2003

12/28/2003 - Thanks to everyone that made it out to the State Theater on such short notice last night. The party was really fun, all the bands played great and I really dug the new setup at the State Theater with the bands playing on the floor in front of the stage!

12/26/2003 - Greetings all! I hope that everyone had a great Christmas with family and friends. Every year I feel so lucky to be able to spend time with such wonderful folks. Last night we headed out to see When Ducks Attack (Joe Prince's rocking new band), St. Felons and the Semis rock the New World Brewery, and judging by the pictures in my digital camera it appears that we had a great time. I wish I could remember. The entire Johnny Mac Band was in town and we had a good time catching up and drinking some beer while making world domination plans for 2004. I have a feeling 2004 is going to be a crazy year full of many, many changes for me, we'll have to see what happens. Hopefully I'm headed up to Atlanta soon to finish the songs that we've started last month (Allison, High School Drunk, Take it Off) and record a new version of No One Would Miss Us for some industry folks to consider. Should be a blast no matter what happens!

12/24/2003 - Happy holidays everyone! Check out the Discography page for a download of the latest Barely Pink Christmas tune called "I'm Feeling Christmas." It's a great tune and the boys gave me the honor of playing a little electric gee-tar on it as well. Brian wrote a great tune and Mark plays some dyn-o-mite baritone guitar on it too! Well I might be playing a little impromptu show at the State Theater on Saturday night, I'm not sure yet but I'll send out and little reminder if I do. Martin's other band, the rocking St. Felons is playing a show/party and well, I'll be there having fun anyway. They are also playing Friday night at the New World Brewery in Ybor with the Semis so try not to miss this show either! Last night was a blast, Trish and I went to the 6th Annual Crash Mitchell Christmas party at Skipper's Smokehouse. Natty's other band (everybody has other bands!) Ronnie Elliott and the Nationals performed and everyone had a great night! OK, well I'm off to a little holiday gathering the evening, Merry Christmas!

12/22/2003 - Well I just got the news that Sparky's Nightmare will not be opening for Blondie, but I do have good news, I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance. In other news I put down some electric guitar on the new Barely Pink Christmas tune "Feeling Christmas." It should be out any day and available for download exclusively on their website along with some other great Christmas tunes to get you and that special someone in the Christmas spirit! It's a great tune so check their site, it should be up there any day now.

12/18/2003 - The In The Raw shows at the State Theater are so much fun it's infectious. They had a record crowd on hand for tonight's show featuring Will Quinlin, Martin and Natty (Sparky's Nightmare), Twitch, Crash Mitchell, Tony Dolan, Boney Fiend and others. What a great time. The new In the Raw CD - Season One made it's debut this evening too. 11 cuts of acoustic mayhem, monolog, silly stories and raw emotion. I've got a few available for sale if you trust the Postal Service service and me with you hard earned money. Send well concealed cash or a check made out for $12.50 to John McNicholas - PO Box 76022, St. Petersburg, FL. 33734 - Includes shipping and handling. I've only got a few so e-mail me before you order to make sure I still have some. See the Discography page for the track listing and all the details!

12/13/2003 - Last night was a good time, Martin's band St. Felons played the Emerald with the Heatseekers from Miami and a friend of Hunter's opened the show with a cool solo acoustic set. The place was packed and the guys from Better Than Ezra were there and one of them even bought one of the pieces of art hanging on the wall. Nice.

12/07/2003 - Dave's Bar and Grill is hilarious. Two words, "Tip Jar." Why didn't we think of this earlier? We banged through three joke-filled sets, watched people fall asleep, booty-dance, tip us repeatedly and even had a few guests join us on stage and in the audience to help us sing some songs. Good times, good times. I'll put up a photo album in the next few days from the show and from last Wednesday's In the Raw show. Check back soon!

12/05/2003 - I'm getting ready for the rock show at Dave's Bar and Grill tonight with Sparky's Nightmare, maybe I'll see a few of you fine folks out there as well. Last Wednesday's In the Raw show at the State Theater was an absolute blast! All the performers sounded great and there was such a positive in the air all night. Martin did a great job with the sound and Natty did an amazing job of getting all the performers together and kept the entire show running real smooth. Special thanks to Joran for introducing everyone and getting the series back on it's feet. Hopefully I'll have some photos posted on the website really soon,. I took a few shots myself, but they were really blurry and you can't really tell who everyone is! The next ITR show will be on December 17th, that night Joran will also be releasing a CD called the Best of In the Raw: The First Season. Included on the disc is a performance of Holly's Tooth from one of my shows.

11/26/2003 - The road trip was a blast. I headed out for Savannah on Saturday morning, after a brief detour to Downtown Disney to hit the Virgin Megastore (CDs for the trip!) and Jacksonville (some sightseeing). I rolled into Savannah at about 6:30 PM. The Sentient Bean is a cool little coffee shop a few blocks off of the downtown district across from a great park. I stumbled in, introduced myself to Jon and Melanie and got my stuff out of the car. Food was free for us so I got a big pressed Greek sandwich with humus which was delicious. James Salter rolled in, he had some friends in Savannah so we had a nice crowd on hand for the show. Flipping through the local entertainment paper called Connect Savannah, I noticed that they had chosen our gig as a "Connection Spotlight" for the night (See the Press page for the article), I got a nice write up and even a photo in the paper, very cool! James kicked things off with a great set of tunes, the room sounded great and we had the perfect mix going. After James played and friend of his from Savannah played a few tunes that sounded great too. Next I jumped up and ran through my hour set, about 15 tunes in all including a spontaneous instrumental. The room sounded really nice, it's a very easy stage to sing on.

After the gig we all piled into the car, headed back to James' friend Jennifer's house to unload and then head out to get some food. We ended up at a great little pizza spot called Vinnie Van Go Go's in the historic City Market district sitting out side and chatting. After a quick stroll down some steep stairs and over a cobblestone lot we checked out the rolling river and then headed back to the car. Next we ended up at a local VFW(?) bar a few blocks away. Last call came pretty quick and we headed back to Jennifer's to crash. I don't even remember falling asleep on the sofa I was so tired. Thanks for the sofa and blanket Jennifer!

I set the alarm for 8am, got up and James gave me some directions back to the Interstate. I was off to Atlanta to meet up with John Freiberger and Chris in Decatur. Chris and John had been tweaking the drum sounds so as soon as I rolled into town we started recording some drums for the new record. We ended up with drum tracks to Allison, Take it Off, and High School Drunk and they sound great. Before it got too late we threw down some scratch guitar parts and I sang over them one more time to get a nice vocal guide. Hopefully I'll have the tracks to take home and I can spin them for Martin and get some more input and even work on them back in St. Pete.

Monday morning was cold, rainy and very overcast. Turns out John headed back home early in the morning after crashing on the sofa in the studio pretty early. After a quick shower I headed out to Southern Living at its Finest (photo) to bring James some microphones for a project he is working on with Scotty Wilbanks and Russ Fowler. James showed me around the studio and introduced me to everyone, super nice folks and it seems like a great place to record. We all ran up to Fellini's for some pizza and talked about the possibility of me moving up to Atlanta and the music scene in general. After lunch we headed back to the studio, James pointed out the Outkast studio next door and gave me a quick tour of one of the other studios next door where he said Whitney Houston did her last record. That studio was like a mansion inside, very beautiful and luxurious. After hanging out for a little while I decided to check out some of the sights in Atlanta. I stopped by a few music stores, Little Five Points and a few other places before heading back to the house to do some more recording before playing at Eddie's Attic that night.

Open Mic night at Eddie's was a blast, I didn't win but Chris, Ali and I had a great time watching all the acts. I played High School Drunk and Take it Off. I think of all the acts that played, my favorite was a guy from St. Louis that plays in a band called the Accomplices, he had very laid back crazy style that reminded me of a mix between Tom Waits and Beck. It was really cool to hear all the different performers; we had a really fun night. After the show we sat up and chatted until James got home from the studio at about 2 or 3 am

The next morning I got up around 8am and packed up for the ride home, the weather had dropped into the high 20's this morning and my car was covered with ice. I rolled back into town at about 5pm after a fun and fast 4 days. I'm looking forward to the next trip! Thanks to James, Ali and Jen for letting me crash at your houses and eat your chips and humus!

11/20/2003 - I'm really looking forward do this next week, I've got two confirmed shows up in Georgia and on Sunday we are going to start working on the new record up in Atlanta. John is on his way up there already and I'll get there early Sunday morning after the show in Savannah at The Sentient Bean. I'll fill you in from the road when I get a chance to update the site.

11/17/2003 - Hello everyone, I had a great time this weekend playing up at Skipper's and with Sparky's Nightmare at Dave's Bar and Grill. Saturday afternoon at Skipper's Smokehouse the weather was beautiful, the sound system crisp and the people friendly. Thanks again to Gloria for having me out. Later that night I played with Sparky's Nightmare at Dave's and the house was packed. If was good to see so many friends out to see that bands. Sparky rocked through a couple of fun sets and then St. Felons got up and rocked into the wee hours of the night. Everyone had a great time, as always, at Dave's. This week I'm getting ready for my little road trip before Thanksgiving. I'm hoping to fill in a few more dates and play 4 or 5 shows total even if it means hitting some open mic places in Nashville or Chapel Hill. Well, I'm out, hope you and yours are doing well.

11/12/2003 - Two show coming up on Saturday this week and I'm looking forward to both of them. The first show will be a solo acoustic show at Skipper's Smokehouse that starts at 2PM. I'm not sure when I'm playing or what the cover charge will be but I'll be playing about 45 mins sometime between 2PM and 5pm. Later that night I'm heading over to Dave's Bar and Grill on the St. Pete side of Gandy Blvd. to rock the night away with Sparky's Nightmare. Closing the night at Dave's will be Martin's new rock band St. Felons so come out for the insanity that is Dave's.

11/08/2003 - Well a week has flown by pretty quick, not too much happening this week, I assembled a 7-song sampler for the guys of some new tunes for the next record and did a little writing. Hung out with Chris, Tina, Natty, Hugh and Carrie last night at the Emerald and had a good time checking out Shotgun Wedding, the crowd and the DJs (nice red running sweats with matching headbands!) that were spinning some great stuff between sets. Did they actually play and old B.A.D. cut? I think they may have! Anyway, I'm a little under the weather today so I'm going to do a little writing and maybe start working on an acoustic record that I hope to have for the December 3rd show at the State Theater. I'll probably include the live recordings from live-on-air WMNF performance a few months ago and perhaps a few other cuts just for fun.

11/01/2003 - Greetings all, hope that you had a fun Halloween! I spent the majority of my evening at the Brett Michaels concert at Jannus Landing in stunned amazement... Martin's rock band St. Felons landed the opening slot for the show so I went along to help them strike gear and tune guitars. They rocked and sounded really good. Not much planned for the weekend, hope to do some recording.

10/24/2003 - Thanks to everyone that made it out to the Sparky's Nightmare show last night at the USF Tavern. I was there rocking through my sore throat and flu... and I think it actually did me good to get out and get some fresh air. A fun times was had by all, Hunter rocked the drums to Straight to Hell, Rich rocked the bass on No One Would Miss Us and Dan Lajoy Rocked the guitar on The Hunter. We're a fun interactive band.

10/19/2003 - Check the Press page for a great review from the St. Pete Times! What a great weekend. Joran, Roger and everyone involved with SMA Conference did an amazing job of getting everything together and showcasing some of the finest talent this area has to offer. The band had a great show on Saturday Night at the State Theater and Sparky's Nightmare had a fun set at Stevie B's outdoor stage on Saturday afternoon. The panel discussion at the State were very informative and I even got pulled up to play with Will Quinlin on Saturday night for a quick tune. If only I could be part of something like that every weekend it would be a perfect world. I wish I could have run around and seen everyone this weekend, but there was so much going on! Some personal highlights for me this weekend were hanging out and talking with great friends, our set on Friday night, - thanks guys!, Joran's new band Auditorium's set on Friday night, Joe Doe's acoustic set, the A&R discussion with WEA rep Steve Robertson, and the local media panel, Zanesville, Crash Mitchell Quarter, Shotgun Wedding, Pagan Saints, Cuban Sandwich Crisis & Luscious P & the Burning Seeds Orchestra at the Globe, the Saturn 5... everyone was really good actually, I wish I could have seen... Anna O., Nessie, Big Kitty, Necrogazm and all the other bands at the Emerald on Friday night.

10/16/2003 - I'm excited about tomorrow in a big way! I have been looking forward to the SMA Music Conference since Joran first mentioned it and I think it's going to be a blast! A million bands, 4 venues. The first order of business is to inform you that we will be performing at Midnight, Friday Night at the State Theater. Chris is heading down from Atlanta for the show and Lance Rowland will be joining John Freiberger, Martin Rice and myself for the performance, so we'll be 5 strong, with three rock guitars. It's going to look like a cool vintage guitar store on stage , hahah.. Nice! The second order of business is to tell you to get there early and enjoy all the bands that the Conference has to offer. There really is pretty much something for everyone. If you get a chance, pick up the new issue of Weekly Planet, there is a nice story about the Conference and a big swanky picture of me as well. Click here for the online version article. Let's see what else is going o.. I have two new solo shows scheduled for the middle of November up in Georgia at The Sentient Bean and Eddie's Attic. Eddie's is one of the places that the Indigo Girls first got started and he's had a slew of talented folks in there from John Mayer, Ani Defranco, Junior Brown to Shawn Mullins and more. The Sentient Bean comes highly recommended by multitalented singer/songwriter extrodinare James Salter, who'll be joining me for both Georgia dates and perhaps a few other shows if we can get them booked! OK, enough rambling for this evening, I have press kits to make and strings to change!

10/13/2003 - Greetings all, just in from grabbing the new Focus magazine from Daddy Kool. Thanks to everyone that said all the nice things about us and the new CD. Check the Press page for the scoop. Really looking forward to the SMA Showcase show this weekend!

10/11/2003 - So what day is today anyway... I'm confused, I could swear that it was Thursday morning when my alarm went off at 6:30 am and I jumped out of bed. At first I was happy that it wasn't Thursday and then I was upset because the alarm interrupted this dream that I was having where I was interviewing Juliana Hatfield about her last album over the phone and I was walking on the beach, which was also a parking lot for a hospital and everyone was having a good time until the water had to go home when it got tired... that was the time that I decided to call Juliana and interview her. A few minutes into the conversation, after she had agreed to play on my next record, the alarm went off. Damn.

Well originally I was headed to Atlanta this weekend but it looks like I'll be working on some new tunes down here and heading up in two weeks. I worked on a new tune last night tentatively titled "We Should be Making Up, but Instead You're Making Out." I think the song is dreadful but with a title like that I'm strangely compelled to finish it and make it listen-able. I may just post an acoustic mp3 of it somewhere when I'm done and consider it done. Right now there is enough material kicking around for a full-length release, I just need to figure out if it's worth it to spend all that time recording 12 songs or if it's more practical to record the best 4 - 6 tunes and put out another EP.

Really looking forward to the SMA Showcase next weekend. I see that Joran has lowered the two and three-day ticket prices to $15/$25 for the event so hopefully that will drag a bunch of people out to see the multitude of great bands this area has. We are playing last at 12:45 PM the first night of the showcase so take a nap after work and head on out!

On another cool note, WMNF 88.5 had their fundraising drive last week for their new building fund and Flee was giving away a compilation CD that he put together that was comprised of local bands. One of my tracks made it onto the comp (thanks Flee!) and I'll post all the info as soon as I get a copy! OK, that's it for today, still feeling a bit like crap from the flu, but feeling better none the less.

10/08/2003 -God I hate the flu. Ugh.

10/05/2003 - My goodness Dave's Bar and Grill is always a trip, I never know where to begin. The Johnny Mac band opened the show. Joining me on bass tonight was Lance Rowland. Martin was playing with his new band Saint Felon at Club Venom and getting interviewed by Channel 10 for the Hell on Earth story. We had a loose and fun set with surprisingly little heckling. Next up Lance played a handful of acoustic tunes while we waited for Martin to show up from his other show. Sparky's Nightmare was up next and as usual all sorts of funny stuff happened... I can't even remember all the stuff, so I'll have to leave it up to your imagination.

10/02/2003 - OK kids, get this... I'm sure by now you've heard all about local band Hell on Earth and their controversial stage performance that will supposedly feature an assisted suicide on stage. Well, Gina Vivaneto at the St. Petersburg Times has written a poignant article about it in the paper that I encourage you all to read (Read it Here).

As a musician that pours his heart and soul into the Tampa Bay music scene, I applaud Gina for her well written insightful article and unique perspective that honestly didn't occur to me until everybody I know started asking me questions about the whole Hell on Earth spectacle. "It's at the State Theater right? Your band plays the State Theater right? Do you support this kind of activity? Why would you play a place that allows this kind of activity to occur?" Suddenly it's guilt by association. Now they are going to be filming the concert at a "secret location in St. Petersburg" and broadcasting it "live" over the web. Snore. If it's on the web, it must be true... right?

Wrong, I think the whole thing is a marginally-executed "fake stunt" for publicity that blew up on them. If Hell on Earth is smart, they will have already filmed the "show" a week ago, stick it on their website which will mysteriously "crash" so no one can watch it, claim victory, and then pack it in. I can't imagine anyone that would want to go see them live, or any club that would want to book them again.

Back when my old band performed regularly with Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids, they were experts at pushing buttons, getting reactions, and generally making people upset and uncomfortable. Where they drew the line, if that's possible to say, is that they never took for granted the dignity and individuality of the “person”. If anything they were proponents of individual expression and beliefs and as "bad" as people think Marilyn Manson is, I don't think he'd touch this pile with a 10-foot pole.

Let's not cheapen the music scene we have here in the St. Pete/Tampa area, it's a great one and the people that are involved in this scene are the finest people and best friends anyone could hope for. This will (quickly) pass.

Well Gina has been kind enough to pass my number and several other musicians' phone numbers on to WTSP Channel 10 who will be interviewing me tomorrow evening at Dave's Bar and Grill at about 9pm... hey it's right across the street from the station, how easy could I make this for them. So, come on out, bring you rainbow wig and John 3:16 sign and enjoy the chaos.

10/02/2003 - I cannot for the life of me believe it's October already. The air is starting to cool, the days are growing shorter and that can only mean one thing... it's time to play Dave's Bar and Grill this weekend! Yes, it's true, I'll be playing three sets this Saturday night, the first set will be by an abbreviated version of the John McNicholas Band featuring Lance Rowland on bass and as usual John Frieberger on drums. I'll probably play a few tunes by myself and then the guys will pile on-stage and off we'll go. The next two sets come courtesy of Sparky's Nightmare and if you've ever seen us at Dave's you'll know that we are completely in our element there. My god, it's a match made in heaven. haha... OK, I'm off to bed, perhaps I'll see some of you fine folks down at First Friday in St. Pete tomorrow night.

09/29/2003 - First off I'd like to thank everyone that made it out to Jimmy Mac's last night for the solo acoustic gig. I think a good time was had by all. All in all it was a strange little gig, they had Bob Anthony and I set up in this little banquet room set off to the side of the main dining area. The room was all glass with high ceilings so it was very lively. Natty joined me for Friday Morning, Half Awake and everyone seemed to chime in from time to time on Stereo In Japan, Holly's Tooth and some of the others. I played a new tune called Take it Off last night too. Well, I'm looking forward to doing something like that again really soon. Hope to see some of you out at the Dave's Bar and Grill show this weekend.

09/23/2003 - OK, so it's been a few days since I've thrown a journal entry up here. I've been busy! Well, OK for starters I've been doing some song writing, got a few new tunes kicking around that I hope to debut at the September 29th show at Jimmy Mac's in Tampa. Last Saturday night was the wedding of Jen and Joran from the Gita and Auditorium. It was an absolutely beautiful and festive affair, by far the craziest and most fun wedding I think I've ever been to. The ceremony was beautiful and the Saturn 5 kept the party hopping late into the evening. I had a GREAT time. Sunday was spent recovering and doing a bit more song writing and well that about catches everyone up to date. Hopefully this weekend I'm going to start to put some arrangements down for the next record, so that sounds keep me busy for a little while! On a sadder note, I received an e-mail from Scott Harrell notifying everyone that the Cocktail Honey's are calling it quits after one more show at the New World Brewery with When Ducks Attack and Fang Shooey on October 4th... now go see them live! OK, talk soon!

09/15/2003 - Last weekend was a blast, too much to tell... here's the highlights. We had great weather Friday night for the Skipper's Smokehouse show. I had a fun acoustic set as Jeff Wood kept calling out requests like Satellite and Stereo in Japan, sort of a stump the band but I pulled through! Sparky's Nightmare rocked and Mark Warren from Barely Pink joined us for the Johnny Cash (R.I.P.) tune Ring of Fire in remembrance of the man in black. Barely Pink rocked it as well and I even jumped up and sang Day Tripper while I faked my way through all the guitar parts. Lots of great friends came out... "Thanks for coming out!" Saturday night Sparky's Nightmare rocked the ACL Club at Ricky Wilcox's CD release party. Fun crowd, and all the bands had great tunes... even Rob Douglas who sang "Sparky's Nightmare, it's Sparky's Nightmare" as he was walking into the club. OK, that's it, there are some photos up from Friday night and hopefully I'll have some up for Saturday night soon! Time for Monday Night Football!

09/11/2003 - Hello all, I'm really looking forward to the shows this weekend. Friday night there is the solo show at Skipper's Smokehouse and then the set with Sparky's Nightmare. Then on Saturday night we are back in the 'Burg at the ACL club on 1st Ave N. Hope you can make it out. Also today I got a nice write-up from TAXI, I posted a few highlights on the Press page. See you soon.

09/05/2003 - Hey, hey, what's new everyone? I've been keeping pretty busy with work and writing some new tunes. We've had some great reviews lately from the press and special thanks to WMNF and 97x for playing the CD. You rock! Not much happening this weekend, we are resting up for next weekend's onslaught of shows and debauchery. So... with that said, I hope to see you next week at one of the shows, the Friday night at Skipper's should be especially fun. Nothing like performing outside in Florida in the summertime. Mosquitos, rain, sweltering heat, pick your favorite, slather on some lotion, and bring your umbrella! The Saturday night show at the ACL in St. Pete should be fun too, Ricky Wilcox is having a CD release party for his new band and I can't wait to hear it!

08/31/2003 - It is hard to describe in words how much fun the JEFWOODstock show was. Not only did Martin Rice put together a great show for a great cause but all the bands and people that turned out only served to show what a great musical community we really do have here in the Tampa Bay area. OK, so maybe it's the "old guard" as there were no Nu-Metal bands in the house, but this is a family, we've all grown up together, and I cannot think of a more appropriate group of musicians to get behind Jeff and give him a much-deserved helping hand. For those of you that didn't make it out, Jeff looked great and when he got behind the kit for a song during the Joe Popp's set I don't think there was a dry eye in the house, it was awesome. He played great.

08/24/2003 - What a long day yesterday was... Chris rolled into town late Friday night and Saturday morning we had rehearsal at a new studio called South Gate Rehearsal studios. The studio is across from Star Booty and Daddy Kool on Central Ave. The room sounded great and it was even air-conditioned! We ran through the set a few times and then learned three new tunes for the show. After practice I had to run a million errands before the show, including getting a new battery so I could actually get TO the show. We got down to the club a little early, hung some Christmas lights and got settled in. OK, so last night's CD Release show at the Emerald Bar was a blast! James Salter kicked off the evening with a great acoustic set, the Lance Rowland Project turned in a stellar performance as always and then we rocked our set, special thanks to Brian Merrill from Barely Pink and Scott Harrell from Cocktail Honeys for joining us for No One Would Miss Us. Next up the Cocktail Honeys proceeded to lay waste to the club with a great set, they even learned Bookstore and pulled Marcus and I up to sing it with them. Afterwards a few people came back to the house for a few brews and then evening wound down about 4am. Thanks to everyone that came out and had a great time, hopefully we'll be playing again real soon!

08/21/2003 - Well today is turning out to be a darn fine one despite the crummy weather outside. This morning Mark Hafen on WMNF gave the new record another spin on a great show called Drivin' in the Dark. If you haven't hear the show he plays a great mix a singer/songwriters, 80s new wave, and modern indie-rock! (Today's show featured Fountains of Wayne, Pete Yorn, Rufus Wainwright, Superchunk, Psychedelic Furs, the Smiths, Led Zeppelin and Guided by Voices)

Also in the newest edition of Tampa's Weekly Planet, Eric Snider has the following nice words to say about the new record in a preview that they ran for the CD release party: "We'll call it ultra-tuneful indie-rock with a nice power-pop element. Very professional, and thoroughly on par with far more successful acts." Thanks Eric! (full quote here)

Can't wait for the show on Saturday, I hope I see you soon, I hope I see you soon.

08/17/2003 - Greetings all, the show last night at the Green Room in Ybor was a blast! Despite the $10 parking and a dead battery, I really had a great time playing, all the bands sounded great! Jim Sauerman did a great job running sound for all the bands. Another big thank you to everyone that played with me last night, you guys rock. Did I mention that James Salter (legend/guitarist/owner of 10,000 Fireflies Studio) was the star of the show when he came up to join us on No One Would Miss Us, he's now an honorary member of the band, he got the most applause all night with his Les Paul riffs! It was great to see so many new faces out at the show last night and it was a good looking audience, give yourselves a big round of applause for being such a good looking audience. It was great to be able to talk to so many of you for the first time, I only wish I had more time to visit! It was also great to see Jon Harrison and Martin Conner from Welcome out at the show, I was going to bust into Big Ideas at one point but Rob the drummer was nowhere to be seen, drat! Hopefully I'll have some photos posted soon from the show, check back soon! OK, I'm out of here, it's almost noon and my first cup of coffee is waiting.

08/15/2003 - Happy Friday, thank goodness the weekend is here , I am ready to rock tomorrow night at the Green Room in Ybor City, it's directly behind the Green Iguana on 7th so you can't miss the place. I also picked up some band t-shirts today that we'll be selling at the show tomorrow night for $8 each, come on out and get one! Well, I'm out of here, I'm going to a party! Woo-hoo!

08/09/2003 - It is raining cats and dogs outside at the moment and I can't seem to pull myself out of the house to do much of anything. Hey, everyone needs a day off sometime right? Well it's a quiet weekend for me, nothing really planned, I'm just going to try and kick back and relax, maybe do a little writing. Yesterday I dropped off some artwork at Red Onions in Ybor City to get some t-shirts printed up for the upcoming shows, hopefully I'll have them back by the Green Room show on August 16th, if not, I'll defiantly have them by the CD Release show at the Emerald on the August 23rd. For those of you that are out-of-towners you can pre-order my new CD from the Store and I'll send it out to you on 8/23/03, I'll also include a free poster and sticker with every order while supplies last! Don't wait! What are you waiting for? Seriously, quit reading! Oh, I'm so disappointed in you... OK, I'm off, I got nothing to do and I'd better get started before there's no time to do nothing.

08/03/2003 - Happy August everyone! The official CD release party has been booked at the Emerald Bar on August 23rd, I can't wait! Joining me that night will be the Lance Rowland band and hopefully a few other acts that are sure to please. I'll post the details as the day get closer, so check back. I had a pretty laid back weekend, worked on recording some demos and with Chris' long-distance tech support I was able to finish a 6-song demo to give to the guys this week. OK, I'm beat, I'm off to bed. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

07/31/2003 - The week has absolutely flown by... I'm wrapping up some demos this evening and I can't believe it's 11PM already, I started about 9pm and boom, two hours have vanished. I did two demos for High school Drunk and Inside Out, they came out pretty cool. We are going to record these for the next CD that we are going to start working on the weekend of August 29th. Hopefully we are going to have our CD Release party for the new record, How to Be Alone on August 23rd at the Emerald in St. Pete, I should find out tomorrow, I'll keep you posted, I hope to have some cool special guests and, well, the Emerald is always fun. Sparky's Nightmare practice was great Tuesday night, we worked an two new tunes, one of Sam's and one of Martin's, both of them are excellent. Well I'm off to la la land. Tomorrow night is First Friday in downtown St. Pete, so maybe I'll see a few of you there.

07/27/2003 - Well it has been a crazy and hectic last few days! Thursday night I headed out to the Joe Popp show at the New World Brewery in Ybor. It was great to see Jeff Wood up and about and looking great after his surgery, it was also great to see the band rock through a great group of tunes from both of their CDs. Mark Prator handled the drum duties and he did a great job! Jeff was on-stage singing backup vocals all night and it really was a touching scene to see everyone up there having a blast. Friday I got up early and headed over to WMNF to perform live on the radio for their Live Music Showcase between 9 and 10 AM on Friday mornings. I played for an hour with a guy named Walter Smith who had a great blues voice and some really catchy tunes. I received a CD of the performance so I'm going to try and figure out some way to post some of it on the website for people to download. Later that night was the big The Rolling Stones Tribute show at the State Theater. Despite starting the first song in the wrong key (ugh) we had a great set and we really had a great time. Special thanks to Lance, Martin and John for playing with me again. All the bands sounded great and Flee and all the 'MNF folks were great to work with. Saturday was spent with good friends, celebrating Hugh's birthday on the beach, eating a damn fine steak with wonderful company, and watching the new Zeppelin DVD! Perfect.

07/23/2003 - First off, Happy birthday Hugh! We had a brief practice tonight for the Rolling Stones tribute Friday night at the State Theater and everything sounded really fun. It should be a loose and fun time. The JMc band starts at 9PM promptly so if you are coming, get there early. I'll be playing guitar again with Sparky's Nightmare at about 12:15 so it should be a great time. If you can, listen to WMNF 88.5 FM on Friday morning between 9AM and 10AM, I'll be performing live for about 10 minutes.

07/20/2003 - Well I had an absolute blast last night at the State Theater, all the bands were great, and everyone seemed to have a great time. I even got to sit in with Pagan Saints for a cool new tune of theirs! I think we had a pretty good set, it was great to have Chris down from Atlanta and with the addition of Lance Rowland on rhythm guitar we defiantly had a big, big sound coming off stage. Luscious introduced me and I seem to remember him calling me pretty... hummm. hahaha. We started off the set with a pair of tunes off of the second Lie disc, first up was a stripped down version of X-Girl Friend (an often misunderstood song about a girl that likes the X-Girl clothing line that Kim Gordon started in the early 90s as opposed to a mean song about an ex-girlfriend) and then a ferocious version of I Will Default. From there we dove into three new tunes, Stay, Fallout, Friday Morning, Half Awake from the upcoming solo CD. Next up were Feelin' It and No One Would Miss Us, off of the Great Mistake, we finished up with Alright which is also on the new CD. The set went by so fast I felt like I hardly had a second to catch my breath. After playing I ran into a good friend Jason whose pictures of myself and Jeff Wood grace the cover of the Great Mistake. He was down for his sister's wedding in Sarasota and he made the trek up to see us play, it was great to see him and to catch up. All in all it was a really good time, thanks again to everyone that made it out to the show. Check the Photos page for some pictures from the show.

07/18/2003 - Friday evening and I'm listening to the final (final, FINAL!) mastered version of my new record! I was supposed to have left the house already to go see Marcus and Ask Erin play at MacDinton's in Tampa but I cannot pull myself away from the stereo system. I've also come to the realization that my speakers are absolute crap... anyway... mastering engineer Alex Lowe from Southern Living at it's Finest in Atlanta really did a stellar job with the mastering and I couldn't be happier with how it sounds. Thanks again to Chris, Martin, John and everyone everywhere that let us record in their living room, garage, balcony & basement. The CD will hit the mail tomorrow sometime and after that it's about a 3-week wait before I get the CDs back for everyone to enjoy. I'm already counting the days. Well, I hope you are planning on coming out tomorrow to the big rock show at the State Theater to see us walk the tightrope that is this band live. Joining me on-stage tomorrow night will be Martin Rice (bass), Chris Skogen - all the way from Atlanta! (guitar/keys), John Frieberger (drums) and my great friend and songwriting buddy Lance Rowland (guitar). I am truly lucky to have them indulging me with my habitual songwriting obsession.

07/16/2003 - Just done with practice and I'm off to bed, rehearsal sounded great and I can't wait until Saturday night! Tomorrow night Sparky's Nightmare is rocking the Tavern at Bayboro on the USF St. Pete campus, come on out from 7 till 10 PM and bring the dogs and kids, it's outside and all ages.

07/11/2003 - Hey there, it's been a quiet week filled with lots of work and very little play. Nothing to report but a quiet weekend ahead and then a week with two wonderful shows at the Tavern at Bayboro on the USF St. Pete campus with Sparky's Nightmare and then at The State Theater with my band as apart of the SMA Summer Showcase. Fun, fun, fun! I'm out for a beer!

07/07/2003 - Greetings all, if you wouldn't mind helping me out I'd like to get some suggestions from you. I'm looking to play out of town, solo or with the band, once the CD comes out in about 3 weeks. Do you know a good spot to play in your town? Do you know the club owner? I'd love to hear some suggestions for South Florida, Tampa Bay, Orlando, Gainesville, Tallahassee, Atlanta and any other city that you may be from! Send an e-mail to nickmickolas@hotmail.com and let me know!

07/03/2003 - Good morning, errr... afternoon as the case may be. Last night's show at the Green Room was a fun time. We played about a 45 minute opening set and everyone said we sounded great, Jim did a great job with the sound. For some reason I felt a little self conscious on stage and it was about 200 degrees, I think we all lost about 50 pounds. I think the club is going to be pretty cool, there is a huge outside patio area, a nice inside bar area where Jim is going to build another stage and I think the area is dying for another venue to see some live music. Well I'm not going to ramble on about the show but I do want to thank everyone that played with me and invited us out to play, it was nice to get that show under our belts so we can be more prepared for the upcoming State Theater shows we have later in the month.

06/29/2003 - Sunday evening all alone... sort of a busy week this week was, the guys were over for a little while today to run through the songs that we will be playing on Wednesday for the grand opening of a new club in Ybor called the Green Room (map). We got together earlier in the week and ran through all the material including one of the Rolling Stones tunes that we are going to be performing for the WMNF Rolling Stones tribute on the 25th. OK, so hopefully I'm going to send the CD out this week, Chris is getting everything mastered in Atlanta and I'm hoping to get everything back by the show on the 19th although I'm not holding my breath, things always, always take longer than you think they will.

06/25/2003 - Hey, hey, hey... John was over tonight and we are working on arrangements for the next CD already, we are the hardest working band in show business. We've been asked to perform live on the radio by WMNF the morning of the Rolling Stones tribute, I can't wait, it should be an absolute blast!

06/23/2003 - The record is done. Yes! Just back from Atlanta early Monday morning, I spent the entire weekend up there with Chris and John drinking coffee, not sleeping, watching fireflies in the back yard, and working on the tunes. I got up there about lunchtime on Saturday; we grabbed some pizza at Fellini's off of the Freedom Parkway. Chris and I headed over to Midtown Music to check out their selection of vintage guitars and amps. I was digging the Victoria amps pretty hard although I never even plugged one in. I can't spend the money if I don't play one and I figured I'd better hang on to the cash at the moment. We headed over to James and Ally's house where we would be mixing the record. He lives in a very cute house in Decatur with a HUGE basement. The studio was very cool, it was loaded with tons of guitars and gear. We really appreciated all the hospitality they showed us all weekend, the coffee was strong and the sofa was comfortable! We mixed for about 6 hours and took a break a little before 10pm. We were hungry so we sat outside at this English pub/restaurant called the Angel in Decatur and had some beers and food. After dinner mixing continued into the wee hours of the morning, and after a few hours of sleep, we got up early Sunday and continued mixing for the rest of the day. On a sad note, about noon on Sunday James was told about the death of the gentleman that owns the studio where he works, our thoughts are with him and his family for their loss. Finally about 5pm John and I headed back to St. Pete as Chris was wrapping up the finishing touches on the last song. We are going to give it a few days to make sure that we are happy with all the mixes and then we are going to send everything out to be duplicated. Hopefully we'll have some CDs to sell by the time we play the show on the 19th at the State Theater. I absolutely love Atlanta, I can't wait to get back there soon, do some more recording and play some shows. I'll post a new mp3 or two of the songs sometime this week for everyone to get a sneak peek before the CD is released.

06/19/2003 - Well, first off, the White Stripes and Whirlwind Heat were great last night. The bands sounded great and I had a blast. Trish and I bumped into tons of people we knew and the White Stripes sure put on a hell of a show. Very enjoyable indeed. Tonight we had Johnny Mac Band practice at my house with Martin, John and Lance on second guitar. Things came together pretty quick, many tunes were learned, and relearned as the case may be, and the cops never showed up once. This weekend we are hoping to get the CD finished, yeah you heard me, finished. I sure hope so, I'm ready to put this thing out so people can enjoy it. Should be a fun crazy weekend I'll give everyone a full report when it's over.

06/18/2003 - Hello, hello, well I'm headed out to see the White Stripes tonight out at the Sun Dome at USF in Tampa, should be a great show, I only hope it stops raining before I get there. Looking forward to getting the record mixed this weekend and running through some new tunes with Chris and John and maybe even James in the basement of his house. . Also we are going to sneak in a practice sometime this week and start preparing for our new show on July 2nd. It's a new club in Ybor and Jim Sauerman (from the Stone Lounge Days) is either running it or doing sound there now. It's the grand opening night so come on out and support a new venue. Joining us that night will be Lance Rowland on 2nd guitar, filling in for Chris.

06/17/2003 - Hey everyone, he is some of the latest information from and e-mail Andrea Halpern sent out about Jeff Wood, just wanted to keep everyone informed. Please keep him in your thoughts and stop by to see him if you can, he's at St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa by Raymond James Stadium.

"Here's the deal- The news of Jeff's tumor being benign was premature... the facts are the tumor initially appears to be benign, but because of the complex nature of the tumor, they sent it out to a pathology lab to get definites. The results are not back yet, but as soon as they are ...I'll forward e-mails out. Jeff doesn't mind people coming to see him, and knowing him, he loves the attention. Having his friends around are helping his spirits. He does have to have another surgery to get the rest of the tumor out (or most of it, anyway) sometime this week. The doctor has told him about the surgery, but Vicky isn't sure if Jeff really gets it that he has to do it again, so tread lightly on the subject if broached at all with him."

06/15/2003 - Greetings all, just a quick recap of the week... not to much has been going on all week. Chris was over yesterday and we put a few finishing touches on the record and I think we are all set to mix and master next week. I'm excited, I can't wait to hear how it all comes out. I made a CD of some new tunes for the guys to check out, hopefully we'll start recording them within the next handful of weeks. In the meantime we have two shows at the State Theater to practice for in July. I think we are going to try and get together this week and run through the basics without Chris and then jam with him when he's back in town on the weekends. OK, that's it for now, I'm gong to grab some coffee and go out looking for some cool old t-shirts. Apparently Jeff Wood is feeling better too, please keep him in your thoughts.

06/13/2003 - I just spoke with Martin and I just received the following e-mail from Joe Popp, please keep Jeff Wood in your thoughts, I'm sure he'll pull through this just fine. I'll keep everyone updated on the site the moment I hear anything.

Dear Friends,
Sorry for the Blanket e-mail but Jeff Wood, the drummer for my old band ("Joe Popp"), underwent brain surgery yesterday. He suffered a seizure caused from a brain tumor and is recovering now in St. Joseph's hospital in Tampa, Florida. Unfortunately I have no further information about his condition. My old friend Martin called me with the bad news this afternoon and will update me when he hears more on Woody. We were scheduled to do a benefit show for Jobsite theater on July 24th, which would have marked our first performanceas a band in over three years. Many of you know Jeff, and know he's as tough as Marine boot leather, so if anyone can pull out of this thing - he can. My only request is that you keep Jeff in your thoughts hope for his speedy recovery.

06/08/2003 - Greetings all from Sunday morning, half awake. It's the morning after the night before and I'm sill trying to coax some coffee from the coffee maker this morning. Yesterday was a blast all the way around, the only thing that could have been better was if the temperature was 20 degrees cooler. I swear I lost 20 pounds yesterday out in the hot sun. The first show at The Image Station was pretty nice, we played at about 1:30 PM on a portable stage in the parking lot of this new business. It's a nice spot, it's got a recording studio in the building and they make products for people that need promotional items and all items related to marketing their business including photo shoots and gift baskets! After we played it was so hot that I only caught a few tunes from Crizzy and the Punks before I headed home to change strings and get ready for the X show at Jannus Landing that night. The X show was a blast. Some of the folks in the band had been hanging out with X already at a private party that Star Booty was having for them down at their store. I got down there at about 5:30 PM and the stage was totally stripped and ready for us to set up and sound check. Soundcheck went quick and smooth so we retreated over to Mastry's Bar for a drink to relax before the show. Come showtime we hit the stage about 8:15 just as the sun was dipping below the buildings on the opposite end of the courtyard and played a fun, hi-energy set for everyone that came out early. Next up were the Fags and they rocked pretty hard, really enjoyed them. X took the stage next and put on a great show, they played tons of old tunes and sounded great, it was fun to see Billy Zoom with that shit-eating grin all night playing his sparkle Gretsch guitar. As the show ended we loaded everything out and then a group of us headed over to Mastry's again for drinks (Cokes for me!) and unwound. After a while some people were headed over to the "after-party" but I was headed home... so tired. I'll post some pictures really soon as soon as I can get a hold of them!

06/05/2003 - It's Thursday and the anticipation of the shows this Saturday is killing me. Saturday during the day Sparky's Nightmare is playing two rock shows for the people. The first show will be at The Image Station on Ulmerton Blvd. just off I-275 and 28th street for the "SUMMER BLAST 2003". We'll be playing with a ton of other bands so the entire show should be fun. We play first at 1pm so I hope the rain stays away long enough for everyone to have a good time. Later that night we'll be opening for X at Jannus Landing. This should be an amazing show and I can't wait to see X perform. Well, better run, hope to see everyone out this weekend sometime.

05/31/2003 - First off, the Beck concert in Orlando last night was off the hook! Seriously, it was awesome, I had never been to the Hard Rock Live before, it's a great place to see a show, and much like the House of Blues in Downtown Disney, every seat in the house is a good one. Trish and I totally missed the first opening band the Black Keys because by the time we parked five miles away and walked over to the venue it took us too long. Just as we got there Dashboard Confessional started playing. They had a few technical glitches but they sounded really good and Chris' voice was loud and strong. I know they have a new record out which is probably why I only knew a few of the tunes. After about a 45-minute break between bands the house lights went down and out came Beck with a small sampler that he was manipulating beats on, he was all smiles in his shiny black suit. After getting the beat set he grabbed his guitar and kicked into Loser as the rest of the band came out to join him by the time the song hit the chorus. He didn't have his standard backing band that you may have seen in videos and live before but this new band was tight and fun, Steve MacDonald from Redd Kross was on bass and he was doing a pretty good "Robot" all night while he played. Without doing the play by play, the show was a blast, I expected to hear an overwhelming amount of material from the new album, Sea Change, but he played a great mix of all his records. The crowd was going crazy the entire night. The first encore consisted entirely of songs from the new album which sounded amazing and the final encore was a scorching version of Devil's Haircut. Fun, fun, fun. Did I mention that he did Nelly's song Hot in Here? Hilarious. Here's the setlist from his site (setlist). After the show we headed over to an Irish Pub in Citywalk where we were repeatedly ID'd. How tall are you? Sign your name here? This isn't you! Good times, good times.

05/30/2003 - Greetings from Saturday morning, ER well, afternoon. The Sparky's Nightmare show last Thursday evening at the Tavern at Bayboro was really fun and funny. We picked on people, we drank beer and we made Joran from the Gita come play with us on stage. Good times, good times... Tonight I'm really looking forward to the Beck concert in Orlando at the Hard Rock Live. I've never seen Beck in concert and I've never been to the Hard Rock either. I'm also excited about seeing Steve MacDonald from Redd Kross playing bass with Beck this evening. I always been a Redd Kross fan so this should be kool. Opening up the show will be Dashboard Confessional and the Black Keys. I'll have a full report tomorrow.

05/27/2003 - Happy Tuesday, I hope that everyone had a fun and safe Memorial Day weekend. I had a great and exhausting weekend, I caught a few shows at the New World Brewery and I even managed to sneak in a Sparky's Nightmare practice. We've got a show this Thursday evening at the Tavern at Bayboro on the USF St. Petersburg Campus that should be really fun. OK, gotta run, I'm still working today!

05/23/2003 - Hey everyone, it's been all week since I've been able to collect my thoughts for the week. So what have I been up to all week? Monday night my friend Lance and I headed up to the House of Blues to see the Pete Yorn concert. I thought he was really good, the show started off a little slow but it picked up and all the tunes sounded great. He played all the songs that you'd expect him to play as well as mixing in I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend by the Ramones and a little of In-between Days by the Cure and even She Bangs the Drum by the Stone Roses. It was the first time I'd been to the HOB and it's a great place to see a show. I bumped into Marcus, Chris, Tina, Brett and Piper and a few other friends that made the trek up to see the show. I missed the first opening band, Year of the Rabbit, but everyone said they were really good. Grandaddy was the second band and they were really cool too, I've heard one of their new songs call Stand By on WMNF so I need to pick up the record when it comes out. Tuesday night I had Sparky's Nightmare practice, we worked on some new tunes and they sounds really good, a few more practices and they should be ready to go. Not much happening this Labor Day weekend so I'm going to try and see a few shows and work on some new songs. Have a fun and safe weekend!

05/18/2003 - As you may be able to tell, I have been messing with the site a little bit. As we get closer to having the album come out I'll probably completely redesign the site to reflect the look and the style of the album art. I've put up a new intro page and added a slew of new pictures from our photo session with Carrie and some fun and funky live shots from the Sparky's Nightmare show last Friday night. OK, so this week was full of fun stuff so let's recap. I started off the week still sick from the previous weekend. Man I hate getting sick. Tuesday night we had Sparky's Nightmare practice and my voice was slowly coming back although I didn't even try to push it at practice. We tried to get some vocals recorded on Wednesday night but there was no way I was well enough to sing so we took some pictures with Carrie, I think they came out great, it's amazing what you can do with a digital camera and absolutely no light in an alley way. Thursday night I headed over to Brian Merrill's to take some pictures for the upcoming Honeyrider album. I'm anxious to see how it all comes out. Friday night was a blast, a bunch of people that I work with in St. Louis were down for the weekend and nearly everyone made it out to the Sparky's Nightmare show at Mastry's Bar (pictures). Saturday, Chris and I headed into the shed to try and get vocals for the final tune, Alright finished up. Would I be able to sing? Yes! Woo-hoo, all the vocals are finished. Everything came out great and I even re-cut the guitar break that had been bugging me. Hopefully we'll go for a final mix on everything by next weekend and then master the songs up in Atlanta soon afterwards. Sunday I rested, ahhh... Tomorrow is the Pete Yorn concert in Orlando at the House of Blues so I'm pretty pumped about that. Lance Rowland and myself are headed up after work, should be a blast!

05/11/2003 - Well, I'm feeling better. I've got some recording and practice this week in preparation for the Sparky's Nightmare show on Friday night at Mastry's Bar. Hopefully we'll finish my record this week, only one more song to sing. this Friday night the 16th.

05/09/2003 - Greetings all, well the acoustic show that I was going to play tonight has been canceled because I am sick. I was hoping this flu would go away before tonight but it looks like it's here for the weekend. Dang. Still, that shouldn't stop you from heading down to New World for Barely Pink and Big Kitty. They rock, the beers are cold, and it should be a nice night for dancing under that stars at the New World. Have fun.

05/05/2003 - Well, well, well.. Quite the crazy weekend. I didn't play any shows but I did manage to firmly entrench myself in a few bars over the weekend. Must... get... sleep. Hopefully we are going to finish up my solo record record this week; I'll do vocals for the last remaining tune on Thursday. Wednesday we are going to get a practice in for the John McNicholas Band too, so exciting. Also, I spoke with Dan from Bay Sound who was recording all the In the Raw showcases that Joran from the Gita hosted at the State Theater and I'm hoping to be able to get a copy of a few acoustic tunes to tag on the end of the record, sort of like bonus tracks. Could be cool, I'll have to check out the performances and see how I sound. I remember the between banter was funny, but I can't remember how well I played ;-). Tomorrow night Sparky's Nightmare is headed back in the studio to finish up a few remaining parts and then it's straight to mixdown, it's taking us some time but it's really sounding great.

05/03/2003 - Just a quick note to say how amazing the Cramps were last night at the State Theater. My God they rocked!

04/30/2003 - Well, thanks to Maxim's Hometown Hottie Brenda from Tarpon Springs the song Sad Song by my old band Misfortune 500 has leaped to the top of the mp3 power pop charts. Ah, yes you can say you knew us when... I'm just in from recording at the shed with Chris, we got all the vocals to the song Stay finished which just leaves one more tune before we are finished with the recording. It sounds amazing, I can't wait for everyone to hear it. Looks like we have Honeyrider practice tomorrow night, the weekend should be a quiet affair, what is going on this weekend, anything?

04/25/2003 - Check out Maxim's Hometown Hottie Brenda from Tarpon Springs and vote for her and listen to one of my bands, Misfortune 500. She must have seen us play the Neptune Lounge one night. Hey Brenda, call/amyl me so I can send you a CD! Oh yeah, if you're not Brenda I still have some CDs for sale so go shopping, you can even pay with your credit card! OK, enough of that.. last night Chris, Martin, Marcus and I were hammering away in the studio. Martin laid down some great bass lines and Chris continued to work on my mixes and some mixes for Sparky's Nightmare's new record. Lot's of recording and practice on tap for this weekend so I'll keep you posted!

04/23/2003 - Just a quick update here as it's really late. Chris and I got some more tracking done on my new record as well as tweeking a mix on the upcoming Sparky's Nightmare record. Tomorrow we're tracking bass guitar with Martin for my record and then I'm going to try and get 8 hours of sleep. Yeah, right.

04/22/2003 - OK, where do I begin with the weekend? It started of with a bang at Scott and Shannon's housewarming party on Friday night. I had a great time I think, I can't remember.

Saturday I had a brief but fun acoustic show at Tycoon's opening up for Barely Pink, Adam Marsland and Four Star Riot. I took requests, I told jokes, I screwed up the arrangement to Friday Morning, Half Awake, and I had to leave by 9:30 pm to make it up to Dave's by 10 PM for the Sparky's Nightmare/Dank show.

What can you say about Dave's in a journal entry that will really do it justice... that place is just surreal. I'll just hit the highlights. The place was pretty crowded early. Our first set was a sleeper. The second set was much more fun, we threw the setlist away. A friend of Sam's was making out on the dance floor and grabbing lots of ass. This one lady hated Patsy Cline so bad that she left when we played I Fall to Pieces and came back in when it was over... so we played it again. Her boyfriend, who used to be in Savatage, thanked us. Travis and Marcus jumped up to play bass and guitar for an impromptu version of No One Would Miss Us, which I sang... next time I'm making Hugh let me play the drums like I use to do in Lie. I redeemed myself and played Friday Morning, Half Awake correctly. Um... next up, Dank seized the stage and rocked the club for... 20 mins. We were celebrating our new Dank CD Release "Dank vs. Miami". Many CDs were sold for 99 cents. Many pennies were left on table tops at the end of the night. We had a great time; I even ended up giving some locals a ride back to their apartments down the street. Damn the long wait for taxis in this town.

Easter Sunday was celebrated at the ACL club at their Rock and Roll Flea Market. There were two stages set up; one inside and one outside in the courtyard were there were also many merchants selling some pretty cool swag. Hugh and Natty had a table filled with Guitars, posters, hand painted boxes, and lamps. Joran and Tony and extended family from the Gita were there at the Southeast Music Alliance booth which was full of local CD and T-shirts. Manny brought CDs from Daddy Kool and numerous other people had old records, rock t-shirts, buttons and punk magazines. I got there early and caught all the bands. Arcade Inferno was just that, an Inferno. They played first inside the club and brought a loud spastic set to the crowd that were defiantly digging it. Next up outside were my favorites of the day, a bad called Shotgun Wedding. They are a three-piece band that play mellow-down country... sort of a mix of... well, just go check them out sometime. NutraJet played next inside the club, I only saw one song as I was setting up for the Sparky's Nightmare set outside, but it was tight and fast and full of attitude. The Sparky's set started off strong and then, for me, was a constant battle with the guitars. I basically worked on my gear for about 45 minutes while on stage. Broken strings, Strap buttons coming undone, changing strings... etc. Still we had a good show, the people were digging it and the jokes were flying. After us inside were the Semis. I was beat and they were loud so I only caught a few tunes, but they sounded great. Dank was up next outside and right before we started the set I bought one of Hugh's many pawnshop guitars that he had for sale and proceeded to rock the crap out of it on stage. It's the coolest $50 I've spent in a while. We had a fun set and we almost sold completely out of CDs by the end of the set. After Dank played, the Crippled Masters rocked the crowd inside. Nice, nice, nice. We all hung out for a while and talked and finally decided we were all starving. A group of us ended the night at Harvey's 4th Street Grill eating a wonderful meal. By then it was almost 10pm. What happened to the day, it went by so fast. Good times, good times.

04/18/2003 - I completely forgot to mention in yesterday's journal entry about all the recording I've been doing this week. We got the lead vocals for Friday Morning, Half Awake finished! Woo-hoo!

04/17/2003 - Well I'm looking forward to a fun filled weekend. I'm playing a solo acoustic set at 9pm on Saturday night at Tycoon's in St. Pete and then I'm running up to Gandy Blvd. to play with Sparky's Nightmare and Dank at Dave's. On Easter, Dank and Sparky are playing at the Rock-n-Roll Flea Market next to the ACL club. Also, the Dank CD will be available for sale starting this Saturday night. It's only .99 so bring a buck and you're in luck.

04/14/2003 - Greetings all, I'm just in from Dank's weekend trip down to Miami to do a little recording. The trip was, well... the first rule of Dank is we don't talk about Miami. Seriously though, it was a fun trip filled with recording, hanging at some clubs, riding around in limos and sleeping late. For further reference read Led Zeppelin's Hammer of the Gods. We recorded and mixed five songs at Soundmixers Recording Studio (map of the inside of the studio) with our new friend Damian Mazur at the helm and they sound great. Well, I'm out of here, there are some pictures of the weekend posted on the photos page.

04/10/2003 - I have done so much this week my brain hurts. We finished all the guitar tracks for my record and Martin tracked all the bass for Friday Morning, Half Awake. I think between Chris and I, we've kept Starbucks in business this week on Mochas alone. Tomorrow, us Dank boys are headed down to Miami to do some recording. We should be back on Sunday and I'll update the site on Monday with pictures and a journal entry. Should be quite the crazy weekend.

04/07/2003 - I think that guitars for my solo record are done. There may be just one more little part to record in Alright. On Saturday we got the guitars recorded for Stay and they sound great. The next thing to do is bass and vocals. Just a quick note today before I'm off to record. We're hoping to get all the guitars done today and maybe even start singing, who knows! Sunday was rehearsal with Honeyrider, Gary brought us all copies of the new Orange Sky Records Compilation: Carnivals, Cotton Candy and You It features the Honeyrider track Summer's Almost Gone. This upcoming weekend Dank will travel to sunny Miami to record some tracks for an upcoming release. It sounds like good fun and I can't wait. You can bet there will be a photo album up by this time next week. I'm out of here, time for breakfast.

04/05/2003 - Just a quick note today before I'm off to record. We're hoping to get all the guitars done today and maybe even start singing, who knows!

04/03/2003 - I could have swore that I added a journal entry on Monday but perhaps it it never made it out to the web. Last weekend was full of recording and practice. This week has been more of the same, last night Chris, Jon and I finished the guitar tracks on Fallout. That only leaves us one more track and then we sing and Martin will hammer out some bass. Then when it's all done it's off to be mastered and duplicated. Sounds so easy doesn't it. Well, truth be told, it has been incredibly easy this go around. Like the first Lie record, Molly, Mark + Madison , these sessions are flying by at a furious pace. Well one more day and then the weekend is here and that means more recording and more practice. Hopefully we'll finish the record next week. The release date for the reissue of the Honeyrider record All Systems Go! has been set. For those of you that want to get ready to order the CD here's the info from the onesheet: BAND: Honeyrider / TITLE: All Systems Go! / FORMAT: CD / CATALOG NUMBER: OS2211 / SHIP DATE: July 7, 2003. How exciting! As I've said before the Honeyrider reissue will feature five songs from our live show at Arlene Grocery in New York last December. Any good shows this weekend?

03/29/2003 - Happy Saturday, it has been a very long week for me but the weekend is here and there's lots on the agenda. I'm getting ready to start recording the guitars for my new record in a little while today. Hopefully Chris and I will get all the basics recorded and then start filling in the blanks so we can move on to vocals and bass in the upcoming week or so. I'm bringing my camera so I'm sure I'll have some pictures posted in the next few days. Gots me Honeyrider practice tomorrow afternoon and hopefully I'll be able to give everyone some more info on the release date of the new Honeyrider record and some info on some West-Coast shows to support the new release.

03/23/2003 - Thanks to everyone that made it out to Mastry's Bar for the Sparky's Nightmare show, it was a blast as you can see by the pictures posted on the Photos page! I think we all feel somehow violated by last night's show, but I think that maybe it's a good thing. I swear there was a full moon out last night as the crowd was going bananas all night. We played every song we knew and even a few we didn't. We learned a Lynard Skynard tune for the occasion, Simple Man, and the bar just exploded when we started playing it as well as Sweet Child of Mine. My new tune, Friday Morning, Half Awake seemed to go over just fine for the first time with Sparky. We even did No One Would Miss us and I gave my guitar to a guy in the audience who could play, by the end of the song he was playing Eruption on it, but hey, it did sound cool. Martin got help on Straight to Hell from a lovely lass from Atlanta that was giving him a body rub the whole time, did I mention body rubs, let's just say I got one too, check the pictures... and... well.. it goes downhill from there.. I've said to much. Work continues on my solo record, we recorded all the drums today over at Super B's studio. Jon did an amazing job rocking the kit and Chris did a great job getting it all captured on the computer. Thanks again to Brian for letting us use the pad and making coffee and thanks again to Chris and Jon for giving up their Sunday to help me record.

03/22/2003 - I'm getting ready to head out the door to Mastry's Bar for the Sparky's Nightmare show tonight. I had a great time hanging out at MacDinton's in Tampa last night watching Chris and Marcus playing with Ask Erin. Someone was even taking photos! <ClickHere!> Marcus even got me up on stage for a version of Don't Change by INXS. Good times, good times. Hope to see some of you all out tonight!

03/18/2003 - The days slip by so fast I swear that I'm sleeping through them. If it weren't for the vivid memories I'd swear the clock spins twice as fast during the week sometimes. Recording for my record did not happen last weekend, it's been rescheduled for this upcoming weekend, which is good, it gives me another week to flush out some ideas. This week has been pretty hectic so far, Honeyrider had rehearsal on Sunday and it's sounding great, I can't wait to play out locally. Also, Honeyrider is putting the finishing touches on some new artwork and remixing the live tracks from the Arlene Grocery show that we played back in December for the upcoming domestic release of Honeyrider's first full-length CD All Systems Go! This record originally came out in the UK on Damaged Goods Records in 1998. The reissue will be out on Orange Sky Records in the early Summer months. Hopefully we'll be playing some west-coast shows in support of the album's release in June or July. The CD will contain all but two of the original recordings plus five live tracks from the NY show. Sparky's Nightmare is rocking Mastry's Bar in St. Pete on Saturday, maybe I'll see some of you there. Did I mention that Dank will be recording in Miami soon? Damn I'm busy.

03/15/2003 - OK, so what the hell happened this week? Well I'll tell ya... not much outside of a fun Sparky's Nightmare practice on Thursday. We learned one of my new tunes, Friday Morning, Half Awake and I think Natty is going to let me sing it too. (I think she should sing it, but I says never argue with a pretty girl!) Tomorrow, recording continues on my CD, we are going to get the final drum tracks in the can and then start on the guitars. I don't want to spend too much time laboring over it, I just want to keep the spark that the songs have and have a good time with the recording. I think we might just try to finish 4 songs and put out an EP to get things rolling. It's a bit more affordable and it's less of a mess to get organized. Hopefully all the recording will be done in two weeks and mixing will take another few weeks before we can get it ready to ship off for duplication. The song list will be 1. Alright, 2. Stay, 3. Fallout, 4. Friday Morning, Half Awake. Oh, and their might be a bonus acoustic track or two on the CD from a live show if I can get a hold of some of the recordings.

03/09/2003 - Greetings all, last night's show at The Rare Olive was fun. Thanks to everyone that made it out. I played about a 45 minute set and then the Gita rocked the house for the rest of the evening. It was great to see the club so packed, it looks like it could be a pretty cool venue for original music if the club wants to go down that road. I've got Honeyrider practice in a little while and I've been working on the recordings for my record for a little while today already so I better make this brief.

03/08/2003 - A fun time was had last night out at Tycoon's watching Sam & Natty and the Smoking Jackets perform. Sam and Natty played a really pretty and fun acoustic set and then the Smoking Jackets jumped up and rocked out... until the toilets at the place backed up and they had to close until a plumber could arrive. Oh, well. Tycoon's is a cool room with lots of big comfy chairs and the skyline of Chicago painted on the wall behind the bands. There are a couple of pool tables and everyone that worked there was really nice. Next we headed over to the Emerald for their Free-Jazz/Acid-Jazz night. The place was so smoky and packed I thought I was back in LA on a hazy August night. Nobody was playing while we were there so we headed over to the State Theater to see the show... that had already ended and completely wrapped up by 12:30. I guess it was going to be an early evening. We hung out for a while and then eventually called it a night. I'm looking forward to the acoustic show tonight with the Gita at the Rare Olive. It's the first time I've played there and only the second time I've ever been to the place. I guess they are starting to have more "rock bands" and different styles of music. Typically I see Top-40, R&B and Soul groups in there. It's a really nice club and of course they have martinis! I start about 10 PM, so if you find yourself in Downtown St. Pete, swing on in.

03/06/2003 - Thursday evening is slipping by so fast I fear that I won't get everything ready for all the activity that happening this weekend. Chris was by last night and helped me put the remaining songs back together for the recording this weekend. I'm going to sit down tonight and see if I can get things on track and ready to go. Tomorrow night Sam and Natty from Sparky's Nightmare are playing acoustically at Tycoon's on Central Ave. in St. Pete, swing out if you can. Saturday night I'm at the Rare Olive just down the street, I'll be opening up for the Gita. Good times, good times.

03/04/2003 - Technically it's only Tuesday by a minute or two but I'm still up and working on the recording for Friday Morning, Half Awake. Chris was over and we worked out a few great arrangements for the tune. Jon's drum tracks sound fantastic and everything is going to just fall into place real fast, I can just tell. Tomorrow, or should I say later today is Sparky's practice and Wednesday Chris and I will be back at it in the studio again. Must sleep soon.

03/03/2003 - Yesterday was a loooooooooong day. Lots of recording for the solo record as well as doing some production work on the Honeyrider stuff. Tonight Chris and I are getting together and working on some arrangement for my tunes. Should be fun.

03/02/2003 - Happy Sunday morning, last night's show at Dave's was fun as always. Thanks to everyone from my work that made it out and a special thanks to them for surviving the especially ferocious Dank set at the end of the evening. Will they hold it against me on Monday morning? Let's hope not! Nobody took any pictures last night so there won't be any updates to the photo page, but seriously did you really want another scrapbook with more pictures from Dave's? I thought not! I'll try to take some in the studio today, how's that for a compromise? Yeah, it looks like I'll be in the studio for the remainder of this fine rainy Sunday. Enjoy a day off. I'll catch up with everyone during the week.

03/01/2003 - Work has kept me slammed all week so there hasn't been too much going on. I'm looking forward to the Sparky's Nightmare show at Dave's this evening and I'm hoping to get a little recording done on my record as well the some mixing on the Sparky's Nightmare and some recording on the Honeyrider record done too. Whew!

02/25/2003 - OK, it's 2am and I'm still at work as we wait for the phone to ring. So, I thought I'd fire of a quick entry. Honeyrider practice on Sunday went really well. We started to work on some new recordings and began learning two more of the old songs. Things are sounding really good and we hope to play a show in the not-to-distant future. We got the call, and like Doug, I'm outtttttttttttttta heeeeeeeeeeere!

02/23/2003 - Hey there! Last night's show at the Xchange was really fun. It was nice to see such an excellent turnout, it was the most people I've ever seen in that place. Everyone was really nice and the sound system in there sounded great. I opened up the show with a few acoustic tunes and then Chris, Jon and Martin joined me for the remainder of the set. A slight case of stage fright aside I think we did really well, considering we only had one practice. The grooves were tight and fun and everyone played great. We must do this again sometime. Next up after us was I Alive and then the Gita hit the sage about 12:30 with a fill-in drummer that sounded great. After a few tunes Billy from the Semis, and a few other people stumbled over to the ACL club to see a few tunes by Helium Bomb. They sounded really good and the ACL looks primed to start hosting live music again. I bumped into tons of people that I haven't seen in ages, including original Welcome drummer Frank Hood and of course all the Helium Bomb boys. All in all it was a fun night. Honeyrider is getting together later today to do a little recording and practice so I better go grab something to eat before I pass out.

02/22/2003 - Had the first and only practice last night with Chris, Martin and Jon for the show this evening at the Xchange. We learned 6 songs, some of which I'll be recording for the new record with their help. Everything sounded great and it was a ton of no-stress fun. Really looking forward to the show this evening. I'll probably start off with a handful of solo acoustic tunes and then bring the guys up to rock our six newly assimilated tunes. If you haven't been out to the Xchange you have to check this place out. It's a very nice upscale club and the sound system is top notch. Also performing tonight will be I Alive, which I am told feature members of the Chucky Luv Band and the Gita.

02/19/2003 - Greetings all, I have some good news. I have a show booked at - Xchange - in St. Petersburg this Saturday night. The good news is that it will be the first performance with some of the fine folks that are helping me put my record together. I couldn't be more excited. We'll squeeze in one practice on Saturday (I hope) and hit the stage running. We'll probably play an old favorite or two, a few new tunes and a couple of covers just for fun. The show starts about 10 PM and we are the first act. I'd like to thank Tony Dolan, Jared and the Gita for calling me and giving me the opportunity. Thanks guys.

02/18/2003 - Happy Tuesday. Got Sparky's Nightmare practice this evening and then hopefully on Thursday I'll be in the studio to begin work on a few tunes with Chris and Jon helping with some of the production. Should be a good time and I'm really looking forward to it. Hopefully I can pull a bunch of friends in to help out with the recording!

02/16/2003 - Last night's show at Dave's was fun as always. We had three really good sets and I finally made it official... I am a hack blues player with two riffs in my bag of tricks. Still, we had fun and I especially appreciated all the guys from work that made it out for a little while. I posted some pictures from the show on the Photos page. Gots me Honeyrider practice in a little while today and that should be fun. Nothing special planned for the upcoming week, thank goodness.

02/15/2003 - Saturday morning, half awake... judging by the size of my headache I must have had a pretty good time last night. All the bands sounded really good. For the first time in a few months Honeyrider is getting together tomorrow afternoon to start working on new songs for the upcoming CD and brushing up on some old tunes we haven't played since our trip to New York. Well I have a busy day lined up so I better get outta heeeeere. Maybe I'll see some of you fine folks at Dave's tonight for the Sparky's Nightmare show. For those of you that don't make it out I'll post some pictures tomorrow.

02/14/2003 - Happy Valentine's Day to all the lovers out there. I'm taking my romantic self down to the Orpheum in Ybor tonight for what sounds like a fun show. Performing are the Cocktail Honeys, the Semis, The Beauvilles & Crippled Masters. Dress like Cupid and get in for free. I'll be paying obviously. Hopefully the air isin't still broken, at least it's not the middle of summertime. Woo-hoo. Looking forward to the Sparky's Nightmare show at Dave's tomorrow night. I might give one of the new guitars a test drive on stage.

02/12/2003 - Received a first mix of the new Sparky's Nightmare CD from Chris and it's really coming along great. We had practice last night in preparation for our show at Dave's on Saturday and everything sounded really great. Hope to see you all out at the show!

02/08/2003 - Just in from hanging with Chris while he's mixing the Sparky's Nightmare CD, he's doing a great job and I can't wait for everyone to hear the results of all his hard work and superlative ears. Also, while I was over at the shed with Chris we picked five of my tunes to start recording, I'll let you know when we get it all cranked up. Earlier in the day I stopped by a new guitar store in Tampa called Legends Music run by my old boss at Thoroughbred Music. It's on West Hillsborough, just east of the airport on the south side of the street in the same shopping plaza as a Sports Authority and AJ's Drum shop. He's got an amazing assortment of vintage and custom guitars. I can't wait to buy something.

02/07/2003 - The madness that is the buying of electric guitars by me must stop!! This week I received my first eBay guitar purchase in the mail. A 1995 silver-sparkle Ibanez Talman with a Bigsby tremolo. I know what you're saying "Ibanez!?!?!" Yeah, well this thing rocks! There I said it. Besides the Iceman this is the coolest thing they have made in ages, and of course, nobody bought one because they didn't have any points on them anywhere and it's hard to play metal or to shred with one. OK, I'm officially on a buying freeze. Hope to do some recording this weekend, I'll post something when I get something done!

02/01/2003 - I'm just in from the Orlando Guitar show and I made a purchase. I 1966 Fender Electric XII that has been stripped and lacquered a not-unattractive butterscotch color. I might just leave it as-is. The price was right and thankfully there was no song or dance involved. Looking forward to getting into the studio tomorrow! The Luna show last night at the Twilight was amazing, they were so good it was unreal. The played for about 90 minutes and they played every song that I wanted to hear and more. Awesome. The two opening acts, Tampa's own Beautiful Loser and New York's Calla were excellent as well.

01/27/2003 - Well I finally made a mix down of all the tunes that I recorded on Sunday and I'm listening to them now. 22 songs. Wow. I thought that I had about 12 ideas and suddenly I have twice that. Good times, good times. Hopefully I'll get some drums on tape for some of them this week!

01/25/2003 - Yeah, OK, it's about noon on Saturday and it's pretty chilly outside. Still, that hasn't stopped me from getting out and picking some grapefruit and squeezing some fresh juice and making some eggs for breakfast before I start recording today. It's so nice outside that I may just end up dragging a boombox outside and hitting record, but for now the slightly warmer house offers the cozy surroundings that I'm looking for. This week I hope to start some band recording of some new tunes and and a few oldies I've never recorded. Should be fun and I'll post song titles and info as things progress. As always if there are any old tunes you want me to record acoustically, I'm still doing that, so let me know! I'm very excited about the upcoming Luna show at the Twilight in Ybor next Friday night. I've seen them live a few times and they are absolutely wonderful. The first time I saw them was at Tampa's old Stone Lounge with Low and the second time was at the Rubb (now Twilight) with Tampa/New York transplants Pee Shy. That same night Aimee Mann is playing the Tampa Theater too, but I have to go with Luna.

01/23/2003 - Well it's about 11:30 and I'm just in from recording vocals for the new Sparky's Nightmare CD. Looks like we have only one more song to sing on and it will be time to mix the record. Chris is doing an awesome job on the production and I can't wait to hear how everything sounds when he's finished. OK, I'm off to bed!

01/20/2003 - Go Bucs! Woo-hoo! What a great weekend. Most of the Sparky's Nightmare crew watched the Rolling Stones concert live on HBO on Saturday night and the Bucs kicked some butt on Sunday. This week will have Sparky in the studio finishing up vocals and I'll be doing some recording of my own now that I finally have a dedicated monitor for my little studio setup at home. Should be a busy fun week. There are also a few open mics that I might crash this week too so I'll post it on the website if I know that I'm going.

01/16/2003 - Hey there! Just in from a fun jam session at Tony D's place, we stumbled through a few tunes, had some beers and a ton of laughs. Good times, good times... Martin brought his new groovy Danelectro bass amp and I thought it sounded really good. Good things do some in small packages. Note to self, start making red ass lamps.... you'll have to ask me about that if you see me. Also tonight Natty finished up her vocals on the upcoming Sparky's Nightmare record. Woo-hoo! As soon as the rest of us sing our backup vocals the record will be ready to mix!

01/15/2003 - Well last night Natty and I met with Chris at Secret Studios and recorded about half of the lead vocals for the new Sparky's Nightmare record. Natty really did a great job and we hope to finish up all of her vocals by the end of the week. Chris did a great job getting sounds and everything went really fast and efficient thanks to Natty's great vocals and Chris' skill on the desk. Besides recording this week it looks like I'm going to doing a little Jamming with Tony from the Gita on his recording project. Martin and I are going over there for beers some night soon. Should be fun. Hopefully I'll get some demo of some of my songs done this weekend and start the real recording process sometime next week. Should be fun and hopefully I can pull a bunch of friends in to help me record some of these songs.

01/10/2003 - What's happening everyone? Not much happening with me this week outside of Sparky's Nightmare practice last Tuesday. We ran through some old tunes to get them tight and then started working on some new songs that Sam and Martin have written. Everything is sounding great. Honeyrider has been getting accolades from around the globe lately, just check out the press! Brazil2000's top10 records of 2002! had this to say about Honeyrider: "American group of powerpop, one of the attractions of the International Pop Overthrow of 2002, in its third record.". Honeyrider at #5 is one slot higher than Pete Yorn! Wow. Also the University of Oregon's own 88.1 FM, KWVA has been playing both Honeyrider and St. Pete's own Barely Pink. Listen to them live on the web HERE!

Hopefully I am going to find some time this weekend to demo up a few of my new tunes, I have a ton of them that I need to nail down so I can start working on arrangements with a band. I've also been thinking about crashing some open mic shows somewhere in town but I have no idea where there are having them at the moment! Does anyone know? OK, well I hope that everyone has a great weekend. I'll catch up with everyone soon. If some of the demos come out good I'll post them on the site or my mp3.com page.

01/05/2003 - My goodness it's cold outside and I'm just in from hanging with the Honeyrider boys. Fun, fun, fun. Hope that everyone had a good weekend, I'm going to try kick back and enjoy the remainder of the weekend with a little football.

01/04/2003 - Greetings all from sunny, freezing, Florida. New Year's Eve was a blast, hanging out with friends, new and old. The night started off at Martin's house for a wonderful and cozy gathering, despite the torrential rain and thunder. Later, I ended up at Limey's moments before the ball dropped, grabbed a beer and rang in the new year while the Gita were rocking a tune and people we're making out in every direction! A little after midnight Brian from Barely Pink showed up, fresh from their 4 hour set at St. Pete's First Night celebration. We proceeded to to have a few beers and enjoy the hell out of ourselves for the rest of the evening. Honeyrider is getting together tomorrow to run through some new material and talk about our upcoming recording. Hopefully we can plan a local show or two before we get to engrossed in the new record.

2002 - Complete

12/31/2002 - What a year it has been, so many changes for me and yet so much always stays the same. I'll be forever grateful to all the friends that I perform with and all the friends I perform for every time I hit the stage. You guys make it all worth while. Thank you. This next year promises to be the best yet as far as I'm concerned so get ready for some shows, some new CDs and some world tours! Hopefully I'll get a solo acoustic CD and a group CD out by the Summer. The much neglected Sparky's Nightmare CD will (it will dammit!) be out by June as will the new Honeyrider CD that we getting ready to start recording in the next few weeks. There is even rumored talk of a supergroup called TD and the Two-Point Conversions but you'll have to stay tuned. Anybody have an ass-less monkey suit I can borrow? The beginning of the Summer will see me in Japan with Honeyrider if everything falls into place and Europe is possible if the new record is released over there as well. Also be on the lookout for the latest Barely Pink record, to which I contribute some synth on one song and the Tribute to Teenage Fanclub on which I contribute some acoustic guitar to Barely Pink's track. Well, I'm off for the night, hope everyone has a fun and safe New Year's Eve!

12/28/2002 - Happy Saturday morning! I had a great time last night playing with Sparky's Nightmare and Dank at Mastry's Bar. The sets were loose and the band was drunk. What more could you ask for at Mastry's? I don't remember much except for standing up on a table and trying to see how close I could get the guitar headstock to the rotating fan. Thanks to Tony Dolan for being brave and singing with Dank, it takes a brave man to try and wrestle the mic from Travis. It was great to see so many friends out on a chilly night too, thanks for coming out and supporting the bands! Sparky's Nightmare doesn't have any gigs booked until February so we are going to try and finish up the CD and have it out by March. OK, I'm out of here, I need to go get a few guitars fixed!

12/27/2002 - Looking forward to tonight's show with Sparky's Nightmare and Dank at Mastry's Bar. Hope to see you there!

12/25/2002 - Merry Christmas! - John

12/23/2002 - Merry (early) Christmas! Hey everyone, not much happening this week, as you can imagine. Looks like Honeyrider is looking for someone to fill the drum spot. I am looking forward to having a few days off from work so I can try to dig up my oft misplaced sanity. The next show is with Sparky's Nightmare at Mastry's Bar. Come out and enjoy a post-Christmas drink or five.

12/18/2002 - Not much happening this week with everyone's work schedule and the holidays. My friend Mike in New York sent me some live shots from the Honeyrider show at Arlene Grocery. The new shots are posted on the photo page. I think we are going to try and squeeze in a Sparky's Nightmare practice this week and then take the next few days off to get some shopping done.

12/15/2002 - New York was a blast. Brian, Gary and I flew into JFK at 9 am and jumped a ride to a condo in Tribeca where a friend of Mike's lives. We settled in and had some coffee. The condo was on the 32nd floor of the building and faced the area 5 blocks south where the World Trade Center towers once stood. Looking out, I can't imagine being there and being that close when everything happened on 9/11. It was very overcast and rainy all day, and it was wonderful. We finished up our coffee and headed out to find breakfast at a nice little diner a few blocks south. Breakfast was wonderful even though I only had a bagel with jelly. After breakfast we walked down a block to Murray Street where Sonic Youth records and practices, being the SY dork I am I had Brian take a picture of me in front of the Murray Street sign. Next we walked over to the north side of the WTC ground zero site and took a few pictures. We couldn't see much from here so we headed back to the condo, but not before I looked to see if I could tell exactly where SY records. No luck. Back at the condo we grabbed our stuff and hailed two cabs to head to the club.

By taxi, Arlene Grocery was about 10 minutes away. As we pulled up to the club I noticed a vintage guitar shop and I was gone for a while looking at old vintage wood. Once in the club the bands had just started playing. The club was pretty cool, it was divided into two totally separate areas, one was for the live music while the other side had a nice bar, a fireplace and some cozy booths and tables. Forgive me if I don't remember much about all the bands that played before us, I was too busy soaking in the atmosphere. Right before we played Joe Popp and a good friend from High School Mike England came in to see us play. It was a blast hanging out with them and catching up on old and new times. Our Honeyrider set was tight and fun and I felt like we really impressed all in attendance. Good, good fun. After the set we chatted everyone up for a while before our ride to the airport arrived, which was all to soon.

Eventually we were back into a car and headed to JFK to make our plane. The roads were rainy and slick but we got there safe and sound. Security at JFK was understandably much tighter than Tampa. I had one of my cases x-rayed and had to go back behind the curtain to open the case so that everyone could see that my wires, cables, screwdrivers and pedals were only instruments of rock and roll rather than anything dangerous. Once aboard the plane the fun and excitement really started. We settled into our seats while everyone boarded, and chatted while a local gang member proceeded to "tag" the seats directly in front of us with a paint marker. Tag = graffiti. Security was called and he was thrown off the plane with his luggage, pictures were taken, people were interviewed, jokes were told, and the staff of the Jetblue airlines were very, very nice, apologetic, and understanding about the whole thing. According to one of the Port Authority Policemen on the plane, "this stuff happens all the time." Jeeeez. About an hour and a half later we were on our way home. According to the flight crew, the youthful thug was being sent to Florida to stay with his grandparents for the holidays and he wanted no part of it. He was trying to get himself thrown off the plane. Mission successful dude. They also said that he was crying when the took him out because his momma was gonna kill him. Nice. Somebody around me said "Life is harder when you're stupid." We eventually made it back safe and sound, and with only minor damage to a bass case, all the gear was as good as new.

The weirdest thing about the day, as Gary pointed out was, "I woke up in my bed at home, I played New York City, and I going to go to sleep in my own bed."

12/13/2002 - OK, I'm not even going to pretend that I'm not excited about playing in New York tomorrow. It's going to be amazing. I haven't been to the city since I was a little kid so it will be good to return. I have a feeling that I'll be making more trips up there soon. We are flying into JFK in the morning and then heading to a friends condo on the corner of Harrison and Greenwich. From there we'll have a few hours to hang, I hope to head down to ground zero a few blocks away and try to take in the reality. From there we are off to the club to play and then we head straight back to JFK for the return home. I have a feeling that once we get back the whole thing is going to feel like a dream that really never happened. I'll catch everyone up on Sunday. I'll have some pictures up by Sunday too I suspect.

12/12/2002 - Hey there, I swear I posted this a few days ago but it never showed up. Here is it again... 12/07/2002 - Happy Monday everyone. I know that you are all anxiously awaiting my recap of the big show on Saturday so here it goes. First, I'd like to make a general overview. Joran did a great job of organizing and promoting the show. All the bands sounded great. Everybody had fun. As opposed to doing a play-by-play of the evening, I'm just going to do a quick random recap. Big Mike at the door looked fly in Gary Sheffield's Dallas Cowboys hat. The Silent Treatment sounded amazing as did the Cocktail Honeys on the B-stage. I said the "F-word" twice on stage and got really embarrassed by the flattering intro that Napoleon (X-97X) gave me. (Aww-shucks) Even if I do say so, Sparky's Nightmare sounded great. A shirtless guy ran on stage a-la Jack Black at the end of Barely Pink's set and squeezed his tummy. The Saturn 5 had then entire room grooving big time. Sexy merch girls! Chris, the angry Swede is back! I hugged Luscious at least 5 times. Tony from 4-Star Riot had the best rock star look with his Dean Caddy. Tony D. from the Gita likes to wear tear-a-way basketball pants and wear funny masks. Who's the new hot Gita keyboard player? The Gita sounded great. The arts and craft booth was awesome, I still have glitter on my hands. The Hazies brought the rock. It was really cold at the end of the night. I was really tired at the end of the night. Thanks to everyone that made that night happen!

12/06/2002 - Are you ready to freakin' ROCK? Tonight is the Southeast Music Alliance Concert CD release party and I can't wait. I'm getting there early and staying late. I will be exhausted and spent by the end of the day. I'll play a brief acoustic set at about 8:05 and then Sparky's Nightmare will start rocking at 8:30. Time permitting, I'll post some pictures and a Journal entry tomorrow in case you couldn't make it out. Lot's of cool Honeyrider stuff happening at the moment, but nothing I can really tell you about until it's confirmed. What I can tell you however is that our 2002 International Pop Overthrow show in New York City at Arlene Grocery is exactly one week from now and I am very excited! Local heroes Barely Pink just played up there this week and came home with lots of photos and even a mp3 of their performance at the Grocery! Awesome. I'm off to buy some strings and batteries, hope to see you tonight.

12/04/2002 - Only a few more days until the Southeast Music Alliance Concert CD release party and I must say I'm really looking forward to seeing all the bands play. There are some updated set times, it looks like I'll be playing a few minutes earlier so check the show page for all the info. Had a great Honeyrider practice on Sunday and a fine Sparky's Nightmare rehearsal on Tuesday night as well. I'm still working on new tunes and I hope to post a few on the site sometime soon so check back. I'm off to bed!

11/30/2002 - It's almost December and I am enjoying this wonderful cool weather. I did a little more recording this week and I'm finding a ton of inspiration right now for writing. Be prepared for a 20 song double CD. Kidding. New tentative song titles include: "Friday Morning, Half Awake", "Highschool Drunk", "It's OK if You Don't Wanna Rock" (Marcus and I worked on this one a long time ago), "You Can't Go Back", "Some Days", "Turn off the Bright Lights", "Six Long Years" and unrecorded Misfortune 500 tunes "New Girl in Town" and "Inside Out." Those come in addition to the 6 songs that I have been working on for the the EP that has yet to see that light of day. Those tunes include, "Stay", "Allergic to Love", "X-Girl Friend", "I Will Default" and "Check 1, 2...". Maybe I can get something going for this upcoming Saturday's show at the State Theater.

Honeyrider is trying to book a Japan tour for the summer and hopefully we'll get to work on a new record before we head over there. In other recording/CD news the Southeast Music Alliance Concert CD release party is a week from today and everyone needs to go grab a copy. I'm on there twice, once with Misfortune 500 (We're the Same) and then again with Sparky's Nightmare (Baby! - mp3 sample). Also, I strummed some lovely acoustic guitar with Barely Pink on the upcoming What a Concept, A Tribute to Teenage Fanclub CD that's coming out on Not Lame Records in the next few weeks. And, last but not least, I also played a little keyboards on one Barely Pink song that will be on their next CD that should be out sometime early next year. I assume I'm still in the mix unless they axed the part. Write your Congressman.

11/24/2002 - OK, it's time to catch you up on the first Honeyrider show and Bobbi Nealy's going away party at the New World Brewery. For clarity sake I'm going to devote a separate paragraph to each of the important events, as to remove the confusion from you, my dearest reader's head. I know how trying Sunday morning can be, believe me, I do.

First off, Honeyrider played our first show at Greenback's in Clearwater on Friday night. Special thanks to Barely Pink and Four Star Riot for letting us crash the bill at the last moment. I think it was great to get some stage experience under our belt before we head up to New York for our show at Arlene Grocery as part of the 2002 International Pop Overthrow. We don't want to stink up the joint when we get there. Back to the show, we played our 9 song set that we are performing in New York, and I think it went really well as far a first shows go. Here's a checklist: Nobody got sick, nobody froze up on stage and played bad notes, the stage banter did not consist of phrases like "sorry about that last tune", "we're still working the kinks out" or "hey! quit throwing things!", people clapped without pity, nobody put fingers in their ears and winced at their friends standing next to them as if to apologize for bringing them to the club as opposed to going to Ybor like they had wanted to do, and finally, some dude in the bathroom actually said "dude, you guys were smoking!" There that makes it an official cool first gig, look out New York we are coming to rock you. Barely Pink played a great set and somehow I ended up on stage playing Brian's Rickenbacker for an amazing (them, not me) version of Day Tripper by the Beatles. I turned the volume down and did my best Bono imitation by strumming a guitar that nobody could hear. Four Star Riot took the stage next and rocked the house in five-star fashion, they really should award themselves an extra star.

OK, so I can't completely separate the two topics of discussion here today, so here is how it all ties together. Stacy came out to take pictures at the show and she has been in charge of the official "Bobbi Nealy going away present." It's a map of Tampa that all her friends have been signing for the last eight weeks or so. This map has something like 100 signatures and messages on it and Stacy has been working on it for weeks and weeks going to all these shows and having people sign it. OK, my point is this, this map is very important and cannot be replaced and it would really suck if something happened to it because it took a ton work to have all these people sign it. Got it? Ok, we'll move on. So, apparently at some point during the Honeyrider show Stacy and the map become separated without her being aware of this fact. Yikes. Enter Honeyrider drummer (savior) Mike McGivaren. At the end of the night Mike sees the map being carried to the garbage by the folks sweeping up at the club. Being quick on his feet, he asked to see it and realized that though he did not know the importance of the map, it looked like someone would be upset if it got thrown out. He was right. OK, so let me set this next bit up. I have no idea where my cell phone is, I lose that thing all the time, it might as well be my happy-carefree childhood because I have no idea where it went or when I lost it. I do however still check my messages and pay the bill so I can continue to check my messages. So, Mike leaves me a message, "hey, I found this map thing with a bunch of signatures on it at Greenback's last night, I think it might belong to Stacy, is it important? Call me. <Click>". I panic. I don't know how to get a hold of anyone. Finally I track down Stacy at her house. When I say track down, I really mean I called information, got the number, and called her. "We have the map!" She had only just realized it was missing and was elated. Next, I had to find Mike, and despite his best attempts to give me his phone number several times, I had not written it down anywhere. My bad. I left messages with people, I called information (he just moved to St. Pete the day before, no phone yet), I e-mailed him. I gave up. So it's time to head down to the New World Brewery for Bobbi's party and I still have not been able to get a hold of him, when literally as I'm walking out the door Brian Merrill calls me, gives me Mike's number and tells me that he's just blocks away. Sweet. Quickly I call him... "Verizon Wireless... the cellular customer that you are trying to call is not accepting calls at this time, please try again later." I quit. Miraculously as I'm getting ready to leave again I try for the third time, he answers, I pick up the map at 9:45 PM, I will make the 10 PM deadline after all. Mike has saved the day. All hail Mike.

OK, so on to Bobbi's party... hang on, I need to go get some more coffee... OK, so I get there and Michael Snayd of the Urbane Cowboys is rocking the crowd of revelers to their delight. I deliver the map to Stacy - there is much rejoicing. My work is done, now I get to hang... or so I though. Will Quinlin was supposed to play but he was nursing a bad throat. And though he would arrive later, Chris Lunceford had been pulled away on a double-booking for the evening and hadn't arrived yet. Bobbi asked me to play for a while, so after borrowing a wonderful sounding Martin guitar from the River Cove Ramblers I proceeded to perform every song Bobbi requested until she couldn't think of any more. Actually, she said play every song with a girl's name in the song. I told her didn't have enough time for that and made her be more specific. I think I ran through Holly's Tooth, Stay, I Think I Might (Julianna Hatfield), No One Would Miss Us, Maria, and finally I made her sing Bookstore with me to end the set. It was so cold outside when I was playing that I had to take a moment between songs to see if I really was still holding a pick or if I had been slicing away at the numb tips of my fingers. After I played I hung out and talked with people I haven't seen in years, such fun, where does the time go. Bobbi played some great tunes and The River Cove Ramblers closed out the night with some wonderful bluegrass music. Suddenly it was 2 am and 40 degrees outside so I drove home and prayed that I left the heat on, I did. I slept. - John

11/22/2002 - This week has been so hectic it's stupid. I am really looking forward to the first Honeyrider show tonight at Greenback's in Clearwater. Should be fun. I swear that I'll get some pictures posted from my last few show, I have been so busy that I haven't even had a chance. OK, have a great night and maybe I'll see you at the show.

11/21/2002 - No time for a message, but come out to Greenback's in Clearwater to see my band Honeyrider play tomorrow night, we start at about 9:45!

11/16/2002 - A rainy Saturday is what's happening today, and then a little later on I'll be playing at Dave's with Sparky's Nightmare. It should be fun as always. The New World Brewery show was really fun. It was a beautiful night, the performers were great and the conversations were heartwarming and fun. I didn't write down a set-list but I think I played: It's No Use, Holly's Tooth, Feelin' It, Get it Out of Your Head, X-Girl Friend, No One Would Miss Us, and mum... maybe one more that I can't remember at the moment. Last night Martin and I headed up to see the Gita play in Clearwater at a club called Greenback's. Pretty cool spot and the band sounded great. Well that's all for me today, hopefully I'll get some pictures posted from the last few shows sometime this weekend so check back on Monday. Hope to see you tonight - John

11/14/2002 - I have had quite the busy week and it shows no sign of letting up. I'm performing at the New World Brewery at 9 PM this evening with some very talented songwriters. Come on out if you can make it. Had a good practice with Sparky's Nightmare on Tuesday, worked on a new tune that Martin wrote. Good stuff. Hope to see you all out tonight in Ybor. - John

11/10/2002 - Sunday, Sunday, Sunday, time for some football and Honeyrider practice. The Sparky's Nightmare gig at the New World Brewery with Bob Anthony and the Smoking Jackets was a colorful evening. Let's just leave it at that. Looking forward all the gigs coming up this week, should be a good time. - John

11/08/2002 - AND... the weekend is here and I'm playing with Sparky's Nightmare tonight at The New World Brewery with Bob Anthony and the Smoking Jackets. The weather is perfect and the beer will be cold. I can't wait. What to wear, what to wear... it's really not cold enough for the cool jacket and yet it might get chilly later... damn these decisions! I'll be rocking with Honeyrider sometime this weekend and we even may crash an open mic night somewhere this week so stay posted and I'll try to tip you off as to where we might appear. I'm thinking Tuesday night, but don't hold me to that. Oh, and we are big in Japan! Hope to see you tonight in Ybor. - Me

11/07/2002 - Well pull the plug, turn off the lights, gather all your jackets, move it to the exits, it's closing time on the award winning In the Raw concert series created and hosted by one Joran Oppelt. It was a bitter sweet evening with some top notch performers and a great turnout. I had a great time playing, and I was grateful to perform early so my Mom could catch the set. Thanks for coming out Mom! After playing I hung out with friends and fans, old and new... Nancy ("Holly's Tooth!"), Jini, Tony Dolan, Jen Shamro, Girl Chris (back in town for a limited time!), Bobbi (getting ready to move), Martin & Natty, Steve from Four-Star Riot, Stacy (with camera in hand!), Will Quinlin and more. Speaking of Will, I thought he had a great set. Will's set was enhanced by Jimmy Rice on tambourine, a female backup singer (don't know her name, but she had a great voice!) and another guy playing and Irish drum. I know there's a name for it, but forgive me, I don't know what it's called. The song that he dedicated to his Mom was especially beautiful. Joran closed out the night with some great tunes and all of us sang along and clapped, even Tony jumped up and performed his tune Vowel. Martin and I even got in some good heckling before the night was over. In the final moments of the show, as Jordan was asking if there was time for one more, the theater lights came up, In the Raw was history. The end of the night had me reluctantly declining an after-gig breakfast at Denny's, always fun, and realizing that I'd better make the 4 hours between now and work filled with sleep. It was a great night. Oh, in case you were wondering, I didn't get my CD EP finished and ready for the show. I finished the recording, but the computer gods did not smile upon me and allow me to make copies. Blue screen of death. Dang - John

11/05/2002 - OK, recording and mixing this little CD EP is harder than it looks. Sure, recording a few stripped down tunes sounds simple, but it's a little harder than that, especially when you have no idea what you are doing. So, if you are coming out tomorrow night to get a CD, be prepared... there may not be one... or maybe there will. I'm working late tonight so anything I do won't get done until Wednesday after work and at that point... well who knows, maybe I'll just put a few tunes on it and give some away. That way I'll be creating a local buzz and the demand for my performances will skyrocket. Yeah, OK... So right now the track listing looks like this: Stay, Allergic to Love, X-Girl Friend, I Will Default, the First Words and Check 1, 2... . Nice. - John

11/04/2002 - Man, was that a quick weekend or what? We had a good Honeyrider practice on Sunday afternoon and then went home and watched a tape of the Bucs game. Worked on the record for a little while and then just took a break from it for the rest of the weekend. Hopefully tonight I can lay down two more tracks and then finish the mix, mastering and artwork, so I can have it ready for Wednesday. Speaking of Wednesday, I need to figure out exactly what I'm playing for the final In the Raw show at the State Theater. Stacy sent me some great Sparky's Nightmare pictures from the Halloween show, so I'll get those posted later tonight most likely, so check back. Hope to see you on Wednesday. - John

11/01/2002 - Last night's 80s Halloween show at the State Theater was awesome. I should have some pictures posted on the website in a few days so check back during the weekend. If I can, I may even try to add a video of one of the songs. All the bands sounded great, Donnie did a great job with the sound as always. We performed Death Defying by the Hoodoo Gurus, The One I Love by REM and Sweet Child of Mine by Guns and Roses. Everyone in attendance seemed to be in costume which really added to the spontaneity of the event. OK, so to actually tell you all about the whole night would ramble on for pages so I'll just recap like I did the other night. Stream of consciousness summary... and GO! Natty was Adam Ant, Martin was Brett Michaels, Hugh and I were New Wavers (pins and ties), Sam had a crazy head mask on, Brian Merrill wore his Parade in Paris leather snakeskin pants, someone came as the Andrew WK album cover, Heather was a great Chrissy Hynde, Stacy tried to get 200 drunk people in costume to pose, with limited success, for a picture in front of the bar, I actually played the riff to Sweet Child of Mine without getting my fingers knotted, the Crippled Masters dressed as yello-jumpsuited Devo, the Cocktail Honeys stole the show with by playing the intros of twenty 80s tunes back to back without a pause, Dave Hundley had on a white feather boa, Bob Anthony dressed as Slash from GnR, Tony Dolan was the Greatest American Hero, no one played any Madonna, Tom Polecat sang a Smiths song with Big Kitty, Dave from Car Bomb Driver had his hair done like the guy in A Flock of Seagulls, the show actually ended and started on time(!!!), Roger did a great job setting up and promoting the show, I didn't have a hangover somehow this morning, I played the riff to In a Big Country for the solo in Sweet Child of Mine...umm... I think that's all I can remember at the moment. OK, maybe I was a little hung over. - John

10/30/2002 - Last night's rehearsal was a fun one, went over our three 80s songs a few times. Can't wait for everyone to hear them. Should be fun and funny. After playing we recorded a video montage of pictures of us from the 80s to be projected on the screen behind us while we play. Hilarious. Everyone looks crazy except for Sam, he looks the same. Ah, to have his timeless good looks. Make sure you are there early to see us play at 9:10 PM, you don't Want to miss Matrin's Prom picture!

10/29/2002 - Halloween is only a few days away and Sparky's Nightmare is rehearsing this evening too. We are going to try to put together a cool video to be projected on the screen behind us like we did for the Christmas show last year. Should be fun and funny. We start playing at about 9:00 PM so get there early if you want to catch us.

10/28/2002 - Quite a fun weekend, spent a few nights recording some tunes for the CD EP that I'm working on for the show on the 6th. Honeyrider practice sounded good on Sunday, the tunes are really coming together quite well. I've got a show at the State Theater this Thursday for Halloween so I'm gonna get ready for the 80s cover song onslaught!

10/26/2002 - OK, it's a full day of music for me, I need to run out and get some new tubes for the Fender amp. The tubes died at the Dave's show with Sparky's Nightmare. Good thing I brought the Mesa Boogie as a back up. After picking up supplies, I'm headed back to start work on an acoustic EP that I want to have ready for the November 6th In the Raw show at the State Theater. It's the final In the Raw showcase that Joran is doing so I wanted to have something for the people at the final show. I figure I'll have 6-8 songs on it and maybe I'll even throw in a few covers on it just for fun. If you have any requests let me know HERE. Tomorrow is Honeyrider practice after the Bucs game so I'll be ready to rock with new tubes.

10/25/2002 - Last night we got some recording done on the new Sparky's Nightmare record. Natty put down some sweet vocal tracks for a song called Acts of Separation. Chris helped me get the studio started and then I was on my own from there. Martin, Hugh and Carrie all stopped by and Carrie even took a few pictures! Check the Photo page for the latest. Thanks to WMNF 88.5 FM, they have been playing the Southeast Music Alliance CD and the Sparky's Nightmare track Baby! and We're the Same by my last band Misfortune 500. This weekend I'll be rehearsing with Honeyrider, and now there is even talk of a European tour and Japan. Seriously, I should try to get out and do more ;-)

10/21/2002 - Well the Saturday night show at Dave's was fun as always. Let's see, I'm never sure quite how to recap a Dave's gig so I'll just list some words and phrases that come to mind... the Fish Flop move, shots at 1:45, DANK!, Joran & friends, Tony Dolan LIVE!,the Southeast Music Alliance CD... am I the only one that didn't have a hangover on Sunday besides Hugh. OK, you get the picture. Got a chance to preview the Southeast Music Alliance CD and it's great! Please don't ask me to pick a favorite tune because I can't, too much good material on there. Everyone should grab a copy at the CD release show in December. You have no excuse. Sunday was spent rocking out with Honeyrider. We worked on a few new tunes like Are You Clear? and Hello Tokyo in preparation for our NYC show in December at Arlene Grocery. More recording and rehearsals planned for the week, every day in fact. I'm gonna need the weekend just to recover.

10/19/2002 - Looking forward to tonight's Sparky's Nightmare show at Dave's tonight. Should be fun as always. More cool Honeyrider info. The song Madeira Moon is getting play on OK Radio Bremen in Germany. Check it out HERE on the Internet. Hope to see you tonight.

10/17/2002 - Welcome to Thursday, ahhh... the weather today is amazing. It's 71 degrees and I can't believe I'm not working outside today. I wonder if I can stretch my extension cord on my computer out to the patio... I think I'll just lay around outside in the front yard when I get home. Oh wait, I can't! Sam, Chris and I are getting together at the recently relocated and renamed, by me, Super Secret Studios and we hope to finish all the remaining guitar tracks on the upcoming (I swear!) Sparky's Nightmare CD. Also, in case you didn't see the info on my home page, my other band Honeyrider is getting some airplay in Sweden. Yah, dats right they played Honeyrider right after Luna! Click HERE for the playlist. I'm stoked dude. I want to congratulate the guys in 2nd Day Broadcast for making it to the "Top 10 in the CMJ/Coca-Cola/American Music Awards contest" They going to New York City on November 1st and will be playing the Bowery Ballroom with 9 other semifinalists! From there... they'll pick 3 to go to L.A. Visit www.newmusicaward.com and cast your vote for 2nd Day Broadcast as your favorite band in the contest. Speaking of New York City, I just found out that the Honeyrider show at Arlene Grocery is going to be the only all-ages show of the IPO event. Sweet.

10/14/2002 - Two days, they came and went... Hope everyone had a nice weekend. I laid low on Saturday, strummed a little guitar and cleaned the house. Sunday was full of football and music. We had Honeyrider practice at Brian's Secret Hideout and Honeyrider main man Gary came bearing gifts of the new Honeyrider CD. Well done and lots of fun with tons of Tampa Bay references from the Sunshine Skyway and Madeira Beach to the Weekly Planet and even Diamond Dolls. But don't just take my word for it, buy a copy HERE After practice I stayed behind and laid down some sweet acoustic guitar for a Teenage Fanclub tribute song that Barely Pink is recording for an upcoming tribute compilation CD. OK, I think that's enough for one day. Hello Monday. Groan.

10/12/2002 - Well Sacred Grounds was a real blast. Special thanks to the Jen Shamro and everyone from the mailing list that made the trip out to see me in a new venue. Sacred Grounds is a coffee bar just a few minutes south of USF on Busch Boulevard. The scene is college/high school/alternative lifestyle/straight/older/ybor. In other words everybody goes there, even drag queens and grandmas. The place is broken into about 4 different rooms which great comfy chairs and sofas, books, magazines, and games. The coffee is great too, there is a 12 page menu to choose from. I forgot what I was drinking but it was cappuccino with cinnamon and chocolate. Yum. I got there a bit early and chatted with Jen before getting stuff setup and soundchecked. I stared playing about 9:30 and ran through the following songs/thoughts/segues - It's No Use, Eric's Girl, Teenage Riot (Sonic Youth), X-Girl Friend, Stereo In Japan, the Letter, Allergic to Love (Eric's Trip), Fallout (Orange County Blues), the Rain Song (Led Zeppelin), Feelin' It, Holly's Tooth, Madison, No One Would Miss Us, Maria, Stay, Window Seat, Get it Out of Your Head and finally Bookstore. Next, Jen jumped right up and started rocking the attentive crowd with songs and stories from her CD Stupid Everything as well as some new tunes and even a "happy tune". She played my favorite tune Red Wine so I was happy! A cool thing about Common Grounds is that they pass around a tip jar (actually, a tip "fish bowl") while you are playing and that's how you get paid. Very, very cool and everyone was very generous. At the end of the night we packed up, made the rounds and headed home, this weekend is going to be full of more music so I couldn't be happier.

10/10/2002 - It's almost the end of the week and I am ready for the weekend. Work has kept me super busy and I've had no time to get ready for tomorrow's show at Sacred Grounds in Tampa. I'm going to dust off some old tunes and some new ones for tomorrow's show so be prepared to be surprised. "Why I haven't heard that one in ages!" I'll most likely throw in a cover or two for fun as well, who knows. It should be fun playing a new club and performing with Jen Shamro is always a treat. If you haven't seen her before she's great, trust me.

10/03/2002 - Not too much happening this week for me, I have been working in the studio a little bit, trying to figure out how all this stuff works. I recorded my first tune, an Eric's Trip song called Allergic to Love. Kinda fun. Chris has been giving me some pointers and I'm listening because he really knows his stuff. Lots of things going on behind the scenes with Honeyrider, I'll fill you in as things start to happen. The new Honeyrider CD, Sunshine Skyway came out this week and the first vinyl pressing in Japan has sold out already! I'm not on the CD but it's good pop fun and I'm looking forward to being on the next one! Check us out in NYC on the 14th of December. Check the Shows page for all the details.

09/29/2002 - Greetings all. Well it's Sunday night and I am still recovering from a crazy hectic week. The Sparky's Nightmare show at Seabreeze on Saturday night was a ton of fun. It was our good friends Denise's birthday party and a bunch of her friends came out to celebrate. Sunday, Chris Skogen and I finished assembling my new little home studio. Having a setup at home should really help me work on some demos. Should be a bit of a learning curve but I can't wait to get started. Got the new Blake Babies and the new Beck CD this week, can't wait to check them out! Check back on the web page in a few days, I'm going to try to put up an acoustic song or two as soon as I figure out how my new studio works!

09/23/2002 - What a long crazy weekend. Had Sparky's practice on Friday night and two shows on Saturday night. The Yeoman's show was my first stop on Saturday night. I got there a little early because I knew that I was playing first. Plugged in the guitar and discovered that my battery had died so I ended up using Mark Warren's Godin Acousticaster 6. Very big thanks to Mark for putting this whole thing together and having me play. Here is the set as I remember it. We're the Same, Stereo In Japan (the Letter) medley, Holly's Tooth, X-Girl Friend, Satellite, Check 1, 2... . After the set I booked over to Dave's for the Sparky's Nightmare show. I swear I hit every red light possible on the way over. I Got there while Sam and Natty were doing some tunes, set up and off we went. Dave's wasn't as packed as it normally is, but we had a great time anyway. After Sparky's played the Dank boys took over and rocked for about 45 minutes at the end of the night. A pure blinding white hot rock heat was generated and we couldn't open our eyes for the entire set. Thanks to either of the shows. I'll be away from the computer for a few days but check back later in the week, hopefully I'll have some good stories for you.

09/19/2002 - Fun time at the State Theater last night, all the performers were real enjoyable. Turns out Joran is only going to be hosting a few more of these shows so please try to make it out to see the performers and support local singer/songwriters like myself. We like it when you show up and clap. I had a fun set of storytelling and requests last night. No broken strings. The funniest moment of the evening was when Martin Rice discovered that the guitar he's had for 12 years was a loaner that never got returned from it previous owner Lance Rowland. I think Lance is going to let him keep it for another 12 years. Stacy and I took some pictures last night so I'll try to post them tomorrow sometime so check back! OK? OK!

09/17/2002 - I'm taking requests for the acoustic show at the State Theater tonight. Rumor has it that there will only be a few more of these In the Raw shows so come on out hear songs of lust and sorrow and have a few cheap drinks on a school night while you still can. Order your song HERE

09/16/2002 - Jammed with the guys from Honeyrider again yesterday, worked on 6 old tunes and 1 new tune. It's sounding better and better and there is talk of some shows in NYC in December so stay tuned...

09/14/2002 - The Dunedin Brewery was fun, it was cool seeing Sean and I even bumped into a guy named Frank that used to hang around during the Parade days. Lots of fun and good beers. Sean had me up to play Holly's Tooth, next time I'll have a few more prepared!

09/13/2002 - Greetings from crazy Florida where people think it's funny to make false terrorist threats. What are these people thinking? Anyway... I worked for a few hours setting up a new page where people can buy some of my old CDs. It's the first time I've set up a storefront so I curious to see how well it works! Only time will tell. I'm headed out tonight to see a Sean DeLong from Parade In Paris play an acoustic set at the Dunedin Brewery. Should be a fun evening. I also found out today that an old friend of mine Gerald Hammill landed a record deal with his new band Burnside Project. They will be on the Bar None label, I'm anxious to hear the CD. I downloaded a few mp3s from the their site and they are a fun mix of drum loops, stream of conscious lyrics and cool arrangements.

09/12/2002 - It's late and I'm just now grabbing a bite to eat. My buddy Lance came over and we worked on a tune called I'm Falling. It's great bouncing ideas off him because he always adds a nice fresh perspective to what I'm working on. Well I'm off to eat.

09/11/2002 - Hey everyone, hope that everyone has a great day today, it's hard to believe that a year has gone by so fast. I'm working on some new tunes this week and trying to get my studio up and going in the next week or two. Hopefully I'll post a few acoustic tunes so you can see if I know what I'm doing!

09/08/2002 - Greetings all. Just in from the disappointing Bucs game. Oh well. Jammed with Gary and the guys from Honeyrider today and had a real good time. Cool guys and fun tunes. Learned three catchy numbers while trying out my new Fender Tele. I need to put some thicker strings on that thing... but it sounded real good. Going to start working on my studio this week. (Yeah right)

09/03/2002 - Yeah, if you were following my last band Misfortune 500 you know that I dig doing the journal. So I thought I'd just move the whole thing over to my new page - links and all. Some of the picture links may not work but I'll have some more stuff to post pretty soon anyway, so check back. Trying to get a home studio put together and get some new tunes up and running. Let me know how you like the new page!

08/27/2002 - I'm currently in the process of working on my own website http://www.jmcnicholas.com - stop by from time to time to see what's happening with me - John

08/12/2002 - Yeah we broke up, big deal. So what have we been up to? Check it... Marcus and Chris are rocking the bay in Peepshow with our good friends Debbie, Kenny, John and Eric. Martin has been rocking with Sparky's Nightmare and Dank and if you missed the Dank set at the Mastry's show it was hilarious. Brett has been sleeping off the bad nightmare that was the last 2 years and catching up on his golf game. Finally, I have been recording with Chris for the upcoming Sparky's Nightmare CD, rocking with Dank and getting ready to embark on a 3-week US solo acoustic tour. I'm also in the planning stage for a few recording projects and hope to get all the guys to help out with their talents and critical ears! Be good to yourselves until next time.

07/22/2002 - Well you heard it here first kids, the band has called it quits. Our individual modeling careers have us spread out all over the globe and we find ourselves unable to continue as a band. Check this page from time to time to find out what we are are up too, I'll try to keep this page updated for the near future to keep everyone posted on what we're all up to. I'm sure that we'll pop back up soon in some vague assembly or another. Thanks to everyone that come out to see our shows and buy our stuff, we really appreciated all the great times. We still might plan one more farewell show before all is said and done so stay tuned... Meanwhile will John be touring the US and Japan this year? Are Marcus and Chris really living together and playing in Peepshow at the Martini Bar in Baywalk this Thursday? Are John and Martin still in two other bands (hint: Sparky's Nightmare and Dank - playing this Friday night at Mastry's) Is Brett really the Southeast's Grand Theft Auto champ? Stay tuned!

07/19/2002 - Greetings one and all. Well if you missed our show at the Backbooth in Orlando you missed a real treat. If you haven't been there the Backbooth is situated in lovely downtown Orlando about a block away from Church Street Station. I got up there a little after 7 PM and headed inside. The Orlando Weekly magazine was having a private party there and we were invited to join them and have some free food and drinks. And I did. Martin tells me that by 9 PM I was slurring my words. So, I made sure that I had a few free sandwiches before it got to be show time. Before we played most of the guys headed over to a cool little Sushi restaurant around the corner while I hung at the club and talked with John Youngman and some of the other guys from the club. They are all great guys and it was fun catching up and telling stories. Most of the better stories revolved around Cory Feldman's appearance at the club and the decadence that ensued after the show. Hilarious. We had a good time rocking the Orlando crowd as did Humbert and the local favorites Cider. You may remember Cider from a gig we did with them at the Orpheum a few months back. All the band guys were really cool and nice. Orlando appears to have a really friendly scene and I hope that we get asked back soon to play another show. At the end of the night Brett and I headed out at about the same time and I guess we arrived home about 3:45 am. Martin crashed in Orlando and Marcus and Chris hit the clubs and crawled in as the sun came up. Oh, and if you should ever get a chance to go into the band green room, make sure you look at Cory Feldman's Lighting Designer's six pages of "helpful hints" for his light show. Good times, good times.

07/13/2002 - OK, I'm lame I haven't had a moment to update the site in a little while but I wanted to let all our amazing fans know what's happening with us. We gots us a gig on July 19th at the BackBooth in Orlando with Cider and Humbert. Both bands are kick ass and the new BackBooth is supposed to be amazing so if you got an inkling to head up to Orlando to catch us rock out I should be a blast! Last night we all assembled down at the Garden in St. Pete to wish a good friend of ours Eydie and bon voyage. She's headed to work in Japan for a couple of years teaching English. That sounds like an adventure for sure! we will miss her smiling face and cutting edge fashions until she returns! Well I'm off to the studio today to lay down a vocal track for the new Sparky's Nightmare recording that will be featured on the Southern Alliance CD that Joran from the Gita is organizing. Joran is the same guy that is running the In The Raw concert series at the State Theater every other Wednesday night. I'm off! Hope to see you in Orlando on the 19th!

07/06/2002 - Looking forward to tonight's show with Sparky's Nightmare at Skipper's Smokehouse. The food is always good and the people are always fun and friendly. We are playing with Barely Pink and Four Star Riot, so you know the music will be rocking. Come on out if you can, I hope the evening stays rain free. I'm off to go pawn shopping in search of wood today so wish me luck, perhaps I'll be rocking whatever I find this evening.

07/01/2002 - Happy July! This year is flying by fast. Not too much to report, a few of us are down with the sickness (flu) and a few of us are just starting to get over the flu so hopefully we'll squeeze in a practice or two before our show at the Back Booth in Orlando in July 19th. I hope everyone has a fun and safe 4th of July! - John

06/27/2002 - Hello all. Well I had an absolute blast at last night's In the Raw singer/songwriter showcase. Thanks again to Joran from the Gita for organizing such a great event. Those shows are such a treat to play. It was great to see so many people out after midnight on a Wednesday supporting local musicians. Everyone sounded great, I especially dug Hugh and Natty's performance of Happy Birthday for Carrie! Brian and Mark from Barely Pink also played a great group of songs from their extensive catalog of material as did Scott Harrell. Bob Anthony rocked out with an amp! (sinner!) Thanks again to everyone that stayed late to see me play, you have no idea how nice it was to see that many people singing along and shouting out requests... Thanks to Scott Harrell for coming up to sing the backups in "Can She Have Your Room." I barely remembered that one. Sorry for all the requests that went unfulfilled, I need to brush up on some of the old material ("Thunderbird", "Default"...) And who was yelling out requests for Parade in Paris and Factory Black tunes?

06/26/2002 - Well it's been a quiet week. The Emerald show with Barely Pink was a bunch of fun even though I still had the flu. Looking forward to tonight's In the Raw show at the State Theater, hope to see you down there. Catch up with you tomorrow! - John

06/21/2002 - Well it's been a little bit since I made my way over to the Journal page to give it an update. Our show last weekend as part of the Southern Alliance Showcase was a real blast. We had a great set as did all the other bands on the bill. It was great to see all the people out and down front cheering the bands on. I even offered up my stadium rock tribute performance getting everyone to sing Alright! with me at the end of our set. Tonight we are playing at the Emerald with Barely Pink and I hope that everyone can make it out for this great show. I unfortunately have the flu, so yes, that will be a box of tissues and some DayQuil on top of my amp. I have been sick for about 4 days and I just can't seem to shake the cold. I am getting a ton of rest today and taking all my vitamins! Hope to see you down there tonight.

06/07/2002 - Thanks to everyone that came out to see us play at the Twilight last Wednesday in Ybor City. The crowd was friendly and attentive and we had a great time. Sage opened the show and sounded great, I picked up one of their CDs but I haven't had a chance to plop it in the player yet. I'd like to curl up with a nice beverage and my best headphones to relax and enjoy to it's full potential. Check the Pictures page for some snappy shots from the show. The Beatles show at Skipper's the previous Saturday was a blast too. I got there early because I was also playing with Sparky's Nightmare . I could fill up an entire page with all the people I bumped into and all the great performances that I saw, but I won't, I'll summarize. Bill Pike is a guitar god and Paul, Tracy, Mark and everyone in the Pimps of Floribraska were awesome. Barely Pink rocked a great medley of tunes. M500 brought the crowd to it's feet like a religious revival (editor: aren't we exaggerating just a little?) with the first full rock set of the day, that I saw anyway, but I got there after Four Star Riot and the Gita played) Skipper's has some damn good food and the "Hottest" wings are awesome. The free band beer was "Black and Tan." Not my first choice for a hot Summer Florida day, but it was damn fine. WMNF did a great job hosting the show and Flee, dressed up as "Sgt. Pepper" was a great MC of events. OK, well I hope that I get to see a bunch of your smiling faces at the State Theater tomorrow for the Southern Alliance concert. Check the Shows page for all the juicy details! - John

06/01/2002 - First off, HAPPY JUNE! Can you believe how fast this year is flying by! Totally ready to rock the Smokehouse (twice!!) today for the WMNF Beatles tribute show. Both M500 and Sparky's had practice last night at Casa de Sam. Thanks Sam! All the tunes sound tight and ready for the peoples. I think I might be sporting my spandex for the show so don't miss it. M500 plays promptly @ 6-ish. and Sparky's Nightmare hits the stage under the bright lights of the Skipperdome at 10:48-ish P.M. There will be pictures, I promise - check back on Monday for updates galore!! - John

05/30/2002 - Well I really dropped the ball on updating the journal this week. So, let's recap. Barely Pink were awesome at Starfest, they have some photos and a video of the show posted on their website. Martin and I were the "roadies" along with a few other guys. We got their get gear set up and tuned and kept an eye out for groupies - Van Halen style - so we could hook them up with backstage passes. After their set we watched a few other bands, drank many draft beers and ate some good Cajun chicken. The band that really caught my attention was Avril Lavigne. They were a 5-piece band, girl lead singer with lots of pep. They were all about 17 years old and they were from Canada. Great tunes and lyrics and they were thoroughly enjoying the sun and fun that the crowd was offering up. After their set they had about 200 kids lined up to get autographs including one girl who whipped her top off and had them all sign her boobs... which I think might be illegal because, as I said, they were all about 17. Anyway, I traded them a Misfortune 500 CD and chatted for a few minutes before Martin and I headed out. We needed to sober up before our show at Dave's that night with Sparky's Nightmare. Dave's was fun as always. Without recapping the entire night let's just say. Drunk guys, Ybor girls coming in to pee after 1 p.m.. Dank, and Jokes galore. Later in the week both Sparky's Nightmare and Misfortune 500 were working on our Beatles tunes, getting ready for the big tribute show this Saturday at Skipper's Smokehouse. Come out and join us if you can, it should be really fun. The shows goes from 12 noon till 12 midnight. Goodness that's a long time. I'm pretty excited because I'm in two bands I'll get twice the meal tickets and twice the beer tickets. ahh..... the rock-and-roll lifestyle

05/25/2002 - OK kids, it's early in the morning. It's a full day of rock and roll and I'm awake but just barely and speaking of Barely Pink, Martin and I are going to be helping them out with their performance at Starfest this year. I'm headed over to Brian's in a few minutes to load up gear and head down to the main stage where Barely Pink will be rocking the hot sweaty crowd at about 12 noon. After their set Martin and I will be flying across county to perform at Dave's Aqua Lounge with Sparky's Nightmare. I'll attempt to document the events of the day with my camera but I might be too busy hanging out with Live to get any work done. - John

05/16/2002 - Well Heatwave was a blast. We got there about 5 p.m. to set up and soundcheck and check out the other stages. The stage was covered with cables and we each had about 1 sq. foot to move around on until the sound crew moved the monitors off the stage onto some road cases. After a brief chaotic sound check in which Marcus' mic was off and Martin's mic was so loud that you could snap your fingers 4 feet behind the mic and it sounded like someone was shooting off a gun. During soundcheck it really started storming outside and rain was pouring in on the side of the stage. With soundcheck I talked with my friend Lance and Martin and I went around and checked out some of the vendors. We stared the set at 6:10 and kicked into a new tune of mine called Fallout. Next we played Sooner or Later and off we went from there. The crowd was great, very receptive and fun. I even got them all to say 'moo'. After about 45 mins we closed out the set with a stadium rock version of Alright, complete with audience participation and me wandering off into the crowd to get people to yell "Alright!" into the mic. Aaron Kant was a willing participant as was some crazy guy that I called a girl, but Piper got stage fright at the last moment. Special thanks to all the fans and friends that came out to see us or to say hello after we played. After the set we talked with some fans, sold some CDs and hung out. Marcus ate some bread, Brett asked everyone how they liked the first song, Chris went and ate and some guy was juggling fire while I drank free Bud Light. Lance and I went off and saw some of the other bands and met up the rest of the guys briefly at the New World Brewery as the Unrequited Loves were playing. After that we headed over and saw Robert Blakey's Black Water Surprise and a few minutes of Michelle Shocked. Shortly after that the second storm rolled through and I headed for the exit. I'm not a big fan of open places and lighting. Call me crazy. From talking to everyone else the next day it sounds like everybody had a good time, especially Marcus who was last seen dancing with 3 girls at the New World. A big thank you to everyone at WMNF for putting on such a great event every year! - John

05/16/2002 - If you didn't hear it, last night's live performance on WMNF 88.5 was a real blast. Thanks to everybody there at the station that did such a great job making is sound great and feel comfortable. Everybody but Chris got there about 10:45 p.m. and unloaded our stuff as Will Quinlan was performing inside. Chris was playing down in Ybor tonight with Peepshow and would zip over to perform with us in between their sets. Once they were ready for us we loaded into a very tiny room and proceeded to get set up. I was positive that one of us was going to get a black eye by getting hit in the face with a headstock. A few seconds before we went on air we were still deciding what tunes to play depending on when Chris arrived. Once we had that all figured out Chris arrived and we had to come up with a new list on the spot. We started with Sooner or Later and then they interviewed us for a little while. Next we played the Letter, Lot to Learn and finished things off with a DJ request Lottie's Daughter. It went by so fast that I never really even got settled in and comfortable. My headphone mix was a little funky and because Brett was in a completely separate room it was a weird vibe. After loading out they brought us a CDR of the show and it sounded awesome. Everyone really did a great job on the production. I do wish our interview voices were a little deeper though. I must start smoking cigarettes before big interviews. Looking forward to this Saturday's Heatwave show! - John

05/15/2002 - Hello everybody, hopefully you saw the news on the front page about our live performance on 88.5 WMNF tonight. It should be a blast. I'm going to bring a camera to document us rocking all cities via the airwaves so check back tomorrow or the next day to check them out. Also, if you are reading this and you missed the show I hope to have an mp3 of the entire show on the site if it will fit on my server. Otherwise I'll put it on our mp3 page. OK, try to listen tonight, it should be fun. In other news we are gearing up to play the Tropical Heatwave show on Saturday. If you want to catch us you'll have to get there early, but we promise to "BRING IT" for everybody that's there. We start at about 6:00 p.m. You really should get there early so that by the time Link Wray performs you'll so drunk you'll be lying between a couple t-shirt booths yakking up a veggie burger. We had a good practice on Monday at Mad Music and this week brought about a few of the most hilarious e-mail volleys I've read in a long time, especially the e-mail Martin fired off to WMNF when the asked if we could play the show tonight. Can I just say that we love WMNF? We really do. They have been incredibly supportive of us and local music in general. God bless 'em! - John

05/08/2002 - Well it's been a few days since my last entry. I have posted some photos from our show at the Emerald on the >Photos page. The band hasn't been too busy but individually we are all running around doing stuff. Last night Martin and I were up at Chris' house recording guitar tracks with Sam for the new Sparky's Nightmare record. Hopefully we'll be done with guitars soon and can work on vocals and then mix! Chris is really doing a stellar job with the recording. The man has ears of gold! We are all looking forward to the WMNF Tropical Heatwave concert on 5/18/2002, it should be a blast! - John

04/29/2002 - Happy Monday. Yeah right. I'd like to thank everyone that came out to see us play this weekend. We had a great time at the Emerald as usual. It was birthday night and everyone was in a great mood! I thought we had a great set and the crowd response was really good. It was nice to see so many familiar faces out at the show, the boys from Greed Engine, Jini and Denise, Travis, Charlene and everyone else. If you get a chance to stop by the Emerald they have a ton of great artwork for sale inside right now from about 10 local artists, great stuff. We've got practice this evening, hopefully we can whip up some new tunes for our next show. I'll post some pictures soon so check the photos page in the next few days. - John

04/27/2002 - What a crazy time last night. Last night was Travis' birthday and the Hideaway was full of friends and fans. Sparky's Nightmare played the first two sets of the evening. Next up was Dank. We jammed through 5 tunes and then I headed off. Next up Kevin Steele joined Dank on vocals and Jeff Vitolo grabbed my Les Paul and jammed on some Iggy Pop and other tunes. After a brief break I rejoined Dank as did Scott, the harp played from the Grassy Knoll Gunmen who joined us for the Hunter and Straight to Hell. I had a blast playing beer glass slide, Jeff Healey style hand over neck and Jeff beck one shoulder strap leads. I haven't had that much guitar FUN on stage in ages. After the show most everybody headed back to Travis' place to celebrate some more. I headed home, I was beat. Tonight's show at the Emerald should be a blast too. Misfortune 500 should start plying at about 10:30. After we play there will be some New Wave Karaoke and who knows what else. Hope to see you there - it's a FREE SHOW! - John

04/25/2002 - Well, well, well... I have been busy. Lots going on this weekend starting with a Sparky's Nightmare show that Martin and I are playing on Friday night at the Hideaway on St. Pete Beach (MAP). That night Martin and I will also be playing in the Travis Parker Blues Explosion (TPBX) that we like to call Dank. Did I mention that it's Travis' birthday too? Well it is! Speaking of birthdays... Saturday night Misfortune 500 will be rocking the Emerald for Marcus', Brett's, Crissy's and Monique's Birthday celebration. It's free to get in and there is going to be New Wave Karaoke - the place will be jumping that night for sure. OK, hope to see you all out at the shows! - John

04/18/2002 - Hello everyone! Last night's In the Raw acoustic showcase was fun as always. I had a great time playing for all the friends in attendance. I started the show and broke another string. That's two acoustic shows in a row for those that are keeping score. I had to borrow a guitar from April Maxwell to finish the set! Thanks April! I played 5 songs from my old band Lie's album So Happy For You, So Miserable For Me. The set consisted of "I Will Default", "Take Me Back", "Landslide", "Guess I Let Her Down" and "She is Only Gonna Break Your Heart." Next up was Jeremy Gloff and I'll admit I missed most of his set trying to get a drink downstairs, but he sounded good from down there. Hugh T. Williams played next and ran through some great tunes that Sparky's Nightmare performs as well as a great song that he wrote about his career in Music. Hugh cursed too, it was great. Natty jumped up and sang one with him too! Next I believe was April. She played some new and old tunes, she has a GREAT voice and it gets better every time I hear it. Martin stormed the stage next with his sissy classical guitar and played some Segovia pieces. Naw, I'm kidding, I'm a kidder. Martin by far had the best on-stage crowd banter. He funny. He played "Sugar and the Pain", the first song he ever wrote called "Looking at Jane", Revolve and... another one... damn can't remember. I was hoping that he's play some songs by Final Approach but my requests went unfulfilled. All of his tunes sounded great and the classical guitar really sounded nice. Next up was Ronny Elliott. He has a fun way of telling a story within a song. His vocal style, while similar to Johnny Cash is more folksy in timber and style. Oh, and if you bump into him somewhere make sure you tell him what a big Dick Clark fan you are. Bobby Fritz didn't show up so Jen Shamro filled in to close out the night. Not sure what it is about her style but I love it. Really creative guitar playing and a unique almost spoken-word like vocal deliver. Great stuff. Talked with her briefly after the show, hope to catch her again sometime. I got her CD too, must listen to this weekend when I can set some time aside to really enjoy it. Well after everyone played I headed home to bed. These late-night Wednesday are a killer come Thursday morning but it's always a blast! - John

04/15/2002 - Hello everyone, I hope that you all had a great weekend. I know that I did. Sparky's Nightmare played the Sundome on Saturday evening as part of the entertainment for the Democracy Rising fundraiser for Ralph Nader's Green Party. We arrived a little before 1 p.m. and loaded-in in the back of the Sun Dome and put all our stuff by the stage until they were ready for us to set up. It was really fun hanging out backstage and getting a small glimpse on what it would be like to play an arena this size. After a while they told us to set up and soundcheck. Set up went quick and soundcheck sounded great. We Didn't play until 5 p.m. so we hung out with friends and just relaxed before the show started. Natty's friend Lisa and Martin talked with Patti Smith's bass player, we snacked on some food and some of us checked out all the local organizations booths that were there as part of the event. A little after 5 p.m. we hit the stage to thunderous applause and flash pots going off all over the stage (in my mind). When we started the venue was about 25% full and people were having a good time. I yelled "What's up Sun Dome!!!!" as we started and off we went. After the second song we had our first stadium heckler. It was great. It was a old skinny hippie guy at the opposite end of the stadium that was yelling at us to turn it down. Martin called him Capt'n Jack and we launched into another tune. I wanted to yell "shut up hippie!" but I thought it might get me lynched. Well, we had a fun set and it was over as fast as it began; six songs just zoomed by. We tore down quickly and relaxed for a few before Natty was mobbed by young girls wanting her autograph and wanting to get a few pictures with her. Fun, fun, fun. As the evening continues various speakers hit the stage, including Michael Moore, and Jello Biafra. Iris Dement performed her song Wasteland of the Free. She has a great voice. Finally Patti Smith hit the stage with her band (sans Drums). She opened with a great version Dancing Barefoot. After the sound problems were worked out after the first tune she performed five or six more. She was great, really intense and what an amazing presence. She had the Sun Dome in the palm of her hand. Next up was, Ralph Nader and I'll be honest with you, I was so worn out by angry political speeches I packed up my car and had a beer. After Ralph finished talking there was an All-star jam singing Power to the People, Natty jumped on stage and shared a microphone with Michael Moore. Pictures coming soon! - John

04/08/2002 - How can I explain how fun it is to play at Dave's Bar and Grill with Sparky's Nightmare? Saturday night was like any other crazy night there. Opening up the show was Fromage, a cheesy (get it?) 80s coverband. They sounded fun and the keyboard player has the keyboards sounding perfect! Martin and I got up with Sparky and had a fun-filled two sets. Special thanks to this guy named Bill Who came up and sang with us a few time. Hilarious. Finally the night closed out with a furious set by Dank Travis was breaking string, beer bottles were getting balanced on heads and the lovely bartender finally through everybody out at 2 a.m. (which was actually 3 a.m. Daylight Savings time) which meant that Taco Bell was already closed!!! Dang. Check the Sparky's website for some pictures soon! - John

04/04/2002 - Hey everyone, last night's In the Raw acoustic show at the State Theater was a really good time. All the performers were great and as usual Tony from the Gita stole the show with a song called Underwear. If he's smart he'll record that song, send it to all the major multinational underwear companies, and become a huge celebrity. I could see him now on Saturday Night Live co-hosting with Jack Black, singing... "...go ahead and laugh..." hahaha. Really, Tony, that song is hilarious and I demand a copy or I'll expose you for the drummer you really are. hahahaha... Jen Shamro was really good too, angular and aggressive guitar playing and a very original almost spoken word style of delivery with some great lyrics. We swapped CDs, can't wait to listen to it. Rebakah Pulley played again this week, replacing the absent Bob Anthony I suspect. (Where was Bob?) Rebakah has an amazing voice, if you hear about her playing, go see her. Bill Soma, self-proclaimed alkie ran through a few cool tunes. Between the burping and cursing he had a great tune called Call me John, a song about a conversation between a prostitute and her pimp. Well... thanks to everyone that came out despite the crummy weather, there was quite a nice crowd. It's good to see everyone out drinking hard on a Wednesday. Or... wait... is it troubling. Oh, and my only gripe of the night was where was the food? Dave said that they ordered pizza but ate it before anyone got there. Nice. I'll try to post some pictures of the evening soon! - John

04/02/2002 - Hello, hello... it's a slightly rainy Tuesday and I'm hanging out at work waiting for a file to download. Last night's practice sounded pretty good. Everyone was a tad tired from all the weekend festivities. I think some of us didn't get home until Sunday afternoon sometime. Ah... rock and roll. We worked on a few new and old songs last night. Martin has a new song called Where We Are Going that is coming together pretty fast even though there are like 73 chords in it. Chris and Marcus also have a couple of new ideas. Yes, that's right you are going to get to hear Chris belt one out here pretty soon. We also worked on an older song of mine called Inside Out. We are trying to uncover the magic on that one. It needs something... I'm looking forward to playing another acoustic show tomorrow at the State Theater as part of their "In the Raw Series." Martin is going to be doing one with me on the 17th of April and Marcus will be performing two weeks later. Come on out if you can make it. Joran does a nice job of hosting the festivities and you get to watch Dave Hundley cut the cheese - literally - food is provided. - John

03/31/2002 - OK, first of all let me apologize for not taking any pictures at the show last night. However I know a bunch of you did, so I expect to get some from all of you in my e-mail very soon so everyone can see what a great time they missed! Where do I begin... we got to the Orpheum pretty early so we could get a soundcheck in before Cider got there from Orlando. We got setup and ran through a few tunes and it really sounded great. The guy running sound there that night really did a great job. After soundcheck the guys went and grabbed dinner, I stayed behind to meet Trish and take a nap on the big sofa. After a bit the peoples starting filing in for the rock show, including 7 blonde girls all looking for Chris. Nice. Anyway the guys return from dinner, Trish shows up and Cider hits the stage. They really sounded great. Tons of good songs and they were really fun to watch, everybody I talked to really liked them. Next up was us. We got setup pretty quick and hit the stage. We had a great show, we opened with a new song by Marcus called Sooner or Later, and then launched into We're the Same and Lottie's Daughter. We also trotted out another new song of Martin's called Lot to Learn and it went over really well too. We are starting to figure out when it is that we do best as a band and it's really getting to be fun. After rolling through a bunch of tunes we ended with a 10 minute version of Veil - all noisy guitar and crescendos included. After us was Roscoe and they sounded great too. It was the first time I had seen them and they really rocked. Great tunes and nice guys. After everybody played we hung out, had a few and then everyone started taking pictures with the seven blonde girls. I think I heard about some hot tub action, so somebody better fill me it! - John

03/29/2002 - There is nothing better than when everything pulls together last minute. This week was full of "can we bring the rock to the peoples on Sat?", "what cool new head gear will General Sherman wear that will command a harder rock performance from all of us?" and "maybe we should play a video instead" comments. Low and behold after 3 hours of practice at our new acoustically pleasing practice location... we kicked out jams worthy of a listen. MF500 is ready to bring it to the people. After practice Martin, Chris, Brett and I caught the tail end of The Reverend Horton Heat, I haven't heard a drum solo with that much taste and accuracy since the Diver Down tour. Speaking of Diver Down, what if I told you we would not only give a FREE CD but also FREE cover to our show on Saturday night to the first person that responds with the name of the clarinet player on Van Halen's Diver Down record. Click here to enter! Back to last night, we ended up at Scaryoake at the Emerald, our own Jack Horner-like buddy JD got the dance floor groovin' with "Respect" by Aretha. I accepted the "ruler of the party" challenge and one up'd him with my falsetto voice and bitchin' moves on "Billie Jean." Some guy called Chris an asshole because he wanted to sing Pretty in Pink, after thinking about it, I think the guys was right, Chris you are an asshole for having such an idea out loud in public, but you rock the flops man. Super excited about playing with Roscoe and Cider, two really great bands with great songs. I sure hope Natalie Portman shows up like she said. - Marcus

03/28/2002 - Well it has been a busy week, very busy indeed. Had Misfortune 500 practice on Monday, Sparky's Nightmare recording on Tuesday and practice again last night with the MF500. We checked out Mad Music recording studios for the first time. It's a little nicer than Circle rehearsal studios inside, but the rooms are a bit smaller. I will say that it does sound better though. Really looking forward to the show this Saturday night at the Orpheum in Ybor. It's been a while since I've been over there to see a show or to play a show. I hear that they don't run the air-conditioner. Nice. Oh, and I think we need to have a quick contest here folks. Marcus appears in the new Swimsuit Issue of the Weekly Planet. The first one to spot him and e-mail me will get a Misfortune 500 CD! Hope to see you on Saturday! - John

03/24/2002 - Hello all and happy Sunday. Ah... those short 24 hours before work starts back up again. Well yesterday was a very long day. I stayed in Titusville on Friday night and went to my Father's funeral on Saturday afternoon. What a beautiful ceremony. Nearly the entire family was there as was friend and acquaintances that I hadn't seen in years. We also had a bagpiper play Amazing Grace and Danny Boy... it was amazing. After the services Trish and I headed back into town and tried to get a little sleep before the Sparky's Nightmare gig at Dave's Bar and Grill. I couldn't sleep so I made some coffee and read my new issue of Wallpaper. About 9 p.m. I headed down to Dave's, gosh I love Dave's. There was a wedding reception taking place there tonight so the place was already packed when I got there. After a quick setup and helping Martin get the P.A. running we kick into the first set. I stunk. I must have clammed every solo and missed a handful of changes. I just couldn't concentrate. After set 1 and some grooving Dave's dancers did their stuff we hung out and regrouped for set number 2. Set number 2 went much better and the drunken wedding party started getting into the act... much better. After the second set one of the guys from the wedding party brings a guitar in and wants to play. We let him, and he's actually pretty funny. He does a couple of Elvis tunes and another song with a girl singing from the wedding party. Next up is the Sparky/Dank/Open Jam part of the show... OK, so here is where the gloves come off, after a couple of Sparky tunes Travis from Dank jumps up to help us with the Hunter. Off we go... next up, a Howling Wolf tune... and the next thing I know is that I'm officially in Dank. Hahaha. We played till about 2 a.m. in various forms of tightness and looseness, but much fun is had by all. The end of the night ends on a downer however, Sam walks Piper out to her car only to discover that somebody has jumped on top it and smashed her front windshield with a 2x4. That sucks! Oh, and the morons finger prints and shoe prints where all over the place, can't wait to catch this asshole! - John

03/21/2002 - Last night's show was really fun! Hats off to Joran and Dave for organizing the whole event. In case you missed it, last night was a singer/songwriter showcase night with the stage set upstairs in the State Theater balcony. The sound was excellent and all the performers sounded great. It was the first time that I had seen a few of the performers and they really impressed me, especially Rebekah Pulley, she was a great guitar player and had an amazing voice. Tony from the Gita was great too, especially his "high-school" tune. It was the "song of the night" for sure. Scott Harrell's tunes were an emotional tour-de-force that sounded as powerful and emotional as they do with the entire band behind him. However the best part of the night was watching Dave Hundley prepare the food (which was great) - I must say Dave really can "cut the cheese." He must have heard that all night. Anyway, thanks again to everybody that was involved in the evening, great job. - John

03/20/2002 - Hey everyone. I'm getting ready to head down to the State Theater to strum my gee-tar on some acoustic tunes. If you get the chance to make it, come on out and heckle me - I love a good heckle now and then. Still haven't decided what tunes that I'm going to play. A few old and few new. Who knows. I feel a bit of a cold coming on so I'll most likely stay away from the upper-register stuff... but hell it's never stopped me before. I'm going to bring my camera, I'll try to snap a few pics while I'm there! - John

03/17/2002 - Hello, hello! It's been a while since I've updated the journal, but more about that later. We are all looking forward to all of our upcoming gigs. We have a ton of great shows and more shows on the way soon so stay tuned! We have a few practices scheduled for this week so we should be ready to go for our gig at the Orpheum on the 30th. Also, if you can make it out to the State Theater on Wednesday the 20th you can see me play about a 20-minute acoustic set. I am taking requests! Well, it has been a tough few weeks for me personally, that's why the site hasn't seen much action recently. My Dad passed away last Friday. He was at home and surrounded by people that loved him. I want to thank all the guys in the band and all my friends for all the patience and understanding that they have shown me over the last year or so that my father was sick. I am a lucky guy to have such great friends. - John

03/07/2002 - Well quite the fun evening last night. It started off by going over to Hugh's house to get his new web page set up. Check it out! Once we got the site set up we headed over to the Green Iguana on Westshore to watch Chris' cover band Peepshow play. The place was absolutely packed like sardines. They sounded great as always and the crowd seemed to agree. Especially the two wasted folks with hockey jerseys on. What is it about hockey jersey fashion? I don't get it. Maybe if I lived up North. Anyway, after the first set Hugh headed out and I attempted to, but I was lured back in by Brett by extreme peer pressure - "...hey want a beer?" "...uh... nah.... I... yeah, OK" It a good thing I stayed too. I figured that strings needed to be broken and I was the man for the job. Chris asked me to hop up and play Last Night by the Strokes with them. After an air guitar run through of the chords I was all set. Well, off we go, Kenny is just singing lead and the crowd is going crazy (crazy as in talking to each other and ignoring my debut completely), and just when we are about to finish I bust a high E string. OK, so now I feel bad and it was only the first song of the set and he's got a wounded guitar. I hand the guitar back to Kenny, mumble sorry and head for the door. I wonder if they are still my friends? - John

03/05/2002 - Yo MF'ers, This is a Misfortune 500 report from the glorious Caribbean where there's no rock and roll but you just don't care! I'm in Grand Cayman sitting on the beach, drinking cocktails waiting for the international tourists to take their tops off. The island is beautiful as usual and everyone seems to have such a pleasant pace in life. It makes you realize how pushed and stressed our society is. Anyway, just to get a little rock and roll, Natty and I went to the new Hard Rock Cafe to watch music videos. When you're starved for music, even Christina Aguelera is a welcome sight. I brought my guitar with me and plan to come back with some new material for the MF500. See you guys soon. - Martin

03/01/2002 - Tons of news to report today! We have a couple of new and exciting shows to tell you about! WMNF has asked us to perform at their annual TROPICAL HEATWAVE! If you are from the area I don't have to tell you what a great opportunity it is to play this show. Heatwave is always completely packed to the rafters with music-lovin' people out to have a great time! Can wait! Check to Shows page for a list of all the acts that we'll be performing and all the details. I can't wait to see Link Wray! We have confirmed the show at the Orpheum on March 30th with a group from Orlando called the Fades. You might recognize one of the band members from his other group Slack Season. Can't wait to hear them! - John

02/26/2002 - Work continues on the new record, we are almost finished with pre-production. Here's a tentative track list: Alright, Lot to Learn, Veil, New Girl in Town, Check 1,2..., If You See Her, Inside Out, Sooner or Later, and Sugar and the pain. This week I hope to finish all my demo parts and do some recording over at the Barely Pink secret Hideout where I'll be recording with Sparky's Nightmare, laying down some keyboards for the upcoming Barely Pink record and recording some acoustic tunes for my upcoming solo record. Also I have booked a solo gig on March 20th at the State Theater. More details as I get them. So much to do, so little pay. er.. time. - John

02/25/2002 - What a great weekend. I can't wait to catch up on some sleep. The Cyndi Lauper show that Martin and I played with Sparky's Nightmare was an absolute blast. We arrived at about 5:30 in the cold and drizzling rain, unloaded gear, and watched Cyndi Lauper run through a soundcheck. She was working on a new song with her band. Doors were set to open at 7 p.m. but her soundcheck went until about 6:45 p.m. After she was finished, Marcus helped us haul all the gear up the back steps and get everything set up. A friend of ours, Ratboy, was running monitors so we got a quick check of all the levels, played one song and wrapped things up before the gates were open. We had about an hour before we had to play so we headed over to Mastry's for a tension remover (drink) and just hung out. Closer to showtime we headed back into Jannus and and talked with Eydie, Eric from the Weekly Planet, Stacy and everybody else that we knew that came out to see us. We hit the stage right at 8:30, Rob Douglas introduced us and we proceeded to have a great show! The crowd really dug us from the very first tune. After the last song a few people were even yelling for one more! Ah... my public. One thing did occur to me as we launched into the last song of the evening though, this will most likely be the last time I'll ever play on this stage. The old Hotel Detroit is being renovated into luxury apartments and by the looks of things they are almost finished. I can't imagine that they will allow the concerts to continue with people living 10 feet from the P.A. system. I looked out at the 1,200 people in attendance, made a 'rock face' and savored the moment. Teardown was quick, thanks to Marcus' extra helping hands. Gear was packed and we headed back in to see Cyndi rock the crowd... which she utterly failed to do. She was lame. The Vanity tour as someone coined it. She had so many fans there that just were dying to see her play that she really could have torn the lid off that place. She didn't even have any merch to sell! It was a missed opportunity all the way around. Hell, we rocked - mission accomplished!!! As people headed out after the show we collected a bunch of names for our mailing list and got a ton of compliments. How nice. It's nights like this that really make it all worth while. Here's some pictures!!! - John

02/23/2002 - Last night's Sparky's Nightmare show was a real blast. Mastry's was pretty full and I knocked over every drink that I bought before I could have a sip. No hangover but lots of wet and sticky guitar pedals. I played the red strat for the first time since Spiller and it sounded wonderful, new strings and a set-up really did it wonders. Tonight is the big gig with Cyndi Lauper at Jannus Landing. Should be a blast Martin tells me that they have 1,000 tickets pre-sold for the show, with the walk-up crowd it looks like the place will sell out. Woo-hoo! - John

02/21/2002 - Well the weekend is almost upon us. Last night's recording session with Sparky's Nightmare was a blast. A big thank you to Brian and Chris for all the hard work and hospitality! Come out and see Martin and I play with Sparky at Mastry's on Friday night and w/Cyndi Lauper on Saturday night at Jannus Landing if you get a chance. - John

02/17/2002 - Greetings campers, been a few days since I've updated things here. I have been out of town, as has most of us for the last few days. This week is looking like a really fun one. No practice Monday night that I know of for Misfortune 500, but Martin and I will be rocking Sam's place on Tuesday for Sparky's Nightmare rehearsal. Wednesday night we are starting to record the first Sparky's Nightmare record at Brian Merrill's (Barely Pink) secret hideout. With both Brian and Chris at the helm we are going to lay down drum tracks and then take the tapes back to Secret Studio for the rest of the production. Can't wait! This Saturday, Sparky's Nightmare will be opening up for the one and only Cyndi Lauper! Form of an 80s Flashback! We will be playing at Jannus Landing, I imagine that we'll start at about 8:30. Tickets are $25 through Ticketmaster. I hate to admit it but as badly as that Strokes album is produced, it's starting to grow on me. Oh, and in case anyone is wondering, Marcus' quest for the perfect tone continues. We were talking amps, guitars and pedals for a while earlier this evening - it made me realize how much I miss being around that stuff 40+ hours a week. As soon as he figures it out what sounds the best I'm buying it too. He just picked up a used Mesa Boogie Maverick short head and a slant 2x12 from our buddy John - can't wait to hear it!- John

02/11/2002 - Man, we had a great practice tonight. oooo-weee. Everything really came together this evening. We were in a good mood and the music sounded great. Ran through the set once and then worked on a new Martin song. Can't wait for everyone to hear it. We also discussed some upcoming show possibilities in facilities with probabilities. I'm off to bed. - John

02/09/2002 - Pictures from the WMNF Interview have been posted on the Photo Home page. Last night's show at the Hideaway on St. Pete Beach was a BLAST! I'm not really sure how to explain all the hi-jinx, but everyone had a great time. It was great to see Bryce and Todd from Helium Bomb. Bryce owns the club and Todd was helping out at the door collecting money. The club is a cozy affair set right on the water. I'd love to play there again soon, it could become a real local band hotspot. - John

02/07/2002 - Greetings, the radio show on Monday night was a blast, I'll try to get a few pictures and an mp3 of the show posted as soon as I get some spare time. Had a great practice tonight, worked on some new arrangements for Inside Out, and really tightened up a few other songs. Martin and I are playing with Sparky's Nightmare tomorrow night at a new club called the Hideaway, on St. Pete Beach. Not sure where it is yet, but I think it's near Corey Ave. in the downtown area. Hope to see some of you there.- John

02/04/2002 - Great Super Bowl, good game and a great couple of songs by U2. Well the guitar show was a blast. Thanks goodness I didn't have a pocketful of money to spend. That however did not slow Chris down from scoring a sweet deal on a Matchless amp. With Marcus giving the play-by-play, here's how it all went down. Don't miss us tomorrow night on 88.5 WMNF, we should be on at about 9pm to have an interview and spin a few tunes.

02/02/2002 - Welcome to the weekend. Ahhhhhhh... Today is the Orlando International Guitar and Music Expo in Kissimmee today. That means lots of old guitars for me to drool over. I can't wait. Looking forward to seeing my old boss Kent from the music store days. He'll be there with his company Legends Music. I have purchased a majority of my guitars from him. Great guy, loves to talk old wood - guitars and surfing. Just talked Chris, it sounds like I'll meet him and Marcus up there. Speaking of Chris, his cover band Peep Show is playing the Irish Pub tonight in Ybor City for the Gasparilla Festival tonight. Should be a wild and crazy time. Don't miss us this Monday night, we will be interviewed on WMNF 88.5. Rich Ranck will have us on the show between 9 and 10 p.m. Somebody tape it for us, OK? In completely unrelated news, I have been helping Hugh, the multitalented drummer, get a website up for all of his really cool paintings. Check it out here. Oh, snap! I'm out. Got to get some old geetars! - John

01/28/2002 - So, it goes like this. Practice was pretty fun tonight, I only wish I didn't have to get up tomorrow morning. We picked a few of the songs apart and worked on the bits and pieces of Inside Out, Check 1,2... If You See Her and Sooner or Later. Martin is still recovering from his self-inflicted massive head wound he suffered right before the Sparky's Nightmare show on Saturday. The Sparky's Nightmare show on Saturday night was really fun. Skipper's was absolutely packed and the sound system was dialed in just right, the beer was cold, and the food was great. So nice. Oh, and the hot kissing lesbians were pretty cool too. THANKYOUGOODNIGHT!! - John

01/26/2002 - ...and you thought you were done with me today. Just picked the latest issue of Focus Magazine and discovered that it contained a glowing review of our first CD! I was blown away by how much they liked it. No, really, thank you. OK, I'm putting new strings on for the show tonight - catch you later - John

01/26/2002 - Well the weekend is here. I think I'll do some antique furniture hunting downtown St. Pete today. I don't have any green, but I got plastic. Looking forward to the Sparky's Nightmare show tonight at Skipper's Smokehouse this evening. Don't know what the cover charge is, but it should be a fun evening. I'll post some pictures tomorrow or Monday. In other news Chris has stopped playing with Harry Dash. With our schedule picking up and his work getting busier he's only got time to be a one-band man. He still has two shows remaining with them, so get out and see them rock the clubs with him while you can - you will not be disappointed. We should be announcing a new show at the State Theater pretty soon, so check the shows page for details as they come in. Have a good weekend - hope I'll see you soon - John

01/21/2002 - While most everybody has headed out to the Strokes show at the House of Blues in Orlando, I'm kicking back, eating some beans and rice and updating the web page. As promised I have just posted some pics from the Neptune show. (my favorite picture!) Not really sure who took all of the pictures - it appears that the camera was passed around all night and someone took a few pictures of some girls' butts. Speaking of butts, Do I smell a CONTEST! Why yes I do. The first person to e-mail me with the name of the person that each butt belongs to, gets a free, that's right FREE Misfortune 500 CD and an old LIE CD that I have kicking around, and maybe, just maybe free passes to our next 5 shows. Whoa, no fucking around here contest hopefuls. Step right up and play "Name That Can!" (can 1 - can 2 - can 3). Sorry but there can only be one winner - that's life. Band members excluded - sorry boys. Oh, and ladies if your butt is pictured here, and you wish to have it removed, just click here to submit a photo of your butt as it currently appears - for verification purposes only - and we'll take the original shot off as soon as we can remember how all this whacky computer web thingy works. Maybe the next contest will be all boobs... only the random mystery photographer knows for sure. - Dirk

01/20/2002 - So, without getting into too much detail about last night... let's just say we are still figuring out how to drive this truck called the Misfortune 500. Hopefully I'll have some pictures posted pretty soon on the Photos page. It was great seeing so many familiar faces out at the show that I haven't seen in a while, Andy (thanks for the CD!), Andy, Steve from G-ville and his wife, even Susan came down from NYC to see us rock. Great to see you all again. I'm keeping this short, because I'm headed out of town. I'll catch up this week and hopefully by then I'll have some snaps for ya. - John

01/19/2002 - OK, first things first. We're playing tonight at the Neptune Lounge in Tarpon Springs, I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but please come out if you can, if we make a good showing and don't get booed off the stage I think maybe they will have us back! I really do love playing the Neptune, there is always a nice, fresh, and fun crowd there to have a good time and the owner Eddie and his crew are truly the nicest guys to deal with. Check back tomorrow for a ton of pics and a new journal entry! The Bruce show last night was really fun, the place was packed and all the bands sounded really good. Joran from the Gita delivered and amazing version of Born to Run. Elston Gunn turned in a fine American performance with some lovely mandolin sprinkled in, so nice. Nessie, featuring Brett on Drums, Scott Harrell on guitar, Jason Dudney on guitar and Bill Umberto on bass turned the crown on its head with a nice indie-rock version of a few Bruce tunes. They sounded great. Until tomorrow!- John

01/18/2002 - Yeah, yeah... so it's been a few days since I poured my heart out to you guys. Well I'm keeping it short tonight too. I'm getting ready to headed down to the State Theater to watch Brett perform at the Bruce Springsteen tribute show at the State Theater. Should be a fun time. I'll try to take my camera and get a few shots of Sherm in action. - John

01/12/2002 - Greetings everyone and happy birthday to my buddy Brian. Looks like we are going to get some pre-production in this week for the record. Can't wait. I also can't wait for our show on the 19th up at the Neptune Lounge. I'm not sure anybody knows or not but Marcus just got back from spending New Year's in Italy. Hopefully he'll put something up in the journal about his trip. Our good friends in Barely Pink got a great write-up in the Weekly Planet in this week's issue, check it out! Also, last weekend, as a plane was crashing into the Bank of America building in downtown Tampa, our friend Joe Popp had the opening of his new play Maxwell at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center in Tampa. Starting on February 1st it will be playing again up in New York at the Galapagos Art Space. Go see it if you're in town! The reviews were stellar as expected. Joe sent out some pictures from last weekend's opening festivities - enjoy. Sorry I missed all the fun as I was out of town. Speaking of out of town, I'm leaving now. See everybody on Monday with an update. - John

01/10/2002 - Not much new to report, we are getting ready to get some rehearsal in for the Neptune Lounge show and keep working on pre-production for our next record. Check the home page and the shows page for a download of our flyer for the Neptune Lounge show. OK, I'm going to watch the end of Survivor. Catch you all later. - John

01/04/2002 - Hello from freezing St. Petersburg. Just got in from working on pre-production for our next record over at Secret Studios. Chris, Brett, Martin and I worked out a few arrangement ideas on a handful of songs. Check 1,2..., Alright, If You See Her, Inside Out, Sooner or Later, and Veil. Hopefully we'll get some more work done in this upcoming week. Well I'm off to bed. Anything happening this weekend? - John

01/03/2002 - Greetings all, it looks like we are going to get started on our next record this weekend sometime. Hopefully we can demo up about 10 songs and then pick the winners. We played 14 songs at our CD release show and we have 6 tunes on our CD so that gives us 8 songs to demo up right there, plus anything new that we come up with in the mean time. I think everybody has about 10 ideas kicking around and Chris swears that he has a whole album worth of smash hits just waiting to get the treatment. Can't wait to hear all the new ideas that everybody has. Sometimes just listening to the pre-production ideas is as much fun as listening to the finished album. The first versions of new tunes always have a warm place in my heart because of their poor arrangements, sloppy playing and mumbled words (typically me). I'll post some pictures of the process as it goes along... Hopefully we'll squeeze in a practice this week too. Looking forward to our first show at the Neptune Lounge in Tarpon Springs with the Cocktail Honeys and Signal 76. - John

01/01/2002 -That "02" looks weird there! I can't believe it's 2002! Well last night Martin and Natty threw a great New Year's Eve party. It was a real blast, good food, good friends and some fine DJ'ing by Brett. - John

2001 - Complete

12/30/2001 - Well, well, well... another year draws to a close. It seems like only yesterday when it was just New Year's 2000 and now it's 2002! It has been a crazy year for me and for everyone it seems. But, all in all it has been a great year filled with lots of fun, lots of new songs, the release of our new CD and our first show. Keep checking back at the site for more information about the band, our shows and our work on another record. As soon as everybody gets back in town I think we are going to start pre-production. I'd also like to say hello to everyone that has come to our site from other areas of the world via our mp3.com site- I see by my stats machine that we have been getting hits from Japan, Germany, Canada, and even China - hello! In closing I hope that everyone has a fun and safe New Year's Eve wherever you may be! - I just got back to St. Pete - John

12/28/2001 - As promised we have some more pictures available from the CD release party. These excellent photos were taken by Marcus' friend Carrie. - John

12/27/2001 - Hello all! Well as promised here are some pictures from the CD release party that Trish took. I've talked to a few other people and I should have some more in the next few days! Enjoy - John

12/25/2001 - Merry Christmas! It has been a few days since I have been able to get to a computer to update the site, I am currently out of town on a family emergency and I am using a computer inside the hospital to write this entry. We'd like to thank everybody that made it out to our CD release show at the Emerald last Friday, I have never seen that many people in that club! We got there in the afternoon and set up the wall of white Christmas lights while Kenny Watts set the PA up. We ran through a couple of tunes for sound check and then we all split for dinner. When we returned we got the merchandise all set to sell. Thanks to Natty, Trish and Sherry for helping us sell all those CDs and tee shirts. At about 10 p.m. Marcus put one of his fine mix-CDs in and the people started to come in - that place filled up quick! My friend Jim, whom I haven't seen since high school was there with his lovely wife. Also in attendance was Brian and Stan (thanks for getting me the drink!) from Barely Pink, Eydie, the guys from Greed Engine, original Spiller bass player and singer/songwriter Lance Rowland, Jon from Welcome, Stacy and so many others. We hit the stage about 11 p.m. and proceeded to "rock the peoples." We were a little loose, but we had an absolute blast. From the opening guitar riff of Marcus' new tune Sooner or Later the set had a real spark to it. From there we skittered into Check 1, 2..., Inside Out and all the others... I asked the guys to skip the song Veil (written by Lance Rowland and myself) because I couldn't remember the words, but they made me play it anyway. Some other highlights for me were the songs All right, the Letter, New Girl in Town, I've Changed, Sad Song, Lottie's Daughter...OK, I think all the songs were highlights for me... While I'm rambling, I'd like to apologize to anyone that I did not get to say "hello" or "good-bye" to that night after we played, I had a two-hour drive ahead of me and I had to hit the road before it got really, really late. So, after I left I hear that drinks were drunk and so were the rest of the guys as an open jam broke out a little while later. Perhaps one of the other guys can fill in the sorted details. Well, I better run, I think the nurse wants her computer back. Check the site in the next few days, I should be posting some pictures from the show soon. If anyone has some pictures that they took, send them in and we'll send you something special for your efforts. OK, talk to you soon, good night, drive safe, tip your waitresses. - John

12/20/2001 - Another fun practice last night at the State Theater - back to the scene of our first full band practice with the five of us. Special thanks to Dave for letting us jam there whenever we didn't have a place to practice. Well, this will be my final journal entry before the big gig on Friday, it looks like it's going to be a full house. It seems that everybody I know is coming out to see us rock the Emerald for our first show. We finished working up Marcus' new tune and I think we are going to open the show with it. It also looks like the stage production is going to be nice and bright, we're trying to go the extra mile to make it look and sound good for everybody. We care about you, the fan - (warm fuzzy). Just so you can keep score, here is a quick rundown of all the song titles that we are going to be playing on Friday: Alright, Check 1.. 2.., Let me Sing the Praises of Loneliness, the Letter, Lottie's Daughter, I Wanna be Your Boyfriend, If You See Her, Inside Out, I've Changed, New Girl in Town, Sad Song, Sooner or Later, Veil, We're the Same. Also, the newest issue of Focus magazine should be out sometime today or tomorrow - be sure to pick it up and read a great article that Juliette wrote. I'll post it as soon as I get an electronic copy! We also started talking about doing pre-production on the next record - we have a slew of tunes to record. Hopefully we'll start working on thing immediately after Christmas. Hope to see you tomorrow! - John

12/18/2001 - Fun practice last night, the songs are really sounding great. Can't wait for Friday! We even worked up a brand new song of Marcus' called Sooner or Later last night that really sounds great. We also took some pictures for our article in this weeks' issue of Focus Magazine. I'll post the Focus article as soon as I get a copy, most likely on Thursday or Friday. OK, so Martin sends me some crazy pictures sometimes, but these pictures, mostly taken at his Christmas party, are the craziest so far. - John

12/16/2001 - Another fun party at Marcus' last night. Always a good time. I didn't stay all night - I left after the cops showed up for the third time. Well this next week will have us getting ready for our show on Friday - we are ready to rock! I hope that everyone can make it out to see us play. - I'm keeping today's entry short and sweet, hope to see you next Friday night - John

12/15/2001 - Last night's party was a real blast. It was good to see everyone out having a good time, dancing, eating, and enjoying themselves. Travis and Charlene definitely know how to throw a party. Bumped into Bill Umberto for the first time in a long time - I'm sure you remember his as the outstanding bass player in Helium Bomb. Well guess what, the Bomb is putting it back together and hopefully we'll get to see them play some shows in the not to distant future! Tonight finds us all going to another Christmas party at Marcus' pad. A party at Marcus' can only mean 1 thing - karaoke in the back yard! You better believe that there will be pictures from this one too! - John

12/14/2001 - We here at the MF500 are pretty pleased with ourselves, not only did we get a really cool article printed in Weekly Planet this week, but we got our CDs in! Woo-hoo! However, I would like to point out one glaring error in the article however, the Show at the Emerald on the 21st is FREE! Everyone met down at the Garden for drinks and conversation as we all got our paws on the new disc for the first (ooohhh-ahhhh). Thanks for the round of drinks JD! We also gave a CD to the Bartender there, so don't hesitate to ask him to give the disc a spin if you find yourself down there. After few at the Garden we headed over to Mastry's where Martin and the guys got 57,000,000+ points on one of the bar trivia games while I chatted with my buddy Matt. We have also been trying to line up some supercool gigs in the not to distant future - we have a couple of hot leads so stay tuned, we hope to have a major announcement soon. Tonight most of us are headed over to a friends house for a party, hope to see everyone from Dank, Sparky's Nightmare, the Mojo Gurus and MF500 there. - John

12/11/2001 - Greetings all! Practice was fun last night. Juliette from Focus Magazine came out to interview us for a feature in the magazine. She hung out while we played a few tunes and Chris rocked the flops. Next she asked some really good questions - well done! We are looking forward to a great article. We finalized an arrangement for a few songs and will just run through the set for the next three practices. - John

12/10/2001 - Well we got practice tonight - getting ready for the big show on the 21st. Hopefully we'll wrap up a few new tunes and have a full 12 or 13 tunes to play for everyone. Also, Juliette from Focus magazine is coming out to take some pictures and interview us for an article that will run sometime in the not to distant future. I'll give everybody an update and some pictures tomorrow. Chris had a great show with Harry Dash opening up for the Cranberries last night at the Mahaffee Theater. Hopefully he'll drop an entry and let you know how it all went. - John

12/09/2001 - Hello all, just in from the Sparky's Nightmare show at Largo Central Park. It was a Human Rights Day show that benefited Amnesty International. The weather was a summer-like 80+ degrees and and the stage was even hotter. Still, we sneaked some beers into the big festival and proceeded to have a good time. I missed the first few acts, but I caught Ronnie Elliot and the Nationals and they were excellent. The next band was supposed to be Saturn 5, but apparently they bailed at the last minute, so we in Sparky's Nightmare were up next after a brutally long speech by the nutty USF professor that got his ass handed to him on the O'Reiley Factor. But, I digress... Once we decided that the monitors were defiantly not interested in working we tore into a short but excellent set. I think I lost 10 pounds on stage it was so hot. Stacy Mathis popped by for a few pictures and then bee-lined it back to work to control the chaos. Got your note - Catch you on the e-mail! Next up was The Lisps (pronounced with a lisp) featuring Martin, Chris Barrows (Pink Lincolns), Hunter Oswald and um, two other guys who names escape me at the moment... dang - sorry about that guys. Anyway, they tore it up with some killer punk covers. My favorite moment was when Chris was singing about how every little girl is a little whore - while there were children's birthday parties on the picnic tables around the park. Nice touch guys. - John

12/07/2001 - Well folks it looks like the Joe Popp show that we had scheduled for the 5th of January will not feature Joe Popp the band, in fact we are going to reschedule the entire show until the end of January so we can get the show together properly! It seems that I jumped the gun by saying that they had all committed to playing the show. Keep checking the shows page for the new date when we get it. We'll have to come up with something especially new and exciting for everybody at the Orpheum that night. Got any ideas?

After a rocking practice at Circle Studios on Wednesday night he band convened down at Limey's on 4th street for our Weekly Planet interview with Scott Harrell, lead man for the Cocktail Honeys and an excellent literary writer in his own right. The interview mainly focused on how long all of us have been in the scene (veterans, if you will) and why we keep doing what we do! I must say there was a bit of reminiscing about old bands Scott and and all of us were in and how the scene was before all these garsh darn whipper snappers came in and messed it up with their Ibanez guitars and Crate amps and their rock and roll music. Hopefully he will get a chance to listen to our new CD while he writes the article. You'll be able to read all about it in the December 13th Weekly Planet when it comes out. However, we here in Misfortune 500 like to speculate, especially Marcus. Here now is his interpretation of how the interview will likely play out. Enjoy. What's new with you? - John

12/04/2001 - Just got word that Ravis from the Weekly Planet will be interviewing us for a feature article tomorrow night after practice down at one of the local watering holes. Should be fun. Ravis did some excellent work with my previous band Spiller and is one of the best guitarists/singers/songwriter around, and probably one of the only people that is qualified to make fun of us - let's hope he asks the tough probing questions. This just in - just got off the phone with Martin, seems that Joe Popp (the man) will be in town the week of January 3rd for the opening of his play Maxwell at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Theater in Tampa. The other good news is that Misfortune 500 will be performing with Joe Popp (the band!) on January the 5th at the Orpheum in Ybor City. I'll post more details when I get them. John

12/02/2001 - Well last night's Christmas show was a ton of fun. All the bands sounded good and the improv comedy troop called the Caffeine Kids were really funny too. If you missed the show you also missed some really nice Christmas decorations and good sugar cookies. We in Sparky's Nightmare had a great set beginning with Martin's new Christmas tune and then segueing into Elvis' Blue Christmas (I finally nailed that guitar solo). Next up was a tune Sam wrote call Just Give Me Some Presents and we finished up with a punk-y Silent Night. Hope everybody enjoyed our home video on the big screen behind us! The Gita were in rare form tonight - Christmas rapping and a dancing Santa Claus were highlights to be sure. I also especially enjoyed the set by Ashes of Grisum. Chris started the set a-capella and then brought the band in for the remainder of the tunes and even obliged the crown with an encore at the end of the evening. Oh, don't park your car behind the State Theater any more - cars were towed... - John

12/01/2001 - This year is flying by so fast I can hardly believe it. Everyone headed out tonight to see Chris play with local band Harry Dash. Also playing was 10 Second Drop and E3 from Sarasota. Spoke with Doug Tackitt (excellent drummer who's been rocking the scene for nearly as long as I have) from 10 Second Drop and he hooked me up with their excellent new EP - good stuff. Chris made us all jealous rocking out with his Les Paul, keyboard, and laptop computer on-stage. How one dude be so cool (and tall). The mad Swede rocks! Also bumped into Rick Mongaya (sp? - sorry Rick) the original drummer from Lie, it was good to say hello and catch up. Tomorrow night Martin and I are playing with Sparky's Nightmare at the State Theater for the 2nd(??) annual "You'll Shoot Your Eye Out" Christmas Special that the Gita have been putting on. Tons of bands are playing - I'll catch up with you tomorrow and give you the scoop. Until tomorrow - John

11/21/2001 - Hello everybody and happy Thanksgiving! This year finds us getting together with family to enjoy some food and hopefully some football. We just received the proofs back for the printing for our CD booklets and everything looks great. Can't wait for everybody to see and hear what we have been working on all year. We should have the CDs by the time we play our first original show at the Emerald in St. Pete on December 21st. We still haven't lined up the other acts that are playing, but hopefully we'll have an acoustic opening act and then a DJ after we play. It's a free show so come out and cheer us on, we are hoping to have a few surprises for everyone. See you soon. - John

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