Thank You

Led Zeppelin cover live at the Pie on 7/7/08:

867-5309 (Jenny)

Tommy Tutone cover live at the Pie on 7/7/08:

The Scientist

Coldplay cover live at the Pie on 7/7/08:

One

U2 cover live at the Pie on 7/7/08:

Mike, Valia, and Timmy meet Barack Obama. He's really tall in person!

Tainted Love

Soft Cell cover live at the Pie on 6/2/08:

Paint It, Black

Rolling Stones cover live at the Pie on 6/2/08:

Creep

Radiohead cover live at the Pie on 6/2/08:

This Mistake

For Memorial Day, a YouTube video for my Iraq War protest song.

Warning Sign

A great Coldplay song.

A Day in the Life

My first home video recording. The song (which needs no introduction) was requested by my sister Michele.

Mike gets a haircut.

Happy six months, Timothy!

I've uploaded pictures of Timothy and family from June and July here. Pictures from March and April are here.

I've created a page for pictures of Timothy here.

Please join Valia and I in welcoming Timothy Michael Masse to our family. He was born on Friday, February 9, 2007, at 9:29 a.m. At birth, he weighed 8 pounds, 5 ounces, and was 22 inches long. He was too big for his mom to deliver, so after inducing labor and trying for 20 hours, we ended up doing a C section. His blood sugar was low at birth, so he was in the n.i.c.u. for a few days. But he and his mom are home now and both are doing well.

You can now find my new CD, "Live at the Pie," at any of my gigs. It's a compilation of 20 songs recorded over the past few years live at the Pie (and thus, the clever name).

And it's noteworthy that this month marks the 14th anniversary of my first Pie gig!

"American Mormon in Europe" is out now! It's great fun and also has great heart. I highly recommend it. Not to mention, I was the Music Supervisor, and I also wrote several pieces of original music (including the theme song) for the project. You can read an article about it here and, more importantly, you can BUY IT HERE.

Valia and I went to London and the Ukraine this summer, and Valia went from there to visit Belarus. We had a great time. You can see pictures from our London trip here, from our Ukraine trip here, and from Valia's Belarus trip here.

We've created a website for Monica here. Family members and Monica herself will be posting there with the latest information about Monica's fight against her cancer. Your encouraging comments are welcome.

My sister, Monica Spontarelli, has been diagnosed with a malignant tumor in her brain. She's 42 years old and has a 10-year-old daughter, Allison.

Please remember them in your prayers.

I've written a new song called "This Mistake".

Why is that a big deal? Because I haven't written a song in about five years. It's a protest song inspired by what John Kerry, just back from Vietnam, said in April 1971 when he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and posed the question,

"How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

"This Mistake" will be the Track of the Day at GarageBand.com for Friday, the 2nd of June, 2006.

We get to be a Nielsen family this week. We've got a diary, so it's not the long-term, more real-time kind of ratings, sadly. It's more of a May sweeps thing. But I'm still hoping we can give a Nielsen shout out to such greats as Countdown with Keith Olbermann, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.

Valia got her license as a Marriage and Family Therapist! She's very relieved and I'm very proud of her.

Looks like I'll be playing at the two Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District Garden Fairs again this year. The dates are May 20 and September 16th. Like last year, these gigs are ideal for those who don't like eating pizza on weeknights, but would still like to see me perform live. So come hear what I sound like on a Saturday morning.

My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over. (OK, well my nightmare, anyway.) I'm no longer using any Yamaha mLan equipment with my home studio (see posts below from last year). I've replaced that buggy mLan stuff with the lovely RME Fireface 800. What a difference stable, reliable, responsive drivers/hardware can make! My home recording setup feels brand new. I'll still use the Yamaha stuff for live mixing/recording--no issues there.

So I'm off to get some music done!

Valia and I have bought a house and moved to Woods Cross, UT.

I've been immortalized with my own Internet Movie Database (IMDb) page. Fun!

American Mormon came out on DVD today. I wrote and performed a few songs for it (that I recorded in my home studio), including the theme song. It features my good friend, Daryn Tufts. You can get a copy here.

Valia got a full-time therapist job at Davis Behavioral Health. We're both very excited for her!

Valia and I went to Florida on vacation to visit my dad in Ft. Myers Beach, and then to visit Satellite Beach, the town where I grew up. We then met up with my mom and siblings for four days in Orlando at Disney World. It was fun! I've posted the pictures here.

I got a Yamaha i88x audio/midi interface, which is the perfect complement to the Yamaha 01x I got last month (see below). The pre-amps on the i88x are comparable to those found on professional Yamaha mixing boards, and they sound amazing--very transparent and clean.

I've booked gigs at the Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District's Garden Fair again this year. The dates are June 4, July 9, and September 10th. These gigs are ideal for those who don't like eating pizza on weeknights, but would still like to see me perform live.

I got some sad news today when I read that Sirius Satellite Radio will no longer be carrying Air America. Apparently they've signed an exclusive deal with XM Satellite Radio. I promptly canceled my Sirius account. Air America was the main reason I subscribed. I enjoyed listening to it in the car or in my office. I got all this fun Sirius hardware for Christmas last year, and now it's just going to sit idle. My pre-paid Sirius subscription runs out in late June. Anyone want some Sirius radio stuff cheap?

I don't know if I can bring myself to subscribe to XM. Their music channels don't look so hot in comparison--no jam bands channel (Grateful Dead, Phish, etc.), e.g. Besides, after the big Sirius investment, I don't want to be burned again.

I got a new digital mixer, a Yamaha 01x. It's very exciting! The sound quality is superb. I can use it as a live mixer and as my primary audio interface for home/live recording into my computer. Anyway, it's big news to me! I've been saving for it for months, and I grabbed one in perfect condition off eBay.

I've overhauled this site, giving it a more consistent appearance from page to page. I hope you enjoy the new look. I think it's nifty.

Valia and I went to Seattle for Christmas to visit my brother and his family. I've uploaded pictures from our trip here.

Valia and I went to California and Las Vegas in October. I've uploaded pictures from our trip here.

Valia and I went to visit Russia and Belarus on vacation. It was also my first chance to meet her family. I've uploaded pictures from our trip here.