Yesterday was a bit weird. When I woke up I had messages from friends here at myspace to my official mailing list e-mail address asking if I had quit music. Some asked if I had tossed in the towel. Others asked if I had done something wrong at myspace. Not great messages to wake up to.

Not exactly sure what had happened, but it seems my profile had gotten locked down. In the infinite wisdom of computer glitches it decided to tell some people my account had been terminated by me. In addition it did actually remove me from some people's friend's list.

Rest assured if you noticed me missing from your friends list, it wasn't me that did it. Please resend a friend request and I'll put you back on no problem.

The weirdest was one account was from a friend who's page was private. I could no longer see the page, but when I went to add them back on it said we were already friends. Very weird.

Anyway, it seems that everything is back to normal. Again, even though it's not my fault, I apologize.

In case you haven't heard of it yet, I've been writing about music that is created by other artists. I mainly feature non-signed artists, but occasionally I'll throw in someone you've heard of. It's a new song everyday of the week, every week, every month, etc... It's all contained at Single of the Day ( http://singleoftheday.com )

Go now, bookmark it and come back day after day. I know you'll find something you'll want to buy.

I've been tagged by a friend. The concept is to ask them three questions, then they are to return such things as three questions for me back. Since I'd rather not leave someone out. I'll make it so that you can just post your three questions here as you see fit. If I don't deem the questions to be too out of hand, I'll answer them here. If I don't answer, don't be offended.

Last night was the Just Plain Folks Awards for 2006. They are the largest music awards in the world. It was a fantastic night of music and recognition of music that you can experience. I was nominated for 5 awards and here's how it played out...

Best Music Video: Winner! So go watch Falling In now.
Best Rock Instrumental: 2nd place. If you don't have Tracking Motion buy it now!
Best Children's Storytelling Album: 3rd place. The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd (I do the music for it).
Best College Rock Song: Nominated for Falling In.
Best Rock Album: Nominated for Practical Insanity. Go buy the CD now! You know you want it because it was deemed that good out of 25,500 + CD's in the world for 2006.

There ya have it. Overall a fun evening and some decent results. I'm happy and I can't wait until I can get on the road and play for everyone.

Hey Everyone:

To start I want to say that it's a beautiful thing that you're here on myspace and making it one of the cool places to hang out on the internet. Despite my being generally overly computer literate (I once was a computer science geek for a while at University and I'm the computer guru to several rockstar friends, some are on my page) I still need you to bear with me if I'm still not a hot shot at this myspace thing.

IT REALLY IS ME: Yes, this is me. It's my page. I do the updating. I send the bulletins. I make the cosmetic changes. I read the messages. I send the comments, etc. Should things suddenly take off and I'm unable to be the only force dealing with the page, I will inform everyone with a post here and a bulletin or two. I don't want you to think that I'd abandon you. I wouldn't feel right not retaining some of the personal aspect of the page, but I can foresee not being able to handle the volume all by myself. However, I won't be sending comments unless they are from me - plain and simple.

MESSAGES: First, now that I've hit that 20,000 mark with friends. I'm starting to get an awful lot of messages from everyone. As much as I try to stay on top of it. It's not easy and you'll have to excuse me if I don't reply right away. It's nothing personal. I do what I can to reply to as many as I can, but I know that some will slip through the cracks. I do attempt to read them all and most of them are extremely cool with the kind words I'm being sent.

HOW REVEALING WILL I BE: I'm generally a pretty open guy. I don't have much to hide. However, most of my innate feelings and such come out through the music - its my best form of communication. I also tend to reveal things about what goes on in my life (on occasion) at my official blog called Single of the Day, or even on my official website.

TO OTHER BANDS: While I understand the concept of attempting to get people to hear your music to help sell your CD's and get them to shows (believe me I'm in the same boat), I won't actually add your profile to mine for the following reason. I don't want to waste time promoting to you, I hope you wouldn't want to waste time promoting to me. Especially when I have to take time to write/record/perform new songs. However, I will take what time I can to listen to your song clips because I do spend about an hour a day for my blog Single of the Day where I showcase a song a day and talk about things that it makes me think of. One of the biggest requirements for the blog and getting on there quicker is to have your music available on iTunes. The other thing is, I have to like it. Is your music really damn good and not on iTunes? WHY? I helped pave the way for you to get your music on iTunes. So go to CD Baby and do the digital distribution, you'd be silly not to.

IN CLOSING: I really must say it's a wonderful thing to hear that you think my music is inspiring, awesome, cool, great, touching, wonderful, etc... it warms me all over inside. It's also amazing to hear those kind words about my eyes or what/who I look like. Its enough to make a guy feel fuzzy without being gay. Also, I've had people in the past attempt to help promote me here on myspace through various methods such as posting the banner or even starting a fan group. If you feel compelled to do so I truly appreciate that you want to do that for little ol' me. It's an honor. Should you decide to start another fan group yourself, then do let me know and I'll attempt to help you any way that I can, but I'll have to let you take the reigns for the most part.

Peace, love, and good happiness type things!

Jody

p.s. - It's rare that I'll add a band, but it's usually because I know them personally.

If you're familiar with The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd, then you might know that I do the music for that show. I've been informed by Grant, the creator, that the show has won the 2006 Parsec award for Best Audio Drama (short form).

I've never heard of a Parsec award, but Grant informs me that its for excellence in Sci-Fi.

So I was informed that I actually have a 5th nomination for the JPF awards. Grant from The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd has informed me that his podcast is nominated as well in the Story Telling category.

In case you didn't know, I do all the music for the Dr. Floyd show.

So, there it is.

I've received word this morning that I am nominated for four (4) awards in this years Just Plain Folks awards (JPF). So the things I'm up for are:

Best College Rock Song:		Falling In
Best Rock Instrumental:		Tracking Motion
Best Rock Album:		Practical Insanity
Best Short Music Video:		Falling In

This is a pretty cool thing to me. Why? Because it's THE largest music awards in the world. It's larger than the Grammys - the only thing is, you've never heard of it until now. That's right, there are music awards out there that have way more entrants than the exclusive club of the Grammys, et al. This year's JPF awards had over 25,000 CD's entered which is somewhere in the neighborhood of over 350,000 songs. To even get a nomination out of that much music means you must be doing something good.

I know I face some stiff competition in all the categories against artists like Vertical Horizon and others. Keep your fingers crossed that I end up holding a JPF award at the ceremony. I've been nominated in several of the past ones, but it would be fantastic to finally get a win. So far my best placing has been third.

You know, given enough time eventually someone somewhere will surprise you. Such is the case as of today. In a world where there is so much gimmie, gimmie, gimmie, take, take, take, I'm relived to know there are some people who actually have manners, or at least some respect for others. As a person who spends so much time creating to give to the world, and in turn not being financially rewarded (as of yet), I see more than my fair share of the g-g-g-t-t-t attitude.

My surprise and slightly refreshed faith in humanity comes from Dupont. Which if I'm gathering correctlly must be near Washington DC. Her myspace screenname is TMStanton. She contacted me this morning by leaving me a comment on Myspace. Likely due to my leaving her one about Material Girls. She wrote a message asking if it was cool to link to my site in her blog. At first I was thinking, c'mon - asking permission? Then I thought wow, someone would actually want to blog about me. What really threw me is the asking permission thing. Most people don't do that. In fact, I believe it's the first time I've been asked.

Needless to say, I gave her permission. After digging a little deeper, I find that she's interested in Journalism. Thus, it makes me understand why she asked. Again, finally someone with the integrity to ask permission. I didn't really have any idea what she'd write, but I was willing to take the chance - as some of you know, I'm a gambling type of man. Oh, I had an inkling she'd write something nice. However, she wrote something really nice and actually linked not only to my myspace page, but also my official website.

Her myspace page is: TMStanton and the Blog where she wrote about me is: A View From Dupont.

And so it goes, I'll be turning around and asking her permission to quote her for my website where I archive things people say about me, then randomly post them on my homepage.

Stop by and tell her "Hi" and thanks from me.

I got word yesterday from the director of my 'Falling In' video, that the video will be screened at the 2006 California Independent Film Awards. I thought that was pretty cool news.