Heyhey folks and welcome to the Lobby, hope all's well with you this month, thanks for stopping in to visit. It's getting close to the worldwide release date of release of our 10th full length studio album "Magnetic" and we've been busy preparing for the release here in the US. John (our lead singer) has been visiting radio stations around the US for the past couple of weeks debuting the first single from the album called "rebel beat" (which you can currently check out on You Tube). After a trio of photo shoots, numerous calls with writers, meetings with art directors and the general "getting ready for a new release" chaos a band goes through when it's time to spring some new music on the public, we are ready to release magnetic worldwide in May. I've included the album art in the column this month, there's also a "deluxe edition" of the album available online with alternate cover art and some cool live tracks recorded on our 2012 "Something for the Rest of Us" tour.

I'm currently in Los Angeles doing some rehearsals with the band; we're learning the new songs with the touring band and taking some time to make some adjustments to the show for the new tour, which will be taking us all over the globe once again to promote the new release. We're also headed out to do a few one-off shows here in the states over the next month before the actual touring for the album begins to take place in April. One of the gigs is a full acoustic show in the Napa Valley here in California for a Vineyard which is manufacturing millions of bottles of wine featuring the band's name on the labeling, pretty cool, maybe some sort of ''goo goo red'' or ''goo goo white''. We'll have to see what the final product turns out to be, I'll try to include a photo of the bottle next moth. We are also planning on doing a series of promotional appearances in the time leading up to the release including a ''GUITAR CENTER SESSIONS'' filming and many national TV programs here in the states.

So as all's busy in the land of goo, while I'm out here in LA I brought out my wife Miyoko and baby to enjoy some time away from the Hokaido like cold we're enduring at our home in Buffalo, NY and treat the girls to some warmth and sunshine in Southern California! As some of you may or may not know I'm an avid Pez collector, Pez is a candy sold with dispensers which serve you candy from the neck of a character when you tilt the head back. My wife and I have thousands of these dispensers in our collection, and this week we went to the Pezcific Pez Convention in Manhattan Beach, CA. I love Pez collecting and this event is an annual gathering of obsessed Pez fans sharing, buying and selling their Pez and Pez related items, these conventions happen all over the world and I was happy to be able to be in the right place at the right time to visit this particular event. I got some cool Shinkansen characters, some new Paul Frank ''Julius'' Pez and much more as I spent way too much money on these tiny toys! Maybe someday I will leave my ever growing collection to my daughter Hana, and it still remains to be seen if she'll be impressed, after all, she's only 1!

Thanks so much for stopping in, it looks like I'm out of space and out of time ! I may have some new news on the Japanese promotions regarding the new Magnetic album in next month's column, I'm hoping to have some big news for all the Japanese Goo Goo Dolls fans soon!

All the best to all of you this month, and please stop in to Robby'Lobby.com for more of my social networking sites and we'll see you next month !!!!

Peace
Robby