hey folks, just thought i'd drop a quick report in since i was at the last day of rehearsals today and the boys are sounding fantastic! they warmed up playing a couple of old beatles tunes and then slammed through a select number of tunes one last time. john cuniberti even showed up and played along on drums to a tune :}

also, i've added the support for underlining and quoting in fixed-width font. the list of options is at the bottom of the page when you are posting a message.

this is all inside a [ quote ]

i plan on adding the ability to search for posts by authors and may also add something that provides a link to the most recent post by joe or the band so you can hop directly to it. i'll consider adding a timezone option to change what zone dates are displayed as and also think about how to store last-read messages by account instead of just a cookie. it's a bit complex to do both, so i might just require a member account to use that feature (since one is needed to post anyways).

also, a couple of folks have said something about the archive and submit button being on a white background? it should be a dark blue background so if not, please email me what browser you are using so i can try to see what it doesn't like.

hey folks, just wanted to quickly reply to a few questions/comments that i caught.

viewing just joe posts - a fine idea and one that is now easy to do. there's a new button on the top that you can click on (Joe Messages) that will display all of Joe's posts. as other guys in the band post, i will probably add links for them too. once there are a lot of them, i can easily add an advanced display option to also limit it by how old the posts are. in the meantime, joe's only had time to post once so far, so this is sufficient.

i also made it so you can click on the N posts total text to view all messages for any poster.

bonus tracks - yeah, of course it'd be great to include the bonus tracks on the us release, or even make them available on the site, but alas, there are many many reasons behind the curtain of the major label record industry that often interfere. i personally also love the bonus tunes, so maybe if you all add them to your setlists, you can show Joe you'd like to at least hear them live :}

desktop themes/winamp skins/etc - i don't have the time to put such things together, but if any fans put some together, i'd likely create a section for people to download them (or at least link to other sites to get them).

requesting mindstorm - different radio stations have different policies on what they'll play and when they'll play it. a lot of the bigger stations will actually have playlists controlled by one person for hundreds of stations and that can be hard to push your way through. however, sometimes you can find a dj who has the power to play what they want, or at least pass the news on that people are calling to hear a certain song. with that in mind, i encourage people to call their stations and request songs off of SBM. i think you'll get better luck requesting Mind Storm after the 25th. if you're calling a station that plays harder stuff, requesting that might end up being more likely to get played than Starry Night, so use your judgement and remember--- don't annoy them, that'll do more harm than good! just be polite and say how much you'd love to hear the song.

new book - as michelle and a few other folks noted, the book joe was talking about indeed is a book on streaming audio. the part that makes it relevent to joe is that i profiled the use of streaming audio on www.satriani.com so it's a nice plug for the site. if you have no interest in streaming your own audio, you probably won't miss much, but if you do, check it out-- it's good for novices as well as folks who are familiar with it. more info is at http://www.fezguys.com

colors for band members - i think for the time being i'll keep it a surprise that you'll see when/if they post. i bugged jeff and matt to drop in and say hello if they have time, but as joe said, things are gearing up for the tour so everyone is real busy.

SBM release date - i've been told that the release date of the 25th is indeed worldwide.

pending ttj improvements - this is the list of things that are on my to-do list for ttj. any of these you don't need to bother asking for, since they're now already on the list. set timezone for date display, store last read in your member profile instead of a cookie, and add a few more configurable options such as being able to set the number of messages displayed per page and also choose to display them oldest to newest or newest to oldest.

ttj vs. bboard - yes, ttj is how it is instead of a fully threaded system because it's what joe and i decided gives the best feeling of being immersed in the community. too much structure gets in the way of that experience that we want to support.

quick note about that MVC link to buy the new album... i noticed that some of the track names were incorrect ("The Groove" instead of "The Journey"), so i'm not sure you can be 100% sure that it includes the bonus tracks. especially since "Slick" has not yet been decided for release anywhere yet (to my knowledge). Eight Steps is still only Japanese release to my knowledge. so, make doubly sure on what you're getting from them before you pay :}

hey wiser, here's some quick replies to your not-so-kindly posed questions.

presale tickets - i have been working with joe's tour agency to try and get presale info out to everyone and it's been problematic at best. they are having troubles getting the information from the ticketing sites and you can rest assured i'm doing everything i can to get whatever info i get passed on to everyone as soon as i get it. i understand the frustration that you can experience when trying to get tickets and encourage you to let the ticketing sites know of your experience since that's where the bottleneck appears to be.

listening party - i listened to a few full loops of the entire album before they went up and heard all songs. i assume apple also did their own tests as well. if a problem has developed, please email details to webmaster@satriani.com and i will pass them on to apple/akamai, who will need to fix them.

site speed - i'm aware of a slowness issue if you are reading all existing messages (ie, having used the 'Mark this message as read') and am planning on optimizing that situation shortly. any other problems with speed you may be seeing is likely related to your internet connection with the server. there is a lot of available bandwidth and cpu on my end.

photos - i do have a lot of photos in my email from past shows to add and they will be added. that sort of work got sidetracked in preparation for all of the work in the studio and then for release of the new album and new site. it's all a question of limited time and making priorities :}

a sad day for rock and roll and bass players everywhere. rest in peace, john entwistle, you contributed more than many even aspire to.

Here's a news piece from Pollstar about the new tour. Hopefully Joe and the band will have enough time (and decent enough connectivity) to upload some photos now that the shows are underway! Be assured, once they start coming in, you'll be able to see 'em!

for those who don't read the news, i've just finished making modifications to the T2J section here so it will load quicker than before. it's somewhat expotential depending on how many pages you have to read. ie, if you go to read ALL messages, it will be a *lot* faster now.

hey everyone-- just heard from joe from the road and he's uploaded enough photos to now share some with you. you can get to 'em over in the road section and new ones will automatically appear as they are added!

hey major tom-- i salute your enthusiasm, but politely request that if you want to keep posting messages to have people vote for joe in that contest that you do it a little less frequently. at most, once or twice a week. more than that and it does more harm than good for most folks here... thanks!

yeah, i know the chat room has been sorely in need of that upgrade, but alas after rushing to get the new site (except for that) up in time for the new album and tour, it keeps getting overrided by other things... currently preparing for the webcast rebroadcast. if i can't get the "real" one up, i'll try to get a temporary one set up in the meantime. thanks for hanging in there, and sorry for the delays on that!