Heyhey In Rockers and Welcome once again to The Lobby, I've had a crazy month of traveling as I play shows with The Goo Goo Dolls all around the US, my wife is out touring with Osaka's Shonen Knife around the North Eastern and Midwestern US and my daughter get to spend some quality time at a super, super exclusive luxury child's resort known as Grandma and Grandpa's house!

This month began with a great opportunity here in Buffalo, renowned portrait artist Philip Burke is a Buffalo native as well. Philip has had his paintings featured in Vanity Fair, Vogue, Time and most notably had a 7 year continuous run in Rolling Stone magazine with his ultra-unique and instantly recognizable images of subjects as diverse as George Bush, Andy Warhol, George Clooney and Curt Cobain. A few years ago Philip had painted portraits of both our singer John and I (John was published in Rolling Stone magazine, mine in The Buffalo News) and I had never actually seen the physical paintings. So, I bought my daughter down to Philip's ﾒLikeness of Beingﾓ installation at The Burchfield Penny Gallery to see the paintings and meet the artist at the exhibit. It was overwhelming to me to see all of these notable paintings, images I had seen in print, magazines and on people's walls for many years and there we were ﾉ life size images of John and I hung proudly right in the middle of the show! My daughter looked around the room, pulled on my sleeve and said ''Hey Papa, There's a picture of John, AND YOU TOO!!!!ﾓ Philip and I had a great talk and met up the next day for more, he is such a genuine and inspiring guy. He also spends much time in Japan as he is a practicing Buddhist and makes trips to his main temple by Mt. Fuji often. It was a great show, and I think I made a new friend as well, maybe some time we can go to visit Japan together.

As I mentioned my wife is touring with Shonen Knife this month doing shows in the North Eastern / Mid West US with an appearance at the Collosalcon 2015 Anime Convention as well as 17 dates with legendary bassist and Ramones member CJ Ramone. Miyoko also DJs as DJ Sashimi and actually was an opening act on 2 SK shows in Buffalo, NY and NYC during this trip. My label, Good Charamel Recordsﾓ produced a live CD of Shonen Knfe performing as The Osaka Ramones w/ CJ as a special guest during their last pairing, which was a single show at the Bellhouse in Brooklyn, NY during their 2013 US Tour. The SK/CJ tour will end soon in Boston, Mass in a few days and I'm looking forward to having our family together again soon!

Goo Goo Dolls have been performing all through the month as well, I've been traveling home between shows to be with Hana as we played a handful of private and public gigs around the US including a set at The Belmont Stakes Horse Race in NY. The Belmont Stakes in the 3rd in a ''Triple Crown'' of horse races held every year. The horse ''American Pharaoh'' had already won the first 2 races or the year at The Kentucky Derby and The Preakness Stakes and was favored to win this race. He won that race, one of the most exciting things I've ever seen as 100,000 fans erupted as American Pharaoh had won the a Triple Crown, the first time this had been done since 1978. The interesting thing was for Goo Goo Dolls, was this was OUR Triple Crown as well, as we were the first band to ever perform at all 3 races, we played to a psyched up crowd after the race as well as performing 2 songs live on the world wide broadcast of the race. A pretty great and historical day for all involved.

OK, I'll be heading to a music Festival at the most northern point of North America in St. John's, Newfoundland in Canada to perform with GGDS and then flying directly to Tokyo to meet my family for some more adventures in my second home (including a trip to see Shimajro LIVE with my daughter and much, much more) as well as meet up with some more of our Good Charamel bands to discuss their trips to the US from Japan this summer/fall ... I'll fill u in next month hope to talk soon, and thanks for stopping in!

Peace,Robby