I know it’s been a long time coming, but here’s another song of the moment. Michael Franti & Spearhead are no strangers to the sotm, having two other songs be featured in the past. They have a new album coming out on 9/9/08 titled All Rebel Rockers and from what I’ve heard this is a must buy. This song in particular has been stuck in my head since seeing the band perform at the Mile High Festival, and I’m so happy too now have a studio quality version of it. I highly encourage you to download “Say Hey (I Love You)” now and buy the album when it’s officially released.

I haven’t posted a song of the moment in quite some time, but this one is definitely necessary. It comes from Virginia Coalition’s latest CD titled Home This Year, which was just released on March 18th. Often known for their crazy live performances full of crowd interaction and high energy stage performances, this CD may come as a shock at first. It is much more subdued than any of their other material, or at least anything recent. But I feel that this is some of their strongest song writing ever, and I am not alone. One of my favorite albums of theirs is a very early one called Colors Of The Sound, and this one is quickly becoming my second favorite album from this extremely talented group. For a sample of the CD, take a listen to “Sing Along” and then go and purchase the whole thing.

I was supposed to go to a concert last night at the Soiled Dove featuring Jon McLaughlin. Everything was going fine before the show started. Kim and I headed toward the show early and had dinner at the restaurant upstairs. There was a pretty good line to get in when we arrived shortly before seven, but that quickly disappeared when the doors opened at seven. The music was scheduled to start at eight, so after we finished our meals we headed downstairs just in time to catch the opener. I give the bouncer my ID and ask how much it costs to get in since there was a sign saying the tickets were cash only. He replied that the show was sold out! Apparently I didn’t learn my lesson from the John Butler Trio show a few months back, otherwise I would have sucked it up and bought tickets ahead of time. In my mind there was no way that a venue with a capacity of a few hundred would fill up for this show, but I totally underestimated the music scene around here. From now on I am no longer going to wait on tickets for the shows that I really want to see.

On a happier note, how about another song of the moment? This one is from, you guessed it, Jon McLaughlin. This song may sound familiar to those of you who already have NOW That’s What Ed Calls Music 2006, as a version of the song “Industry” is on the compilation. However the one from before is from an older release of his, and you can now download it from his latest CD titled Indiana, which is one of my favorite CDs of this year.

My favorite album of the year has to be Grand National by the John Butler Trio. I swear that it even gets better with each listen and I would highly recommend the album to anyone. I cannot wait to see them again next month at Red Rocks with Michael Franti & Spearhead. It is going to be a concert to remember, that’s for sure. Anyway, to suck you all in to JBT here is another song of the moment titled “Good Excuse.”

In addition to seeing and hearing Mike Perkins open for O.A.R., we also got the chance to catch his own show on Friday night at the Mad Frog. Things have changed a little at the Mad Frog especially since smoking is not allowed inside anymore. I think I saw the ceiling of the front room for the first time ever. They have also cleaned up the appearance in various places, with newer flooring and lighting. Other things haven’t changed. Many of the staff is still the same, the crappy bathroom is still the same, and the beer is still cheap!

Perkins played with his trio of musicians, himself on guitar and vocals, along with a keyboard and bass player. I think his music really shines with this setup, as it doesn’t drown his incredible vocals and looping guitar playing. I decided not to record the show as it can sometimes be a pain doing so at the Mad Frog. I am regretting the decision now. We got to hear excellent versions of just about all of my favorite songs of his. We even heard the song “Outside” even though it was not showing any signs of spring and was actually snowing outside. Anyway, I’ve added a new song of the moment from Mike Perkins. “No Way No How” is definitely one of my favorite songs of his.

I’ve been listening to The Alternate Routes a bunch since seeing them just over a week ago. If you didn’t already notice, you can listen to my recording of their entire performance on the internet archive. With their recent signing on Vanguard Records, they are re-releasing their debut album on March 13 and they even have a music video for “Time Is A Runaway.”

On top of all of that, you can download their song “Ordinary” from the same CD, Good And Reckless And True. If you like what you hear, I believe you can get the whole CD from iTunes now. Or you can wait for the CD to hit stores in March!

I’ve been waiting for this for years, an official live album from the Virginia Coalition. I’ve often said that VACO is one of the best live acts around, and this album should help to prove that. However I still believe that you have to see and hear the show in person to fully appreciate it. Anyway, Live At The 9:30 Club is a two disc set recorded live at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC. It includes many old favorite songs in addition to a few previously unreleased songs, one of which is “Gates Of Wisdom.” After downloading this track be sure to purchase the entire album either online or in a local store! You can also hear more of the album on their myspace.com page. Enjoy!

As I mentioned before, I’m going to merge the song of the moments into my blog. I’ve created a new SOTM category that can be used to track all of these songs. If, god forbid, you forget about edpaffjr.com and down the road you want to see all of the songs of the moment, you can use the blog category to do so.

Without further adieu, I give you the first song of the moment in quite some time, Michael Franti & Spearhead – “Yell Fire!”

“Franti has created an inspiring, uplifting new album of original songs titled Yell Fire! 14 new songs inspired by his trip to Iraq, Israel and Occupied Territories of Palestine. Recorded in Kingston, Jamaica and Franti’s hometown of San Francisco, California.”

Obviously this is the title track off of their latest CD and it is also the current single. The rest of the albums is just as good as this track and on the same level as the last CD, Everyone Deserves Music. You can check out more of the music and buy the CD at myspace.com and at spearheadvibrations.com. Be sure to check out the recently announced tour dates and catch a live show if you can. You will NOT be disappointed.

I am so much better at fantasy football than most of you probably ever would have thought. I just had another 3-0 weekend, bringing my grand total up to 12-3. That means I am now winning 80% of the games played. I need to make a few roster changes this week, hopefully those don’t end up hurting my teams.

We originally thought that we were gonna have another homework night with Dominique and Bianca last night, but we never heard back from them. Instead we made a big Italian dinner and watched TV. Oh yeah, we also secured 25 tickets to the Bengals/Chiefs game, and helped some of the visitors with hotels on priceline. They ended up getting the Sheraton for $85 a night, which is a phenomenal deal. Typically the rooms go for $150 a night and every room is a suite! Let me know if you are reading this and need help securing a room, although I think everyone who wants a hotel has been taken care of.

With the lack of much else going on, I’ve added a new song of the moment from none other than O.A.R. Just in case you were a little iffy about buying the CD, “Wonderful Day” is one reason to do so.

It is so loud in here that it is very hard to concentrate on anything. Let’s see if I can make it through a blog entry without getting distracted. The reason for the loudness is that they have knocked out the back wall of our break room so that they can expand it. They are also currently working on our office expansion into another quarter of the third floor. Currently we have one quarter of the floor, with a psychiatrist office occupying another quarter. That leaves half of the floor empty and we have signed on to occupy half of that giving us almost double the space we have now. The downside is that we keep losing employees and don’t really need the added space.

I snuck into the expansion area after work yesterday along with another guy I work with. He showed me where the new conference room is going to be and then I counted at least eleven new offices that are going to be over there. We don’t even have eleven people right now in the cubicle alley, so I’m guessing that we’ll have more offices than people once this is done. That is unless they start hiring some people, but we all know that it is a long process for them to hire anyone here. With all of that being said, I better get my own office. I don’t mind sharing with Margaret at all. In fact, I don’t know if there is another person here that I would rather share with. Wouldn’t it be nice to have my own room though? I think so.

With all of the noise I’ve been forced to listen to some loud music. This reminded me that I have not added a song of the moment in quite some time. That is until now, feel free to download a new Pomeroy track that I’ve been listening to a whole bunch lately titled “Soundtrack.”