To see the full calendar, go to CDD's page at Google Calendar:
A full list of upcoming events is also available at the CDD Claytracker.
Note: CDD does not necessarily endorse or subscribe to the editorial opinions of these websites/blogs.
Our friends at Claymatized.com have compiled a jaw-droppingly extensive and absolutely wonderful "review of 2006". Filled with pictures galore, you'll spend hours browsing through the year that was in the Clay nation... Don't miss it! Run (don't walk) to Claymatized.com.
Technorati tags: Clay Aiken, A Thousand Different Ways, ATDW, All Is Well, Merry Christmas With Love, Invisible
As much as I hated to, I had to take a day off yesterday from my 6-part article which has been walking us down a festive memory lane of Clay's wonderful Christmas shows. However, I'm up and going again and ready for Part 4, complete with the most beautiful pictures you have ever seen of Clay singing, bantering, laughing, and, well, just being Clay in every way!
Here, for your enjoyment, are the Hartford, Greenvale, and West Point concerts! Hang on to those thud mats!!
Hartford, CT - December 12.jpg)
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Greenvale, NY - December 14
West Point, NY - December 15
I believe for this last show in West Point, I could have posted at least 15 pictures that would have knocked your socks off. When you consider the fact that Clay was singing while sick, its especially amazing how absolutely fantastic he looked, complete with smiles and pictures of him doing some heavy duty singing!
Well, we are down to our last two concerts. I hope you are enjoying this time of remembering everything about Clay and the concerts via the great pictures taken by our "clack pack"! Tomorrow...Red Bank, Detroit, and Grand Rapids!!
Technorati tags: Clay Aiken, A Thousand Different Ways, ATDW, All Is Well, Merry Christmas With Love, Invisible
AOL is running a poll on Clay's American Idol feature at AOLMusic.com. The poll asks:
Will Clay's success continue in 2007?Make sure you head on over to cast your vote.
He's here to stay!
We'll see.
His time is up.
The Globe is featuring a cover story claiming Clay is fat and on pills. Uh. You read right. Now, where this comes from, I have no clue. Does Clay even look remotely fat in these photos taken on the same day???? Tabloid = lies, lies, lies, spin, spin and more spin.
Thanks to Claymaniacs News for the heads up on this and to Something That Really Happened for the slideshow seen below.
Update: read this blog from ConCLAYve to see how pathetic this is.
The CB's mu99le has found some new UNICEF Snowflake lighting photos from November. Check them out here.Just flipping channels and Kimberly Caldwell is interviewing Clay. I've seen this before but never heard him telling about the biggest gift from all of this being the support of his fans, not just for him but for the things that are important to him. He talked about our UNICEF donation, that within 1 day we had donated $30,000 and within 3 days over $70,000. I've seen this several times but never heard the UNICEF bit. Is this new?? So nice to hear him bragging on his fans. Just love the man!!!
Paula: Then we won't get drunk at all. I got it, guys. How about we drink every time some Clay Aiken-looking loser walks in and sings a Richard Marx song?
Clay Aiken... and here's a few more items from Billboard and its array of music industry websites:
SEASON/FINISH: 2003, second
CHART HISTORY: The Billboard 200: "A Thousand Different Ways," 2006 (No. 2, 489,000); "Merry Christmas With Love," 2004 (No. 4, 1.4 million); "Measure of a Man," 2003 (No. 1, 2.8 million). The Billboard Hot 100: "This Is the Night," No. 1; "Invisible," No. 37; "Solitaire," No. 4.
I'll clear up a misconception people have. When I watched the show last year, [I've heard it said] I said to myself, "I'd much rather be the second-place winner because the first-place person is tied into the contract and the second-place person can go and shop their own." Well, that's not the case. I signed with RCA—there was a right of first refusal with RCA so I signed with RCA automatically at the end of the show. But there's definitely not a downside to that at all. I'm happy with that. Every person who's been on the show at some point wants to distance themselves a little bit, but no matter what, I came from there. I'm only here because of that show and so I can't help but be appreciative of that. Any time that they want me to come back, I'll be happy to. [Working with Simon Fuller] has turned into a really great relationship. I mean, he's really exactly what anybody would want in a record label head. We auditioned for the show because it looked like fun. I think every year after that, the fourth and fifth [season] especially, you found people who got into the show because they knew something big was going to come out of it. I kind of liked seeing contestants come up out of obscurity. It's lost a little bit of its innocence and so it's not as much fun for me anymore.
It's "Idol" release week, eh? The previous single from Clay Aiken's "A Thousand Different Ways," an inexplicable cover of Mariah Carey/Harry Nilsson's "Without You," barely connected at AC radio. Follow-up "A Thousand Days" is an original song that delivers upon the potent interpreter's signature: hand-flinging vocals, a soaring melody and a simple, singable chorus. Aiken's challenge at this point is more a public relations issue. As press reports continue to spread repeated tales of his lack of humility and haughty, diva-like disposition, how much longer before fans retreat and any semblance of radio support fades like a Christmas wreath? —Chuck Taylor
Clay Aiken has had two albums scan more than a million units: His 2003 RCA debut "Measure of a Man" sold more than 2.8 million units, while his follow-up 2004 holiday album, "Merry Christmas With Love," sold 1.4 million units.=
Tyra Banks has decided to feature Clay in a new promo clip for her popular daytime talk show. Since the two hit it off in November, Tyra's been very fond of Clay. The CB's onesingergal reports:
in southern california, tyra will be moving from 10am to 11am, starting jan. 22.Technorati tags: Clay Aiken, A Thousand Different Ways, ATDW, All Is Well, Merry Christmas With Love, Invisible
tyra's promo goes kinda like this ....
tyra says - tyra will be moving, and i'll be giving the love to you !!
then a clip of Clay, with Tyra pressing his cheek to hers, + clips of nelly furtado and nicole richie walking out, to a voiceover of 'big gold stars'....etc.
i saw the promo around 9:40am, yesterday and today (before tyra's show), and around 10:45am, during tyra's show.
There's a small, but cute Clay mention in the January 2007 issue of SELF. The magazine advises readers: "Choose a song that gives closure, like the last song you heard at a concert or a guilty pleasure tune (Clay Aiken fans, you know what we mean)."
Technorati tags: Clay Aiken, A Thousand Different Ways, ATDW, All Is Well, Merry Christmas With Love, Invisible
Now, this is what we're talking about. In a poll featured on the South Florida Sun Sentinel's website, Clay's name is mentioned. Whoever came up with this deserves an award.
Will 'American Idol' be better than ever?Technorati tags: Clay Aiken, A Thousand Different Ways, ATDW, All Is Well, Merry Christmas With Love, Invisible
Do you think this season's 'American Idol' will be the best one yet?
- Yes, the show keeps getting stronger
- No, there's too much hype and we've seen it all before
- No way, how could anyone ever top Clay?!
Soap Opera Digest published their interview with Clay about guest starring on Days of Our Lives last month. The interview can be read in its entirety at SoapOperaDigest.com. An abridgment appears below:
Clay Aiken's Soap DaysTechnorati tags: Clay Aiken, A Thousand Different Ways, ATDW, All Is Well, Merry Christmas With Love, Invisible
By Janet Di Lauro
Soap Opera Weekly: Are you a fan of DAYS OF OUR LIVES?
Clay Aiken: I'd never seen it, not that I'm not a fan. I've never been on another soap opera. (He laughs.) But my best friend, Kristy, is a huge fan. She's a DAYS OF OUR LIVES nut. She's a Daysmate. She watches it every night. She TiVos it and watches it.
Weekly: She must have been excited when you told her you were going to appear on the show.
Aiken: I had to be very careful about how I broke the news to her. I knew that she was going to flip out, and, lo and behold, she did flip out. She's watched DAYS since she was three. She knows every character. And, today, I decided that I would bring her with me. She has literally been sitting in the dressing room, giddy as a 13-year-old. She's always very composed and professional. Today, she'll meet someone and say, "Hi. Nice to meet you," very calmly. Then, as soon as they walk out of the room, "Ohhh, my Goooodddddd!"
Weekly: So how did your soap opera debut go?
Aiken: You know what's interesting? When I did AMERICAN IDOL, we were at CBS. We would literally stay locked in our dressing rooms. Not like in a cage or anything, but we were stuck in the dressing rooms for hours every day. Y&R and B&B were [taped] on that lot. We would get the feed of those soap operas, so we would watch them. They would take FOREVER to do one scene. They'd do them over and over. I thought, "It's going to be a LONG day today. I'll have to do this scene six times." I was so impressed at how quickly they worked. We rehearsed the scene once, taped it once; then, we left.
Weekly: Which gets your adrenaline going more, doing AMERICAN IDOL or appearing on DAYS?
Aiken: I would have to say your adrenaline gets pumping on IDOL. A, you have the judges. B, you have the pressure of it being live. C, the most important thing, you have the audience right there. The benefit to doing something like this is that it's taped. So if I did mess up, we could have done a second take, a third take....
Weekly: Did anyone on the DAYS cast hit you up for autographs?
Aiken: I signed a bunch and took photos [with Deidre Hall (Marlena) and Alison Sweeney (Sami)]. Kristy took photos with almost everybody, including the custodial staff. Just for the fun of it. Just because she's here.
Weekly: It sounds like this was a positive experience. Would you consider coming back to DAYS?
Aiken: I'd love to. They talked about having Patch and Kayla's theme song be "Everything I Have." We'd love to come back and do that again. If Kayla is a Claymate, we'd do a concert for her.
Barely 3 weeks after the close of the Christmas tour, we are already receiving rumors of new Clay concerts coming up in the Spring and Summer. True or not, these should keep you preoccupied as we slowly move through this Clay drought.
At the risk of having tomatoes thrown at me, I thought I would share a tidbit. A fellow teacher also works at the box office of the Miller Auditorium in Kalamazoo, Mi. He said Miller has been contacted about having CLay come in March or April. Don't know anything else about it. But I made him promise to keep me posted.
The UNICEF PSA announced last week, featuring UNICEF ambassadors like Clay, is now up on UNICEF's website.
uh....
Detroit Fort-Worth Star Telegram - making fun of American Idol -
Clay Ache Hen
Song: The Chicken Dance
Judge's comment: [Simon Cow] Well, I'm at a loss. That was just dreadful. It was like being at a wedding, watching your drunken uncle flap his arms on the dance floor, making a complete idiot of himself.
Of course, runners-up Clay Aiken (S2) and Bo Bice (S4) (and most recently, last season’s Katharine McPhee, who has already duetted with Andrea Bocelli), have also made their name, and now an army of previous season finalists has begun to strike gold.
Underwood and Clarkson dominated 2006 but as the year ended, 15 Idol-related albums were actually listed on the Billboard Top 200 album charts, also featuring the likes of Jennifer Hudson, Daughtry, Kellie Pickler, Miranda Lambert, Aiken, Studdard, Kelly Clarkson, McPhee, George Huff, Tamyra Gray and Barrino.
On the surface, it doesn't seem like any big feat that Underwood went on to secure a string of high-profile TV appearances and that her album Some Hearts has sold more than 5 million copies in the space of about 14 months, scoring as 2006's third best-selling album of any genre.
After all, American Idol's average audience hit 30.6 million viewers last season and past stars of the show, including Kelly Clarkson, Ruben Studdard and Clay Aiken, have gone on to find plenty of media exposure and sell lots of al bums. Love it or hate it, Idol creates an intense buzz.
I came across a look-back article by Phil Kloer of the Cox News Service entitled, "Could This Year Have Been Any Stupider? " (as an aside, the definition of "stupid" is "lacking ordinary quickness and keenness of mind; dull," which could aptly be applied to the writings of Mr. Phil Kloer).Sandwiched in between a lawmaker wanting to make red clay the official dirt of Georgia, and someone being awarded a patent for a cordless jump rope is this nugget of "stupidity":September: Clay Aiken named to the President's Committee for People With Intellectual Disabilities.Actually, Mr. Kloer, naming Clay Aiken to this post is an excellent move by President Bush. If he had named Justin Guarini, Diana DiGarmo, or some other American Idol runner-up to the Commission, that may have been a questionable call. But Clay Aiken is a grand call. Quite simply, Mr. Kloer, you have no idea what you are talking (or writing) about.In 2003, Mr. Aiken graduated from college with a degree in Special Education. He helped run YMCA camps for children and served as a substitute teacher for a classroom of students with autism. He also worked as a personal assistant to a young child with autism.Think he's a bad choice? Well, he's no MaryMargaret Sharp-Pucci or Harris Hollin, that's for sure. Never heard of them? Well, how about any of the following: Ricardo Barraza Jr., Herb Bartlett, Valerie Billmire , Stephen Bird, James Boles, William Edwards, Casey O’Halloran , Linda Hampton Starnes, Brian Kelly, Stephanie Pershong Brown, Thomas James Reilly, Steven Rhatigan, Neil Romano, Steve Suroviec, William Tienken, Carmela Vargas Gonzales, or Sharman Word Dennis, M.Ed.Not ringing any bells for you?
Well, we come to Part 3 of our Christmas Tour reminiscing, courtesy of those luscious eye-satisfying pictures taken by our fabulous clack gatherers. For those of you who have not checked out CDD in the last couple of days, we are remembering three concerts a day for six days using the most gorgeous and memorable photos I can put my hands on. For those of you who have been here for each day, are you enjoying it so far? If so, stay tuned. I promise you that Part 3 is every bit as good as Part 1 and Part 2 were. If you haven't seen Parts 1 and 2, click here on Part 1 and Part 2 to enjoy a few breath-taking pictures of our guy from the first 6 concerts.
And now, on to Concerts 7, 8, and 9.
Williamsport, VA - December 9
Wilkes-Barre, PA - December 10
Easton, PA - December 11
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We are halfway through our walk down memory lane. We will have the last half on the next three days. Makes you feel like you're almost there, doesn't it!!
Technorati tags: Clay Aiken, A Thousand Different Ways, ATDW, All Is Well, Merry Christmas With Love, Invisible
We've been alerted to several new magazine magazines courtesy the CB's ellenpoppy...
Even though Carrie Underwood has sold more than five million albums, and Clay Aiken isn't far behind at five million, Kelly Clarkson is the most successful American Idol of all, having sold 13 million copies of her two CDs, Breakaway and Thankful.
The Clay Aiken Lookalike
Michael Sandecki
The Clay Aiken doppelganger sang on the show's May 24 finale and got the surprise of his life when Aiken joined him onstage. But after his big moment, Sandecki (who got rejected at his first Idol audition) did some soul searching. "I kind of got thrown into the spotlight. I had to question myself: Where do I fit in? Who am I?" he says. Now the Phoenix-based Sandecki, 22--who does clerical work for an on-line school--has changed his look so as not to be mistaken for Aiken. Still, he's not giving up his dream. "I eat, live and breathe music, and I'm going to make it somehow," says Sandecki. "But now I just want to be Mike."
He is on page 52 on a section called Ultimate American Idol Trivia.
The first mention is on question four. His name is just mentioned; he isn't the answer. The question is:
Which former finalist starred in the Broadway show for which Zac Efron is now filming a movie version?
a. Constantine Maroulis
b. Tamyra Gray
c. Clay Aiken
d. Diana Degarmo - the correct answer.
The second mention is on question five. Ya'll know the answer to this one.
During last year's finale, Michael Sandecki freaked out when his American Idol role model (who he resembles) graced the stage. Who was it?
a. Ruben Studdard b. Clay Aiken
c. Taylor Hicks d. William Hung
Clay and Rosie O'Donnell are ready to put the sillyness of 2006 behind them, it appears. In Rosie O'Donnell's blog last night, she said Clay will be co-hosting with the ladies on The View "soon".
No word yet on the date, but major news outlets such as Access Hollywood are already picking up the story. The AccessHollywood.com story mentions: "In other Rosie related news, she let slip on her Web site that she'll soon be reuniting with Clay Aiken. He will co-host "The View," "soon," she posted."
In November, O'Donnell made headlines when she accused Kelly Ripa of making a homophobic remark after Clay jokingly placed his hand over Ripa's mouth while guest hosting.
Technorati tags: Clay Aiken, A Thousand Different Ways, ATDW, All Is Well, Merry Christmas With Love, Invisible
Do you think this season's 'American Idol' will be the best one yet?You can vote on this poll. So far "No way, how could anyone ever top Clay?!" is winning...uh, as it should be! Check it out and vote!
Yes, the show keeps getting stronger
No, there's too much hype and we've seen it all before
No way, how could anyone ever top Clay?!
Clay Aiken, the next season’s runner-up, created a loyal and avid fan base during his “Idol” run, one that has supported his three CDs — Measure of a Man, Merry Christmas With Love and A Thousand Different Ways — to the tune of 4.5 million copies sold. Ruben Studdard, that year’s winner, also has released three CDs — Soulful, I Need an Angel and The Return — though his sales have been slightly more than half of Aiken’s.
Over the next few months, Abdul will be assisting in the selection of the four young actresses who'll portray the Bratz, as well as helping dress them and decide what music they'll be listening to. Clay Aiken, we can only assume, is preparing his demo tape.
Yesterday we had our first in a six-part walk down the not so long ago memory lane of Clay's Christmas Tour. Using only pictures of course to satisfy your eye's longing! Today we will revisit Englewood, Baltimore, and Norfolk.
Englewood, NJ - December 5
Baltimore, MD - December 6
Norfolk, VA - December 7
Come back tomorrow for more pictures from our next three concerts! There's lots more memories to go!
Technorati tags: Clay Aiken, A Thousand Different Ways, ATDW, All Is Well, Merry Christmas With Love, Invisible
