I know, I know, I suck at posting these things ...

But this is a big deal: Over the last couple of years, Todd has become friendly with the band The Smithereens. Any fan of modern rock certainly knows who they are, and casual listeners should know the hits like "Behind The Wall of Sleep", "A Girl Like You" and "Blood and Roses" ... a song currently covered by The Onlymen.

Pat DiNizio, the lead singer/songwriter/guitarist of The Smithereens has over the last few years gone out on some very special solo tours. "The Living Room" concerts have been a way for Pat to connect in an intimate way with his fans by performing ... wait for it .... in their living rooms. These shows have been highly successful and a hell of a lot of fun for fans and the artist.

When Pat was planning his current tour, Todd booked him for a show here in good ol' Sacramento. Problem was, the house Todd thought he was closing on didn't and now there was a show but no house.

So we checked around, and the wonderful Art Luna came through and we can now announce ...

Pat DiNizio Live in Not Quite Your Living Room But In A Really Cool Cafe Called Luna's on Sunday, March 8th at 7:30 PM.

We will be hosting the event as well as playing a short opening set .... we might just play a few with Pat at the end of the night too.

Best of all, since this is more or less a house party (sort of ...) it is free. All we ask is that you support our friend Art by buying a beer or some nachos. Pat will have various Smithereen and solo discs available,  including the acclaimed "Meet The Smithereens!", the band's track by track tribute to the first Beatles record released in the U.S.

There is a limited occupancy, so the show will be first come, first served; you can reserve a place by leaving us a message in the comments right here on our MySpace page.  Please give us your first and last name and we'll hold a spot for you. We will accept walk ups until we have reached the max number of folks ... but this is the only place that will guarantee you a reservation for the show.

So to recap: Pat DiNizio Live w/ The Onlymen
                    Sunday, March 8th 2009
                    7:30 PM
                    Luna's Cafe
                    1414 16th St.
                    Sacramento, CA.
                   916-441-3931

This is gonna be great! Don't miss it ...

I guess it was around four years ago I was hanging around the house unemployed, fairly broke and pretty depressed about the onset of another holiday season. I decided to try to fight back by writing a Christmas song; I came up with a couple of nice riffs and some decent chord changes and then sat down at my Roland VS-880EX and started recording. As I tend to do, I got real Phil Spector-ish (without the gun play) and completed a nice track a few hours later.

Then I started writing some lyrics, touching base with some memories of my youth in Orange, CA. before suburban rot had really set in. I juxtaposed that with my complete aversion to crowded shopping malls and last but not least the memory of my mom power chording an out of tune cheap Marco Polo gut string that was my first guitar and bam ... there were the words.

Side note: The last time I saw that Marco Polo was in the old Farrell's Ice Cream Parlor that I worked at in the early 70's ... we used it during birthdays and Zoo runs ....

Anyway, I mixed that song and did a nice pop/punk take on Robert Earl Keen's "Merry Christmas From The Family" with my wife T-Rex Monomer on vocals and we gave away the CD "single" as our Christmas card that year.

The thing about the Roland format and no external monitors at the time was that my mixes were always a little off since I used headphones all the time. I also was pretty unsatisfied with the the vocals in general, but it was what it was.

This year, T-Rex decided she wanted to make an Xmas DVD of our son and his cousins using the song. This gave me a chance to go back and fix what I didn't like, so I transferred the existing tracks into ProTools and re-did all the vocals, plus some. The song benefited from the greater mixing flexibility of ProTools and I think I got a much better performance on the vocals; this one is one of those "totally solo" recordings where I did pretty much all of it ... well, I programmed the drums, but you get the picture.

So there ya go .... "I Wanna Be A Kid Again At Christmas" all nicely dressed and ready for the big day. Go and enjoy and download if you wish ...

To all of you who attended our show at Marilyn's on Friday, many sincere thanks; if you bought a CD or shirt ... double that. Thanks too to The Bobbleheads and Radio Orangevale for some spectacular music.

And for those of you who were geographically challenged, "Noise Machines" will be available on CD Baby next week, or you can get it on ITunes, DigStation, or what the hell .... buy it on this site!

The CDs are here! The T-shirts are here! The band is ready to play ...

I'm excited ...

Y'all gotta come to Marilyn's tomorrow night; I feel ROCK!

It seems like it was gonna take forever but the writing, recording, mastering, and art are finally done and tomorrow I send The Onlymen's debut CD "Noise Machines" off to be manufactured. That would mean that barring any unexpected complications, our Marilyn's show on Feb. 29 will be our CD release party.

Then we start on the next one ... which hopefully won't take as long.

This Saturday, Jan. 26 at 8PM is our gig opening for The Kimberly Trip at Heroes Alley (Toy Fusion) in Rancho Cordova. There may still be some tickets left ... I'm not sure; but we really would like to see you there, so check our show page and come out to see us rip it up acoustically.

I recently bitched loud and long about issues I was having with the company that puts up the MySpace music stores, in that after repeated tries nothing was showing up.

Without going into embarressing techophobe details, it was very much a case of operator error ... since you can now see the store on our page.

Sorry SnoCap dudes ... I fucked up; thanks for putting up with me.

I've been watching the magnificent Gene Kelly film "Singing In the Rain" today. Not only is it just a spectacular singin' and dancin' flick, but it kinda has that whole "hey kids ... let's put on a show" vibe with the whole make a musical out of a disasterous movie plot.

So what's cool about our show a week from today (Jan. 26) is that our friends The Kimberly Trip have set up their own brand of "let's put on a show" magic and we get to be the opening act. And we are doing it acoustic ... something we don't do often. Larry, Todd and I have been working up some new spins on some old favorites and we are doing a premier of a full band version of a solo song of mine. Plus, we're throwing in some different instrumental textures for your aural enjoyment.

Tickets are going fast (so I hear), so if you want to be included in the fun get thee over to this web addy and buy them now ...

http://www.thekimberlytrip.com/home.php?page=tour

Mention that you're coming to see us ... just to make us feel wanted!

Really, it's gonna be fun; I'm sure Gene Kelly would come if he was still around ...

Most of you are probably familiar with the neat little MySpace music stores set up by a third party dot com. We wanted to join the fun, but after numerous tries nothing happened.

Then I found this:

newtley writes "Rumors are swirling about the pending demise of Napster creator Shawn Fanning's Snocap, says former MP3.com CEO Michael Robertson. 'Articles mention a sale, but more likely it will be a shuttering and quiet bankruptcy,' he believes. 'Snocap represents a commonplace occurrence in the music business — an unprofitable retailer which withers and eventually dies.'"

There were other articles mentioning the same issues, but I guess I know why I haven't got any help from Tech Support.

The rest of you bands ... don't be looking for any checks any time soon.

We've been threatening to do another one and now we're gonna ...

January 26 we will open a show for our friends The Kimberly Trip at Toy Fusion on South Sunrise in Rancho Cordova. We'll be doing some minor rearrangements on some tunes and a few surprises, so it's worth the the $6 in advance ... of course if you're more generous and feel like making that last minute decision, then it's $8 at the door.

It's gonna be a good one, and you can get tickets in advance at www.thekimberlytrip.com and clicky on the Tour page ... tell 'em The Onlymen sent 'cha.