The Today Show

It was early, it was wet.


There was water dripping down from the top of the tent onto my keyboards, so I laid a towel on some of the keys and marked them off limits.



Somebody made me a sign!  Please do this during the tour.  I need to know where ma' fans at.

Atlantis

The Bahamas trip was a nonstop party. The day before I left, I received the verdict that Noah would be coming to live with me, so despite the fact that I was on the island for a job, I decided to enjoy every second, and celebrate for the entirety of the trip, starting by appreciating the gorgeous view from the plane:

If you squint, through those clouds, you can see the coast down on the ground. And that coast was jaw-droppingly gorgeous.

My friend Ben flew out to bask in all the touristy glory of the resort on the man-made island. We spent our time reveling in the crystal-clear water, riding the big Mayan temple water slides:

Enjoying our crazy awesome view:

And just generally becoming beach bums. My favorite attraction in Atlantis was the Lazy River, which is an inner tube ride that loops all the way around the island. Most of it is slow and relaxing, and then you hit a series of rapids that buffets you out of your tranquility. Then back to the calm part. It was sort of like my divorce.

Oh yeah, we played a show. That's why we were there. It was rockin' and the audience was great.

Then more partying. More swimming. More eating. And home.

The Post-Premiere Nashville Bash

A couple hundred lucky superfans won tickets to the Nashville premiere of the Hannah Montana movie, and afterwards, they were bussed out to the Country Music Hall of Fame, where we put on a surprise concert of surprising awesomeness.

Here's the setlist:

You may have noticed some special guests. In addition to Billy Ray and Miley, we were joined by Sheryl Crow, Jeffrey Steel and Ed King.

Sheryl did a duet version of "Real Gone" (which she wrote) with Billy Ray, and we played her hit, "If It Makes You Happy", which was a total blast. Total pro, that one. Then we all rushed her for pictures:

L to R: Me, Sheryl, niece Ava

Sara, Sheryl, Carmel

Those are our new background singers, by the way.

We played Sweet Home Alabama with Ed King, the dude that wrote it. And after hearing countless awful bar bands play it, it was pretty mindblowing to hear his authentic version.

Jeffrey Steele has co-written several of Miley's tunes, including "Simple Song", which we played with him, and then we jammed on his song, "Hollywood Girl", which has been a favorite of Miley's since she was very little.

A lot of this stuff was put together at the last minute, so the band spent most of our day at the hotel, learning all these new songs. I actually kinda like it when they throw that kind of stuff at us.

After the show, I hung out with Mai, one of Miley's makeup people. I always love when Mai shows up. What a sweetheart.

Then we hopped on a plane and came home.

L.A. Premiere

The L.A. premiere of the Hannah Montana movie was a big success. I didn't get to see the whole thing, cause we were getting ready to do our thang in the dressing room, but what I did see was very fun and entertaining, and we were all commenting on how gorgeously-shot the movie is.

As the movie ended, the screen lifted, smoke poured out and Miley surprised everyone with a concert.

Here are some pics from our rehearsal with the orchestra:

You Can Still Watch

The RawRhythms show was a lot of fun. The always lovely Molly Jenson even stopped by.

You can see the show in its entirety here.

I Will Answer Your Questions

On tonight's RawRhythms show (info in previous entry), you can comment and ask me questions that I will answer live. Or, if you aren't going to be able to watch the show, you can post your questions/comments right now by going HERE.

At 11pm Eastern/ 8pm Pacific, you can watch the show HERE.

RawRhythms

This Monday night, I'm doing a live performance and interview on RawRhythms, an hour-long internet music show. I'll be playing 6 songs. You can send in comments and questions for me that I'll be answering live! Tune in at 11pm Eastern/ 8pm Pacific to thestream.tv.

All-Covers Singalong this Friday!

This Friday, March 20, is my All-Covers show at Genghis. I'll be playing with my Small But Mighty Band (Jan Stolpe on guitar and Mark Stanley on percussion), and we're gonna put our own spin on Elvis Costello, Tom Petty, Billy Joel, The Beatles, Elton John and lots more fun stuff.

I'm really excited about this one. It's gonna be a great time. Come on out and sing/shout/laugh along.

Genghis Cohen
9pm
$7
740 N Fairfax Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90046
http://www.genghiscohen.com/

I Believe the Children Are Our Future, Teach Them Well and Let Them Lead the Way, Show Them All the Beauty They Possess Inside...

The night before the Inauguration, we flew to DC to play a Kids Inaugural concert presented by Michelle Obama. She was in the front row with her kids, enjoying Miley, The Jonas Brothers, Demi Lovado, Corbin Bleu (my favorite chicken dish) and Lil' Bow Wow, who I was notified is no longer lil'. He still looks lil', however, so it is quite confusing.

We began with soundcheck, as always. Here's a slice of how slow and uneventful those things are:



Despite the Big Nothing happening in that video, you can still hear how sweet Billy Ray is, as he makes small talk with a crew member.

Then Clay (our playback guy and my dear friend) and I decided to hit the streets and see the hoopla!

Mainly, the hoopla consisted of icy cold air, tons of people (half of whom were selling Barack-related merchandise to the other half), and many many cops.

Obama Obobbleheads

Obama Water

(Because you'll never go broke underestimating the American public)

The Street-level Mosh Pit

We pushed and shoved our way back to the arena for our show:

And then we made history all over the place. Miley even brought a tear to us hardened band members when she sang "The Climb."

All Covers @ Genghis Cohen

This Friday, I'll be playing a very special all-covers show at Genghis. I've never done this before, so come on out and get all experimental with me.

Friday, Jan 9th @ 10pm
Genghis Cohen
740 N. Fairfax Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90046

Kosher Dumplings & Unkosher Music

I had a beautiful show at Genghis. Thanks to all the lovely folks that came out, listened, bought my new album and just generally reveled in the Jewish Chineseyness of Genghis Cohen.

Here's a pic I took from the stage during the show:

Shiny Happy People

(Pic courtesy of Robyn Horton)

With my supremely talented and supremely kind friends Andrea & Jan Stolpe.

Andrea and Jan went above and beyond the "friend call of duty," as Andrea hocked merchandise and collected cash for me, while Jan chauffeured my car around and roadied my gear offstage, so I could be free to talk to audience members afterwards. I'm grateful to have such awesome friends.

See Me Live This Saturday!

Do you want to:

-Hear great new music?
-Bask in the glow of Mike Schmid (and buy his new CD)?
-Have some critically acclaimed Chinese food?
-Sit in a pew for no apparent reason and pretend you're having mixed drinks in church?

Well, boy are you in luck! You can do all these things this Saturday night at Genghis Cohen!

Details:
Mike Schmid @ Genghis Cohen
Saturday, September 6 - 8:30pm
740 N. Fairfax Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90046

Connie Kim @ Tangier - Prepare to Be Amazed

Connie Kim creates some of the most beautiful and unusual music I've ever heard. Her songs conjure a world of voodoo dolls, talking fruits and circus performers, as heard through an antique victrola. She's playing Wednesday night at 8pm at Tangier in Los Feliz. I'll be on keys, melodica and glockenspiel, and we'll be joined by a string section and band. She puts on a spellbinding live show. You won't be disappointed.

Stewboss and Rob Giles! Fun Times!

Tonight, I'll be playing keyboards with the Americana band Stewboss at Universal CityWalk. We've been having a lot of fun in rehearsals, and I'm excited about the show. If you're into Tom Petty, Wilco or the Wallflowers, you'll love yourself some Stewboss. It's gonna be a beautiful night of rocking out, so come check out the show, stroll along the 'Walk, grab a churro, see a movie, or try flying in that weird fake skydiving thingy.

Monday night (August 11), Rob Giles is doing his monthly residency at Molly Malones, and he's invited me to join him on stage. I'll be playing some songs from my brand new, soon-to-be-released album, The House We Built. And honestly, I'm just so happy that I get to watch Rob play. He's pretty friggin' amazing.

And if you come to either (or both!) of these shows, please feel free to introduce yourself to me afterwards. I love meeting my readers. Cause without you guys, this would just be a diary.

The Today Show

I realize I'm a bit behind on the blogging. Life just barrels onward, and I can't seem to catch my breath. Having a great time though.

So, a couple weeks ago we played The Today Show (which along with The Tonight Show, completes the set for us, I suppose). The concert took place smack dab in the middle of Rockefeller Square, with approximately 12,000 people shoehorned in there, which was sort of like dropping the entire Pacific ocean into a drinking glass.

I got to play with the brand new, delicious keyboards that Roland supplied me with, in exchange for my Miley-related face. They're much easier to play than my old keyboards, with the added benefit of making Schmid Island look like a totally pro vacation destination.

Mike - stunned by the keyboard greatness.
Nate - bored behind his drumset.

This was another whirlwind trip for us. We got in late at night, and the morning of the show, we had to soundcheck at 5am. Miley only got a few hours of sleep, but of course she was still brilliant. And of course, so were we. That's what we get paid for. The complaining is a free bonus (I like to call it "added value").

In the dressing room, they had a big spread of donuts, fruit and sandwiches. So of course, I had three donuts. When the show began, I had a stomach ache (what am I, five? "Mikey can't resist the candy", eh?).

Jaco is constantly asking me to take his picture

But this time he returned the favor.
I'm apparently ready to fake pounce, or something.

Nate and I became fast friends. If you happen to have the show Tivo'd, you can see at the beginning of Miley's dressing room interview, Nate and I are sitting on the couch behind her, having some fun with his iPhone. He had installed the Magic 8-Ball application and we were asking it some questions (at the most inappropriate possible time). First, "will we be a complete trainwreck on stage?" It's answer: "Of course!" Second, Nate asked, "will I be responsible for this?" The ball replied, "Absolutely not." So Nate was off scot-free, but who was going to ruin the show?

We went back out to the stage and played our faces off. It was a pretty typical show: Kay and Nadia shook their little booties, I held down the Island, Nate banged on some stuff, Jamie and Jaco got way too much camera time, Vashon intimidated little girls, Stacy looked on with a broken arm and a tear in his eye, and Miley belted like the charismatic little rockstar she is.

Turns out the only thing that went wrong is that the host didn't know we were playing another song, and tried to throw to commercial. But really, 8-Ball -- "train wreck?" That may be pushing it.

Before the flight home, Nate bought me a book of Sudoku, as we were talking about how I didn't understand the mass cultural fascination with it. Of course, I also thought it was about math, and we all know how I run screaming in the other direction when confronted with simple addition. Nate explained that there is no math involved, and that even a total knob-monkey like myself could understand it. I was addicted within five minutes, and spent a good part of my return flight filling in puzzles. The rest of the time was spent watching Curb Your Enthusiasm on my iPod, attempting to sleep with my head rolling from side to side, and holding those Terra Blue chips up to the light to admire the special pearlescent chemical compound that I probably shouldn't be eating.

Good Morning America

So the giant machine that is the Miley Cyrus production invaded Bryant Park, and New York City did not know what hit it. Thousands and thousands of young girls and their moms (I think there may have been two or three young boys) piled in, filled up the park and then continued to spill up and down the adjacent streets.

Call time was 6:30am (after rehearsing the night before), so we all yawned our way through the van ride, but by the time we ambled on stage and heard all the kids screaming for Miley, their boundless enthusiasm psyched us all up for sound check.

Isn't that THE Kay Hanley?

Running through a couple songs before the show

Checkin' the mix, checkin' the mix... Sibilance? Sibilance?

Jacozilla takes on New York

After the GMA fashion show, the weather, and some stupidity about "staycations" (and we waited on stage during all of this), we finally got around to Miley's segment. As always, she came out like the little pro she is and knocked the interview and concert right out of the park. She's just always on, even ridiculously early in the morning.

Hot people and their hot moves

Some girl came up and did karaoke with us

It went very smoothly. And once again, I was barely on camera for five seconds. Schmid Island is an exotic destination; most cameramen are not up for the trip. They like to stick to the safe zones, namely Jacotown and Jamieland.

The whole show was done by about 9:30am, when we should still have been in our beds, sleeping like the west coast slacker musicians we are.

Then Nadia and I walked, like, 87 blocks for some bagels.

NetJets & JetBlue

Show #2 in NYC:
This time, we didn't have to trek out to Jersey. This time, we just walked five minutes from our hotel to the Hammerstein Ballroom for a special private engagement for the NetJets crew. NetJets sponsored our tour, and apparently they're huge Miley fans, so they booked an exclusive show for their families.

Hammerstein was the smallest venue we've played so far (which, for Miley, isn't really that small):

The band dressing room was up four very narrow flights of stairs, which was novel ("it's oh so New York!") the first time, and became progressively more annoying every time I had to go back and fourth, which was quite a lot.

This show was the first one since the tour that was a double Miley/Hannah show. Unlike the tour, however, we had no other act to fill the time during the Hannah-to-Miley quick change. So Miley had to seriously book it backstage and get dressed in a flash while a brief video clip played.

She came out right on time, much to my surprise. I don't know how she did it. But part way through the first song, it became clear that the change wasn't absolutely complete. One of her in-ear monitors was dangling loose. Miley spent most of the first song fiddling with that ear, trying to put it in as she danced around. Didn't work.

I heard lots of loud chatter backstage, as Mick and Omar tried to find a quick solution.

As the song ended, Miley excused herself and ran offstage. We all looked at each other. With yesterday's monitor disaster fresh in our minds, Stacy mouthed "Right Here" to the band, and we vamped on that song for a minute or so. Miley ran back onstage sans dangling cords, and the rest of the show proceeded as usual.

And they all lived happily ever after.

I spent the evening in Spanish Harlem partying with a bunch of old friends, playing Guitar Hero and drinking enough to make my early morning JetBlue flight a bit unpleasant.

Said flight turned out to be quite pleasant despite that. I sat in my assigned seat, and the girl sitting next to me asked if she could get something from the overhead compartment. I moved out of the way, and she grabbed it. It was a ukelele. Suddenly, I noticed she looked very familiar. "I'm Mike," I said, hoping she would give me her name.

She replied, "I'm Ingrid."

"Michaelson?" I said?

She looked puzzled. "...Yeah. How did you know?"

For those of you who don't know, Ingrid Michaelson is a singer/songwriter who's song, "The Way I Am," became quite a hit after playing on Grey's Anatomy. I'm a fan of hers (but not of Grey's Anatomy).
I told her of the strange coincidence: one of the A&R guys at her label, Original Signal, is none other than Stacy Jones. Our Stacy, drummer extraordinaire and musical director for Miley. We found that wasn't the only thing we had in common as we talked about everything from Flight of the Conchords to our careers for the duration of our six hour flight. We even traded iPods and played our unfinished demos for each other.

Another strange coincidence: she was headed to her manager's house. I know her manager. She lives on my street. So I gave Ingrid a ride home, along with Jaco (who was parked at my house). It was nearly 100 degrees in L.A. and we were all grouchy and whiny. It was actually kinda fun to see a singer/songwriter that I'd only seen glammed up in music videos, all sweaty and complainy.

She's quite a sweetheart. Hopefully I'll meet up with her again sometime.

Wango Tango

People have been asking, "approximately how many people do you think were at Wango Tango?" I've always been terrible at guessing how many candy corns are in the jar, so count for yourselves:

What - 10,000? 20,000? 30,000?

Whatever.

To me, "a lot" covers it. Especially when they're mostly screaming teenage girls. It's loud, no matter what the number.

This was an important show for us. It was our first show outside of the big Disney bubble, playing to a mainstream rock crowd. Of course, many folks from said bubble were present and enjoying themselves. No one was really surprised that Miley went over like gangbusters. She does just happen to be an incredibly entertaining and stunningly talented young lady, and I think that appeals to more than just one demographic.

The big shindig took place in a dusty void otherwise known as Irvine, California. So once again, we were left to our own boring devices for several hours with nothing but a mini carnival and some La Salsa to keep us busy. And some celebrities here and there. Kim Kardashian and her family were present, as were a bunch of people from that reality show "The Hills" (on which I'll refrain from expressing my opinion) and I swear I saw Phil Collins, though Jamie says it wasn't him.

I ended up watching a movie on my iPod in the dressing room. Aren't I exciting!?

The set was really fun and energetic. While we were playing, offstage to my right I noticed various dancers who weren't performing (just being supportive), Jack from the Jonas Brothers, Ryan Seacrest and Lindsay Lohan. Interesting mix.

I leave you with a picture of the Jonas Brothers during their set:

(What You Sick People Come Here For)

DC Games

After another luxurious day relaxing at the Hyatt, we jumped in the van to make our wonderfully late 4pm call time. We showed up to an empty stadium.

After a quick reunion with our buddies the Jonas Brothers and band, we popped up on stage for the most disastrous sound check we've ever had.

The setup went well. How hard can it be to plug stuff in?


But once we started getting levels, it was your basic 72-car freeway pileup. Nobody could hear anything. I, for example, was missing the left side of one of my keboards, my vocal, the click, and Miley's vocal. Not good.

And Vish, our regular dependable sound guy, was at the mercy of the Master of Incompentence - otherwise known as "the guy Disney supplied." The Master had confused the mixing console with Whack-A-Mole, as he randomly slapped buttons and knobs hoping for some sort of accidental miracle.

Halfway through this total catastrophe, in poured the Miley fans. Tons of 'em.

Perfect.

Full of enthusiasm, they didn't seem to notice our perplexed faces, as we struggled through one roughly-mixed song after another. Eventually we got our mixes to a place that wasn't awful, which seemed about the best we could hope for.

So it was off to dinner in the food tent. While we were eating, the weather did an about-face.

The sky began pelting the crowd with the largest raindrops I've seen in ages. Grape-like droplets. I could feel them explode as they hit me. I was fully soaked in ten seconds.

But the crowd was loyal. They weren't about to go home just because of some soggy clothes. Not when they were waiting to see Miley Cyrus, and the Jonas Brothers, and the Cheetah Girls, and...whoever else was playing.

In typical fashion for these sorts of things, we were then shepherded to a room far away, where we then filled out our paperwork and sat around for several hours.

Then we got the word. We were going on early. After all that waiting, now we had to rush. We threw on our costumes and jumped on golf carts, which whisked us over to the stage. We grabbed our gear and hurried up to the wings. One of the show runners saw us and said, "What are you guys doing here? You're not on for a while. The Cheetah Girls are on before you."

But we didn't have enough time to go back. So we just hung out in everybody's way, in the wings.

Miley sauntered up about fifteen minutes later, and we had an impromptu singing jam session on the side of the stage.

We all took our places. The dancers came out in their big long tailcoats. We rocked the place out with "See You Again," and two new songs: "Fly on the Wall" and "Breakout." The crowd totally ate up the new stuff. And of course, everybody loved "See You Again," which has become quite a huge crossover hit with Disney fans and on mainstream rock radio.

That was it. Funny how these things are 98% waiting and 2%playing.

Celebrities, Slime and Spiked Butt Belts

The day of the Kids' Choice Awards, we arrived to the UCLA campus and were quickly herded into a tent/makeshift green room. Other than a litte table with meats and cheeses, the room was barren. This is where we'd be spending the next several hours.

But first, rehearsal. They were running the entire show that morning, from beginning to end. When they reached our point in the show, a runner guided us to the stage, and we did our thing. The kid extras seemed a little more excited today.

Then back to the tent, with about five hours till showtime. We were told we were allowed to leave, but only by foot, as the traffic getting back would be terrible. So I hoofed it around Westwood a bit. I hadn't really been in the area for a year or two, so I saw that my favorite CD store had closed and that several frozen yogurt places had opened (how much froyo do college students need?). And when I got bored (within twenty minutes), I headed back to the hometent. Things were much more exciting there:


When the show finally started around 5pm, the band decided to check out the white room. This room was created up in the stands behind the stage, with white furniture, white carpet, and sheer white sheets softly barricading all the celebrities in with their perfectly manicured hors d'oeuvres. We stuck out like a hand full of sore thumbs amongst Will Smith, Nelly, and a bunch of other slick rappers I didn't know of. Jaco and Jamie immediately grabbed a couple of the Neutrogena gift bags, full of manly moisturizing creams. They were far too excited about those. We enjoyed about a half hour of the show until Stacy, pro that he is, decided we should be in the tent at least 30 minutes before it was necessary. So we went back to our homevoid. Sat around for awhile. Made some calls.

Then the blur. Around 6pm, we were walked quickly through the back door and down a narrow hallway to the stage. We hit the stage, Miley barely made it into place in time for the song, and was a little out of breath. Everybody did their thing. We played like our hands were deadly precision instruments, the dancers flipped and flew like there were helium bombs in their shoes, and Miley's star presence inspired the kid extras to legitimately freak out.

And the set did look really good on TV.