Men Around Miami

While we're freezing our butts off here on the East Coast, and getting rained on AGAIN, the boys were out and about in Miami.



                

Five Songs They Want To Hear in Tampa

... at least according to this source on tampabay.com

Runaway We know we'll hear the really big hits, but don't forget the first chartbuster from back in 1983.

Lay Your Hands On Me On the same album as Bad Medicine, and nearly as much fun to sing along to live.

Bed of Roses Skip the dreaded Wanted Dead or Alive (so overplayed) and try this 1992 power ballad instead.

It's My Life Why was this crowd-pleaser a bigger hit in Switzerland than the United States? Because the Swiss know good cheese.

Never Say Goodbye Not a huge hit, but the perfect song to play when the beer vendors yell "last call." Drive responsibly, ladies.

Of course, I had to pipe in with a comment to the author of the article:

Runaway -- this has been in the encore for many shows, so you may get your wish.

LYHOM - One of the two songs Richie is alternating thru with his solo; you may get it.

BOR - Good ballad, but they have to leave in The National Anthem. You'd have a riot if they didn't.

IML - Played in nearly every city so far. You'll probably hear it. IMHO, this needs to be retired. Talkbox notwithstanding (devout Richie girls will know what I mean)

NSG - We got this at Mohegan; it was gorgeous. Hope you get it.

Some other "Must Plays" (again, IMO)

• Damned or This Ain't A Love Song (These Days)
• Bells of Freedom (HAND) ~ Should be played after WWBTF
• Undivided or Everyday (Bounce)
• Sleep While I Dream (Boxset)
• Summertime (Lost Highway)
• One Wild Night (Crush)
• Love For Sale (NJ) ~ some cities got this; should be more often!
• In and Out of Love (7800) ~ How fun is this song?
• Ditto Burning for Love (Bon Jovi)

LOTS of good tunes, if they'd only dig a bit deeper!

With the same set list being played over and over and over (and over) again, it's time to shake things up.  @BonJovi needs to start another tweet campaign over voting which song(s) to play.

They should also ask what should NOT be played.  Lorenza was in Atlanta last night, and from all reports, made "Who Says" bearable to listen to.  Otherwise, ZZZZZZT!  CUT IT.  lol  It'll never happen of course, because they LOVE to talk about how they're the first rock band to have a #1 on the country charts, yadda, yadda, yadda, and like Wanted/Prayer/IML, it's expected of them.  Still, I'm all set with it.

OK, so what about you?  Keeping in mind that there are more non-die-hard fans in the crows than not (which means esoteric choices like Bitter Wine and Unbreakable need to stay out of it) what would some of your choices be?

~ Hath

Two Sambora Interviews

And a  couple of photos, just because I'm trolling my Philly pictures :)

One interview is from Boston's WZLX, the other is from a Canadian radio station (thanks, H!)



I'll have these up on the MediaFire later tonight, but wanted to try out this widget to see if it works :)

~ Hath

Hath's Chipmunk Adventure

Yeah, you're seeing right.

Chipmunk.

Isn't he adorable?  Yes, yes he is.

He is also an OUTSIDE TOY.

As in, he does not need to be waiting at the TOP OF MY STAIRCASE in the garage so when I open the door from the house, he's staring at me like, "Now what?" and scaring the ever-loving shit out of me.

As in, he does not need to then bound down the stairs, ignore the WIDE OPEN, eleven-foot-tall, garage door and disappear into the back of the garage, making me follow him.

As in, he does not need to look me in the eye, twitch his little tail (and I swear, he winked at me) and disappear under the furnace.

This was SO not the thing I wanted to do today.

So, what do I do?  Wake up Mr. Hath?  NO! It's a chipmunk, dammit, I should be able to outsmart a chipmunk on my own, right?

First thing I tried was opening the back door, near the furnace.  I figure, he sees outside, he's gonna take off, right?  Avoid the big, scary human?  Nope.

Great.

Now I've grabbed a flashlight, put down a tarp so I don't have to go back upstairs and change clothes, and am kneeling on the floor to peer under the furnace.  I see his little black eyes staring at me, all but DARING me to come after him.

I figure I'll scare him out of there.  I go fire up the furnace, assuming the loud CLICK-CLUNK-WHIRRRR will get him moving.  Nope; he just flattens out on the bricks that are underneath said furnace, and awaits my next move.

Shit.

Maybe if I prod him with a dowel or something, he'll come out.  I mean, you poke at me with a stick and, assuming I don't take it from you and beat you about the head and neck with it, I'm gonna move out of the way.  I should be able to find a stick without pulling one off a tree -- it's a garage for cripe's sake -- there's scrap wood everywhere.  What's the only dowel-like thing I can find?  A 6 foot closet bar.  It was really quite comical, me trying to get this thing to slide under the furnace without having to kneel on the dusty floor and get all dirty.  But I do, and the little rat squishes into a corner to avoid it.

Bastard.

Then I have the brilliant idea to take a bicycle pump, slide the nozzle near the creature, and scare it out with a puff of air.  I found the pump, inched closer to the 'munk's hiding place, slid the hose underneath, and let 'er rip.  After dashing back to my car to rinse out my contact lenses, I see that the chipmunk has come out from under the furnace on his own.  He's now sitting behind it, on the little concrete lip that runs the length of the garage.  I slide a piece of cardboard down between him and the furnace, so he can't get back underneath, and shoo him toward the door with my big freaking stick.

By now, the sun is starting to rise, the birds are waking up, and the chipmunk must be hungry.  I mean he had to have been in the garage all night.  He should be DYING to get outside and find one of the zillions of acorns out there, right?

Wrong again.  He cowers in a corner of the garage, looking petrified. Now I feel badly for the little thing.  I want to scoop him up and carry him outside, but I don't want him to bite me.  I patiently goose his little furry ass with the end of the closet bar until his nose is near the open door.  He gets a good whiff of outside, turns to look at me again, then unhurriedly meanders out the door.

And how did you spend the pre-dawn hour?

~ Hath

PS: I did remember to move the piece of cardboard, so as not to burn down my garage should the heat turn on.  I told Mr. Hath about my adventure this morning, and he said I should have woken him; that was a $100,000 AFV winner episode.

GigaPans up for Dallas

GigaPans are up on bonjovi.com for both Dallas shows. You can zoom in and pan around the crowd, find where you and your friends where at and relive the show.  Remember, they are also up for Philly dates.

You can zoom in and pan around the crowd, find where you and your friends where at and relive the show.

Not only can you view these Gigapans here, you now have the opportunity to purchase prints! In addition to the purchasing the full print of Gigapans, we also have official show photos available for purchase. Included in the Dallas official photos are exclusive backstage photos of Jon in his dressing room after the 4/11 performance. Visit http://www.bonjovi.com/gigapan to check them out and order yours now!

[They] will also be offering more Gigapans of selected shows so be on the look out for more opportunities to purchase images for selected upcoming shows.

Atlanta, GA; Tampa, FL;  and Sunrise, FL are reported as being future GigaPan shows :)

~ Hath

from bonjovi.com

JonBon Visits

source

After two sold-out weekend shows in Dallas at the American Airlines Center, Jon Bon Jovi played to a much smaller crowd on Monday. And it wasn't in typical rock star fashion.

Instead, he continued his education on how communities can combat homelessness, taking tours of CityWalk@Akard and the Casa Youth Emergency Shelter.

"It's one soul at a time," Bon Jovi said.

Since Bon Jovi started the nonprofit Jon Bon Jovi Soul Foundation (formerly the Philadelphia Soul Charitable Foundation) in 2006, he has built 250 affordable housing units in Philadelphia to the tune of $6 million.

During this concert tour, Bon Jovi has made a commitment to visit as many homeless shelters and foundations as possible in each of the cities he visits – to share ideas about the ongoing fight against homelessness.

Monday's first stop was CityWalk @Akard, where Bon Jovi spent time talking to John Greenan, executive director of the Central Dallas Community Development Corp., and Larry James, president and chief executive officer of Central Dallas Ministries.

The second stop Monday was the Casa Youth Shelter, a 20-bed haven for runaways and troubled youths operated by the Salvation Army.

Bon Jovi said he understands that the homeless may not be everyone's cause, but he said it is important to get out there, find a passion and volunteer.

"This moves me," Bon Jovi said.

He said wants he wants the next ten years to be a " 'we' decade not a 'me' decade."

Some photos from local television coverage:

 

~ Hath

Jon & Richie Interviews

As promised, the part 2 of Richie's MusicRadar interview.

The other find is an interview from April 10th from 99.1FM WMYX  (thanks, R!)

~ Hath

MusicRadar Interview ~ Part 2

MusicRadar has posted the part-2 to the Richie interview they did in CT last month.

Excerpt:

Let's talk about songwriting. If you can put it into words, what have you learned over the years? Can you learn something over time?
Absolutely. Sure. You just gotta keep at it. Songwriting is something that's very daunting until you have your first successful song, I think. And you can measure success by a couple of different things: Finishing a song first lyrically and looking at it yourself and saying, 'OK, now I have some cohesive lyrics.'

And then the other part of success is obviously making a record and having it be accepted by people, having it touch people and actually mean something to people. Livin' On A Prayer, Wanted Dead Or Alive, It's My Life - I'm lucky to have written a bunch of those.

We've talked about this before: You guys are pretty lo-tech when you write; you don't make elaborate demos.

No, no, no, no. I swear to God, we still do it the same way: we used to do it on cassette decks, and now we've been backing it up on our iPhones. Big technology guys, me and Jon.

What happens when you and Jon disagree on a song? Let's say you have a song that you originated, and it's one that you love and he's like, "I don't hear it"? Or vice-versa?

It doesn't matter. The songs that fall by the wayside - and there's a lot of them; I mean, Jon and I have probably written over 400 songs together in our career…You just follow every idea to its end. And a lot of times, whether or not they're satisfactory to me or him…Honestly, he's the mouthpiece of this band, so he's gotta be comfortable singing whatever lyric and whatever story we're actually telling in whatever song. So, if he doesn't like that, and I like it, I'll keep it for a either a solo record or…You know, we're not little girls about things like that; we never were.

I always realized, hey, look, he's the lead singer of this band. I was the lead singer in a lot of the bands I was in. You have to be comfortable. You gotta get up there and sell the song. You have to get up there and sell the lyric. You gotta be able to feel it. So, if you do not, people are gonna point at you and go, 'Bullshit! That's bullshit!' And I think that's one of the reasons we're still around - because we never pretended to be anybody but who we are.

You can listen/download from the site, and the whole text of the interview is also posted.

I've pulled down the interview, and will upload to my MediaFire tonight, in case you don't want to go out to MusicRadar :)

If you love hearing Richie curse (like I do) this is the interview for you.

Find out about his "growing flowers from cow shit" analogy and more!  lol


~ Hath

Online Updated

She's on the way to LA!  Read about it here.

~ Hath