Happy trails all the way to LA . . .

Hey everyone, as I try to type with this long nails I just opted for

hope this newsletter finds you well and enjoying the first days of Summer! Can you believe June's almost over? Crazyness. It's been a while since I sent a newsletter out and I thought it was about time I said hi and shared some things I'm up to.

Firstly, It's my birthday June 27th and since I'm not going to be in Dallas with family for my birthday, my family threw me a little wonderful pre-birthday dinner yummy italian place here and when I was strangly ushered ouside for us to have Bday cake, I walked onto the patio and was surprised by a bunch of amazing Jem fans that have driven some of them from Huston to surprise me for my Birthday. Not only that but they proceeded to gift me my very own brand new Integrity "Classic Jem" doll as a gift. The amazing part also was that about 30 fans from all over the world had pitched in through the JEM message boards to come together and buy me my own doll. I was beyond humbled and so thrilled and grateful. I have the most amazing fans in the world - I will treasure her and she is coming on tour with me so look for JEM in lots of travel pics soon to come!!!!



I'm off to Los Angles tomorrow Tuesday the 25th for a week to record vocals for my new album which will be my 3rd solo album. I've been busy writing new songs since "Somethin' Good" came out and now it's time to create some recording magic with my dear friend Dave Polich www.davepolich.com again and I truly can't wait to work on this new material with him again. Hopefully no floods this time as there were tremendous rains in LA when we recorded "Somethin' Good" and Dave studio started to almost float away - luckly non of his gear was damaged. Litterally we were done with vocals and he was handing me rough mixes to leave with and he walked across the studio carpet to hand it to me and the carpet was soaked. You can imagine total pandamoniam insued with Dave running around the outside of the house in the pouring rain trying to figure out how the water was getting in. That was in May so I'm thinkin' now all we have to worry about it 100 degree days and shutting the air off between takes so the mic doesn't pick it up - think I can live with that.

After I get back from Los Angeles, I will be embarking on rehearsals for this new really fun side project called "Lydia's Libido" - We have our first show booked in Burbank CA July 27th so I'll be pretty much turning right back around from Dallas to head back to CA again end of July. 

 "Lydia's Libido" project is:
Samantha Newark
Gary McGrath
Dean Minnerly
Andy Weaver


Gary who is a Grammy winning artist / producer / musician and I met through a truly outrageous Jem fan Amy Rhodes who has been friends with him for quite a while. He was looking for a female singer to front the band so I went to meet Gary at his studio in Fort Worth to see if this might be a cool side project to explore and in less than a week we had recorded 8 songs a co-wrote on a few  for "Lydia's Libido". The musicians invoved are stellar and have played with everybody from Bon Jovi to Queensrÿche to Aretha Franklin, all amazing players. The vibe is Rock and I am the front woman which i guess makes me "Lydia". The record is coming out July 16th on hot Pink Vinyl as well as digital download and we are playing our first live show in Burbank CA on July 27th. So "Like" us on our FB band page and listen to a sneak peak of some of the songs from the soon to be released album on Soundcloud https://soundcloud.com/lydias-libido - we'll keep you posted on all that is "Lydia's Libido"


I'm also working with an amazing Pink Floyd Tribute band here in Dallas called "Bricks in the wall" www.bricksinthewall.com where I am one of 3 backup singers singing the imcomprable material of Pink floyd with the full on amazing production light lazer show etc...They are all super talented musicians and I'm doing a few shows coming up with them next couple of months so check my events calendar on my website for more info.

So that's the scoop for now, thanks so much for reading and I can't wait to bring you more fun news soon!!!

Love and hugs, "Stay Outrageous"
Sam xo