I just stepped on the plane in C-town to begin another fun and exciting week of globetrotting around the world with Herman’s Hermits. This one starts out in Orlando, FL and ends in Singapore. Yes, I’ll be eating quite a few meals at 30,000ft this week.

I want to thank everyone for making my birthday so special this year…. All the cards, gifts, emails, and text messages I received plus the posting on Peter’s forum were truly heart-warming. Every time another b-day goes by it reminds me of all the good times I’ve had since the last one. So I think I’ll share just few of those Kodak moments.

Last November as I was at the fair buyers convention in Las Vegas at the Hard Rock Café, I spirited away Wendy Kay of Utopia Artists, Meredith of Paradise Artists and Dina of Mars Talent to see the show my girlfriend performed in called “The Soprano’s Last Supper”. Here’s a picture of us with the three stars of the show, Kellie Karl, Tommy Lynch & Dean Mauro. All three of them have since left the show and moved on to bigger and better things so I guess this pic could actually be called a collector’s item.

“Kellie, Rich, Tommy, Dina, Dean, Meredith & Wendy”

Below is a pic of me on stage at the House Of Blues singing some Zep with my old friend Billy Morris (Warrant, Quiet Riot) last December at a tribute concert to Mitch Karczewski, a longtime Cleveland booking agent/manager who passed away.

“with Billy Morris”

In February of this year I went to Malaysia for the first time. The concerts were a great success. Here’s a picture of Peter and Hermits after the show with Dr. Ewe Jin Lim and his wife.

“Vance, Peter, The doctor and his wife, Rich & Dave”

Back at the One World Hotel after the show I took over the piano for a bit and entertained Dr. Ewe Jin Lim and friends. The doctor joined in later and sang a couple of Bee Gee songs.

“having fun at the One World Hotel in Malaysia”

In the spring of this year we performed a show in the wonderful town of Torrington, CT. The Hermits and the Noonatics were staying at same hotel. It was a grand old hotel that some say is haunted. After the show, I snuck in at “Noonatic Central” to visit for a while. Noonatics can enter through the door….all others have to sneak in some other way. I entered via the window….and it was on the second floor!!!

“sneaking into Noonatic Central”

Upon entering, I discovered this mystical room with laptops everywhere and people typing away on them. When I asked what they were doing they told me that they were at this secretive place on Peter Noone’s website called the “chat room”. Well, after a few lessons from Mo I was off and running, chatting away for my very first time….under an alias of course!!!

“Mo teaching me how to chat”

Remember: Spina, Sullivan & Hudak will be doing a reunion show at the Mad Cactus the night before Thanksgiving. That’s November 26. Make sure you stop out and say hello. See ya when I get back from Singapore!!

I can’t believe October is almost over…It still feels like the month has just begun!!! Between touring as a Hermit, performing a couple of shows with “U41” and recording in my studio; the month sure flew by. But that’s a good thing.

I hope you all had a chance to go visit some haunted houses over the last couple of weeks leading up to Halloween. Sure beats sitting at home and having to suffer through all those wacky & boring political commercials on TV.  That is true torture. It was especially painful last week while I was watching the Browns lose to Washington and having to watch those commercials, too. But that is one of the nice things about the month almost being over….All those commercials will soon be OFF THE AIR.

While we’re on the subject: isn’t it a shame that “Joe the plumber” speaks better and clearer about what our country stands for than either of our presidential choices.  And if Mr. Obama is so committed to wanting us to “spread the wealth around” (code word for socialism), how come he hasn’t given some of those extra millions in campaign dollars he has to Mr. McCain?!?  That’s all for now. Have a fun, safe and happy Halloween.

I’m in sunny California (land of the free?? yeah, right) and thought I’d break out my Mac and talk a bit. I’ve actually been in C-town a lot this month…we got a little break from the road in September which enabled me to perform a few shows with “U41” & “The Cleveland Boys”. It also gave me a chance to catch up with some old friends and start recording “The Divas” (Debi Lewin & Jennifer Lee).

I want to thank all our friends that came out for our rare “Cleveland Boys” gig. The place was packed & some of our musician friends stopped by (Jim, Freddie, Diane) and sat in on a few songs. Ann Thompson from “After The Gig” also stopped in to say hello and snap a few pics for her website: afterthegig.com. All had a fun time.

“September 12 with The Cleveland Boys”

“Spina, Sullivan & Hudak” are doing a re-union!!! We will be performing a special re-union show on Wednesday, November 26th at our old favorite haunt, The Mad Cactus. That’s the evening before Thanksgiving and should be chock-full of our music, mayhem and fun. Don’t miss it!!

“myself, Mike and Billy aka Spina, Sullivan & Hudak”

Before I go I must take a moment to pontificate…Watch for Wes’ new 80’s band, which should be premiering very soon. I’d tell you their name except…THEY STILL DON’T HAVE ONE!!! Well, they’ve actually had 2 great names but the youngsters in the band had issues with the names that the adults came up with. Isn’t that kind of like the tail wagging the dog?! Come on already…I wanna hear you perform sometime this decade, that is, as long as you don’t try to DI (direct input) everything. Are you reading this Dave???? You too, Debi. That’s all for now!!

I was taking a leisurely walk down the Boardwalk in Atlantic City this evening on my day off and thought I’d drop you all a line. This road trip started a week and a half ago in Long Island NY and has taken us as far west as Seattle WA. So far, my favorite show this trip was last Friday in the black hills of South Dakota in a town called Deadwood. That’s the place where Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane are buried. Peter drew the largest crowd they ever had there.

This picture was taken from the stage about an hour before we took the stage. They even had big screens to show the performance to the audience that were 4 blocks down the street that we performed on. We had a wonderful time in this beautiful, historic town. The road trip ends on Sunday evening in Denver when Herman’s Hermits starring Peter Noone performs on the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon. We will be on between 10:00 & 11:00pm mountain time on August 31st which means for all of you in C-town it will air in the early morning hours of September 1st between midnight and 1:00am.

Reminder: The Cleveland Boys will be at The Mad Cactus in Strongsville on Friday September 12. We start at 9:30pm. The Cactus also serves some great tex/mex food until 1:00am and they have my favorite wings. I haven’t performed with the guys since April so it should be a blast!!

This is The Cleveland Boys after a show sometime last summer.

One more thing…Another band that I used to be in, The Cover Girls (I know, a strange name for a band with 2 guys in it), is going to reunite for a couple of shows in the very near future.

Here’s The Cover Girls a few years ago. We are going to perform in our original 4-piece line-up. That would be Debi Lewin, Jennifer Lee, Billy Sullivan and myself. As soon as we can get our vastly different schedules to line up, I’ll let you know.

Time for a little comic relief so I’m gonna sign off and watch a bit of the democratic national convention. Cheers!!

I’m flying home from Reno and thought I’d pull out my Mac and post a quick blog. With all the traveling I’m doing as a Hermit, this summer has gone by sooooo fast. But I love it!! And I did squeeze a few different things in at home in between all the travel.

On July 23rd I slipped in a show at the Rock-n-Roll Hall Of Fame playing keyboards for Chubby Checker. It was a blast!!! Chubby was great and I got to work with my buddy Tommy C who is Chubby Checker’s musical director. A day later I did a concert with “U41”; on this show I played bass…my fingers are still sore!! Then Jeff Varga stopped by my studio and I produced & played keys on a beautiful piece of music that he wrote for an upcoming equestrian event. My studio always had multiple projects going on at the same time until about a year and a half ago when I decided I was traveling too much and needed a break from recording. But since I blew the dust off my console while recording Jeff, I guess it’s time to start recording and producing some new and exciting projects again. Shhh…don’t tell anyone…but I hear that the lovely Debi Lewin will be recording her new CD in September.

A couple more things…look for Herman’s Hermits starring Peter Noone performing on the Jerry Lewis Telethon this coming Labor Day weekend. Wow, I performed in so many Telethons as a “Playboy” and now I get to do it again as a “Hermit”. And on September 12 the Cleveland Boys will be performing at my old hangout, The Mad Cactus. It will only be the second time we’ve been able to perform together this year so it should be a good time for all.

Oops, we’re about to land in C-town and I’m being told to shutdown my laptop. So I’ll sign-off for now. See ya soon!!!

I just learned how to add images to my blogs. I guess I’ll have to start making use of the camera on my blackberry. Right now I only have pics that people have sent me.

Here’s one of “U41” in front of the City Mission bus that we helped to fill with food before our concert in May at Seekers Coffee house which, by the way, happens to be my favorite coffee shop in the country. I stop there at least once a week when I’m off the road.

I don’t remember what state this pic was taken in, (confusion maybe), but it was this year at a Noonatic “do”. Noonatics are fans of Peter Noone and a “do” is a social get together before a show where they get to ask Peter all kinds of questions. Always interesting. I’m a fan of the Noonatics.

In July of 2007, Peter & the Hermits performed with the Louisville Orchestra. It was my favorite show that year. Here’s a few snapshots from that day.

Chris Pati rehearsing the orchestra. He was our conductor and he also wrote the wonderful arrangements.

We’re getting ready to rehearse with the orchestra. Vance just found out he had to wear a tie for this concert, that’s why he looks crestfallen.

Dave and I sharing a laugh at something funny Peter said during soundcheck.

On stage that evening at the Louisville Zoo with the Louisville Orchestra.

That’s all for now!!!

Hello, I know it’s been awhile since I’ve posted a message but as you can see, we put a fresh face on my website. Since I can’t do anything about my own face I thought I could at least try to spruce up my site. With the fresh face comes this new blog section. I will be posting blogs weekly along with pics of my escapades on the road, that is, as soon as I can figure out HOW to upload pics onto my blog. I will also keep you updated on all other projects that I’m involved in plus any new or funny things going on in my crazy world.

I understand that some of you were experiencing problems on my “Merchandise” page while attempting to purchase multiple CDs via PayPal over the past couple of months. That problem has been fixed and now works fine. The “links” page on my website has been updated and now a bit more interesting. This blog page also contains a “links” section but it’s completely different from the one on my site…directed more at other interesting blogs.

One of the “other” projects I’ve been involved in is Donna Bernsdorf’s band “U41”. I produced their debut album….oops…I mean debut CD titled “Work In Progress” and I’m also now a band member. So far this year, the band has enjoyed seeing four songs off the CD go straight to number 1 on the internet music site IndieHeaven.com. U41 also performed a concert to help out the City Mission of Cleveland at Seekers Coffee House. People gained free admission by bringing a food donation to the City Mission bus that was parked out front. Needless to say, the concert was a huge success; a full house for our concert and the entire bus was filled with food. Locally I’ve not performed much with either the Cleveland Boys or my piano bar this year due to the heavy tour schedule I’ve had but I’ll have more time to perform in C-town by autumn. I plan on booking more local dates as soon as my tour schedule lightens. Stay tuned!!

Before I go I have a question…since Marion Jones had to give back her gold medals for cheating by using steroids in the Olympics, shouldn’t AL Gore have to give back his Academy Award for the documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” after it was discovered by ABC News that one of the famous shots of the Antarctic ice shelves was actually a computer-generated image from the 2004 science fiction movie “The Day After Tomorrow”? Hmmm. I guess if he doesn’t have to give back his Oscar then the question should be; when does science fiction become a documentary? Maybe Michael Moore has the answer. Cheers!!