Tidbits 4/15

A screencap from a recent episode of FOX's The Loop. Courtesy Clayreport.

• Billboard Radio Monitor: Station admits to Payola-like practices.
• MSN Movies: Is Hollywood ready for the Clay Aiken of movie? Speilberg announces idol-like movie competition.
  
• KYW Radio: Online kareoke looking for next Clay Aiken, Kelly Clarkson.
• BloggingPoet: Claymates blog.
• Entertainment World Idol article
• Charlotte.com: Idol article.. same old stuff.
  
• Entertainment Weekly Idol article.
• Shelby Star article about talent in the Carolinas.
• KXLY-TV: Trainer uses Clay's music to keep himself 'energized'
• Terpdance.com: Very small article about Patrica Kent, who was a dancer on JNT2005. Nice (but not new) pictures though!

Tidbits 4/14

• Charlotte Observer: Bucky Covington/Idol article - another small mention about Clay being from NC.
• Naperville Sun: New rec center, with features that will help people with special needs, received $5000 monetary award from BAF.
  

2007 Clay Calendar Available for Pre-Order

Calendar.com has the 2007 Clay Aiken calendar available for pre-order for $19.99. After a year of "calendar drought", we can only imagine the stampede to buy this calendar!!!

At their site, Calendar.com says, "If you're a fan, you know why a year with this southern charmer will be nothing less than red-hot. Full-color photography captures all the good-natured charisma that has made this American Idol graduate a rising star."

To check out information concerning the calendar, go to Calendar.com.

Update 4/15: The page now says "Out of Stock." This is fantastic news. It probably means that demand for the calendar has been so high that it has exceeded Calendars.com's expected first shipment supply. I'm sure the people over at Calendars.com are ordering more and that we'll be able to pre-order again soon!

Update 4/17: Apparently Calendars.com has e-mailed several customers saying the calendar has been cancelled. Hmmm... so we'll have to wait and see. Here's the e-mail Calendars.com has been sending to frustrated customers:

Thank you for your email.

Recently, we were informed the 2007 Clay Aiken calendar was canceled by the publisher. We have removed this calendar from our website.

We are in the process of researching other options to obtain a Clay Aiken calendar for the 2007 calendar year. Calendars.com will carry the Clay Aiken calendar if the calendar is produced.

Many of our customers preordered this item before it was removed from the website. If you preordered the Clay Aiken calendar you were not charged.

We encourage all customers who preordered their Clay Aiken calendars to leave their order in preorder status. Your credit card will not be charged unless we are able to obtain and ship the Clay Aiken calendar.

More CD News... July/August?

Before you read this, please, please take this with a truckload of salt. We do not know this source, but according to this post, the sophomore album has been moved back to July/August.

From Idolforums:

I emailed my brother a while back and this is what he said.

I just checked with our RCA rep....we still have a
June 20th street date for the new record. Nothing is
ever firm in the music business....but you can rest
assured he'll have a new CD come out. We'll see how
it does.


******
Ugh, my brother just sent me another email...

Moved date today to July or August for Clay street date. Sorry sis.

I seriously hope this is not true at all

Clay Returing to GMA Summer Concert Series

Update 5/5: this is not happening after all. Read more.

The CV's heartmeltin4clay, who know has a friend who works at ABC television's Good Morning America says Clay will be returing to GMA's 2006 Summer Concert Series Friday, August 4. This will be Clay's 3rd consecutive year on the concert series. In 2004, Clay sang Invisible, I Will Carry You and I Survived You; he sang Back For More and Suspicious Minds last summer.

CDD reminds you that this is an unconfirmed rumor.

From heartmeltin4clay:

CLAY AND GMA
I have a good friend who heads the production staff/set-up crew for GMA's Concert in the Park Series. She sent me an email today which included, among other things, the following "Clay" information. I wanted to share it with each of you. The e-mail said: "It looks like Clay Aiken will be back again this summer. As of now, he is scheduled to be on GMA Friday, August 4th."

Tidbits 4/13

• Raleigh News & Observer: Check out "Clay jugs and Clay's duds" at NC Musuem of History.
  
• News 14 Carolina Idol article... mentions Clay being from NC.
• Sports Fan Mag: Random Clay mention in golfing article.
• Montreal Gazette: Randy Jackson -- "I don't think Clay made the right record."
• Toledo Blade: Article about MDYK writer - mentions Clay recording it for MCWL.
• Super Street car magazine: Review of the new Honda Fit mentions Clay (negative)
• A I Love Clay Aiken t-shirt was spotted on a promo for FOX's show The Loop. The CB's ldb51 says:

  Anyone see the commercial during AI for The Loop. They were teasing us about a "guest" appearance and then they showed a guy with an "I (heart) Clay Aiken". Ya think Clay may be making a guest appearance??????

• Central Ohio news: "a toddler version of Clay Aiken"
• Clay Aiken -- the perfect way to drive up blog traffic? Interesting post.

Clay Drops to #42 on Lycos 50

Clay has dropped from #21 to #42 this week on Lycos 50 with Dean. One reason for this large drop is probably the new format of the Lycos home page. There is no "News" tab to click on. It is more difficult to search than it was before this change. However, we cannot let that stop us from doing our daily searches.

From the Clayboard, the following are ideas for Clay searches:

From Ashleysgram:

"clay aiken" official fan club
"clay aiken" messageboards
"clay aiken" tour videos
"clay aiken" Unicef
"clay aiken" news
"clay aiken" CD
"clay aiken" bubel aiken foundation
"clay aiken" fan fiction

From swgen:

Clay Aiken inclusion
Clay Aiken caregiver
Clay Aiken lyrics
Clay Aiken heart
Clay Aiken rehearsal

Other suggestions are to search more often, search by clicking the internet tab, images tab, or just type in the above items (or be creative with your own search ideas). Also, you can go to the Clayboard, the Official Fan Club, or any other fan group through Lycos. Also, search and read some old articles or look for old pictures--from back in 2003 or 2004. Its fun to read these again, and checking out old pictures of Clay is always a treat!

Clay has been on Lycos 50 for 146 weeks. He is only 9 spots away from falling off and having to start completely over again at week #1. We don't want that to happen. So try not to get discouraged with the new format at Lycos, and search doubly hard this week! Let's move Clay back up the Lycos 50 list again!!

Plans to Send Clay's New CD To Our Troops

Easterseal at the Clayboard has spoken with the Adjutant General's office about sending Clay's new CD to the troops overseas and they love the idea. Easterseal is working out all the particulars, and she says, "Once we get a drop date for CD, I will post a time limit to get them out to either me or the Family Readiness Center....As soon as I get that DATE I will post more, I will post the address at a later date too."

If you'd like to take part in this, make plans to buy extra CD's when it is released. What a great way to support Clay and his new CD and to support our troops!

To read all that Easterseal has to say about this project, check out the thread at the Clayboard.

Tidbits 4/12

• To our Jewish friends: Happy Passover!
• Today's tidbits is quite long, so get comfortable before going through all this stuff.
• My sister is a Claymate! Read this PotatoFinger blog entry.
  
• FYI: As the Page Six scandal continues to unfold over at the New York Post, the New York Times today announced the discontinuation of it's own gossip column.
• Advance Titan: I don't really get this mention. Draw your own conclusions.
• Antimusic article... small Clay mention.
• Baseball Toast blog: nominate bargain CD 'hall of fame' "No Clay Aiken. Come on, it's too easy."
• San Antonio Business Journal: CEO inspired by Idol to created better music education for at risk youth
• Projo.com: Idol article... Clay runner-up success.
• This was in today's Dallas Morning Star:

  Shouldn't there be a clear Idol champ emerging at this point? Instead, we're faced with eight maybes, a gang of pretty-goods. The masses who are giving the show the highest rating in the history of the world deserve better. We deserve a Clarkson, a Fantasia or, for God's sake, a Clay.

• Entertainment Weekly: All successful idols have memorable Idol song... "Think about it: Every successful Idol alumnus has had one: Fantasia's ''Summertime,'' Carrie's ''Alone,'' Clay's ''Solitaire,'' and so on."
• The Soko: "Top 10: Reasons You Have Trouble Finding A Date 10. Your favorite singer is Clay Aiken."
• FOX Sports: Comparing AI to football
  
• Another one from FOX Sports: Worst case scenario for NC State basketball:

  Offended that even someone from the Entertainment industry turned them down, N.C. State offers the job to Raleigh native (and hometown hero) recording star Clay Aiken. He graciously accepts. Aiken signs on the project to play himself, and the movie is turned into an old-timey musical. It is originally scheduled to open Thanksgiving 2009, but Disney sells the rights, and the movie gets shot on a rushed schedule, for airing on the Oxygen Network three months later.

• Center of NJ life blog.. small Clay mention.
• Huffington Post: Weird article about politics and AI... John McCain, Clay, Kelly and Fantasia? Being Canadian, I'm confused.
• Coyote Press Idol article - AI2...Ruben won, Clay had more success.
• Media Fiends: Big no-no for Idol contestants -- repeat a successful performance, such as Clay's BOTW.

Clay Mentioned on E! News

From The Clayboard - Emilyeeeeee at the CB made us aware that Clay was mentioned on E! News today. Emilyeeeeee posted that "Juliana was standing in front of the screen which had 2 pictures of Clay up. It looked like one from very early AI and the other looked like it might have been from the Emmy coverage. She said something like AI has turned people like Clay Aiken into fashion icons, and then they played a piece about the stylist from AI."

Album To Be Out June 20 After All?

There is fresh speculation that the new album will be out on June 20, as first announced accidentally by RCA last week.

From the CH's 43dudleyvillas:

I received an update from a contact in distribution today, which indicated that Clay's album is due on 20 June. That matches the information from the New Music Tipsheet PDF (scroll down to RCA Family).

Now, for the standard disclaimers. While I believe that both sources are working off actual label schedules and not, say, the RCA Records website, this doesn't say anything to me other than RCA is targeting 20 June for Clay. I've seen release dates listed, only to get pushed back for whatever reason (case in point: Jesse McCartney's sophomore album showed up on New Music Tipsheet as a 13 June 2006 release last December, but is now a TBD release for Hollywood Records).

I hope that, if they do indeed intend to get Clay's album out on 20 June, that they start generating positive mainstream media buzz for it soon.

Tidbits 4/11

• MSNBC: Idol won't be smooth sailing this time around. "Previous seasons have seen contestants like Kelly Clarkson, Ruben Studdard, Clay Aiken, Fantasia Barrino and Carrie Underwood sail through the finals with barely a hiccup."
• The New York Daily News says the sophomore album will be out June 20. Don't count on this tabloid though - take it with a big bucket of salt.
• Kansas City Star: AI article (AI fashion/clothes)
• Arizona Republic: Mandisa's fall caused by Clay Aiken like fans?
• "You're no Clay Aiken" -- article

Tidbits 4/10

• Arbiter Online: AI article says "I mean, look what they did with Clay Aiken. One minute he's a geeky guy with ill-fitted glasses, and the next he's a pop superstar with highlights. They transformed him into a teenybopper's dream, and though he lost to Ruben Studdard, Aiken is the more famous one. And it's all because of the highlights."
• If you missed it when we first posted this back in December: Clay's new song, Compromise is listed on ASCAP's online database.
• BOI: Idol article
• MusicNewsMagazine: Clay's this month's featured artist
• Michigan Times Herald: Canadian Idol 2005 runner up Rex Goudie having more success than winner, much like Clay Aiken... FYI, useless Canadian knowledge: the Rex and the winner (Melissa O'Neil) have admitted they have a romantic relationship. OK.. back to Clay.
• TV Guide Idol Q&A: Only 3 idols (Kelly, Clay, Carrie) haven't found themselves on 'Ryan Seacrest's "after the break" shtick.' (referring to bottom 3)
• Clay drops to #2 on House of Blues' website. Keep searching!
• CDD thanks Television Without Pitty's bettymojo for linking to our blog!
• The following quote was in the FOX American Idol email newsletter, "My favorite Idol Moment was, Kelly Clarkson singing A Moment like This, Diana Degarmo singing Don't Cry Out Loud. They were so touching and great. And the best of all was Clay singing Unchained Melody and This is the Night. My heart melted all over and I cry just listening to him sing with passion.....A.Stanul.,Ocala, Fl"
• Support Your Local Applebees - From the CB, I've learned that Applebees Restaurants all around the country play Clay's songs on a regular basis. Two songs that are heard frequently are "I Will Carry You" and "Invisible".

Tidbits 4/9

• Contra Costa Times: Only Kelly Clarkson and Claymates have displayed "pop music staying power". (CDD comment: Clay has staying power too... you just wait for the new album!!)
• The drought continues... here's something in addition to yesterday's Cluzzle for you to do: Sign Generator, Comic Strip Generator
• We'ver heard several reports of signs in Wal Marts saying that the sophomore album is due out May 9. This is not confirmed and in the past, Wal Mart has been known to have incorrect information posted.