Hey Hey In Rockers, and Welcome to the first edition of The Lobby for the new year 2018, The year of The Dog .... woof woof .....I’m here in my snowy home town of Buffalo, NY for a few days working with a young band called Mom Said No at my GCR Studios for an indie album due out in the new year. I’ve also been spending time in the studio as working over the past week working on tracks for a live release for Goo Goo Dolls expected out next year, it’s been a busy time for us lately despite being technically off of the road between album cycles.

We just finished up a couple of goo goo dolls show last weekend in fact, one of them in Worcester, Massachusetts at a historic old venue called Mechanics Hall for one of a few rare acoustic trio shows that Johnny and I have been doing lately. The acoustic trio shows are a more stripped down version of the band (we usually travel as a 5 piece w/ an extra guitar and a keyboardist), so we re-work the songs to be performed in a more intimate, but no less energetic manner. The venue is currently noted for being the room that world renowned cellist Yo Yo Ma records all of his pieces in. The performance room is adorned with an enormous pipe organ, all sorts of historic oil paintings and ornate decorations that made it feel less like a rock concert and more like a classical music recital. But, that being said the sold out room was ready to have fun and quickly sprung to their feet to watch the trio make our way through 20 of our songs in a truly unique band performance in an equally unique venue.

We flew out to to the west coast of the US to do one more trio show in Riverside, CA and then I flew home to work on some music here in Buffalo and get ready for our upcoming holiday in Tokyo over Christmas. My wife Miyoko and I were discussing how we have spent nearly half of our holiday seasons in Japan since we were married and I really am starting to associate certain Christmas Holiday songs and traditions with being in Japan. I’m excited to spend this holiday visiting family and friends in Japan, my daughter Hana get to have multi continental Santa visits and multi continental grandparent celebrations over the next few weeks, i think it must be pretty fun for her to be able to experience the holidays in so many different ways. I’ll fill u in next month on our visit as always.

So this holiday also brings a pretty new experience for me as I get to be Santa Clause for my daughters Japanese language school here in Buffalo! This is a big responsibility for me, you see, the Japanese Moms at Nihongo Club (The name of the school) know I'm in a band so they not only asked me to dress like Santa and have the “Santa” task of distributing holiday presents to the kids, but they also asked me to lead them in a Christmas sing a long song while playing my guitar .... and I’m singing in JAPANESE!!!!! SO .... I will be singing Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer and Jingle Bells in Japanese for the kindergarten and preschool classes and their parents. This should be a blast and I’m really looking forward to it, if you’re at all interested I’ll probably be posting the song on YouTube after the holidays.... stay tuned ....
Ok, that’s it for this month, We have a big year planned for Goo Goo Dolls with lots of overseas touring and recordings in the cards, more releases and touring with my friends from Japan and I look forward to bringing you all along with us through the pages of In Rock. May your New Year be prosperous and more importantly happy, thanks for stopping in to check in on us ...
Talk soon .... peace
Robby