New Music You Should Hear!

Recently a man by the name of Will Champlin opened for my Chris Nathan. Chris has had some great openers, and others that are well...not so great. When I heard Champlin, however, it was more than great music...I had an eargasm! He writes, performs, and produces catchy pop tunes that get stuck in your head, but you don't hear them on the radio every other hour. In fact, you don't ever hear them on the radio! Champlin grew up touring with Santanna (how cool is that?), and resides in Southern California. He's currently recording and writing in Nashville, TN, and I'm eagerly awaiting his solo debut independently released album. If you enjoy catchy pop music without all the hype, check out Will Champlin. My favorite song is "Now That We're Fallin".

This morning while working on various writing projects, I asked Chris for suggestions on music to listen to while I work. He said, "Matt York." I instantly fell in love. Not only is York "the real deal", he also seems to be a nice, down-to-earth guy (unlike many other singer/songwriters). York's music is raw talent at it's finest. I can't say enough about him, other than check him out for yourself and you'll know what I mean. He's similar to Dave Barnes, Matt Wertz, Marc Broussard, and John Mayer, but without all the hype and diva-like attitude. His song, "Lucky Man" has been on repeat in my CD player all day.

**Christina - PV's Nashville girl of music and gossip news.

I would like to publicly state...

For the past year, I have been planning my wedding detail by detail. And one of my favorite things is my bouquet, because how many brides do you see that walk down the aisle with black flowers?

Damn Ashlee Simpson gets knocked up and married three months before me and carries Black Magic Roses!!!!!

grrr.

just had to let that out.

* By Joelle, who will still have the coolest wedding.

Two patterns:

Blender tends to put women on their covers. I get it. After all, it's a sister mag to Maxim. But it's also a music magazine, so can someone please, for the life of me, explain why the Hades Tila Tequila is on the cover of the latest issue? I know she has that fauxmantic reality show, I know she released a few songs--but they were all shitty. If a music publication is to be taken seriously, why aren't they exposing serious musicians? There are plenty of beautiful femmes who can actually pen and carry a tune (Alanis, Mariah, even Natasha Bedingfield come to mind). Why waste our time on this lascivious leprechaun character?

When a lip synching performer's vocal track errs, they will do a jig. It wasn't just Ashlee Simpson. A singer in a live band at a wedding I went to this weekend did the same thing to a slightly higher-pitched cover of "No One" by Alicia Keys. Once she messed up her vocals, what did she and, subsequently, another male singer do? They did jigs. Is there a law somewhere requiring this?


*By Jess, who did a lot of nothing today.

Ads that must have been written by preppies....

When you come across the new issue of OK Magazine, be sure to flip to page 82. There's a really convincing ad for tattoo removal that features a bride with a hideous ink outline on her back. "Tina," the incredibly believable newlywed (and I say that sarcastically) claims that her tattoo led to her divorce. Well, it caused the fight between Tina and her in-laws on her Big Day, and then the ugly fading of her wedded bliss. And now that Tina is about to embark down the aisle a second time, she MUST use the in-home tattoo fade system, WreckingBalm, to make sure the same thing doesn't happen again.

I'd like to meet the marketing people at this company. They can hire me to teach them reality.

First of all, that is the most unconvincing advertisement ever.

Second, they actually show a before and after picture and note that the level of fading they obviously photoshoped to perfection is "not typical."



If I were a bride-to-be (which I am), with many visible tattoos (which I do have) and wanted to cover them up for my wedding day (which I will NOT be doing), I wouldn't even fall for this product.



Can't they just be simple and say "Got a tattoo and changed your mind? You need WreckingBalm." Or something along those lines. That would be much more effective and intriguing then composing a story so unbelievable it's not even worth going to the Web site to investigate (although I did-but only to see if they had the ad to post up there for you).


The slogan for this "Tattoo Problem #7" is "Let them see you, not your tattoo."

What many completey clean skinned folks don't understand is that those of us who PROUDLY wear ink consider to be a part of us. I'm so used to my fore-arm tattoo that I don't even notice it anymore. It's just my arm. I'll admit that I totally freaked out actually seeing such a huge piece of art on me at first and woke up the next morning wishing it was just a dream. But I love it, just as I had calculated for a year before I got it done. It was just an adjustment, not a mistake.



Yes, mistake. That's another word the super-cool staff at WreckingBalm use to describe tattoos. "Go ahead and get another tattoo-Your mistake is only skin deep," it reads.

Are you all laughing with me now? Do you all suffer through hours of pain from a needle digging into your skin by mistake?

Let's just pretend this ad was meant for those tramp-stamp wearing little misses who think their bugs bunny tattoo makes them sexy and call it a day.




*Joelle, who is highly agrivated by everyone close to her that asks her if she plans on covering up her tattoos for her wedding because obviously they don't know her at all!