Happy New Year! It’s time to officially announce the worst-kept secret in the world!

For all of you who have wondered for months on end about the eventual return of Jeff Giles, aka Jefito of Jefitoblog, gather ’round, for I have news. Effective today, Jefitoblog moves to a brand-new, even bigger-and-better location. And, as most of you could have predicted, I’m packing up my bags and moving in with him.

Simply put, Popdose is going to be everything you love about Jefitoblog and more. Jeff has assembled a crack team of staff writers to cover all aspects of pop culture: music, film, television, books, current events - you name it. And, as you’ve come to expect, each article will be full of thoughtful - and yes, sometimes snarky - commentary.

As for me, I’m signing on as Managing Editor, which means I’ll be doing a fair amount of work behind-the-scenes. I’ll also be bringing over my two series, Adventures Through The Mines Of Mellow Gold (which has become an occasional feature these days, but you try covering one shitty song a week for a year and see how far you get), and of course, CHART ATTACK!, which will now run every other Friday opposite Jeff’s collaborative feature CHARTBURN. I’ll be featuring over a dozen guest writers over the course of 2008, so if you’re sick of my writing style, don’t give up - a new perspective is just around the corner!

As for what happens with jasonhare.com, I’m still working that one out. (I can’t have all the answers, you know.) I will continue to use my site to promote my artistic endeavors (I have more music gigs coming up in the new year, and I’m doing a fantastic Off-Broadway production in February), and will post items - probably short, link-related posts that aren’t appropriate for Popdose - as I have time. If you’d like to keep me on your radar, I’d love to have you around, but if you’re here merely for the music-related posts, you know where to find me.

So…thanks for reading. And what the hell are you waiting for? We’re having a housewarming shindig over at the new place, and it’s not a party until you get there.

See you on Popdose!

Happy birthday, Jess! I love you!

They said it would never happen (as Amy said: "I didn’t think you two were allowed to be in the same place at the same time. Like some national security thing"), but indeed it did.  And it wasn’t gay at all, you jerks.

Okay, so it was a little gay.

I spent about 30 hours at Posh Jefito Manor in beautiful New Hampshire.  I found Jeff in a bunker by a swamp, covered in empty bottles of Jack Daniels, muttering something about website backups.  Once I got him cleaned up, though, I found that he was quite hospitable, and only snarled at me once when I put his CDs back in the wrong alphabetical, chronological order.

The Captain and Tennille on an autumnal frolic

In all reality, I had a fantastic trip and got to spend some quality time with Jeff along with his wife and daughter.  We did a lot during my brief trip, including a viewing of the documentary Into The Night:  The Benny Mardones Story (review forthcoming) and some other projects that will make it to the web at some point.  And for all of you concerned about the future of the best music blogger on the Internet, I can’t spill all the details yet, but I can assure you that it won’t be long before he’s back ruling the web.  In the meantime, you can still read Jeff on a daily basis by checking out some of his music reviews at Bullz-Eye or his news posts at Rotten Tomatoes.

Thanks again to the Jefito clan for being such gracious hosts.  Hope to do it again soon!

Heading out of town this morning.

Wish me luck on both points.  I’ll try to post a pic or two of the most anticlimactic meeting of the century!

I’m so excited!  That’s twice in one week that I’ve been able to use that word!

Actually, no, I haven’t been pwned.  But I’m going to slow down a bit. 

I don’t blame you for chuckling, since I only post twice a week.  But I’m a slow writer and tend to do a fair amount of reading before I start writing.  (I blame this on all of you - shame on you, turning me on to music I haven’t heard before.)  So even my two posts occupy quite a few hours of time each week, and I need to re-focus some of those hours into other pursuits.  (This includes, but is not limited to, getting Michael McDonald to return my phone calls.)

So I’m not going away, or shutting down.  I just won’t be posting MG and Chart Attack every week.  But I’ll still be writing when I can.  I’ll also try and post little items here and there on things I find interesting, which was a goal when I started this blog but kind of fell by the wayside when I started doing the weekly posts.  And for those who were around last December, Mellowmas is totally returning.  (Jeff has been planning it since May.)

To those who have volunteered to step in and write some guest posts: thank you for offering, and I’ll be in touch.

So if you want to know when I’ve added new content, there’s always the RSS feed:  http://feeds.feedburner.com/Jasonharecom .  But if you’re not into the RSS thing, you can sign up to get simple, brief e-mail notifications whenever I post here.  You can sign up now below, or at anytime by using the box on the upper right side of the site.

This service is powered by FeedBlitz, a great little company that won’t spam you.  Promise.  I subscribe to a few websites through them, and have never had any problems whatsoever.

So that’s that.  Thanks for continuing to read and comment, and it won’t be long.