We had a blast at the show, and hope to be back soon!

Click the picture below to see all of the photos Ed took.

I’ve got send a big thank you out to the staff and crew of Summerfest. They were all incredibly nice and made the festival such a blast.

Here’s a video from the performance.

Click below to check it out, and leave them a comment!

This summer, I’m honored to be playing as part of the Emerging Artist Series in the world’s largest music festival– Summerfest in Milwaukee. Your votes helped me get there as part of the Next American Star last year.

I have the opportunity to be one of 11 artists featured on a compilation CD that will be passed out to thousands of music fans and industry professionals. But I need your help!

Please vote for me as your favorite Emerging Artist by following the instructions below. You can vote once per day, per e-mail address, starting now until May 21st, 2010 11:59EST.

Follow these simple steps below:

1. Click here to visit the voting page
2. You’ll have to enter your e-mail address (so they can keep track of votes) and your birthday.
3. Next you’ll receive an e-mail asking you to confirm your address, click on the link in the e-mail. If you’ve voted for me before, you might be skipped to the next step
4. Select me as your favorite artist (I’m 10th down)
5. Press “CAST YOUR VOTE”! at the bottom of the page
6. Rinse and repeat in 24 hours

Thanks for taking the time to vote. I really appreciate all of your support!

Click here to register on Ourstage to be able to vote; it’s quick and easy, and they won’t bug you with tons of emails. Once you’re registered head over to the Lilith Local Talent Search: Hartford Channel to vote for me to win the opening slot! Voting continues all this month, so please take a little time every day to vote for my song ‘Please Forgive Me’, and encourage your friends to do the same.

Quite frankly, mixing can be a downright boring process, fine tuning every little drum kick and lining up every last guitar track, but as I’m understanding more about all the mumbo-jumbo on the computer screen, I’m taking part in the whole thing a lot more too. That’s not to say I didn’t have any say in my music thus far, it’s just now I know what I’m talking about when I want something changed. Instead of “that doesn’t sound right”, I can say “bring those levels down and put less delay on that”, and get exactly what I want. So far we’ve mixed five tracks in about 6 days, and fit in some lunch-time sailing trips. You can only take so many hours in a room listening to the same thing again and again. Granted iPad games help too; I recommend Diner Dash.

One thing I do love about mixing is falling in love with my songs again. You take so much time writing the song, then so much time producing and recording it that when those steps are done, I never want to hear the damn thing again. But after some time away from the track, hearing it mixed, I remember why I wrote it inthe first place, and get to hear it pretty much exactly as it was in my head.

It’s been a long wait to put this album together, but I can definitely say I am very proud of it. I’ll always be a singer-songwriter, but on this album, I get to rock out a little too. Look out for a single soon, and check out the couple of shows I have coming up. I’m heading down to my alma mater, the University of Delaware, for a special alumni show with some old friends, and then it’s the 4th annual Amity Cares Habitat for Humanity Benefit Concert at my high school alma mater. Hope to see you all soon!

Chad Dawson is a hometown champ here in CT, so it was great to share the ring with him. Gary Shaw (the promoter) even said after the win that I may be their good luck charm!

Here are some pictures from the evening.

We’re back from Chicago and had an absolutely awesome time at The Next American Star National Finals. The band and I only had three days in Chicago, but managed to get to Uno’s, scarf down an Italian beef sandwich at Portillo’s, check out the Art Institute, and get around Chicago marathon traffic.

Oh, and we also rocked a street festival in the freezing cold.

We arrived in Chicago to rain on Friday morning, but that night headed over to the Crimson Lounge at the Hotel Sax, a very cool Chicago music-themed hotel. We met all of the competing bands and the Next American Star staff, and got to hear everyone play a short acoustic set, then headed over to Pete Wentz’s Angels and Kings for the after-party. It was a great way to kick off the festivities.

Saturday was the final performance at Clark/Belmont Street Fest, complete with headliner Vanilla Ice (he played at our finals at the Fillmore NYC, and once again brought the house down). My set was early in the day so I could play for the kids from the Starlight Children foundation– they made our day as much as we made theirs. The temperature was already dropping fast at 1:30– my nose was so red that you could tie me to the front of the sleigh. Despite the cold, and the wind, we played an awesome set that I felt really great about. We opened with Trust Me (as usual) and debuted a new song, Waste My Time; I’m in the middle of recording it right now and can’t wait for you all to hear it. We also made it on the local ABC 6 o’clock news! Anyone have any footage?

I could barely feel my hands when I got off stage, and I ended up going into the clothing store near the stage about 3 times to buy more layers as it got colder while waiting for Ice’s set (anyone else see the irony here?). My band also did an incredible job playing without any feeling left in their hands or faces… the crowd was into it, so that kept us warm enough.

We had Sunday free– it was a tad warmer– so we got some sight-seeing in and capped off the weekend with some late night blues at Kingston Mines before we headed home early Monday morning (thank you, Delta, for getting our instruments back and forth safely). I’ve put some photos up from the weekend, and will have some video up soon.

I want to send a big “thank you” to the entire TNAS staff for all of their hard work in making the weekend so much fun. We can’t wait to be back in Chicago.

Don’t forget that voting is open through October 31st, so we still need your votes to be The Next American Star!

View a slideshow here.

On Sunday, the band and I had a great final rehearsal at The Space with the help of my buddy Travis Bell from Adorea Studios. We were able to work out the final kinks and left feeling really confident about the show on Saturday…until I got the forecast! Now, I know Chicago can be cold in October, but the weather forecasters are saying it could snow! Hopefully the bad weather will stay away from the Street Fest on Saturday, and from our flight home Monday morning.

For those of you in the Chicago area, we’ll be playing a kick-off show at the Crimson Lounge in the Hotel Sax Chicago on Friday night, and playing at the Clark/Belmont Street Fest on Saturday at 1:30. The street fest goes on all day and all night, so come for our set, and stay for Vanilla Ice! Don’t forget, we still need everyone’s votes to win the competition, and voting has been extended through Halloween, so head over to The Next American Star to register and start giving us your supervotes once a day.

I’ll keep you updated from my twitter!

Check out the article here and leave a comment with your thoughts.