May 8, 2007 

For those of you who are not on our emailing list we have signed up to play with the New York Flyers once againat the Turning Stone Casino on September 15th.  Ticket prices are $10-$15-$20. You can get them through Ticketmaster.com or by calling the T.S. toll free at 877-833-7469. If you want to be added to our emailing list, send an email to alecstar@yahoo.com and put “Add Me to Your Emailing List” in the subject line. We will be going on first this year so don’t be late! We will also be playing two brand new rockin’ Alecstar songs for you. Our second CD will be available at the show.  We will be sending out more emails and posting news as it happens so stay tuned. See you in September and please give to your local animal shelters… The Alecstar Band

December  21^th  2006  

 The new CD, while off to a slow start, is now in full swing. There will be 13 songs on the new CD. First will be the remaining four songs from the album that did not make it on the first CD. Those are “I Can’t Take This Anymore”,  “Your So Good”,  “Babysitter”, and “Will You Believe”.  Also a fifth song , “I Can’t Say Goodbye” that was recorded for the album but never released. “Hearts On Fire” which was recorded in 1984 but never completed. The vocal track was never done until 2004. “I’m No Fool” which was recorded in it’s entirety in 2004 for our first CD but we had run out of time mixing and had to cut a few songs. The original 45RPM version (remember those!) of “No Cash” which was the song that launched us onto the airwaves. This version differs somewhat from the album version. “Your Lies” which was a song that we performed mostly when George was the drummer. “Take Me” which was the hands down favorite from almost everybody who responded to our asking what song(s) would you like to have on the second CD. “Too Late To Cry” which was one of the songs we recorded in 2004 that we were unable to use because of problems with the drums in the recording process. We ended up taking the live audio track (recorded in 1982) off the DVD and enhancing it. That’s eleven songs so far. The last two are live recordings that were done by WOUR 96.9 in Utica, which is home to our good friend and DJ, Jerry “The Doctor” Krause. The first song was recorded when the band was four piece. Its David Bowie’s “Hang On To Yourself” and features Harry on lead vocals. The second is John Lennon’s “Cold Turkey”. This CD will be a lot like the first in the sense that there is something from the band’s beginning up until the end and something new on top of that. Between both of our CD’s, pretty much all of the songs George wrote during the bands time together will be on one CD or the other. The complete collection! Originally we were going to put out a five or six song CD but decided that we may as well put all of the remaining studio recorded songs on it. We will be holding another online contest (with prizes) to name the new CD much like we did the last one. So start writing anything down that comes to mind. We will hold the contest closer to completion of the CD. Right now the new CD is about half done.  Will we be playing next year seems to be the other big question. Something is in the works and we still have a few hurdles to overcome before anything is finalized. But it is looking real good at this point. We will send out an email when it’s a done deal. We can tell you that we will have a couple of BRAND NEW original songs ready for the show.  Harry’s band Kane is playing around as is Jack’s band which has undergone a name change. It was JD Thrush but recently was changed to Smart Alec, the name he used for the band he formed with Timmy after Alecstar. Thrush, as you may recall from our HISTORY section, was the band Jack formed with George and Dan Christy (Guitar/vocals) prior to Alecstar forming. Dan has rejoined Jack along with a new drummer. Everybody knows by now that we always close our emails & news posts by asking our fans to donate to their local animal shelters. This one is no different. There are way too many of our four footed friends in need. Please donate anything that you can. Whether it is money or food, it is welcome and needed. Please do not buy animals from pet stores. There are thousands of unwanted cats and dogs in shelters and not nearly enough homes for them. We would like to give a nod to our producer Jeff Perillo for recently adopting a kitten. He named her Maggie. Jeff didn’t just adopt her and pay the associated cost… he donated another $50- on top of that. It’s a time to give and give we should… to those that NEED. We wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year….

 The Alecstar Band

April 18, 2006

We wish we could tell you there was going to be a show this year but unfortunately that is not going to be the case.  We had hoped to play at a (different from last year) outside venue this summer and had looked into doing so but apparently there is a heavily slanted and biased selection process that negated our performing there.  So we will not be doing a show this year but we will definitely be doing one next year. We will have another CD available sometime in the fall.  It’s going to have the other song that was recorded in 1984 (Hearts On Fire) but was missing the guitar solo and vocals. “I’m No Fool” that we recorded in it’s entirety in 2004 but was not put on our CD because we were running out of time and had to cut a couple of songs.  A version of “I Can’t Say Goodbye” that was recorded for the album but was never released. In fact we totally forgot about it. We only discovered it when we listened back to all the master tapes.  “Take Me” will be on it as that seemed to the hands down favorite for the second release.  We MAY put a live version of John Lennon’s “Cold Turkey” that George and Harry sing together on if it stands up to the remastering process.  Those and one or two others. Some people have suggested we put all of our remaining songs on a CD.  But when we told our remixing, remastering and overall song repairman Jeff Perillo about the idea, (after going through last years marathon sessions) he ran out of his house screaming into some nearby woods and he hasn’t come back yet!  We will keep you informed of the selection process as it happens and Jeff’s whereabouts.  Now for some other news.  Our multi-talented lead singer Gorge is playing in a band in Arizona.  He plays for a talented singer who goes simply by the name Erin. George’s duties in this band are those of a guitar player and he also contributes backup vocals.  They have opened for a number of acts both in the classic rock and country vein and have played at several large outside shows.  According to George, Erin’s star is on the rise and we wish him the best of luck.  There is a link to Erin on our website if you like to see what George is up to. There are some photos of George as well. Harry Mantor’s band Kane is playing around the Syracuse area so check them out if you haven’t seen them yet. And Jack Murray has reformed the band he was in with George just before they formed Alecstar together. As you may recall from our History section, George and Jack played together in a band called Thrush with guitarist Dan Christy. The new band features Jack and Dan who have recruited a new drummer to fill George’s spot. The band has undergone a slight name change and is now called JD Thrush (for Jack & Dan… although anybody that knows Jack probably thinks it stands for Jack Daniels!) They have just gotten underway and recently played with Kane at one of their shows and will continue to do an occasional gig with them. We would like to hear from you so stop by the Message Board and leave us a note.  Oh yeah, if any of you see Jeff, shoot him with a tranquilizer dart or throw a net over him and call us!        

June 20th 2005

Well we hope all that attended the Taste of Syracuse on June 4^th had a good time. We certainly did!  Our new CD “Full Circle” debuted the very same day.  It was long time coming.  You can purchase our new CD either through our website or at Media Play in Dewitt & North Syracuse.  The Sound Garden in Armory Square, Borders in Carousel Mall and the Last Unicorn in New Hartford.  We also have some audio samples you can hear from the new CD in our merchandise section as well as a video sample from our DVD.  There is a write-up on this last reunion in our Reunion section.  There were alot of obstacles, not just before this last show, but even at the show.  You can read all about them.  Also there are a number of photographs taken of the show by our good friend (and the “Name the CD” contest winner) Kathy “The Killer Queen” Naylor.  Check out the reunion section of the Photo Gallery for some great shots.  Thank you Kathy!  That is it….for now!  As always, please give to your local animal shelters….The Alecstar  Band.

May 30^th 2005       

The date draws near! We are now scheduled to go on at 6:45PM followed by the Bacon Brothers at 9PM. Originally we were to close this years event but we got edged out a few weeks ago. The upside is the show shuts down right after the last act plays, so now we can spend some time with our fans after our set! And yes we will have the CD…finally! We will be posting some audio samples in the merchandise section soon. There will be 16 songs on it of which two are newly recorded and one was partially done in 1984, and was finished last year. We owe the existence of the CD to our multi-talented web master Jeff Perillo. We didn’t want to just transfer existing songs off our album and other releases onto a CD. We wanted to remix those older tracks to bring out the best in them. We originally went at this via the tried and true analog way. Later we found there were too many issues from the six different recording sessions these songs came from, to make it work in a way we were happy with. Our hats are off to Jim Barnes for his efforts in trying to make it work. We came to the conclusion that we needed some digital technology to really make this project come together. Then we thought we had somebody else to do this project and that fell through so Jeff stepped up and said he would do it for us. Jeff, as you may have read on our website was a former roadie of ours and was a part owner of a recording studio. Keep in mind that this was only a couple of months ago that this project was begun…again! That left very little time to get it done. Harry Mantor and our manager Mitch went to The Secret Lair (Jeff’s home studio) and remixed all the songs (except the three recorded on 8 track) for the CD. In between visits Jeff (aka Marathon Man) spent an enormous amount of time fixing and tweaking. Jeff also played on one of our tracks. We don’t think he has slept in two months! He really has worked night and day to make the deadline for our show. He kept telling us it will be ready in time. June 4 isn’t just the day we are playing, it is also Jeff birthday. So if you see a guy that is plastered and looks like Elvis and is stumbling around saying “I did it… I did it!” that would be Jeff. So please wish him a happy birthday! We will have a merchandise table set up where you can pick up a copy of our CD along with our DVD, T-shirts & picture discs. You can view all of these items on our merchandise page. For those who may be coming from out of town and are not familiar with the area you can go to Mapquest.com and key in 101 N. Salina St – Syracuse as a destination. That is the address of the Syracuse Post Standard newspaper. The stage is two blocks south on Salina St. We are looking forward to playing in our hometown for the first time in twenty years! We hope to see you all at the show…… The Alecstar Band

March 1, 2005

We have signed on to play at the annual Taste of Syracuse event on Saturday June 4th.  For those of you not familiar with the event we can start by telling you it’s FREE!  It’s held outside in a huge lot in the middle of downtown Syracuse.  It’s a two day show that a number of local bands will be playing.  There is also beer and food aplenty.  805 played there a few weeks after the show we did with them at the Turning Stone in 2003.  We have not done a reunion in Syracuse and are excited at the prospect entertaining you all on our home turf.  We will be playing on the main stage which is sponsored by TK99, the local classic rock radio station.  Stay tuned for more details on the CD and as always…. Please give to your local animal shelters….The Alecstar Band

January 31, 2005

Hello All!  We have been making some NEW additions to our website.  We have added two new sections to the main index.  The first one is our new “Reunions” section which is a write up on each reunion the band has had since the official breakup in 1985.  It covers how they started, who was involved etc.  It starts with the little known one in 1993 and then moves on to the Vernon Downs and the two Turning Stone Reunions.  There is also another new section called “Discography” which is self explanatory.  In our “Photo Gallery” we have added two new galleries.  The first is called “Reunions” which has photos from all four reunions to date.  The other is called the “Alecstar Family Tree” which has photos from bands that the members of Alecstar came from as well as some promo pictures of Alecstar.  (Some of these you have seen but we have added some new ones as well).  We are working on the CD and will let you know when it will be available and what songs will be on it, as we get nearer to releasing it.  We can tell you that there will be a few changes in the song list that is posted in our merchandise section.  And as always…. please give to your local animal shelters….The Alecstar Band