in Worcester (hooray for staying in the same place for two nights! Yay! I can almost move in!), and then we're all flying to our families for a brief (3 day) Christmas break.

Hot Off the Presses!

At the show in Hartford, Kay was visited by some friends from the Boston Globe. They wrote a fun behind-the-scenes article about Ms. Hanley's pre-show preparations. You can read it here. It's all about The Hair.

How To Fight Loneliness

Christmas is less than a week away. How did that happen? Last time I looked around, it was October. This tour is like a tunnel.

Now all my friends and family are going to hate me because I won't even have a chance to do any Christmas shopping until the 23rd. Bring on the late presents!

Boo.

But you, my loyal blog readers, will get your gift on time. Let me ruin the surprise. It's a song. Okay...a sad song. As it does get lonely on the road, I've recorded a cover version of Wilco's "How To Fight Loneliness." I put this one together in my hotel room in Philly the other day.

To listen, just click the link. To download, right click the link (ctrl-click on Mac) and choose "Save Link As."

How To Fight Loneliness

I know this song's a little bleak for Christmas, but I hope you enjoy it anyway. Just a small thank you for taking the time to read my blog. Happy Holidays to you all.

Dick Clark's Rockin' Eve

Breaking news. We'll be playing Dick Clark's New Years' Eve special. So pay a little more attention at your ball-dropping-party-of-choice, as we'll be rockin' your TV screen. And scream "Happy Birthday" to said TV screen, cause I was born on the last day of the year!