Rock of Ages rocked me!

My oldest daughter bought my wife and I tickets to see "Rock of Ages" on Broadway to celebrate our anniversary today. As everyone knows, I love 80s hard rock and hair metal so I was really looking forward to the play. We had to endure a freak snowstorm to get there but it was awesome. I won't spoil the plot of the play for anyone who might want to see it but I will say that if you like the music of that era, you will love this play!

One thing that I took away from the play besides all the amazing and talented singers/actors in the play and the great live music being played, is how the songs were used within the play. It reinforced to me of the power of music and how a song can be one thing to someone and something different to someone else based on what is going on within their lives. There was one moment where Poison's (my favorite band from that era!) song "Every rose has its thorn" was used and it was sung by about 5 or so different characters from the play, all with very different storylines. It was so cool to see how the song applied to each of them and their situations. The power of music. Such a wonderful thing.

St. Louis Cardinals win the World Series!

As you all know, I'm a diehard Mets fan but what many don't know is that the Cardinals are my second favorite team. I'm a huge fan of Pujols (I hope he stays with the Cards) and he is my favorite player outside of my Mets. David Wright is my favorite current Mets player. Mike Piazza is my favorite all-time Met, along with Tom Seaver.

Anyway, this is about the Cardinals who just won the World Series in dramatic fashion. This was such a great World Series with some of the most competitive games in the history of the Series. The Cards just wouldn't quit and were a team of destiny against a very strong Rangers team. Congrats to the Cardinals, the city of St. Louis and to the fans of the Cardinals (some of baseball's best and most devoted fans). Congrats to the 2011 Champions!

My latest reading material

I've recently revived my interest in astronomy, ancient history and ancient mysteries. I really like to learn about the past and the how and why of things, especially things that have yet to be explained even in this modern day and age. It's something I've always been interested in but haven't taken the time to read or explore further. Now though, I'm taking my spare time to read and journey through time and space. It's a wild ride!

Society's Soul on Twitter

My alt-rock band Society's Soul is now on Twitter at www.twitter.com/SocietysSoul!

Follow and get to know about Society's Soul and what it's about. Also, get to know all the latest as it happens since I'll be headed into the studio soon! New single soon!

P.S. - Society's Soul is a separate project from what I'm doing solo as Mario M. (El Rockero)

Exclusive interview for WCR News subscribers!

I did an exclusive interview for my record label's newsletter that will be sent this Friday to all subscribers! Sign up now before Friday to get the interview! It takes less than a minute to sign-up for the monthly e-newsletter and it's free!

WCR News sign-up

My new album "El Camino Espiritual" is now available!

Dreamers y sonadores!

My new album "El Camino Espiritual" is out today! You can go right now and order it at www.worldconquestrecords.com I'm so excited to share my new music with you all. I want to thank you all, for all your support and patience over the past several years. Even though I had delays that couldn't be helped, you all stuck with me and I actually saw my fan base grow! An artist can't ask for more than that! So, thank you. I hope you enjoy my new album. I share a lot of emotions and personal thoughts in this album. It is by far my most personal album to date which says a lot since I write and sing from a very emotional place. I hope you see and feel my spiritual journey through my songs and I hope that if you are going through your own spiritual journey that my songs can help you.

Terra Nova - dinosaurs + Spielberg = happy me!

Tonight was the debut of Terra Nova and I really liked it! I'm a big dinosaur fan and I just love watching dinosaur related movies and shows. When I was young, I wanted to be a fossil hunter. I used to read lots of books on dinosaurs. In recent years, the dinosaur field has really exploded with new discoveries and I've tried to keep up with it. Yup, I'm a dinosaur nerd! Proud of it too!

I really loved the first 2 Jurassic Park movies and liked the dinos in the 3rd one. The books were really good. I hear there's a new Jurassic Park movie in the works, looking forward to that. So, when I heard Spielberg was involved with Terra Nova, I was there and wasn't disappointed. The human characters are pretty good too! ;)

My new album will be out on Friday 9/30/11!!

Hello dreamers!

I autographed copies of my new album "El Camino Espiritual" that will be out this Friday 9/30 and if you sign up to my record label's mailing list & the mailing list on my official site AND you order the album, then you will receive one of the autographed copies! Limited time only! Thank you for your support!!


Hola sonadores!

Yo hice copias autografiadas de mi nuevo álbum "El Camino Espiritual" que saldrá este viernes 9/30 y si Ud. se inscribe a la lista de correo de mi sello discográfico y la lista de correo en mi sitio oficial y ordenas mi álbum, recibirá uno de los discos autografiados! Mas que por un tiempo limitado. Gracias por su apoyo!!

Download my single on my official site!

Dreamers!

You can now go to my official site and buy the download of my single right on my site's home page! Go check it out now and get your download of my single "Que sera".
http://www.mariomelrockero.com

Sonadores!

Ahora pueden ir a mi sitio oficial y comprar el download de mi sencillo ahi mismo en mi pagina de Home. Ve ahora a ver y busca tu download de mi sencillo "Que sera".
http://www.mariomelrockero.com

The space shuttle's last flight

Today the space shuttle Atlantis took off on its final flight and mission. I watched the launch and flight into space with a taste of bittersweet. It is always amazing to watch one of man's greatest accomplishments, to launch a vehicle into outer space but this was also sad to watch knowing it was the very last space shuttle flight. I've always been a big fan of NASA and am a big believer that man should continue its exploration of space and finding better ways to get farther out into the galaxy. It's man's destiny to go beyond Earth. It angers me that the government and NASA have shut down the space shuttles without any replacement vehicle in the near future. I understand that the shuttles are old and need to be replaced but how can they shut them down and decommission them without having a system ready to go? Just seems short-sighted to me. I also think that having our astronauts shuttled to and from the space station via russian rocketships as something that shouldn't be happening. I hope NASA shows a better plan for the future.

Big news on my single & album!

Dreamers!

Today my record label World Conquest Records announced that my single "Que sera" will be released on July 15th and also released the CD covers for my single and upcoming album "El Camino Espiritual"! Go to http://www.worldconquestrecords.com now to go see them and to pre-order my CD single now!

Any pre-orders for my CD single before July 15th will be personally autographed by me! Go order your copy now! Thanks for your support!

The Voice finale, the winner is...

Tonight was The Voice finale and it was a really good show filled with cool performances (some ok, some good and some great). The final 2 came down to a contrast of styles with Javier Colon against Dia Frampton. Javier's inclusion in one of the early The Voice commercials was what got my interest in the show early on. I saw this guy doing this amazing version of a Cyndi Lauper song and thought wow, this guy is really talented. I have to see this guy and hear more. Dia's style and voice is also really interesting but IMO the easy winner was Javier. Indeed, Javier became the first The Voice winner but I suspect that we'll be seeing and hearing lots from a bunch of these contestants. The Voice's season was real short but it was very good and I'm already looking forward to the next season of it!

My new official site! :)

Hey dreamers!

Go check out my new official site - http://www.mariomelrockero.com Lots of cool stuff on there for you all to check out. Make sure to sign up for my mailing list!

Sonadores!

Vaya ver mi nuevo sitio oficial - http://www.mariomelrockero.com Hay muchas cosas cool alla que todo uds. puedan ver. No olvides inscribirte a mi lista!

Proud parent!

Busy week for me, (on top of everything else), my 2 young daughters are graduating this week. My youngest is graduating 5th grade tomorrow and my middle daughter is graduating in 2 days! I'm soooo proud of my little ladies of course! :)

The Voice

You all know I love American Idol and watching new talents discovered and developed before our eyes. I've also watched CMT's Next Superstar which was very good. Now comes "The Voice". At first the concept seemed curious but then I saw a 14 minute teaser and I found myself really wanting to see it. The talent shown on the teaser was just so good. I can't say the show disappointed in any form. The talent was very good and the concept of the blind auditions for the judges who just had a voice and no image to go by was very fresh and cool. The judges had good chemistry and I liked how competitive they were with each other and how there was even a bit of trash talking going on. I'm really looking forward to more episodes of this show!

Cool video I saw today

I saw the video today for Brett Eldredge's song "Raymond". First time I've heard the song and saw the video and the video really touched me. It reminded me of my mom when she was rehabbing in the nursing home. I remember seeing so many older folks there that wouldn't get visits from family or friends. One of the things that the administration at the place always used to rave about my family was that we were always there to visit my mom and I was always on top of any issues she needed addressed. It was so sad to hear them tell me that many of the patients there wouldn't have any visitors at all, not even once a week. They were just dumped there and forgotten by their families and former loved ones. That's really tragic. No one should spend their last days alone and feeling unloved. I want to do something to help this and bring awareness to this, I guess this is my start to doing that. I really recommend checking out the video, search for it - it's worth seeing.

Sad news about a great Mets player

Just read some news today about former Mets great Gary Carter being diagnosed with brain cancer. Doesn't sound good. :(

I'm a huge Mets fan, even though I've lived most of my life in the Bronx (Yankees territory). I've always liked the underdogs and root for them so it was natural for me to like the Mets growing up. The '86 team was a great team that is still celebrated today and Gary Carter was a huge part of the heart and energy of that team. Gary always showed lots of heart and determination, many days he spent getting his knees drained so he could go and play that night. For a catcher to have his knees drained every day and then going out and playing 9 innings shows heart and determination beyond the norm. I know Gary will use that in this fight as well and I wish him the best in this, the fight of his life. He and his family are in my prayers.

American Idol season 10 finale!

Well, here we go. AI finale night! Lots of cool performances and we get the winner!

All the contestants did Lady Gaga's "Born this way". Very cool.

James performed "Living after midnight" & "Breaking the law" with Judas Priest. Way cool to see Priest on TV!

Jacob performed "I smile" with Kirk Franklin. I love this song. Gladys Knight came out to join. I have always been very awed by Gladys Knight since I was a kid. This was too cool.

Casey performed Queen's "Fat bottomed girls" with Jack Black. That was er... mighty interesting. Lol.

The Top 13 girls performed a Beyonce medley of "Single ladies", "Irreplaceable", "Get your body", "If I were a boy" and "Deja Vu". Beyonce came out to do Crazy in love. That's big!

Haley performed "Stepping out" with Tony Bennett.

Lil Jon & TLC performed. The girls came out to join TLC on "Waterfalls". Weird to see TLC without Lisa. :(

Scotty performed "Live like you're dying" with Tim McGraw.

Mark Anthony performed. JLo came out to dance for him. Lol!

The top guys performed a Tom Jones medley, Tom came out to sing "It's not unusual" with the guys.

Lady Gaga performed "The edge of glory". Great performance as usual.

Lauren performed Carrie Underwood's "Before he cheats". Carrie joined her. How awesome was that for Lauren to sing with her Idol? Cool.

Beyonce performed her new single "One plus one".

A spiderman performance? 'Nuff said.

Steve Tyler performed his great song "Dream on".

Official results time! Scotty was calm & cool. Lauren was hyperventilating. And the winner is... Scotty!! Congrats to the newest American Idol!!

Congrats to the 2011 American Idol winner!

So, tonight was the AI finale and it was filled with good performances by contestants who should have good & interesting careers ahead. I'll be listening out for their music!

In the end, Scotty won America's vote over Lauren. I'm happy for Scotty, he seems to be a good kid and he has quite a career ahead. But my winner is still Lauren and I will look forward to hearing more from her and wish her a great career.

Congrats to both, they're both winners. Fans of country music such as myself are winners as well as we'll be hearing plenty of good country music from these two for decades to come. :)

American Idol: Lauren & Scotty sing for our votes!

So.... I had a problem with my phone app and it wiped out all my notes for last night's AI :/

So, I guess that means you'll get a short version of my AI thoughts instead. I can just see some of you celebrating my brevity so settle down! ;)

I wasn't happy to hear of Lauren's vocal problems but she looked determined and not defeated by it so that was good to see.

Scotty sounded good doing his favorite song of the season. Lauren sounded really good doing her favorite song, the raspiness actually added a nice quality to her voice. I gave the oh so slight edge to Scotty in that round.

The next round was doing songs that were given to them by their Idols. George Strait picked a good song for Scotty but I felt he had a little trouble with the higher notes. Carrie Underwood picked a real good song for Lauren that I think she would've really done well had her voice been better. By this point she was beginning to lose volume in her voice.

The last round was Iovine giving them what will be their 1st singles. Scotty's song was nice for a first single but Lauren's song was so strong and perfect for her that I think it removed any doubt as to who the winner of Idol should be.

In case you're still wondering then here's my pick for American Idol 2011 winner - Lauren!!!! :)