Welcome to 2008! I've always liked welcoming the new year, but not for the reasons you might think. For me, the new year signifies the end of Return Week, that week after Christmas when there are more people at the Customer Service desk returning gifts then there are in the entire rest of the store combined. I got off easy this year, since I only had one gift to return (hope my mom isn't reading this). And I really didn't mind the three-hour wait in line to return the gift. But did they really need to have a Valentine's Day display already set-up right next to our line?
So before I dive into these bags of Candy Hearts I bought for myself, let's talk about what's been going on with Taylor and
TheOfficialSoulPatrol.com.
December 2007 Taylor HappeningsYou would not believe the responses I got last month when I mentioned that Taylor was taking things easy while working on a new CD for 2008. Many of you were clearly upset that Taylor was not doing more to keep his name in the spotlight. Hopefully, though, you visited our
Appearances board during the past month, since Taylor was anything but quiet after all.
On December 16, Taylor appeared on the results show for the first ever
Asian Idol competition. This show aired on TV in at least 8 countries we know of, providing Taylor with a very large audience. He sang three songs on the show:
Do I Make You Proud,
Heaven Knows, and
Takin' It To The Streets. To watch him perform all three songs, as well as see his short interaction with the show's hosts and an interview conducted before the show, visit our
"Asian Idol" - 12/16/07 thread on our Featured Video board. NOTE: You must be logged into the forum to view this thread.
Two days later on December 18, Taylor started a
three-mall mini-tour of the Philippines. Even though it was short notice, less than 10-days from announcement to the first concert, Filipinos turned out in large numbers for all three concerts. Our Filipino members have been posting and talking about it ever since. Visit
The Main Board of our forum to read through all the threads our members have created to talk about it.
TOSP's News Page contains several news articles on Taylor's Asian visit.
Unfortunately, not all of Taylor's December appearances went this well. As I mentioned last month, Taylor was scheduled to perform during half-time of the
Liberty Bowl on December 29. He did perform, but ESPN did not show the half-time show. We don't know if it is standard for networks not to show college football half-time shows, but many TOSP members were disappointed when they saw Taylor take the stage, only to have ESPN cut to a commercial. A few of our members did make the trip out to the Liberty Bowl, so our memories of this performance will have to come from them.
Taylor Hicks - Clive free?Anyone who has spent any time at all on TOSP will know that Clive Davis, the guy who pulls most of the record label strings for the
American Idol winners, is not very well liked. Many of our members feel that Clive never had any faith in Taylor and, as a result, refused to properly promote Taylor's album.
Taylor Hicks was certified platinum a scant three weeks after it was released, but did so with no single playing on the radio, no video in rotation anywhere, and almost no print promotion (though Taylor did do the talk show circuit). Only two singles were released from the album, and neither of them were properly promoted to radio stations. This lack of promotion was despite the fact that Taylor's AI single,
Do I Make You Proud was certified as the highest selling single in all of 2006.
Now it appears that the Soul Patrol won't have Clive Davis to kick around anymore. Entertainment Weekly reported on January 3 that
Taylor Hicks has been dropped by J Records. According to a source at J Records, Taylor Hicks has lost his three-album deal with J Records. A three-album deal is one of the prizes awarded to the winner of each season of
American Idol. Although no official announcement has been released by Taylor's people or by J Records (the source above was anonymous), the news is widely believed to be true. The recent discovery by Soul Patrollers that Taylor's official Website,
www.taylorhicks.com, which is run by J Records, now redirects people to his
MySpace page is taken as confirmation for this news.
Reaction to the news has, at least on TOSP, been mostly well received. As I already stated, Clive Davis hasn't been well-liked by the Soul Patrol for quite some time. The thought of Taylor doing his next CD with an independent label (no word on what label that might be) has his fans salivating at the thought of how much better his next CD will be. It is believed that Taylor will write most of his songs this time around, unlike the last album where the only songs he wrote were the two he imported from his independent album
Under the Radar.
What's next for Taylor?This is what we know so far. Taylor has repeatedly mentioned that a new CD, a new DVD (the long-awaited
Whomp at the Warfield live concert taping), and a new tour are all scheduled for 2008. Because label droppings don't actually happen overnight (they just seem like they do), we believe that all of these statements by Taylor were made after he knew that he and J Records would be parting ways. There is no reason to think that we won't see a new CD, new DVD, and a new tour this year.
As for the immediate future, there are a couple of known Taylor appearances coming up. First up is
Palm Night 2008 on January 26. Palm Night is a gala to raise money to fight child abuse and neglect. Tickets are $1,000 each, so it's not something that most Soul Patrollers will be going to.
The only other upcoming Taylor appearance is on February 22, 2008, at the 2008 Alabama Music Hall of Fame. Taylor will not only perform during the ceremony, he will receive their
America's Music Award as well. All VIP tickets have been sold out for this event, but the Gallery seating tickets will go on sale sometime in the next week or so. This event is not expected to be broadcast nationally on any station, and it is unknown whether it will be broadcast in Alabama. For more information, including ticket prices, visit the
Alabama Music Hall of Fame thread on our forum.
There are a couple of known repeat TV appearances this month as well, but will require that you subscribe to two specific stations. First is a repeat of the
Warren Haynes - The Benefit Concert 2006. This show airs on the HD Network, which is available only to Dish Network subscribers. The other appearance is the TV Guide Network's
Where Are They Now show. Visit the respective threads on our forum for information on the dates and times of these repeats.
As always, we will post any new appearances we find out about on our
Appearances board, so make sure to check it often.
Pick the next song played on TOSPRegular visitors to
TheOfficialSoulPatrol.com know that we always have one of Taylor's songs playing on our site for you to listen to. For the last several weeks, that song has been
Soul Thing, which is song 10 on Taylor's debut album. Well, it's time to change this song again, and this time we are letting you choose the song.
We've already decided that the song will come from Taylor's very first independent album,
In Your Time. What we need for you to do is vote for which of the seven songs you would like to have playing over the next few weeks when you visit TOSP's Website. To record your vote, please visit the
POLL: Which song from "In Your Time" do you want to hear next? thread on The Main Board of our forum. You have until January 12 to record your vote, at which time the winning song will be posted on both our Website and MySpace page for all to hear. NOTE: You must be logged into your TOSP account to vote for a song.
Soul Patrol Convention raffle extendedDue to overwhelming last-minute demand, the deadline to purchase raffle tickets for a trip for 2 to the upcoming Soul Patrol Convention has been pushed back to midnight PST on January 10. The prize includes two round trip U.S. domestic flight tickets, a two-night hotel stay, and entry into both the convention ("Party for the Patrol") on May 9 and the music festival ("A Soul Affair") on May 10. Raffle tickets are $5 each and are available at
Harmony For The Soul.
TOSP 404'dEarly in the day on December 16, visitors to TheOfficialSoulPatrol.com site began receiving one of those hated "Page Not Found" messages. Unfortunately, our private server suffered some hardware failure which prompted our hosting company to move us to a new server. Despite assurances they would take care of everything that needed to be done in relation to the move, we were told the next day that we had to update our IP Addresses within our domain name. We were then told that it would take 24-48 hours for the new IP Addresses to propagate through the Internet. Although past experience told us that it didn't take this long, our hosting company just kept repeating this to us. The morning of the third day revealed another mistake our hosting company , whose name we won't mention here (sidenote: Did you read that article on LUNAR activity in the PAGES of that book?), had made. They fixed this, which brought up our Website but not our forum. Finally, nearly 60 hours after our site went down, our hosting company fixed the last of the problems and our forum came right back up.
For those of you who received one of those dreaded "Page Not Found" messages while trying to visit TOSP, we do apologize. We will be looking into other hosting companies during the next few months to see if we can find one that is a better fit for us. In the meantime, should an outage like this ever occur again, please visit our
MySpace page (www.myspace.com/theofficialsoulpatrol). We will use our MySpace page to communicate with you during outages so that you will know what is going on and how long before we expect to be up and running again.
Interesting threads on the forumIf you haven't visited TheOfficialSoulPatrol.com lately, you may not have seen these interesting discussions.
Soul Patrolling the Sims - On December 31, TOSP member TaraRenee made a post showing us an image of Sim Taylor, which can be downloaded and used when playing
The Sims computer game. Some of our members have said they have used a Sim Taylor while playing, and others are promising to. If you've used a Sim Taylor while playing this computer game, or you plan to now that you know you can, visit this thread and share with us.
Robyn (Shadow Stroker) - On December 29, TOSP Moderator Shadow Stroker gave birth to a beautiful, healthy baby girl. Mom, dad, brother, and baby are all doing fine. Shadow Stroker has even been kind enough to share some pictures with us. Visit the thread to see the pictures (on page 3) and to drop a note of congratulations.
Name the CD and Production Company (Just for Fun) - TOSP member oldiebutgoodie thought we might all have some fun coming up with possible names Taylor could use if he ever formed his own company and record label now that he and J Records have parted ways. Oldiebutgoodie's idea for the name of the company is "Modern Whomp Productions", the name of the record label "Right Place Records", and the name of the next CD "Taylor Hicks - Unchained". Think you have a funny name to share? Visit this thread and share it with us.
Football talk thread - All season long, TOSP members have been rooting for their favorite NFL teams and harassing the other teams and their supporters. Now that the playoffs have begun, the rooting and harassing will be at an all-time high. Visit this thread and let us know who you are rooting for in the postseason. Oh, and by the way.......... DALLAS COWBOYS RULE!!!!!!!!!! :)
American IdolSeason 7 of
American Idol will have it's four hour, two-night premiere on January 15 & 16 at 8 PM EST / 7 PM CST on FOX. The producers and judges have been hyping the talent they've found for months now, but Season 6 left a sour taste in many people's mouth. Will Season 7 live up to the hype, or will it be just more of the same? We already know that no one like Taylor will be found, but will they at least be able to come close?
Once again, our
American Idol board will be available for you to chat with everyone else about this year's talents.
Idol Radio ShowIt's been almost a year since Darryl first asked me to be a regular guest commentator on the
Idol Radio Show. This year, I will be co-hosting the show with Darryl.
Beginning Wednesday, January 16, Darryl and I will get together once or twice each week after AI has aired (visit the
"Idol Radio Show: AI Edition" Schedule thread for dates and times) to talk about the performances and voting results. Darryl and I will priase the good, trash the bad, and defend Sanjaya for all we're worth (oh, wait...... that was last year).
In addition, TheOfficialSoulPatrol.com and the
Idol Radio Show have teamed up to bring you the all new
Idol Radio Show Interactive Board. During the special AI Edition shows, all listeners will be invited to visit this board to leave behind their thoughts and comments about AI, the performances, and the voting results. No TOSP membership will be required to post on this board during these special shows (though visitors will be more than welcome to register with us, and registration will be required to post on this board the rest of the week). You can also call into the show to talk to Darryl and I on the air (646-652-4656).
To listen to the show live, visit the
Idol Radio Show (the show will automatically play in your browser). In addition, you can listen to the show by visiting
TheOfficialSoulPatrol.com Website during the show (we will be streaming it). You can also stream the show in your external media player if you prefer (link will be found on both sites during the broadcast).
So please join us each week beginning Wednesday, January 16. We look forward to hearing, and reading, what you have to say.
TOSP BlogsHere is what the TOSP Bloggers have blogged about lately.
Mandy's Blog - Despite living near the Liberty Bowl for 20 years, it took Taylor Hicks to get TOSP Blogger Mandy to make the trip. Luckily for us, she has blogged about Taylor's two concerts so we can feel like we were there.
Sheena's Blog - The Philippines has now been Taylorized, and TOSP Blogger Sheena was there for his final Ayala Mall concert. Thankfully, she has blogged about it for all of us non-Philippine people.
As always, the TOSP Bloggers love to hear from you. So please leave your thoughts and comments behind on the blogs.
TOSP on MySpaceDon't forget that TOSP also has a
MySpace page. Our MySpace Operator, Jess, loves to read your comments and talk with you through the MySpace message system. Jess recently added pictures from Taylor's November 2 Silver Star concert. So if you haven't added us to your MySpace friend's list yet, we hope you will.
Vote for TOSP on Idol Topsites
Idol Topsites is a ranking system for Idol related Websites. Each member site puts a voting button on their own site so their visitors can vote for them. The more votes a site gets, the higher ranked they are. Idol Topsites also has a rating system for visitors to rate how much they enjoy a site on a scale of 1 - 10. The rating system does not affect the ranking system.
Every Idol Topsites member site is listed in both the combined category as well as the Idol category that best describes them. In our case, we are listed in the American Idol category.
TheOfficialSoulPatrol.com has come in 1st place for each of the last twenty-four voting periods (each voting period runs from Friday to Thursday). We are in a fierce battle with two Ace Young fan sites and a Chris Richardson fan site for the top of the rankings. So if you enjoy TheOfficialSoulPatrol.com, please click on button above and vote for us this week.
I look forward to seeing all of you on the forums.
Sincerely,
Alan (jatterb)
TheOfficialSoulPatrol.com Administrator