Returning after a super smash hit first album, Mika seems to have found a way to keep the magic alive.

The first single off his sophomore work We Are Golden not only has the infectious beat, but it looks like Mika has found another unique way to interact with his fans.

The vid to We Are Golden is Mika in his boxers dancing around his bedroom and pretty much outs all teenage boys to the world, because this is exactly what we do when we are teenagers. Dancing half naked in our rooms is really what we all do (or did). It makes no difference if we were nerd or the captain of the football team… every boy does it. Now the girls know! Drat you Mika!

so… interaction… Mika has challenged all his fans to make their own ‘Golden’ video in their rooms and post them at wearegolden.com through YouTube or Vimeo. The song is just out a few days and there are already tons of takers. You get to have Mika himself watch you dance around your room in your underwear to his music.

I must say, the girls doing it seems kind of off to me. I don’t mind girls dancing around in their underwear, but this really feels like a boy thing to me.

Mika is very young, but selling himself as a teenage boy… hmm… I don’t know. The underwear only video threw me the first time I watched, but then was just kind of funny after that. The song is very anthem-like an will surely be a hit. It really has a Lollipop, dance around, sing-along vibe to it and is sure to sell a load of white boxers and glittery wrestling shoes!!! If you’re in your boxers, the only real way to make it seem legit is to wear the glittery wrestling shoes. Where does one buy a pair, I wonder?

Mika is a favorite of mine and has one of the unique voices of the century that I never tire of. A duet with Darren Hayes would take the TWO most beautiful and unique voices and create an explosion. Just saying.

The video can be played at mikasounds.com. The song can be purchased at iTunes. You can’t help but get involved in the whole thing. Mika is a musical and marketing genius.

Here’s a link to the video. Make sure to click that full screen button.

Pic clipped from the video and enhanced.

An opportunity to see Peter Lemongello in person. If you plan to be in Florida in April, don’t miss it.
This was actually canceled, but think NYC!

Vermont-based singer, Gregory Douglass released his new album Battler. The album has a continuation feel from his last album Up & Away. These albums are not to be missed.

Visit his website at http://www.gregorydouglass.com/ or buy the CD at CD Baby or digitally at iTunes.

NYC Metro – this is for you.

Stuck on KTU as your drive time, lunch time and play time dance music?

Have you been dozing off lately at these times? KTU becoming a KT-Yawn?

Drag your radio dial all the way to the left and hit 87.7 the new Pulse Dance Radio. Your drive to the office will energize your day. One drive and you’ve dumped your current station and threw your CDs in the back seat.

Broadcasting as WNYZ FM from “that big blue building in Queens”, the signal isn’t as far reaching to the burbs as KTU’s in midtown, but if you’re into dance mixes of the hottest new music and some surprising ones, the quality of this station is worth it. (I recently heard Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall remixed. I had no idea it was possible!)

Once you get hooked, listen at your desk with the web radio player. Register, sign in, listen all day. www.pulse87.com

Your drive home gets you SHOWBOAT, the dancer/DJ/Asbury Park, NJ go to guy for music you can dance to.

From 7pm-12am ANDRE THE DREDOG takes over your night. For you Grand Theft Auto 3 fans out there Andre is the voice of RISE FM. So, if you want more RISE, go to PULSE!

Does the voice on the Old Navy commercials make you wonder who that girls is? Well, that’s PULSE girl JEWELZ LOPEZ, New York City’s hottest DJ.

The on air talent is great, but amazingly (to me anyway) they’ve got mixers like FRANKIE VAZQUEZ and MIKE RIZZO mixing for PULSE! These guys and the others are the hottest DJs around.

www.pulse87.com along with the online radio player has news, info on the personalities, ways to find those hard to find mix tracks, Pulse videos, online music request and yes… even a hook up page!

As a cherry on top, PULSE has a hot Brit doing the taglines and announcements. Just a bonus.

87.7 FM and www.pulse87.com – get there.

I’m MikeNJ on www.pulse87.com

Thanks to Travis for hookin’ me up with this station!

The Uptown Express boys are spreading their message of hope and tolerance in an even bigger way than usual… their first studio CD. 

The CD starts out on an up beat with the title track, The Four Seasons Walk Like A Man which draws you into their unique style. The CD goes on to songs such as Glow Worm and Slow Boat to China. Yes, of course there’s a medley. It starts out with Melissa Etheridge’s  Come To My Window and completes with Never Can Say Goodbye made famous by the Jackson 5 and later Gloria Gaynor. The CD is a good time mix of songs equally appropriate as dinner music, road trip music or get lucky music.

Under the music direction of James Followell, the Uptown Express boys are Aldrin Arche, Chris Caswell, John DePalma, David Gurland and Brad Parks. They have played Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, from Europe to Miami to the famous cabaret clubs of Manhattan, Uptown gets their crowds in the mood.

Each member brings a uniqueness to the group. Take, for example, Chris Caswell. Chris is the longest running member of Uptown Express and has appeared with the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus in Carnegie Hall, played in productions of Godspell and Company, but is best known for his solo venues, the most recent of which was Hold On at Helen’s. You can get more info on Chris and watch for upcoming shows at his website http://www.christophercaswell.net .

Please visit Uptown Express at their website http://www.uptownexpressnyc.org and take a look around. They list their upcoming performances and there, you can also purchase Walk Like A Man.

So often we are unsure of what we buy and who we’re buying from. Walk Like A Man is an uplifting compilation of songs meant to inspire and entertain performed by five guys that want to inspire and entertain. Wholesome entertainment for a harried world. 

Uptown Express is part of the Big Apple Performing Arts, a non-profit management company supporting LGBT entertainers.

With FaceBook beginning to overshadow MySpace as the meet and greet destination, MySpace is becoming the definitive place where artists park their work. Everyone has a MySpace page to compliment their websites featuring music clips, videos and up to date concert and appearance information.

The good thing (I think) about MySpace is that not only big names have a presence. The small bands starting out have an equal audience share. MySpace is moving from friend builder to fan builder fast and the MySpaces powers that be recognize this and are pouring some money into advertising their new role in music.

The JoBros adorn the first ever outdoor advertising campaign for Myspace Music. The billboards appear in Both Times Square (above) and on the Sunset Strip. The Brothers don’t need the advertising, but MySpace was smart to use them to attract the millions of young people pushing and shoving their way into their fan base.

I feel a bit better thinking that the kids using MySpace are listening to music instead of listening to God-knows-who or what in chats. Formerly anti-MySpace, I say type in myspace.com/ayoneyoucanpossiblythinkof and have a good time! Start with http://myspace.com/jonasbrothers

Don McLean’s American Pie has a permanent place in American Pop Culture and an international ambassadorship for the U.S. American Pie is the musical equivelent of the Statue of Liberty. You never hear this song played without throngs of people screaming the lyrics.

Inspired by the death of Buddy Holly, but really autobiographical, the song tells of the evolution of popular music of the 50s into the 60s. The song came at a profound time for America. The death of John F. Kennedy would change the world. The release of the song also came at a changing time. In 1971, America was at odds over Vietnam and it needed an anthem. American Pie became that anthem. It remains today, forever relevant, forever moving, forever a cheer for and to the land of freedom.

A song like American Pie is a once in a lifetime chance for an artist. To forever travel with history as its Master of Ceremonies, its cheerleader, its voice of where we’ve been and where we could be. The modern-day Star Spangled Banner. The definitive song of opening your eyes to adulthood, responsibility and the very ownership of not only your own destiny, but your place in defining the destiny of those around you. We stand together and sing it; sober or drunk, we know the words. If your kids are talking to you, you sing over them. When the song plays, there is silence for only a moment or two as people stop and think and, then the common voice takes over. A remarkable song.

Of course American Pie overshadowed that album, but another great song would squeak out and make it’s way to the top… Vincent. This song was actually bigger in Europe than it was in America. The Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam has a copy of the sheet music along with Vincent’s own brushes buried beneath it in a time capsule. And, let’s face it… it is the main reason we know and cared about who Vincent VanGogh was. The song is hauntingly beautiful in its lyrics and arrangement.

American Pie – A live performance. The way he says people should sing along ‘if’ they know the words is something he didn’t have to add to his concerts after that.

Vincent (Starry, Starry Night) – Also a live performance with a peek at the inspiration… Van Gogh’s Starry Night Over The Rhone

Talk about AllFunMusik! Wham! was fun music. The short shorts. The oversized t-shirt craze. The bouncy as Hell tune.

Wake Me Up (Before you Go-Go)
Watch it. We won’t tell anyone.
See it on YouTube HERE.

Where would 1985 and 1986 have been without Mr Mister’s Broken Wings and Kyrie ?
Richard Page on vocals and bass guitar, Steve George on keyboards, Pat Mastelotto on acoustic and electronic drums and Steve Farris on guitars made up the Misters. The band broke up in 1989 while working on their 4th album Pull. The album has never been released.

Let’s watch together, shall we?
Kyrie

Broken Wings