Boxing followed by hockey? Skolnick, what’s gotten into you? Aren’t you the guy who wrote ‘It’s A Sports World (I Just Live In It)’ Part I, II and III?

Don’t worry, I haven’t gone ’sports-crazy.’ All will make sense in a moment…

This is something I’ve been meaning to place here for a few weeks, but an extremely busy period of musical activity-including the subject of this post- has cut into my blogging input. Apologies for the absence (although a devoted writer, my career as a musician often has to take precedence).

I first alluded to a recording project on Twitter in Mid- November. At the time, I was in a hotel room on the road with my portable studio set up. I only revealed that the project required me to swing by my apartment and grab my reissue ‘57 Fender Stratocaster as the Anthrax/Testament tour was swinging through the New York area (professionally, I’m a ‘Les Paul guy,’ but own a Strat and a Tele just to play for fun and in case of an ‘emergency’ such as this).

What I didn’t mention was that I’d just been hired by NBC to record the traditional New Year’s Melody “Auld Lang Syne” in a style reminiscent Jimi Hendrix’s famed 1969 performance of ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ at Woodstock. The solo performance is very short- the first half of a 30 sec. spot, which morphs into prerecorded music. But it was challenging to do, since it called for an ‘anthem’ feel and my guitar was exposed with no other instruments to hide behind.

As I looked outside the hotel room near Albany, New York), I saw American and Canadian flags blowing in the wind. These images helped provide inspiration for the performance, which is now being used to advertise the upcoming broadcast of the NHL/Bridgestone Winter Classic hockey game between the New York Rangers and the Philadelphia Flyers, immediately following New Years Day.

On the night of December 4th, during Sunday Night Football, the Winter Classic Ad Campaign debuted on NBC. During kickoff, I told everyone to keep an ear out for the ad, revealing that the guitarist is yours truly.

In the days that followed, I got word that as a result of the 2012 Winter Classic Ad campaign, my name was being mentioned all over pro- sports news websites (how’s that for irony?). Here’s one sports new site, appropriately entitled ‘The Big Lead’ (see 8th paragraph down).

What a nice example of me finally finding a place in this ‘Sports World’ of which I spoke in those earlier posts! I’m grateful to NBC, the NHL and the Winter Classic for providing such a unique and fun opportunity. The Winter Classic ad has been airing during NBC sports events ever since and will continue through New Years. Here is a direct video Link, courtesy of MSNBC

And speaking of winter and New Years, next week, I’ll be busy with the ‘Skolnick & Broderick Winter Guitar Retreat‘ This means that this will be the final blog post of 2011 (I can think of no more fitting way to wrap things up than this post). 2011 has been an incredible year for me, with many exciting professional and personal developments, many of which I’m sure will be reflected upon in future posts.

Wishing everyone all the best for 2012 and thanks for your readership!

Alex

PS Today being Christmas and Chanukah, happy holidays to all celebrating. And here are a couple fun links for you. The first is courtesy of NBC (coincidentally), who aired a great scene involving the music of a project I’m associated with via their hit comedy ‘The Office’ The second is of me in concert playing with said project, performing O Holy Night Enjoy!