After five years of hard work and many disappointments, the HotBands vision is finally coming to fruition. This is most exciting mainly because this is an area of the industry that is sorely overlooked in a badly needed area of the industry; artist support rather than artist exploitation.

One year ago this week, at The Seattle Hemp-Fest is when I first met Mike Miller, the manager/drummer of one of the bands featured on our site http://www.hotbands.com/reviews/20021015review.php, who began steady internet and phone contact with me working toward promoting his band. This led to meetings with a fan of Mike's band, William Ceriale, a 44-year old successful businessman looking for excitement in the world of artist management.

Together we are launching several new divisions to HotBands Entertainment: Groovzilla Management is an artist management company that focuses on high-end bands needing top-end support, and is headed by William Ceriale.

Phat House Records is headed by Mike Miller, and will be handling all aspects of the record label including aquisition of exisiting labels to work under a virtual label umbrella.

Our flagship music project, Pop Shuvit, is a Malaysian rapcore band that contacted me last October that we featured as our Artist of the Month in March of 2001 (see http://www.hotbands.com/reviews/20030301review.php). They were selected as our first project because they are ready. Out of the gate with their debut CD Take it and Shuvit , released last December, this energetic skater band captured three #1 hits on Malaysian radio as well as two Grammy nominations.

Pop Shuvit's hit 'Skaters Anthem' forged a more or less permanent slot as headliner for the Asian XGames, and through our efforts, we have formed a cordial relationship with ESPN, who loved Pop Shuvit's Skaters Anthem video and has agreed to distribute 1000 promotional demos at their XGames event in Los Angeles August 14-18. Throughout the event, ESPN will be playing Pop Shuvit's video on the mega-screens and six songs from their CD will be added to the DJ play list. Our goal is to help Pop Shuvit become the world XGames band for 2004 as well as helping set up a major national tour in the United States and Canada.

Combining management, label, artist support and publishing, we at HotBands Entertainment look forward to creating a music powerhouse that will help bring true musical talent into mainstream appreciation.

Many thanks to everyone that has stuck with us through the bumps and ruts! It's only going to get better from here!

Patrick Ferris
President - HotBands Entertainment Inc.

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