Come rock and roll with us on the banks of the Merrimack this Friday nite, August 22nd. Manchester's classic brew pub starts boiling around 9 when Tommy Dempsey & Smug hit the stage. Mike Previti and yours truly complete the ferment. $8 cover. Way less for master beers.

 Hope to see you Friday, July 18, at Lizard Lounge. It's the new band's last gig there for awhile... In August and September we'll be playing in NH... Lizard doors open around 7:30/8. Cover is $10. We'll start things off around 9. Ringleader Mike Previti and Tommy Dempsey & Smug follow... This same lineup sold out an earlier show, so maybe call ahead, or get there early... Here's a big version of Schluntzie's poster art.

 Join us Friday, June 20, at Lizard Lounge — and we'll keep the Summer of Schluntz rolling with more original rockers. It's the same triple-bill that sold out last month, so you might want to get there early or pick up tickets in advance at the club. Our set starts around 9. Followed by the show's ringleader, Mike Previti. The astonishing Tommy Dempsey & Smug close with a bang. $10 cover. Doors open at 8:00. 1667 Mass. Ave., Cambridge. 617-547-0759. Upstairs is Cambridge Common restaurant and bar: 617-547-1228... Here's Schluntzie's poster art nice and big.

 Big Thanks to all of you who came out to the Lizard last nite. The club was sold out by the time we started our set, around 9:15. Over half of the pack were friends of our band... It's not every day a triple bill of locals sells out the Lizard, so give yourself a hand... Kudos to Previti, Dempsey and their tribes. Apologies if you couldn't get in.

And Big Thanks also to the Globe's Meredith Goldstein for her Quick Pick of the show in yesterday's Sidekick and on Boston.com.

 The Summer of Schluntz starts now. You're cordially invited to join us at Lizard Lounge, Friday, May 23, when we kick off a triple bill of original music. Our set starts at 9:30 sharp. Followed by Mike Previti and Tommy Dempsey & Smug. $10 cover. Doors open at 8:30. 1667 Mass. Ave., Cambridge. 617-547-0759. Check out Schluntzie's poster art.

Big Thanks to you who came out with warm hearts on a cold nite for our first Lizard gig. See ya back there soon... Here's Schluntzie's poster art.

 The band's at Lizard Lounge, Thursday, Jan. 3. It's our first time playing this intimate, underground club, known for eclectic live music and poetry. Come on out and we'll have a good time... Doors open at 8:30. $5 cover. Music starts at 9:30. Address: 1667 Mass. Ave., Cambridge, MA. Club phone: 617-547-0759. Good eats till midnite... We're booked as the Mike Hallal Band, but it's the same newer lineup, with Jim A on drums, Schluntzie on lead guitar and Scribs on bass.

  Big Thanks to Steve & Bobbie Sands of the Tomorrow's Dreams show on 95.9 WATD, broadcasting and webcasting from Marshfield, MA. This week they're playing something from the Chains of Being album... And thanks to songwriter Joe Pickering for the hookup. Many of Joe's ballads are in the Baseball Hall of Fame. He's also won a CMA award and had his songs featured on HBO and ESPN radio. Check him out at KingoftheRoadMusic.com.

  The Chains of Being album is now available on iTunes and Rhapsody, and soon also Napster, MusicNet, Yahoo and AOL... Big Thanks to the TuneCore.com folks for their great placement service... Highly recommended.

 Buckets of Thanks to Bob Sprankle and his podcasting 3rd & 4th graders at Wells Elementary School in Wells, ME... for including Red Sox Blues in their Bobby Bucket Show this week... Bob and his Room 208 crew are the lead hook in today's New York Times article, "New Tools: Blogs, Podcasts and Virtual Classrooms." Congratulations folks! You are the future... Big Thanks also to Bart Steele of the Gyromatics, for the intro to Bob. The Gyromatics' tune Man I Love This Team, is the Song of the Week on the podcast.

 At 11:40 PM ET the Boston Red Sox win the World Series, and the last verses of Red Sox Blues come true: "... We finally win it all / And all the years of bad luck / We wash 'em clean one fine fall."

"It is," general manager Theo Epstein said after his team's domination of the St. Louis Cardinals, "the ultimate cleansing." (Sports Illustrated World Series Commemorative, 11/10, p. 58)

Thank you 2004ever Red Sox.

Rock of Ages Fall hit 500 downloads at the BostonPhoenix.com's MP3 Studio, making it the #2 song out of some 100 local roots/folk/blues tunes offered. The Cryin' Licks recording is posted on our page there. The unofficial top 7 most-downloaded songs in this category right now:

1. Black and Red  John Demers

2. Rock of Ages Fall

3. Forgive  Deb Talan

4. Planxty George Brabizon The Angel Band

5. Hazel Eyes  Bellevue Cadillac

6. Greenin' Up  David Mallet

7. In this Fire  Lori McKenna

 The MP3 Studio features over 1,000 free original songs by indy musicians from Boston, Worcester, Portland and Providence areas.

 Big Thanks to Ernie Paicopolos of FenwayNation.com for featuring Red Sox Blues at his much-respected, 4-year-old fan site. He loves the song and has it playing automatically on a separate page. Check it out . Lots of Red Sox news and resources at Ernie's place.

"Still, We Believe: The Red Sox Movie" is the winning title for the new flick on the 2003 season, after a second round of online voting yesterday. Choices included "This is the Year" from the first round, plus 6 fresh titles suggested by fans... We're still hopeful the director will find a place on the soundtrack for our Red Sox Blues. As Laurie G. wrote, "...the song!!!!!!!!!!!! It's got to be in there." More below.

 The band's recording of Spoonful from the new album is "featured content" on the Digizaar.com homepage this month. And the cut's in good company with others by The Dresden Dolls, the so and so's, and more... Big Thanks to the 'zaars for the pick... See the Jan. 18 cell below for previous Digizaar.com "Featured Artist" news... Reminder: all individual tracks and artwork for Chains of Being are available for preview and purchase on our bandpage at Digizaar.

In response to email requests, WZLX DJ Carter Alan played Red Sox Blues again today on his Sunday Morning Blues show... He spun it leading off a set of "baseball blues," as he called 'em, including cuts by Steve Goodman, Foghat and the Allman Brothers... Big Big Thanks to Carter and all of you who send him requests. You can see an archived playlist for 2/22/04 online here... More news on airplay below.

Turk's Head Review Editor James Esch weaves some thoughtful adjectives together in his short wrap on the Chains of Being CD and the band. In particular, he points to "plenty of nice blues harmonica complementing the admirable guitar work on this album," thereby setting off an explosion of massively swollen heads... Seriously, Big Thanks Jim.

The Songden received a Golden Web award today from the International Association of Web Masters & Designers — for excellence in "web design, originality and content." Thanks to the IAWMD and the Golden Web folks.

Jan. 19

The Mike Hallal Band has just been named Featured Artist by Digizaar.com... Big Thanks to Digizaar founder Alex Rivest and COO Milana Sobol... Boston-based Digizaar is a new online bazaar and independent artist community offering original skins, music, software, digital art, e-writings and more — for small change, or "micropayments" as they call 'em. Digizaar pays artists the highest percentages I know of... On our artist page at Digizaar, you'll find all 11 songs from the new album in high-quality digital files for just $ .75 each. You can also get the CD and poster art files for a dime... The Featured Artist sidebar will be up on Digizaar's homepage thru the end of the month. Other featured bands include Dresden Dolls, Bourbon Princess and Virtuoso.

Dec. 28,

2003

The Globe North section of today's Boston Sunday Globe includes a pickup of the press release on the HotBands Pick of the Week news... Big Thanks to Wendy Killeen for her coverage in the People/North section, page 9, under "Album Lauded"... Here's a scan of the writeup; a free CD to the first person who finds the misspelling of a musician's name.

Dec. 18

Today the Music Industry Network News website Mi2n.com is featuring the Chains of Being CD art and HotBands Pick news on its homepage Did You Know? lead... Tidings of comfort & joy... Big Thanks to Editor Eric de Fontenay... Mi2n.com collects over 1,400 major and independent music news releases per month, so it's an honor to be in their spotlite... Here's the HotBands Pick press release, as it appears on Mi2n's archived pages. The homepage feature is up for 24 hours only.

Chains of Being is Pick of the Week at HotBands.com — Woh... Big Thanks to Publisher Patrick Ferris. Like Twain said, I can go 2 months on a good compliment... You'll find some of Pat's kind words newly posted on the homepage... Seattle-based HotBands.com has around 4,000 independent bands in its network. HotBands Entertainment recently created Groovzilla Management and Phathouse Records, signing Malaysia's Grammy-nominated, #1 skater band Pop Shuvit as their first act... Pop Shuvit was a HotBands Pick of the Week in October 2002. Other artists named Pick of the Week include Carolyn Wonderland (Austin), The Charms (Boston), Pete Palladino (Philadelphia), Pushmonkey (Austin) and Martha Redbone (New York).

The Songden received 3 web awards this week — for quality of design, navigation and content — from the AAWM, VPAD and WWW groups... Ilya and I would like to thank God, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, uh... Seriously, the judges put us in with some fine company and we're grateful for their kudos.

Big Big Thanks to all of you who came out for the CD Release Party last Saturday nite... you helped make it a great time... The new album Chains of Being is now available online here at the Songden, and at the following music stores:

Records Wanted — Lynn, MA

Ted Cole's Music Shop — Salem

Newbury Comics —

    > Newbury St.

    > Government Ctr.

    > Harvard Sq.

    > Alewife

    > Saugus

    > Peabody

    > Providence, RI

Please join us if you can tonite for our CD Album Release Party at the Horseshoe Cafe, 226 Main St., North Reading, MA (978-664-3591)... Everyone in the band is looking forward to seeing many of you and playing our music for y'all... We'll do the new Chains of Being CD set beginning around 10 pm, including Red Sox Blues, and the core4 will also do a 'round midnite set of classic covers and originals... A Go Sox Rally may break out at any time... I've emailed copious directions and a map to all of you in the newsgroup, and here's the Press Release again in case you missed it... Fresh-baked, made-with-love CDs await, so come on by and celebrate with us.

Carter Alan played Red Sox Blues again this forenoon after getting lots of recent requests for the song, he said... Big Thanks to you all for the requests. See below for Carter's email  and phone contact info... His Sunday Morning Blues show runs from 9 to noon on WZLX 100.7.

New Album News: Please make plans to join us for the Release Party on Saturday nite, Oct. 11, at the Horseshoe Cafe in North Reading, MA. See below for details and check out yesterday's press release... Chains of Being is the album title — it's got 9 originals on it, including Red Sox Blues, and 2 classic blues... Today I picked up several advance copies of the new babies. They look and sound great! The replication and packaging are being done by local-boy-made-good Bruce Bennett and his Superdups crew in Salem, NH... After the release gig, the album will be available online here at the Songden, and also at Records Wanted (Lynn), Ted Cole's Music Shop (Salem) and 7 area Newbury Comics stores (Newbury St., Government Ctr., Harvard Sq., Alewife, Saugus, Peabody and Providence). Many thanks to DJ in Boston, who handles consignments for Newbury Comics; he's also a big Red Sox fan.

More thanks to all of you who came out for the 10th Annual Westport Rock, Rhythm & Blues Festival... $21,260 is the official 3-day total of funds raised for the local A Wish Come True group, says event organizer Frank Ray, surpassing last year's totals. So give yourselves a hand!... Founder Rosemary Bowers also sent along these kind words via email last week: "I saw/heard you guys Friday night and you were great! Thanks... The rest of the weekend was great too! All the groups were excellent and everyone had a great time. Frankie and his crew work so hard and help us grant several wishes each year. We could not do what we do without you folks! Thanks again!"... For more info on the charity visit www.awish.org.

Please join us at the 10th Annual Westport Festival to benefit A Wish Come True, at Holy Ghost Grounds, 171 Sodom Rd., Westport, MA... Rain or shine, we hope to see many of you there this Friday nite, Sept. 5., from 6-10 pm; come help us get things off to a roaring start.

The grounds are like a country bible camp, nothing fancy... You bring your appetite, donate $15/adult to A Wish Come True, and get to eat buffet-style homecookin', have a drink or 2, and be entertained by our core4 band for a couple of sets in the old central pavilion... There's room to shake your booty if ya like too... all for a great cause. We're the only band playing on Friday nite, starting around 7:30 pm. The fundraiser continues the entire weekend at the grounds, with scads of local bands scheduled to play on Saturday & Sunday.

WZLX 100.7 DJ and Red Sox Heartbreakers Support Group member Carter Alan is spinning Red Sox Blues again. What a guy! On his Sunday Morning Blues show this week, Carter followed Red Sox Blues with Albert King's Born Under a Bad Sign... He also played Brian Maes' Labor Day (The Day After) and scads more new and classic blues, including a cut by the Jimmy Rogers All-Stars — w/his son Jimmy D. Lane plus other heavy hitters. What an honor. What a trip... Check out the full playlist for yourself... Carter has a regular 9am–2pm show each weekday on ZLX; so let him know how you feel anytime: carter@wzlx.com... The entire station is into email these days: for general requests to the ZLX staff, use: requests@wzlx.com.

The Red Sox Blues CD-single is with most all of the major Boston-area media people right now — including FM DJs, AM radio jocks, TV sports anchors and the Red Sox PA folks. Call or email your requests to your own personal favorites anytime. And it'd be great if you'd make an email request with these FM DJs who've already been playing the tune:

Confirmed Album Release gig for Saturday, October 11, at the Horseshoe Cafe in North Reading, MA (978-664-3591). Mark it down and be there. The celebrations should start around 9:00 or so. We'll have freshly baked albums ready for ya, and the entire band will perform, including producer Brian Maes and guitarist Kook Lawry. We'll do the album set for sure, and some more originals and classic blues 'round midnite.
 

June 11

We’re now in the mixing and mastering stage for the new album, working towards the end of summer or so for a release… Brian's doing the mixing, and Dan Tarlow of Zigmo Recording is lined up to do the mastering… The new album will be a full-length CD featuring Red Sox Blues, 8 more original tunes, plus 2 classic blues covers. More below.
 

Tonite the band recorded live jams at Kook’s great sounding barn in Lynnfield. It was one of those times when everything went right, nobody “argad” and everybody had a ball… We put down start-to-finish takes of Spoonful and Got Love If You Want It, and both will be on the new album… Silvertone Steve added his slide guitar magic, and Kook and the band really cranked it up. Check out some pics from the session.

Deep into phase 3 on the new album, recording 3 more originals (Dirty Trick, Hey Betty and Chromosomes)… Lynn's own Brian Maes is producing… Check out the band page for a look at the starting lineup.

Officially registered www.mikehallal.com and put the Songden online (under heavy construction); Ilya "born-in-Moscow" Levin is doing the developing.
 

March 28

Said Yes to "return" benefit gig for the Wish Come True foundation. The 10th Annual Westport Rock, Rhythm & Blues Festival is set for September 5th, 6th & 7th. It's a great time, and a great cause, so mark your calendars! Our core 4-piece band will help kickoff things on Friday nite the 5th. For more information call Frank at 508-636-8346 or visit www.awish.org.

Wrapped up phase 2 of recording for new album, including all tracking for 2 new tunes, Redwood and Your Father’s House.

Mitch gets a letter from A Wish Come True founder Rosemary Bowers, letting us know $17,000+ was raised for the their kids at the 9th Annual Westport Rock, Rhythm & Blues Festival, held this past Labor Day Weekend… Mitch has personally donated to the group for years and he arranged the benefit gig. Our 4-piece band did 2 sets on Friday night at the Holy Ghost Grounds, located on Sodom Road (!) in Westport, MA… Another 8 local bands played on Saturday & Sunday, including Fall River's own Shot in the Dark and Louie Leeman & Cheap Sneakers… Thanks to you all for your support and contributions.

Red Sox Blues CD-single released and gets Boston radio and Fenway Park airplay! Read all about it.