REACHING OUT TO YOU posted by O.W.

Thanks to everyone for giving feedback on the design for Soul Sides Vol. 2 (hereby simply addressed as SSV2). Looks like Design #2 is it.

Some more information on SSV2:

The Theme: The full title is Soul Sides Volume Two: The Covers. Yeah, that's right, we're doing all covers (14 songs total). Folks who've followed my stuff for a while already known I'm a big fan of covers and this seemed like a great theme for the second volume. It's a bit too early to share the entire tracklist but suffice to say, there's some killer material on here - some of which has been posted up on the site before, some of which has not. Some of the covered songs include Latimore's "Let's Straighten It Out," Bill Withers' "Kissing My Love," Charles Wright and the Watts 103rd St. Rhythm Band's "Express Yourself" and yes, even Linda Lyndell's "What a Man" (and no, it's not Salt N' Pepa).

The Release Date: Late April. (I'll be more specific once we lock a date down).

The Bonuses: Hopefully, I can hustle up and not only put Deep Covers back in stock but I'll have a few new surprises in my personal mixtape catalog to share. I never did quite get the bonus stuff for SSV1 figured out right and I'll try not to have a repeat with that chaos again.

Help Soul Sides!

1. T-shirt design contest.

I'm not trying to go all merch-ed out but hell, we've been around long enough to be a minor institution, I think it's time that we at least put a frickin' t-shirt in the mix. The problem is that I have no design skills. I was hoping there's enough budding talent out there for us to put together a t-shirt design contest (details very soon). Winner will get, at the very least: every Soul Sides/O-Dub related mix-CD...past, present and future.

As noted, I'll get out details soon re: the contest.

2. A Soul Sides monthly in Los Angeles?

I've been so busy with moving/school the past half year that I haven't spent any time putting together any gigs. I do have an open invitation to join the folks at Funky Sole at some point (which I very much look forward to) but I wanted to see what the potential would be in the L.A.-area for a monthly featuring myself and guest DJs. Alas, I don't really know the bar/club scene very well but I'm hoping there's a few promoters in the mix out there who might be able to help navigate.

Note: I'm not trying to resurrect the Legend parties or even compete on the level of something as great and well-established as the Root Down. I see this as being small but fun (and for the love of god, hopefully not a sausage fest of crazy record collectro types). Suggestions on where I might look? Holler.

3. Soul Sides radio?

Just a thought (esp. since I started SS after leaving 10+ years of radio). If there's anyone here who works in either A) local L.A. area college/community radio or B) satellite radio, get at me.