No Song Unsung Blog

Last night I had the pleasure of doing my first BlogTalkRadio segment and the guest was my good friend, Rob Cooke of WeeklySongCast.com and PowerBookStudio.com.  He’s also known as “The Boy at Heart”.  Rob and I have known each other for over a year and although Rob and I have never actually talked on the phone, we’ve exchanged numerous emails, comments via our blogs, and exchanged thoughts over at Twitter and Facebook.  Rob was so kind to produce the music for my virtual vision board video over at YouTube.

So it was pretty exciting to finally place a voice to his face   In my interview with Rob we get to know more about his musical background, how he markets his music online, and his philosophies about life and creativity.  Click here to listen to the interview at BlogTalkRadio.

Rob is originally from the UK, but he recently moved to Thailand where he now lives with the love of his life.  Every week he posts a new song over at his blog, The Weekly Songcast, and shares the philosophy or the story behind the song. 

For a limited time you can get Rob’s debut album for free which is due to release in October.  Get more details about this great offer!  I just downloaded the Weekly Songcast Volume 2 so I can listen to “Wealth Abundance Joy” everyday.  Looking forward to the release!

You can find The Boy at Heart online at:

Again, here’s the link to listen to the interview.

Exciting news for American Idol fans… Kara DioGuardi will join the judging panel when the eighth season of the wildly popular singing contest begins. Definitely a smart move by the producers as it brings a new dynamic and adds “freshness” to the show.

Kara DioGuardi has a very impressive resume and certainly has the credentials to be a judge. She’s written songs for Kelly Clarkson, David Cook, Pussycat Dolls, Tom Jones, and Hannah Montana, just to name a few. The list of artists she’s written for and collaborated with is just way too long to list!

Learn more about Kara DioGuardi by visiting here MySpace page

“You don’t know who the Jonas Brothers are?” my best friend’s 10-year-old daughter asks me.

Uhhh…no…

Well, that was about a year ago and now, well, I certainly know who the Jonas Brothers are! Every time I turn on the TV, they’re on a TV show, award show, or shown on the news being mobbed by hundreds of teenage girls. I guess you could say they’re The Beatles or The Backstreet Boys of the new era.

Just like every successful music group before them, this trio has put in some serious work. Personally, I can’t imagine doing show after show after show. But then again, they’re young and have much more energy than me Their latest invasion was New York City!

Here are Kevin and Nick at a video shoot in Central Park a couple days ago…

Then the day before that they performed in front of fans at the Apple Store in Soho…

And of course, they had to make an appearance at MTV’s “TRL” show…

Sure, the Jonas Brothers may have the girls burnin’ up right now and in five years there will be someone else. Boy bands will always come and go. After all, boys always grow up and the girls grow up to be someone like me who wonders what the big appeal is in the first place

As if I don’t have enough projects on my plate as it is, I’ve been thinking about creating a foundation that will help bring music back into the curriculum of our schools.  I’ve been hearing all these stories about how many of the school systems have cut music and arts-related classes because of lack of funding.  It makes me sad to think of a world where kids aren’t exposed to music on a daily basis. 

Art leaders in Philadelphia have already started the process of getting arts and music back into schools, but it’s certainly going to take more than 120 people to make this a nationwide thing.

I just discovered the San Diego Music Foundation which has the Taylor Guitars for Schools program.  That’s definitely a great start.  However, I’d love to see marching bands with kids playing a wide range of musical instruments.  For me, marching band parades were big when I was in middle school and high school.  Living here in San Diego, I don’t see much of that. 

I find great inspiration in watching young kids playing music.  Here’s a video of an 8-year-old playing the saxophone…

I don’t get around to reading very many music blogs - although I should. So as I searched for more music blogs to add to the blogroll, I came across this post about a music blogger who says that music blogs now suck.

This music blogger says that the “word counts of posts have shrunk, and the commenters have gotten meaner and greedier”. I’m not sure what kind of music world that blogger lives in, but I haven’t experienced that at all. But then again, I don’t get too many comments here anyway - but they are welcome!

The blogger goes on to say that good writing has gone out the door which I don’t believe to be true. There are good music blogs out there - you just have to dig a little. Take, for instance, Vinyl Notes, a blog written by a fellow KnowMoreMedia.com blogger, Kimberlee Morrison. Kimberlee’s thoughtful and insightful posts always inspire me.

I don’t think all music blogs necessarily have to consist of “good writing”, whatever that means. There are different blogs that serve different purposes. There’s the blog that shares music videos or the photo blog that only contains pictures. There are blogs that cover music news, blogs that share random thoughts…and so on.

The last time I checked there wasn’t a right and wrong way to do a blog. I like to look at blogs like I look at paintings or any other work of art. They’re all unique and special in their own way.

“I don’t always like to talk about it in great detail, but music saved my life literally. Writing songs and singing is so therapeutic for me.” — Mariah Carey

The sweet melody of a love song, the soothing sound of chords on the piano - music certainly has a way of touching the innermost corners of our souls. I don’t know about you, but all I need to make a day brighter is to turn on some happy tunes. I’m not a songwriter, but all the poetry I wrote back in my college days - which could actually be turned into songs - really helped me get through some rough times, so I definitely can relate to what Mariah Carey is saying here.

Music is definitely better than medicine!

Photo Credit: Rossina Bossio Bossa

When it comes to gossip, Kid Rock has had his share of the spotlight.  I knew him more for his relationship with Pamela Anderson than for his musical abilities.   However, he’s back in action with his latest album, Rock N Roll Jesus(released October 2007).  He performed last night at Madison Square Garden with guest appearances by Peter Wolf (J. Geils Band) and Rev Run (Run DMC)…