2012 Year In Review

I did a little bit of reflecting over the past year and thought I'd do a little wrap up of 2012 so I can start moving forward with 2013! Without a doubt, 2012 was one of the most rewarding years I've ever had, both personally and professionally. From signing deals and building new relationships to growing and strengthening existing relationships to even having to say goodbye to others, last year was a very significant year for me.

The year started off with the premiere of It's A Brad, Brad World on Bravo, my second main title theme. I was happy to find out a few weeks ago that the show got renewed for a second season.

The in March I was able to take some time to attend some Kentucky basketball games during the NCAA March Madness tournament. I had no idea that going to see them play in Louisville was going to completely change my life. See, it was the walk from the parking lot to the arena for the first game in which I finally got to the point concerning my health that I knew I had to make a change.

That change began one month later when I started the RevAbs program. My goal was to lose 100lbs in 6.5 months. By the time I stepped on the flight to head to L.A. in November for the TAXI Road Rally I wanted to be 100lbs lighter. That was my goal.

During the next 6.5 months I put most of my focus and attention on losing weight and getting healthy. And while I did some music during that time, it really did take a back seat in my life. But it was worth it as I was able to reach the goals that I set out to achieve with the weight loss. I'll never forget the moment after I boarded the plane and got in my seat of when I put my seat belt on. For the last 4 years that I attended the Rally, it was always a struggle to get it latched together. Not this time. I remember looking at all the slack that was left in the belt and then I became overwhelmed with emotion and tears began to flow. It was at that moment that I finally felt like my goal had been achieved.

The destination for the flight was the TAXI Road Rally. This was my 5th one and 2nd time as a guest panelist. And of all the Rally's I've been to, this was by far my favorite one. I'm sure it had something to do with the "Barry?!?!?!? Is that really you?!?!?!??" type moments, but I think it had just as much to do with me being able to give back to the community that's been so giving towards me over the past 5 years.

I finished out the rest of the year working on an alt rock project in the style of the Black Keys as well as trying to enjoy the holidays while trying to rest up and get recharged for the new year. If 2013 is anything like 2012 was then it's going to be an incredible year.

Until next time...

New Placements and a Major Goal Reached!

Let me get the music placement updates out of the way before talking about the real exciting news. I had some placements in some shows that have used my music before, American Weed and The Nate Berkus Show, and then I also had some first time placements in a couple of shows, Fatal Encounters and The Doc Club with Rosie O'Donnell. The placement in Fatal Encounters used my clip "Tension In The Air" for 82 seconds. That cue has seen quite a bit of activity lately. Nice!

Now for the exciting news... Although I have another week left in my RevAbs 90-day challenge, today marked a huge accomplishment as I've reached another milestone. For the week I lost 5.4lbs for a grand total of 69.9lbs and I'm now a member of the 240s club! To say that I'm excited would be an understatement, but at the same time, I'm not finished yet. This is just goal #2 out of 3. But man does it feel good! I could put a bunch of motivational and inspirational catch phrases here, and I'd say all of them would probably apply, but I'll simply say this... anything is possible if you work hard and believe in yourself. I still have one more week left in this 90-day challenge so let's see just how much further beyond my goal I can get!

Until next time...

Music Monday - 7.16.12 and RevAbs update

Last week ended up being a busy one and this one looks to be even more so so I'm going to keep this entry short and sweet. On the music front I had a couple of new placements to talk about. The first was a metal cue that was used in an episode of Secret Service Secrets. This is the second time that show has used my music. The other placement is in a show called American Weed. This is the first time my music has been in that show. Apparently it's about a company that grows medical marijuana. They used a dramedy cue (ie. Desperate Housewives type music) that I wrote called "Peeking Through The Curtains" that's actually been used in a few different shows now. I've embedded it at the bottom of the post for anyone that would like to hear it.

My RevAbs update for the week... I lost another 4.4lbs for a grand total so far of 64.5lbs. I'm 5.5 pounds away from reaching my goal and I've got two weeks left to get there! One other RevAbs related note, on Friday last week I officially became a Beachbody Coach. I'm not exactly sure where that road is going to go, I just know that I'm looking forward to helping others get healthy and fit. So on that note, I will be starting up a separate blog for that part of my life and will be making a clean break from posting about that aspect on this blog. I'll have another entry in a couple of weeks with more info about all of this. Excited to see what the future holds!

That's all for now. And here's the dramedy cue I mentioned above...

Music Monday 7.9.2012 with VIDEOS

Hope everyone got to enjoy a little mid-week holiday last week on the 4th of July. I sure enjoyed having a day off in the middle of the week! I nominate that every Wednesday become a paid day off. Who's with me???

First thing to mention is that I've updated my credits page with images of the various productions that have used my music. I think a listing of images make the page look much better than a listing of just plain ole boring text.

While I was enjoying my day off last week I was excited to find some new cue sheets show up! They were mostly for some familiar faces such as Little Couple, Toddlers and Tiaras, The Dr. Oz Show and Last Call with Carson Daly. But I also had a new series show up, Teen Mom. It was for the second part of the Season 2 finale. I had 2 cues used in the episode, a tension cue ("Tension In The Air") which was the first piece of music played in the episode while they recapped the previous episode and it lasted for nearly a minute and a more inspirational pop-rock guitar cue ("Hope and Inspiration") that played for about 4 seconds. I was able to find the episode online and have embedded it below. It's kinda hard to hear the music in the beginning but it is there :-)

Get More: Teen Mom 2 (Season 2), Full Episodes

And then on Friday I learned of another new series that I had some music placed in, Ragin' Cajuns. I had 4 blues cues get used in an episode. I was able to find a clip that had one of them in it ("Don't Feed The Gators") and have embedded it below. My music starts at around the 1:10 mark and plays to the end of the clip.



And today I learned that the cue that was used in the Teen Mom episode above ("Tension In The Air") was also used as a promo for both NBC's Nightly News and the Today show!

And finally, my RevAbs progress report for the week. This past week was a bit more challenging simply because of the hamstring injury I incurred last week. I haven't been able to do a full exercise routine like normal but I have been doing a modified workout every day, ignoring my legs and just focusing on my upper body and core. So with that said, this week may be the week that I'm the most proud of. I ended up losing a total of 4.8 pounds for the week which brings the overall total lost up to 60.1 pounds!!!! I'll be very excited to return to doing the normal routines once my leg has completely healed.

Until next time...

New placements and RevAbs Phase 2 completed

It's Monday again, so time to check in with everyone and give some updates about what's been going on for the past week (or two)!

I had some new cue sheets show up this week for some shows I've already been in, Little Couple and The Dr. Oz Show, as well as a new show, Chef Roble and Co. I also had three cue sheets show up for Inside The PGA Tour for some tracks that I did with my "band" Crushing Gray. Never would have imagined we'd get some hard rock placements on a golf show :-)

On the RevAbs front, I finished up Phase 2 last week and I'm now in the home stretch of the program. As of today, I've dropped 55.3 pounds overall and I'm only 14.2 pounds away from hitting my goal with 4 weeks left to get there! Unfortunately, I tweaked my right hamstring muscle during my workout on Saturday so I'm having to rest it for a bit to avoid further injury. Today was the first time I've missed a workout since I began back on April 16th. I'm feeling a bit bummed about it too. 

As for what I'm currently working on music wise, I finished up a Promo type cue last night that will be pitched to CBS. Then for this week I'll be working on a cue that I'll be pitching to one of the high end PMA  libraries. I'm also going to be spending some time on the administration side of things as well as some networking follow ups.

Until next time...

(new) Music Monday and more - 6.18.2012

Last week I started a new weekly post on Facebook, Music Monday, and decided that I should probably incorporate that into my blog. I'll also include a link to the track from last week at the end of the blog.

I've found out about quite a few new placements since my last blog entry that I wanted to update you on. They range in style from pop/rock to metal to tension to delta blues and they were for some old shows that I've had placements in before, like The Dr. Oz Show (29 new episodes) and NY Ink (6 new episodes), as well as a bunch of new shows such as Disappeared, Oprah's Next Chapter (4 episodes), Secret Service Secrets, Ultimate Armored Car, and finally, what has become one of my new favorite shows, Duck Dynasty!

I also had a track get used in a nomination video during last month's Webby Awards Show. I haven't been able to locate the video itself, but it appears that the nominee that my music was used for created a product that turns your iPhone into a stun gun!

A quick update on my RevAbs weight loss journey. I dropped another 3.4lbs this week for an overall total today of 48.1lbs! I've got 6 weeks left and 21.4lbs to lose to reach my goal for this 3.5 month program. It's going to be close but I think the goal is within reach! This week is going to be a challenge for me to eat healthy as I'm going to be at a small music conference from Thu - Sun. But I'm going to be planning things out ahead of time so that it won't be as big of a challenge as it could be otherwise. If you want to succeed in life, you have to plan for it.

And now for the new music. This is a track that I wrote last night for a pitch to a music library looking for hard, aggressive "sports rock" type music. I called it "Headbuster." Enjoy!




And for those of you who didn't see this on my Facebook page last week, here's the track that I posted. It's a co-write with Darin Martin and Juliet Lyons, with Juliet doing an awesome job on the vocals!



Until next time!

May Update

Thought it would be a good time to update the blog with some of the latest news about placements and deals and stuff. This is the time of year that my musical output tends to increase a bit as I find myself having more time to spend composing since the college basketball season is over, the NBA playoffs are nearly finished and most of my favorite TV shows are on summer hiatus (or cancelled!).

I had a chance to write some pop/rock cues in the style of Colbie Callait and Sheryl Crow for a new series that's about to debut on ABC Family called Beverly Hills Nanny. I wrote seven tracks for it and all seven were accepted and sent to the editors of the show. So I'll likely record that show to see if any of my cues get used.

Currently I'm writing some Hip-Hop cues for Fox Sports. It's been a stretch to say the least, but I've watched quite a few mix tapes of Kentucky basketball players to help me get a feel for the genre :-) I'm also co-writing with a couple of other people on these, one in particular who's VERY well versed in Hip-Hop. Thanks to most of their home games against lesser opponents being broadcast on the UK Basketball network via Fox Sports South, my dream of having my music played during a UK game broadcast is one step closer to reality!

On to some placement news... Since my last update, I've had placements show up in Clean House NY (4 episodes), The Rosie Show (14 episodes), NY Ink, It's A Brad, Brad World (8 episodes), and Last Call with Carson Daly (4 episodes). Now here is one of the rare times that I actually know in advance about an episode. The episode of What Not To Wear (episode title - "Desiree") that will be airing on Tuesday night, June 5th at 9pm Eastern / 8pm Central will feature 3 of my tracks in it. And since I know which tracks are being used, I can actually let you know which ones they are as well :-) So here they are, the first two are acoustic guitar based tracks and the third one is a driving pop/rock track:

Making Choices


Tough Decisions


Leave It All Behind


I'm not sure the exact moment when they will be used in the episodes, but it does appear that it will be in the back half of the episode, with the third clip being the next to last piece of music they use, and it gets played for 56 seconds. So it might be used during the final "reveal" scene based on the type of cue and placement in the episode.

And finally, an update on my progress with the RevAbs program that I started over 6 weeks ago. I'm VERY excited to announce that I just completed Phase 1 of the program and so far I've lost 37.1lbs, 4" off of my waist and about 18% of my body fat. I'm feeling great and can't wait to see the results at the end of Phase 2 later next month!

Until next time...

New Placements (video link) and my RevAbs Jump-Start Week 1 Progress Report

One week ago today I started on a new path. There were times that I didn't know if I could make it or not but I'm happy to report that I stuck with the plan, both the diet and exercise, every single day. I'm excited to announce that so far I've lost 16.5 pounds!!!

Now I know there will be some out there who are concerned about the pace at which I've lost this weight. I appreciate your concerns, but let me reassure you that you need not worry. For the past week, I've had around 1200 calories per day by eating 5 meals per day (3 meals and 2 snacks, and that's it) that consisted of all natural and organic foods, nothing processed (except a couple tablespoons of A-1 Sauce!), gave up diet sodas and replaced them with at least 80oz of water a day, and exercised 30-45 minutes a day for 6 days. If I got hungry again later in the evening, instead of grabbing another snack, I drank a 20oz bottle of water.

I can honestly say that I feel great! I have not experienced a single headache during this entire process. And every time I start to feel hungry, it's usually time to eat again anyways. I'm a bit sore from the exercise, but that's because I've done more exercise in the past 6 days than I've probably done in the past 6 years combined! I've also eaten more broccoli and asparagus during the past week than I've eaten in my entire life!