Sterling Whitaker and Jeb Wright feature an interview with Kimberley Dahme and Gary Pihl of Boston. You can check out the interview at blogtalkradio.

(From Pollstar)

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.

(Update posted on Official Site)

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.

Let's all try to look out for each other!

Tom Scholz

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!

from michaelsweet.com

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

More Info: xmasxtravaganza.org

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).

Well Christmas is around the corner and Tommy DeCarlo has recorded a song for the holidays.

I Can't Wait Till Christmas Day! is an original recording by Tommy DeCarlo and The M Players.  You can hear this tune by playing the YouTube video.

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.

Hope you like the changes.


Mike

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:

Live @ Spectrum - Philadelphia, CA (Dec 18, 1976)
Live @ Long Beach Arena - Long Beach, CA (Mar 16, 1977) - Early Show
Live @ Long Beach Arena - Long Beach, CA (Mar 16, 1977) - Late Show

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