9/8/05: band/booking update / G.O.F. video / R.C.B. airplay / MASSIMO & D.Wilcox

Hey, gang! Welcome back. Hope you've all had a great summer. We've been busy during our time off from performing: writing new songs and learning a few new covers. We have some great shows coming up, most of them in new venues for us: Coda - NYC, Downtown Cafe - Red Bank and Rare (formerly the Cooler) - NYC. We'll be playing at the Downtown Cafe all night (9:30PM-1AM!), precipiating our need to learn the aforementioned covers as we can't quite fill 4 hours of original music just yet. Here's a sample of what you can expect: "If I Ever Lose My Faith" - Sting, "Take The Long Way Home" - Supertramp, "Doctor My Eyes" - Jackson Browne, "Eleanor Rigby" - (shame on you if you don't know). We will be taking liberties with these tunes, doing them amped up MASSIMOstyle. There's also a new original in the works, "Just Three Words" ("Rise", a recent addition, is sounding great as well).

A new date is still pending for Crossroads; most likely we'll return somtime in Oct. And expect a Brighton Bar date mid-Sept. (unfortunately, this place can only seem to book a week ahead of time). Still trying to get 2 breweries to go our way: Harvest Moon Brewery (New Brunswick, NJ) and Triumph Brewery (Princeton, NJ). If any of you are out and about and find yourself in any of these establishments, please mention us to the management. Maybe it'll prod them to listen to our CD, get a firm date on the books. Word of mouth really does help.

Speaking of which, our MySpace page has topped over 1,000 visits! Check it out if you haven't already. Who couldn't use more friends?

In other band news, we are pleased to announce the return of Jess Converse to the band! For those of you who don't know, Jess had played with us a while back and was the lead guitarist on the EP. Then sadly, he had some other obligations he needed to fulfill and had to leave us for a time. But now he is ready to rock once again! He'll be joining us as soon as we can get him up to speed on all that's gone on since he's been away.

FINALLY, got the DVD for our performance on Guitar Out Front the other day and we look damn good! This is the first time since the inception of this band that I've ever seen any video of us and I was pleasantly surprised. "Breathe" and "Down" are exceptionally good. After some editing/conversion for web, video clips will be posted to the site (eventually).

In airplay news, MASSIMO has been selected for Radio Crystal Blue's "Future Stars" series. Artists chosen have been deemed above and beyond the top indie/underground artists heard on this weekly internet radio show. We are proud to be selected. You can tune in by streaming from their site or download the show as a podcast.

Speaking of iPods, the entire MASSIMO catalog is now available for download on over 35 popular digital music sites!

Had a landmark brush with fame last month. Saw singer/songwriter David Wilcox last month at the Towne Crier in Pawling, NY. (I may have mentioned him before in previous Flipsides. Eerily similar to James Taylor vocally, blows him away guitar-wise in my opinion. Very much digging his new album, Into The Mystery. Anyway...). Nice dinner theatre kind of place, the Towne Crier is. It's got a South of the Border kind of theme going on. Had a table up front which proved to be very fortuitous when I started singing harmonies to myself at my table on "Rusty Old American Dream". I got the shock of my life when mid-song, DW invited me up to sing with him. It's every musicians dream to join one of your favorite artists on stage for one of their songs and this experience did not disappoint. I was high off of it for days. I still almost can't believe it.

Katrina. Helping is easy if you want to: Donate to The Red Cross

In the CD player lately: Nothing. Nothing at all. Just letting the music in my head play for now...