When I was younger, and I mean much younger I really use to love going to concerts.

I grew up in Charleston, South Carolina which is not know as a music city. Even though Charleston was not know for music it did have its share of concerts in the 70's

I attended my first concert when I was in the 9th grade so I guess that was around 1969. We went to see a concert by a singer named Alice Cooper.

I was not familiar with Alice Cooper, but assumed she would be worth the $2 it cost to buy a ticket to see her. One great thing about concerts in the 70's was the price. If a concert cost more than $3 it was way too expensive.

I really don't know how kids afford to see concerts today when tickets can cost over $100.

When I arrived at the concert I was in for a big surprise. Alice Cooper was not a girl. Alice was a male hard core rocker, and his concert was really great. I mean it was fantastic. I had never seen anything like it.

That concert started my trend of seeing as many concerts as possible. Over the next 10 years I went to just about every concert I had the opportunity to attend.

I made the following list for a Facebook Post some time ago, but thought I would share it here.

These are bands I remember seeing in concert. What bands have you seen in concert?

1. Alice Cooper
2. Black Sabbath
3. Rolling Stones
4. James Brown
5. SteppenWolf
6. Allman Brothers
7. Three Dog Night
8. Crosby, Stills, Nash
9. Doobie Brother
10. Beach Boys
11. B.B. King
12. Edgar Winter
13. Charlie Daniel
14. Deep Purple
15. Jethro Tull
16. Alvin Lee & Ten Years After
17. Leon Russell
18. Yes
19. Electric Light Orchestra
20. Tina Turner
21. Dizzy Gillespie
22. Chuck Mangione
23. Jimmy Buffett
24. Mott The Hoople
25. Uriah Heep
26. Mountain
27. ZZ Top
28. Blue Oyster Cult
29. Pointer Sisters
30. Billy Preston
31. Rare Earth
32. Foghat
33. Cactus
34. Marshall Tucker Band
35. Ten CC
36. Dixie Dreggs
37. Free Mountain Standstill
38. Savoy Brown
39. James Gang
40. Poco
41. Fleetwood Mac
42. Black Oak Arkansa
43. Ozark Mountain Daredevils
44. Emerson, Lake and Palmer
45. Bruce Springsteen
46. Golden Earring
47. Pure Prairie League
48. Ben E. King
49. West, Bruce and Laing
50. Asleep At The Wheel
51. Sly and The Family Stone
52. Bloodrock
53. Bertha
54. Wet Willie
55. Tower of Power
56. Fabulous Rhinestones
57. Fabulous Thunderbirds
58. Goose Creek Symphony
59. Rory Gallagher
60. Flash Cadillac & the Continental Kids
61. Humble Pie

There may be a few more concerts that I just can't remember, but if I do think of them I will add them.

If you have been reading my blog posts for an length of time then you know that Kathy and I have producing podcasts for the Home Decorating Podcast Network.

We started our first podcast on the network almost a year ago with the Fixer Upper Podcast. The Fixer Upper Podcast is about one of HGTV's top TV shows. The Fixer Upper TV Show features Chip and Joanna Gaines who live and remodel homes in Waco, Texas.

The Fixer Upper Podcast was a big success for us with over 2,000 downloads per episode. If you consider the fact that the average podcast receives less than 300 downloads you will understand why I say it was a success.

Eventually the season ended for the Fixer Upper TV Show, and the podcast was finished until season 5 starts. I think season 5 will start around November, and that is when the podcast will start back up.

Since Kathy and I could not really produce any more Fixer Upper Podcasts for a while we decided to try podcasting for another TV Show. After much research we decided on the Home Town TV Show.

Home Town was a new show that was about to premier on HGTV, and stared Erin and Ben Nappier of Laurel, Mississippi.

Home Town was scheduled for 10 episodes on HGTV which meant we would be finished recording podcasts for the new podcast way before The Fixer Upper TV Show started their new season.

We had a blast recording the Home Town Podcast and even made a trip to Laurel, Mississippi for the finale episode of the season. During that trip we met the show hosts Erin and Ben Napier. We also were able to meet many of the people we had made relationships with while recording the show.

The season finally ended for Home Town with another successful podcast for us. While The Home Town Podcast did not have as big of download numbers as The Fixer Upper Podcast did 800 downloads an episode were nothing to sneeze at. Once again we were out of work so to speak since we did not have any new episodes to podcast about.

Once again I started researching for a TV Show that we could produce podcasts about and came up with the Listed Sisters TV Show which was another show on HGTV about to start their second season.

Kathy and I both thought it was a cute idea for a TV show, so when the first episode of season two started we were ready to produce the Listed Sisters Podcast.

As always we watched the show which featured show hosts Lexie and Alana LeBlanc. Alana is a realtor and Lexi is an Interior Designer and together they remodel homes for their clients.

We have only watched and recorded one episode so far, but we are really enjoying it.

The Listed Sisters show will keep us busy for another ten episodes, and then we will probably stay on break until the new episodes of Fixer Upper start back up on HGTV.

The Listed Sisters TV Show has changed their format from season one to season two for the better I believe.

I hope you get a chance to listen to our podcast on the Home Decorating Podcast Network at DecoratingPodcasts.com

The Podcast Star Song

Back in the early days of podcasting (2004 – 2006) things were much different. Since there were so few podcasters around the community was much closer, and almost everyone seemed to know each other.

One of the more popular shows at the time was “This And That” produced by Jeff Oestreich.

In 2005 Jeff produced the song “Podcast Star” which became an over night hit in the podcast community. I do have to admit that the community was so small that it may not of been that hard to become a hit.

Some of the podcasts he names in the song are no longer being produced, and some of the produces of the podcasts are now in the Academy Of Podcaster Hall Of Fame.

Podcast Star was very clever, and Jeff did a great job producing this song.

The reason for this post is to share this song with all the new podcasters that have not heard the song, and to make sure it has its place in the History Of Podcasting.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

The following information as taken from Jeff's site.

“This song was recorded for our podcast This And That. Adam Curry, playing this song on his very popular podcast, The Daily Sourcecode said “Wow, does that rock!!” Pretty cool from an ex VH1 jock.

This song was also featured on an episode of another very popular podcast The Dawn And Drew Show.

Podcast Star is a tongue-and-cheek look at wanting to achieve stardom through this new production medium. I tracked all the instruments and put the song together in about a week. Instruments include electric guitars, electric bass and drums. The drums were played ‘live' on my Yamaha Motif keyboard.

Hope you like it!”

You can find more of Jeff's music at JeffOestreichMusic.com

Help nominate the Fixer Upper Podcast in the Podcast Awards!

Step 1. Go to www.PodcastAwards.com and click the blue banner that says “Nominations are open”.

Step 2. Fill out the required information to nominate.

Step 3. Choose Fixer Upper Podcast in the TV & Film Category & click save at the bottom of the page.

Step 4. Go to your email inbox & verify the email you received for your vote to count.

It is a very simple drop down menu system for voting.

Thanks for your help 🙂

Recently I was at a training event put on by BlitzMetrics.com and ran into my friend Dennis Yu.

Dennis is a true Facebook Guru and the brains behind BlitzMetrics.com

There was a videographer near by so we decided to record a short conversation about marketing on Facebook.

We had some fun while giving out some great bits of information.

I recorded this short video with Spandy Andy about recording viral videos.

Last weekend I was at a baby shower for my niece, and while sitting at the pool she informed me that Spandy Andy was in the pool.

Who is Spandy Andy I asked? I was not familiar with him at all.

She proceeded to tell me he was a big viral video guy on YouTube. So I went over and introduced myself and began to find out more about what he does with Video.

Spandy Andy's stats from 1 video

Many of his videos have over six million views (that's a lot of views).

Now a days he travels the work with his boom box. He is paid to make celebrity appearances at events all over the world.

Not only does he go all over the world to dance, he gets paid big money to go dance, and I mean big money.

After I chatted with him I recorded this short interview for you.

I have included the stats from one of his videos so you can see how his YouTube video are doing.

I hope you enjoy.

You can see all of the Spandy Andy videos at youtube.com/user/SpandyAndyDotCom

You probably know by now that I create a lot of content for the sport of fastpitch softball.

One thing that I make sure to include in all my video content is a commercial for softball bats. In the commercial I give a discount code for customers to use. By using the discount code they can receive a $30 discount on softball bats.

This has been a very effective marketing tool for me for many years, and I even started adding the commercial on new video sites like Facebook, Twitter etc.

Here is the commercial that I have been using over the last six or seven years.

This is my daughter Amanda in the commercial presenting the sale info in a pretty straight forward manor. This commercial is filmed in a professional style, and while Amanda did a great job presenting the information, it is a little too professional in style, and not really any fun.

Here is the new commercial I just produced to change the presentation style.

First thing you will notice is that I make an appearance in this video. I decided it would be a stronger presentation if I used my so called star power in the video. This alerts people that I am talking about my store, and also helps to increase my personal branding to anyone that may not be familiar with me.

I also tried to make this video a little more fun. The fact that I am having a good time, and I am tossing bats around makes this presentation a little more memorable.

This presentation is more of a comical presentation than the first commercial we used.

What do you think?

Oh yea, don't forget to visit my website at SoftballJunk.com

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

In this episode of the Podcast Movement Sessions Podcast, you hear my conversations as I contact the new inductees for 2017 Academy Of Podcasters Hall Of Fame to tell them they are being inducted into the Hall of Fame.

There was a lot of excitement in these phone calls.

The Academy of Podcasters Hall of Fame is an exclusive group, and in this episode we get to know a bit more about the next five inductees.

This episode was produced by Joel Sharpton and he did a fantastic job with it.

Get all the info on the Hall of Fame, the ceremony and THE conference for Podcasters, Podcast Movement 2017 at www.PodcastMovement.com