Heeeeyy!!! Happy New Year ya’ll!!! I’m very excited about this year. Why? You may ask. Well, I’m doing some stuff I haven’t done before and I’m anxious to see how it plays out. On both the Southern Soul and Beach side, I’ve got stuff planned. Let’s jump right in shall we?

First, let’s talk about the beach side. I’ve FINALLY managed to create a promo video for the band. It was quite difficult to get everyone to agree on a date to film. And when everyone finally agreed to a date, the guy who was supposed to film it was out of town. My trumpet player also decided to quit me. That was a huge bummer. It came as a complete surprise and hurt my feelings a bit. I couldn’t let any of that stop me though.

If you know me, you know I will find a way to get something that I want. I decided to film it myself. I went down to Trade It and bought myself a camera and a tripod. I had been studying other bands videos so I kinda knew what I wanted to see and hear.  I set that bad boy up and filmed it! I bought some decent video editing software and used it to edit the video. Although the video quality could have been better, it sounds amazing because my guys are AWESOME and the editing is pretty good. Here it is.

I felt the need to film it because (and here comes the new ideas part) I wanted to submit the video to East Coast Entertainment. I want to work consistently this year and they are the agency that can do that for me. I got the name of one of the agents from Lamar Brace, leader of Diverse Groove Band and upcoming southern soul artist. His band is booked through East Coast. He’s on J. Red’s Soul Mop label and J. Red and I have that song together…If you missed it, here ya go!

I called the guy up and told him that I was referred by Lamar. He seemed happy about that. I told him about the video and that I had submitted an application on line. He said he would intercept that and get back to me. He gave me his email address to send the video to him and I did. A week went by and I hadn’t heard anything so I emailed him again. He told me that he forwarded it to his colleague in Raleigh because they are much closer to me. He also wanted details about my next gig so he could send that to the guy as well.

He wouldn’t give me a contact name. He just told me the guy in Raleigh would contact me. I haven’t heard anything yet. BUT I have a sneaking suspicion that an agent will be at my next gig…. I really hope so. I don’t have another gig for a good while. Made some bad business decisions last year that lead to it but that’s water under the bridge or over the dam or whatever. I don’t live back there. I live here, in the present. Oh, here is the flyer for the show.

If this doesn’t work out, there is a plan B. Although the loss of my horn player hurt me personally, it may have been advantageous from a business perspective. How? Well, last year I thought about maybe taking the band to play on a cruise ship. The booking agency didn’t want us because in my previous videos we had one too many members. There were seven of us and the max they wanted was six. Well, in the video I just finished there are six. I’m doing another application for that too. I would really LOVE for my backyard to be somewhere tropical for about 4 months out of the year. I’ve mentioned it to the guys and it seems like they would be willing to go! Either way, we’re working this year!!!

Now, for the Southern Soul side…I’ve decided to flood the market with my music. I plan to release quite a bit of music this year. I already have quite a few of them already written. I’m excited about these too! They are good if I do say so myself. I’m hoping that they do so well that the demand for me also grows on this side. I wanna tell you more about my first release. BUT it’s gotta be a surprise. I’ll release it in February and I think it’s gonna do well. I had plans to do another album and I will. But I think I’m just gonna release a boat load of singles until I have enough to put them on an album. That releases me from the pressure of a deadline to have it done.

Crazy thing is I never know what my music is doing. I just got a message from a guy on YouTube the other day about my song “Can’t Stop Me”. He said it plays every Saturday in Columbia South Carolina on 103.1 FM! I have always liked this song but it didn’t seem to go over as well with the public as some of the other tunes on the album. This is one of the songs that I’m gonna do over and release it again but it’s nice that they like it down there!

I do have plans to release some Beach Music tunes as well. I just don’t have a huge network of beach music DJs like I do with Southern Soul. I have to work on that. I REALLY love both sides of it. It’s like two sides of the same coin. I wouldn’t trade one for the other. The beach side brings a bit of nostalgia for me. It’s how I grew up in music. Going out and playing in a band on weekends for an entire evening and watching the people dance and have a good time. That’s home for me.

Southern Soul is also near and dear to me because it brings back memories of my grandfather’s juke joint. That was the only place where you could hear these songs. Somehow they were only on that juke box! The songs didn’t play on the radio but somehow they were popular anyway.

Oh and speaking of nostalgia…. I can hardly believe this myself but the manager and sax player from the band I was in as a kid, Electric Image, will be playing on my next gig! That’s right. James Parker himself will be on stage with me in MY band. It’s funny how things come around. He was soooo hard on me back then. But I see the value in it now and I’m exceedingly grateful to him for it. I wouldn’t be here now if not for him. I’m excited to be on stage with him again.

Well, that’s about it folks. Again, thank you for reading my rants and if you have friends that you think might enjoy them, tell ‘em to subscribe. This year, I’m also going to post more…  It’s kind of like a journal for me. I think I need to do it. It helps to clear my mind. Lord knows I need that! As always, keep listening.