NEW SONGGGGGG!!! Hold For Your Lovin’!

FINALLY I’ve released “Hold For Your Lovin’” one of my favorite and most popular songs of the set of new stuff I’m working on . Listen and enjoy and let me know what you think by leaving a comment please! This track is available for listening, downloading and sharing on my website’s music page, here.

My third performance at Spence was awesome! The camera was not.

I recently performed for the third time at my alma mater, the Spence School, where I went to Kindergarten-12th grade, and as usual, it was so awesome and was my best audience of the year. Each performance there has been better than the last, because the girls keep up with me online in between performances and know my music before I come perform it, so they’re really excited to hear it and I’m really excited to perform it for them.

I was a bit nervous about this performance because it was the first one consisting of my new dance-pop music and none of my old stuff, and I wasn’t sure how much they would like it, but a few weeks before the performances I spoke to some of the girls on facebook and they said they were keeping up with my new music and loved it, so that made me feel more confident.

The performance was not only tons of fun but also really boosted my confidence in the quality of my new music. It is really fuckin’ good. I worked hard on it and made it the best I could and it really paid off because people really enjoy it. Also, performing with tracks is a totally legit way to perform because people still really enjoy what they hear and they get to hear everything as I wrote it, with the same sounds and all the back up vocals, and I think that is really important. Every time I played a song the girls were dancing along and having a great time listening, and they really cheered loudly at the end of each one. I still get totally exhausted singing and doing minimal dancing when I perform a song, and I don’t quite know what to do about that. Run and sing on the treadmill like Fergie?

The only drawback of the show was that somehow the camera didn’t end up taping the show at all. Not one second. Which REALLY sucks because I was hoping to get SIX AWESOME youtube videos out of this performance that really could have helped my exposure and been an EXCELLENT resource to use for bookings. It is the PERFECT gig because it’s great sound, great lighting, and a REALLY large and enthusiastic audience who knows and really enjoys me and my stuff. It is SO LAME that the taping didn’t work OH MY GOD. Not to mention that it was a really special 35 minutes of my life that I REALLY would have liked to have on tape. GODDAMMIT! Oh well, next time. Barf. Will try to get some great video from the Dec 19th show, where of course the lighting will suck and therefore probably so will the video. Goddammit goddammit goddammmiiiiiiiiitttttt!

Whew. Anyway. Focus on the fuckin’ positive, right? I AM SO ANGRY. Ok. Here are the wonderful moments from the performance:

1. I didn’t chicken out about wearing weird stuff. I did the show in my bright pink wig, my new silver sequin jacket, my black sequin tank, my pink tights, and silver boots, and dramatic makeup. I was considering toning down my look for the audience and then realized–wait a minute, this is what I do, this is who I am, and my fans expect me to do it. So I did it up! And everyone was saying how much they liked my wig and outfit and asking where I got my clothes and shoes. Right decision made!

2. Had the fascinating realization that when 12 year old girls in middle school don’t know you and you’re an adult wearing weird things, the experience of them asking you about it is totally different than when you’re their 12 year old classmate wearing weird things. When I was 12 I would get really upset when people at school questioned what I was doing or wearing and didn’t get it. Today, I just told them I was dressed like that because I think it looks pretty and it makes me happy, and that was that. Realized I probably should have done that in middle school, too. Probably wouldn’t have worked though. That’s middle school for ya.

3. Before the performance I sat down on the floor with the girls in the front, joking like I was a student waiting for the assembly to start, and ended up chatting with a lot of them before the show. It was a nice way to break some ice and was also cool because I went on to blow them away with my show and they were all so excited to tell me how much they liked it afterwards.

4. I did a lot of new songs in the show, including “Friday Night Forever” and “Hold For Your Lovin’” which the girls really loved. Was great to hear that people are really liking my new stuff because I think it’s pretty great, too. The girls also insisted on singing Texas Boys a capella with me, which was really fun. Can’t believe I remembered all the words off the top of my head when I haven’t sang or listened to that song in at least 8 months. Was of course great to hear the girls singing along and knowing all the words.

5. When I performed “Dance Dance Dance” the girls sang along, and it was quite a funny thing to see these tiny 11 year olds singing “I don’t care what you think, gonna flip my hair and sip my drink!” I inserted the words “of juice!” after that phrase the first time I sang it. Very funny. One of the girls said that was her favorite song, which I love.

6. The girls chatted during my songs and at first I thought it was because they weren’t listening but when I asked what they were talking about, they said they were talking about how awesome I was. I told them to keep talking. Heeeeeeey!

7. Got the girls to do a big “Heeeeeeeeeeeey!” with me, which was funny. The girls also made a big banner with my name on it to hold up which was sweet.

8. At the end of the show the girls asked where Socrates was, to which I replied, “Well you know that’s funny, I mean, it’s funny that you ask, because the thing about Socrates is, well, he’s…he’s dead, haha,” quoting the line from Annie Hall when she says that about her grandma when Alvy asks about her. I then explained that that was a joke from Annie Hall which no one in that room has ever heard of BECAUSE THEY WERE ALL BORN IN THE MID TO LATE 90’s.

9. After the show the girls all took my business card and then ran over to me to have me autograph each one. I gotta say, I LOVE signing autographs! It is SO FUN! Hope to do a lot more of it in the future. Plus the nice thing is, hopefully since I signed all those cards they hung on to them and used them to look me up on the web! (A lot of them did–I’ve got a LOT of pending facebook friend requests from the girls and the song plays on my page are way up today. Yay!)

10. A couple of the girls asked if I would come and watch their choir rehearsal, which I did, and they sang the song they were working on for me there. I could tell it meant a lot to them and I was really happy to watch.

11. A lot of the girls were really excited to see me and were telling me that they were my biggest fans and they wanted hugs and to keep in touch and everything. Love that! It’s so cool to be on the other end of the fan love, cuz I know how I feel about the people I’m a big fan of, so it’s really cool to think I have people who feel that way about me. Hooray!

All in all it was a great success and a great experience and next time I will do everything in my power to capture it on film NO MATTER WHAT and share it here! The teacher who books the assemblies said she’d definitely like to have me back, so I’m already looking forward to next year’s performance! Gotta get in on the upper school assembly too, and should look into other school performance opportunities out there in case they exist!

Band rehearsal was so awesome last night…

So last night I rehearsed with my band, with the lovely and fabulous Dan Freeman of Comandante Zero on keys. It was soooooo fun and funny and I really want to take some rehearsal footage soon so you can see all the fun we have. Most of the songs were in really great shape on the first run through, which was awesome. The new ones are coming along too, which is exciting cuz I love them and I think you all will, too. There’s a song I wrote called “I Just Wanna Hold You,” that we’ve started putting together that I LOVE so much and every time John plays the bass line live I go nuts, it sounds SO good. Can’t wait for you to hear it, and you will if you come to the show on Dec 19th, where we’re performing it.

I now have 9 of 12 songs totally in the can, ready to go, and just have to record vocals on the last three as soon as I’ve rested my voice a bit, practiced the songs, and have a few hours free with a quiet house. I’m thinking that now I should just release the album in 2010, since I don’t want to be pushing it to bloggers in 2010 if it’s a 2009 record, since that will make it seem older. Ayayay it’s so much later than I’d hoped, but what can I say? Life has a way of intervening.

A wonderful British pop star/writer/producer in my songwriting class named Darren Ockert wants to collab with me, and I really want to work with him too, so we should be getting together soon to come up with some poptastic magic. Cannot WAIT for that cuz he is so talented and such a total sweetheart. Can you believe I’m the first one in his life to ever point out to him that the letters in his last name can be rearranged to spell “Rocket?” Neither can I!

So you’re aware of how great Comandante Zero are, please check out this video that proves that EVEN PARROTS CAN’T RESIST DANCING TO THEM!!!

Today was an awesomely productive day.

I had the day off today, and boy did I put it to great use! Here’s what I got done today:

1. FINISHED THE TRACK FOR MY SONG “SAY IT,” FINALLY AFTER SO MANY WEEKS OF TRYING! This track was driving me nuts because I’d listen to it and think it was good the way it was, then listen to it again and have a nagging feeling it needed to be tweaked and filled out more, but I never knew what to do with it until today when I fixed the beat to be a little different than the same old dance beat and added a string part that really gives the chorus some more urgency and meat. Whether it’s the absolute best it could be remains to be seen, but I think people will really like it and it will be great once I put vocals on it and play with those vocals in the studio. This might be a very auto-tuned song, but it will be on purpose.

2. Finally made the facebook event page for our big house party concert coming up on December 19th and invited all 1400-something of my facebook friends. I had been meaning to do that for a couple weeks and now it’s finally done. It prompted someone I met at a networking event to get back in touch with me, which is awesome. I think since the show’s free and on a Saturday night we’ll get a much better turnout than usual, and I’m looking forward to that.

3. Rescheduled the band rehearsal to a different space and notified the band.

4. Caught up on allllllll the emails I hadn’t answered from last Wednesday to now (fan mail and personal). Everyone wants a piece of me this week. Oyoyoy. But fun stuff ahead! I LOVE that my fans are really starting to keep in touch with me regularly and on an ongoing basis, and are writing back to my fan emails. That was the idea all along!

5. Added new fans to my email list, yay! I’m getting better at getting people on my list, which is great because that’s the most important place for them to be if they really want to stay up to date on what I’m up to!

6. Finished writing my parody song that I’ll upload to YouTube soon. Glad it’s still in the iTunes top ten! Got to tape and upload it quickly though…

7. Got the final details ironed out for my private show coming up. This one will be a lot of fun and will generate some great YouTube videos for me to upload! And hopefully they’ll also be good for using to book more private shows like this one!

8. Worked out my look for the private show. It looks great. Includes a new silver sparkle hoodie I found over the weekend (at the same shopping complex where I found my other one!), which has way more sparkles on it than the other one. I’m so excited to debut the look!

9. Pre-purchased distribution for my forthcoming album (now 75% DONE!) from TuneCore to get the 25% savings on it. Can’t believe it will finally be time to put it out there soon! Also can’t believe how late it is given the deadline I gave myself of late September, hehe.

So it was a great day and I feel great for having accomplished so much. I still have SO many things I want to do tomorrow, like practice for my show, upload a lot of YouTube vlog/rants on various topics, upload the new music I have to share, and on and on. But for now, what I got done today will have to do. See you at my show on December 19th!

 

In case you care…

I wrote a little piece for the PenTales 20 project. See if you can find which one is mine! (I’m only making you find it because the site won’t give me a direct link to give you.)

Find it here!

Free beer and snacks on December 19th!

There, did that get your attention? Just wanted to make sure you’re getting as hyped up as I am about my free house party show with my band and Comandante Zero on Saturday December 19th, 9pm at a secret location that you must email me at talktojccassis AT gmail DOT com to receive, or you can just check out the facebook invite I’ll send out.

This show is going to be really great, and I’m hoping for a great turnout. It’s free, it’s fun, there’ll be music and beer and snacks and a great NYC apartment–what more could you ask for?? Plus, finally finally finally, it’s on a SATURDAY NIGHT! No more of this Wednesday/Thursday BS. We are playing real nights now!

Check out my music here as always, and Comandante Zero’s amazing electro-funk here.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Here’s the video that used my song, and other news!

So when I googled “Kokopax,” the company that used my song, I found the video above! It’s on their company’s home page too! (www.kokopax.com) I think the song fits perfectly and really enhances the video, so I’m glad it worked out. Also, I wrote the company a thank you email and got one right back from the owner of the company, telling me how they’d picked my song and been really happy with it. That was awesome. So if you’re having or already have a baby, check out Kokopax when you need to buy a baby carrier or diaper bag! Is that me selling out? Hahaha.

In other news, I just went into the studio and had “Friday Night Forever” mixed and mastered, and it sounds truly excellent. We transformed one of my voice parts in the song into a robot voice and it adds so much to the song. This is the song I’ll be submitting to the latest ReverbNation promo campaign, so I don’t want to put it up anywhere else just yet, but I hope to get back in the studio to finish “Good Time” and “Hold For Your Lovin’” this Sunday so at least I’ll be able to put those out for you to hear. I am soooooo close to finishing all the tracks for my album, and I’m already getting lots of great ideas for sassy, fun pop songs for the next record.

I’m also looking forward to finishing doing all the solitary work of making all the tracks and recording vocals so I can start collaborating and performing like mad, and sending my demo around to industry people. That’s when the fun part will really start!

Going into the studio again!

I’m so excited to have booked some studio time for this Sunday so I can finish up “Friday Night Forever,” the song I”ll be submitting to ReverbNation’s sponsored songs program, and hopefully also “Good Time,” which has been a big hit at shows.

Once the songs are done I’ll put them up here and on my website for your listening pleasure!

YEEEEESSSSSSSS!

Today, after about a YEAR of having my music in three music libraries/licensing companies, I finally received the letter I’ve always been waiting for: one that said a song of mine had been licensed in someone’s project and I got paid for it!!! I’ve finally popped my licensing cherry and hopefully this will be one of many licensing successes to come. Since I’ve been so busy finding my sound, writing a ton and putting together my CD, I haven’t had a chance to get into really pushing my songs for licensing opportunities (which bring in exposure and money!) just yet, but I’m so glad that something was finally used and paid for, and it is always great to receive unexpected checks in the mail.

The statement wasn’t that detailed and just said that the instrumental for “Chocolate Cake” was used in someone’s “video,” but I really want to track down the person who used it to see the song in action–that would be so cool! I also want to send them a thank you note, haha! I can’t wait to get my new music in the licensing world and see how it does, since it’s so different from the first stuff I put out.

In other news, I’ve got to put the pedal to the metal and get a new song done and ready to release because Reverb Nation is doing another sponsored song promotional campaign and if I get selected, I’ll be in the running to win 500 bucks through getting people to vote for me online, and luckily my friends, family and fans have always been wonderful about voting for me in online competitions, so I really hope I can get enough support to win. $500 would cover a significant portion of the costs to record more material, or it could go towards a PR campaign, which I so desperately need to help kickstart things to the next level.

The longer I do this, the more I realize there really is at least a small part time living to be made at it, through finding paid performances, doing sponsored song programs, singing on other people’s demos, and licensing music, in addition to selling music and merch, and if you’re willing to put a lot of time and effort into it, it can be a significant income. You do have to spend the time hustling, but that time spent will bring in money one way or another. That is a really nice thing to know.

So now I just need to finish recording vocals for my album, make the album art, compile the demo, get hard copies of the demo and the album, rehearse for the show in December, prep for my third show at Spence, and start hitting the blogs hard for publicity etc. The exciting part is about to begin!!

Follow me on Twitter for all the up-to-the-minute-updates: twitter.com/jccassis.

How to properly use and respond to the phrase “Hey girl!”

Because people be actin’ like they don’t know!