Hey, it's November 1st, which means the "real" holidays are on their way now.  We have already dusted off the Christmas music and are doing some minor re-arranging for the trio configuration, and, 80% of it already sounds pretty good!  We have 4 Christmas music engagements already, and who knows what else might get added to the docket?  Check out our schedule on the home page, and come listen and sing along!

Our long-awaited gospel CD, Enter In, has arrived, and we're very pleased with it.  We think you will be, too.  You can get a sample here on MySpace, and then, if you're likin' what you're hearin', we have a few more left in stock that we'd love to send to you.  Send us a note at muzyka2007@yahoo.com. 

We started work on it in January 2009, with the hopes of getting it done before Hillary went off to college.  Well, she's off studying at Cleveland Institute of Music, but, we got together over Labor Day weekend and had a great time finding out about school and making some music at her (slightly-belated) HS graduation party. 

Enjoy the music, and we hope to see you all soon!

We had some unexpected delays getting our new gospel CD, Enter In, to the duplicators, so now it looks unlikely that we'll have it in time for the festival next weekend.   

Oh, well, maybe we would have only sold a handful there anyway (but probably not!).

Well, I'm listening to a test mix from our new all-gospel CD, "Enter In", and I have a big on my face!  If I may offer my own biased opinion, the vocals are especially excellent, and there is great diversity in the music on the CD.  That's what happens when you have four creative, energetic people collaborating on a project.

The next step is to engage our graphic artist and get the artwork done.  Then off to the duplicator and into the hot little hands of our legions of eager fans!  When will all that happen?  Stay tuned for further developments on this station.

JH

We are polishing up some rough spots on a few tracks and then getting 3 new songs down tightly so we can get back to Timbrel and Harp and finish the studio portion of our new gospel CD.  With summer coming on and Hillary heading off to college in  the fall, we want to get everything recorded while we know that she's going to be around!

I can't tell you when it might be released yet - there is much else to do other than the music on these CD projects, as we learned last time!

I (Johnny) have been recuperating from surgeries for most of the last 2 months, and am hoping to be up to full speed here pretty shortly.  I had what I described to Chuck as a "lucid interval" at the time of our MCTV concert in early April, but, as long as I get good news from the surgeon on my follow-up visit today, there should be nowhere left to go but up!

If you want to read a blow-by-blow account of my medical journey, I posted a note on my Facebook page (Johnny Hunt, Saginaw/Bay City), and you can learn more there.

Thanks for checking in! 

It's time to re-group now.  We had a great time doing the MCTV benefit concert - a lot of great feedback from the attendees, the MCTV folks were very pleased with the attendance and donations, and we're looking forward to seeing the concert ourselves on MCTV here in a couple of weeks.  Thanks to all who helped put it all together and were able to come out to the concert.

Hillary is going to Cleveland Institute of Music this fall, so there's a bit of a time crunch to get our gospel CD recorded before she heads off to further her training.  We'll git-r-done, though!

We picked out another dozen songs to work into another 40-minute set, so, we'll be working on those in the upcoming weeks.  We're looking forward to "outdoor music weather" and all that entails. 

Thanks for checking in!

As a technologically-challenged, yet eager-to-learn musician, I have been struggling with re-formatting our Muzyka! CD Release Party DVD from last summer into a YouTube-friendly format.  Finally, I just shelved the project and moved on to other less-frustrating endeavors.

However, I have figured out how to paste still pictures over music in Windows Movie Maker, save it as a .wmv file and post it to YouTube.  So, for your enjoyment, you can enjoy a graphically-enhanced version of our TV Commercial Medley, Red is the Rose and AARP Party Boy (more to come later!).

Here are the links:  ..............

TVCM - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piwFDnL-D40

.. ..

Red is the Rose - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeCG2RT8Qo8

.. ..

AARP Party Boy - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIxcad1nyJI

Your feedback is welcome, enjoy the clips!

Muzyka! played an in-store concert at Elderly on Saturday, 3/14, and then traveled on to Altu's Restaurant and performed there.  We shot all our guns, and played the sets that we have been working on most of the winter and that we plan to use for the 4/3 Friends of MCTV concert. 

We decided this winter to do "fewer songs better".  It's easy to just play 30 songs once each when we get together to rehearse, but we've been disciplined enough to choose a dozen sacred songs to do for the church package and two dozen songs of all different flavors and genres to weave into two 45-minute sets of music to do at concerts this spring (and summer?). 

I'm sure it will be a dynamic and changing playlist, but, it really feels good to have a full concert worth of material tightly rehearsed and ready to go at the drop of a hat.  It is also very freeing to not be married to a music stand and to be able to interact with the audience more. 

I can say (although not unbiasedly!) that we sounded great, the folks that listened were all quite happy, and we had lots of fun doing it.  It'd be nice if there were more venues locally that invited local talent to entertain their clientele.  Maybe it's too progressive and avant-garde of an idea for the Tri-Cities!

We've begun recording a new gospel CD at Timbrel and Harp Studios.  There are 11 tracks down that still need patching and mixing down and a handful of other songs we want to record yet also. 

The focal project is getting two forty-five minute sets down pat and tight so when good weather comes back around (will it ever?) that we'll be ready to roll. 

We did a dry run at Crumbs coffee shop in Saginaw last night, and it went very well.  It's good to perform in smaller venues to see where the glitches are and what needs to be prettied up.  We really have a great mix of songs, so come on out and see us whenever you can!

Well, Christmas is on the horizon - time to start thinking about getting ready for it here pretty soon!

We are working on two projects now - getting a press kit together and recording some gospel tracks for a new CD over at Timbrel and Harp. 

Elderly in Lansing is carrying our Welcome Home! CD, so that's cool.  If you'd like one (we even have them gift-wrapped, if you prefer!), please contact us directly either via our MySpace mail, or through our regular e-mail address, muzyka2007@yahoo.com. 

Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a good night (back to sleep for me!)

Johnny (for Muzyka!)