Yes, you read the headline right, you can get the chance to own a piece of a Stryper song!
SongVest is currently hosting an auction between March 6 to 13, where the winner can get among other things, a percentage of royalties from the song Alive. There's currently two lots up for auction:
Lot #1: The Multi-Platinum Edition • 40% of Michael Sweet’s Writer’s Share of the song’s royalties • Private dinner for two with Michael • Michael's acoustic guitar used on EVERY Stryper and Michael Sweet recording since 1995 • Personalized, one-of-kind plaque with handwritten lyrics and signed CD • A life-time VIP Guest Pass for two
Lot #2: The Platinum Edition • 5% of Michael Sweet’s Writer’s Share of the song’s royalties • Album award signed by Michael • A one-time VIP Guest Pass for two
The auction ends at 3pm EST Saturday, March 13. If you're wondering if this is legit, Michael Sweet posted this on this official Twitter account.
March 09 marks three years since Boston member Brad Delp passed away.
Brad, who was the original vocalist of Boston, and involved with other bands such as RTZ and Beatlejuice, died March 09, 2007 in his Atkinson, NH home. It was revealed in the days after his death that Brad had taken his own life.
Brad's legacy of being such a generous and giving person has been carried on with the Brad Delp Foundation, a chartitable organization set up by his daughter Jenna.
Let's all take some time today to remember Brad and his golden voice. Take out your Boston albums (and RTZ, Delp and Goudreau, and anything else Brad worked on) and play them loud and proud.
I woke up very nervous today. More music business trouble? An IRS audit? My dog ate the tape I finished last week? No, much more serious ... I'm worried about American Idol tonight!!
Now any of you who know me might think I've lost the last few marbles I had left, since I NEVER watch American Idol. In fact, the mere mention would start me on a rant over their stupid age rules that eliminate great singers, and all the glitz and needless hoopla you have to sit through just to watch someone cover a chopped down version of a pop song.
But now all that has changed. Last December I heard a young girl from Cape Cod singing Christmas songs for kids at a little event. I only knew her as a niece of friends of mine, but when I heard the voice, I was mesmerized by her ability to bring these simple songs to life.
Since then I discovered she had tried out for American Idol, and now, even in the early weeks of the competition, her name is becoming a household word, Siobhan Magnus. While her beautiful voice and vocal ability have been almost universally obvious to all, the fact that she is as real, down to earth, and sweet as she seems is known only to the few who have met her.
Siobhan has done all of this by herself starting from nothing, and no matter how far she gets in the competition, she has already earned herself a place in many people's hearts, and I doubt anyone deserves it more.
So I'm very nervous today, because tonight she sings again and I hope with all fingers crossed that things go well for her again.
Ms. Magnus, you've done the impossible, you've made me an AI fan.
The band ALLIANCE is making their very first live appearances on Friday and Saturday, March 5 and 6, 2010 at Sammy's Beach Bar & Grill located inside Harrah's St. Louis Casino at 777 Casino Center Drive, Maryland Heights, MO
This two night event will be a very exciting time in rock history as it marks the group's first U.S. live shows.
The four Alliance members have all performed with rocker Sammy Hagar at different points in his career. Gary Pihl, on guitar, from '77 to '85 (since '85 with the band BOSTON), Robert Berry, on bass guitar, '96/'97 special shows, Alan Fitzgerald, keyboards, '76 to '79 (then played keys with Night Ranger) and David Lauser, on drums, who is currently in Sammy's band.
The Special Guest for the second half of the show will be Sammy's son, Aaron Hagar, singing songs from his father's career.
Alliance has had 3 CDs released in Europe (on Escape Records) and Japan (on Zero Records) to much critical acclaim, but have been so busy with their other bands that they haven't performed in the U.S. before now.
The Boston Rocks site on Yahoo.com commented, "We're pretty sure Sammy invited Alliance to make their first US appearance at his Beach Bar night club in St. Louis because he knew that they would put on fantastic, memorable shows. After all, he hand picked all the members of Alliance at one time or another." "And, the addition of Sammy’s son Aaron Hagar is just terrific," added a Gonna Hitch A Ride.com chat-room fan.
For Reservations (recommended) please contact: 314-770-7728
A man impersonating artist reps, last heard from in 2008 trying to run a scam on a charity organization by making a fake offer for Ronnie James Dio, may have resurfaced and is attempting to impersonate another artist rep.
If so, he may have picked the wrong guy this time – 20-year concert veteran Joe Fletcher, who is concentrating on films rather than music these days.
And this time, one of the artists being offered up for bookings is Boston founder Tom Scholz – who does not tour as a solo artist.
Fletcher, who resides in Carmel, Calif., learned someone was using his name and a "Joe Fletcher Presents" business Web site in an attempt to bilk businesses in Wisconsin, Illinois, New York and California.
"This person copied my info and is contacting clubs around the country trying to get them to send him money," Fletcher told Pollstar.
The contact information includes "business" addresses in Seattle, Chicago and New York City. And the offers are ridiculously low – $5,000 for Scholz plus a "full band" to play unusually small venues – and sometimes include a shakedown for another $3,000 for radio spot placement.
The impersonator has also been posting "help wanted" advertisements to Chicago’s Craigslist and other local bulletin boards and asking applicants to pay $50 to cover a "background check," Fletcher said.
Work on another studio album is progressing at an agonizingly slow rate - like that would be news - but it is progressing. While I wouldn't want to give away too much about the album, it will contain both the very recognizable BOSTON sound plus some surprises I think everyone will appreciate - as long as you like Big Band Swing and Rap ... just kidding!
Writing, arranging and recording BOSTON music for hours day after day is frustrating, exhausting, and lonely, yet strangely enticing. My dad used to ask me, "If the song is 4 or 5 minutes long, why doesn't it take 4 or 5 minutes to record it?" The catch is, figuring out what should happen for every second of that 4 or 5 minutes for all the individual tracks on one song, and trying the hundreds of variations on each instrument or vocal takes me typically 4 or 5 months. For every measure of BOSTON music that survives the cut on an album, a week of work ends up in the trash bin.
Meanwhile, the rest of the band members are busy with their own lives and projects, and all have already contributed in some way to the new BOSTON album effort. These are understanding and patient people! Unfortunately I don't expect to have the album finished in time to prepare for a tour this summer, but we are all jonesing to play again.
Much more urgent and serious is Haiti. These poor people were living a wretchedly impoverished life before the earthquake, now it's worse than a Hollywood disaster movie come to life. Those that have survived the initial trauma now are faced with an almost impossible-to-survive situation. Even in this recession, seeing and hearing the stories from Haiti makes you realize how good we have it. Please dig a little deeper and donate as we have, through any of the numerous organizations mobilizing to help.
On January 08, 2010, Michael Sweet and his fiance Lisa got married in a private ceremony with their families and closest friends. Congratulations Michael and Lisa!
At thirdstage.ca we have always strived to bring you the latest news about Boston and those who are/have been involved with the band. Typically that meant visitors having to come and check the site for any updates. Back in 2005, we launched our first RSS feed, allowing you to get the latest postings through any RSS reader. Now we're on Twitter.
For those who are not familiar with Twitter, it is a social media site millions of people use to create short posts (140 characters or less -- similar to SMS). I have thought about launching a Twitter page for some time now and feel it's the right time to do it. The Twitter page will allow you to not only keep track of the latest news posted on this site, it will also be used to keep you posted on additions or changes to the site, Boston related stuff of interest and even the odd random post for your enjoyment and information.
I encourage you to check out the Twitter feed and if you have a Twitter account to follow us. If you'd rather, you can subscribe to the RSS feed located on the Twitter page. You can also see the latest postings embedded on the thirdstage.ca home page.
Tommy DeCarlo will be performing at Glen Burtnik's 19th Xmas Xtravaganza, according to Tommy's official site.
Glen Burtnik's XMAS XTRAVAGANZA is an annual holiday concert which benefits area food banks and other worthwhile charities. The show has grown larger each year, evolving into a New York-New Jersey area tradition not to be missed.
It features a colorful cast of characters which changes from year to year, but in the past has included such luminaries as Patty Smyth, John McEnroe, Phoebe Snow, Marshall Crenshaw, The Patti Smith Band, Fred Schneider (B-52's), Jill Sobule, Idina Menzel, Jeffrey Gaines, Freedy Johnston, Dan Bern, John Waite, Curtis Stigers, STYX, Mary Lee Kortes, and Willie Nile, among others. Last year's show featured over 100 performers.
Glen Burtnik's 19th Xmas Xtravaganza Saturday, December 19, 2009 - 7:30 PM Count Basie Theatre 99 Monmouth Street Red Bank, NJ 07701 732-842-9000
For a limited time, you can download the latest single by Stryper for free.
Stryper, which is led by Boston vocalist Michael Sweet, is giving away their latest single for free on their official site. Between December 03 and 13 at 9pm EST, you can download the song Alive, which is from their latest album Murder By Pride. To get the song, go to www.stryper.com/alive/index.htm
It will ask for an email address and access code (the code is 777).
If you're a regular visitor to this site, you may have noticed some changes. This site has undergone many changes over the years, some good and some I'd rather forget. While the most obvious change is the appearance, there is much more than that that has changed.
The navigation has not changed too much. The general layout has been kept the same as it has been for a long time, but more of the content has been grouped together to make it easier to get to what you want. The links to pages are now easier to understand. Instead of a bunch of numbers, you can actually see by looking at the link what the page is about. While the links have changed, if you follow an older style link (ie /content/view/348/54/) it will take you to the updated link. The notable exception is the RSS feed. If you currently subscribe to the News Feed via RSS you will need to use the updated link. Just click on the "RSS News Feed" link on the main page.
Commenting is now enabled (again). If you recall when this site was relaunched in June 2007, commenting was enabled, however due to some issues, I disabled it. The commenting system is now powered by Disqus. This service also allows commenters to manage comments posted across many sites (any site that uses this service).
The videos have undergone a change as well. I've spent many hours going through the archives and reprocessing all the videos. The videos, which were previously offered as Windows Media, are now in the Flash Video format. This means that anybody who has the Flash plugin on Windows, Mac or Linux can watch the videos. The videos are now available with two options -- "Normal Quality" and "High Quality". The normal quality is similar to what was offered in Windows Media format, while the high quality has a higher resolution and bitrate. The audio section has also been changed. The audio is higher quality and as with the video, now uses Flash.
Wolfgang's Vault has made some classic Boston shows available for purchase online. The shows can be purchased as mp3 or FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec). There are currently three shows available, all from the King Buscuit Flower Hour recordings:
The FLAC versions cost more, but will give you better quality than mp3. If you don't have the ability to play FLAC files, you can get the CODEC at flac.sourceforge.net
Yes, you read the headline right, you can get the chance to own a piece of a Stryper song!
March 09 marks three years since Boston member Brad Delp passed away.
The band ALLIANCE is making their very first live appearances on Friday and Saturday, March 5 and 6, 2010 at Sammy's Beach Bar & Grill located inside Harrah's St. Louis Casino at 777 Casino Center Drive, Maryland Heights, MO
At thirdstage.ca we have always strived to bring you the latest news about Boston and those who are/have been involved with the band. Typically that meant visitors having to come and check the site for any updates. Back in 2005, we launched our first RSS feed, allowing you to get the latest postings through any RSS reader. Now we're on Twitter.
Tommy DeCarlo will be performing at Glen Burtnik's 19th Xmas Xtravaganza, according to Tommy's 
For a limited time, you can download the latest single by Stryper for free.