Chaz Langley

Singer | Songwriter | Actor | Model

World Photography Day with Sony Alpha

  This is a day that I won’t soon forget! I was granted the opportunity to be invited to a Sony Alpha event in Redhook, Brooklyn!  My photographer friend, Oveck Reyes  invited me to this amazing event… The who’s who of the Sony family in regards to ambassadors and aficionados we’re all in one place! During this amazing day there were models hired for us photographers to go on Photo walks as well as indoor studio lit environments!  The company also offered the use of some of their top-of-the-line cameras and lenses to use throughout the day and offered a free memory card with each rental!  I personally used the A7RIII with the 24-70mm f2.8 GM as well as my personal 90mm f2.8 Macro to shoot with all day!  I swear it was like driving a high-end Italian sports car!  

You can see some of my images below:

 At the end of the event one of the host for the event offered that anyone who would be posting images on Instagram should use #BeAlpha to be considered to win one of five A7RIII cameras as well as high-end lenses!  I’m not sure as to who won but I know I put a lot of energy into the possibility! These nine images below are what I offered to be in the running… Your thoughts? 

 All in all this was an amazing event that I was honored to be a part of! I only hope that one day I’m fortunate enough to win or fortunate enough to afford this beast of a camera! I’m looking for good fortune to come my way soon and hope this is one of the spoils of such! 

I hope this is step closer to joining the Sony Family... Officially’ 

 

Songwriting... and my future in it

As many of you may or may not know, I've been writing songs for the better half of 15 years! I write songs to express the life and the world that I live in! I pride myself in writing melodies that are contagious and lyrics that are thought provoking yet accessible! Some of my biggest songwriting influences are (in no particular order) Lionel Richie, Stevie Wonder, Ryan Tedder, Savan Kotecha! There are a few more but these are the ones that come to mind for the sake of this blog right now! Although I write primarily alone, I LOVE doing cowrites as well! It allows me to look at the world through different lenses! For me, cowriting is like a marriage! The process is very similar in nature… During this process there is a "get to know you" phase that allows each writer to get a feel for writing style, strengths, weaknesses and tendencies! As the relationship develops (if there's chemistry) there comes a "Baby" in the form of a Song! That Song will then connect you together FOREVER through means of publishing and your PRO (I'll explain later... If you don't know)! If you're lucky, it will even afford you your first home, car or anything else you've dreamed of while working that 9-5 you've hated before committing full time to the world of songwriting! 

  Over the past year, I've had a string of good fortune through ASCAP (My PRO Performance Rights Organization) They help collect money on songwriters behalfs for any songs written that may be purchased, played on the radio or in public venues! 

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As I mentioned in a previous blog, I had a wonderful opportunity to perform my music for fellow singer/songwriters at the ASCAP Expo in Los Angeles! Just recently I've been invited by the ASCAP Foundation to perform my music at the world-famous, Kennedy Center in Washington D.C! This is not only an honor but a privilege to be selected as a songwriter on the rise in this craft that I've put so much time and energy into! I long for the day that I will hear my first song on the radio! This will be the year that happens... From the great lyrics of Bruno Mars (who I recently wrote a song for) "Don't believe me just watch"!

Stay tuned!​

To my Nashville Friends...

  So I'm sitting here on the first day of April with the temperature at 52° wondering if we'll ever see Spring! It should be at least touching 70° at this point of the year! I've been a bit of a funk this winter as it is and with the tease of spring looming, I can't help but wonder when I'll be able to take my son out to the park without the repercussions of the sniffles to follow! Oh, I get it... It's Mother Natures "April Fools" joke!

  Carry on with your sun-filled warmer days my Southern Friends! I'll be joining you soon! Me and the Family are moving back to Nashville on June 1st! I got a publishing deal that will keep me super busy with actually WRITING for a living... YAY! All my Nashville Friends, send me your info! Love to catch up and set up times to meet up and gauge where to live! It's been a while since I lived there and KNOW a lot has changed!

By the way...                                                                                                                                    

APRIL FOOLS!

APRIL FOOLS!

Binge Watching?

Find yourself watching a full season of your favorite show in a matter of hours? Finding yourself out of sync at work and needing a 5hour energy drink to maintain focus? Do you think that watching commercials are "so 1999"? Did you get that new iPhone 6 for the beautiful retina display to show every titillating pixel of drama unfolding while on a plane, train or automobile? If you find yourself answering yes to any of these questions, then you may be… Binge Watching! 

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According to Wikipedia, Binge Watching , also called binge-viewing, is the practice of watching television for longer time spans than usual, usually of a single television show. In a survey conducted by Netflix in February 2014, 73% of people define binge-watching as “watching between 2-3 episodes of the same TV show in one sitting.” Binge-watching as an observed cultural phenomenon has become popular with the rise of online media services such as NetflixHulu and Amazon Prime with which the viewer can watch television shows and movies on-demand.

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In fact, this phenomenon was realize in 1999 with the introduction of TiVo ! Ever since then, DVR and other streaming means have dominated our already short attention span to absolutely ZERO tolerance for commercials! 

I could remember this binge watching phenomenon (before I knew what it was) back in 2005 when I was singing on Celebrity Cruiselines and DVDs were dispersed throughout the cast of the show I was a part of! The show that we shared amongst each other was the show "Lost"!  For those who lived under a rock during its time, it was a show that featured castaways on a mysterious island with the backdrop of their lives leading to them being stranded on the island!

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Given that we didn't have any immediate access to any network television, we took it amongst ourselves to have friends from home burn DVDs for us all to watch! Whoever would watch one DVD of episodes would then pass it along to the next person in the cast! It bonded us together for the duration of our 6 month contract together! 

Now we fast forward 10 years later and things have become more accessible and more immediate! Even cable companies have started adding channels dedicated for network TV shows to be ON DEMAND!

Show that I enjoy binge watching includes...

Breaking BadWalking Dead (AMC) House of Cards (Netflix), Orange is the New Black (Netflix), Blacklist (NBC), The Slap (NBC),  Nashville (ABC), How to Get Away With Murder (ABC) and now Secrets and Lies (ABC)

Although this phenomenon has swept us all by storm, I'm starting to see how the demand for these shows are starting to become the achilles heel of this phenomenon! You see, some of these shows are starting to do "Semi-Season Finales"! This cheapens the product and have writers of the shows scurrying to write subpar scripts for the next group of episodes! Some shows have gone as far as to cheat this binging (in my eyes)

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So I'm cruising along watching uninterrupted the first few  seasons of Breaking Bad and then It happened... Popularity! I mean the Internet BLEW UP with it's success after starting off slow the first 2 seasons! When it's popularity hit a fever pitch, the show ran out of free episodes on Netflix!

Even creator Vince Gilligan thanked the on demand video service Netflix at the Emmy Awards in September 2013. He even went as far as to say that Netflix "kept us on the air". Luckily for Gilligan the  "shortage" mixed with popularity, garnered the last 2 seasons to be for purchase on Apple TV to continue your binge watching experience of this now cult classic TV show at a premium price! For the rest of the world, you would have to watch week by week which became outdated due to the risk of spoilers over water coolers and the internet! Not sure if this is just a phase for watching TV right now or what the future of TV watching will be! I am loving what I'm watching and hope you are too!

With that being said, what are YOUR favorite shows and why?                                                           I want to hear from YOU

As always,                                                                                                                                SUBSCRIBE and SHARE                                                                                                                  (Click on the comment to Subscribe)

Gio Leone Langley

Where do I begin? His name is Gio Leone Langley… He is my first born and I'm very honored to be his father! He was born May 13, 2011 (Friday) at 4:17pm, and weighed 8 lbs. 4 oz.

Gio Leone Langley (Year of the Rabbit) 

Gio Leone Langley (Year of the Rabbit) 

I took my time and waited for the right woman and opportunity to have my first at the ripe age of 38! My wife to be and mother of my son is named Nino Kolotashvili! She is from the Republic of Georgia which is from the former Soviet Union… She moved here at the age of 18 and eventually worked hard enough to bring the rest of her family over from Georgia!

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After meeting at a local Russian restaurant I was singing at in Brooklyn New York, we met on the dance floor and I haven't stop dancing since! A year after our courtship, we were pregnant with Gio! Though it was unexpected, the experience was very welcomed! From the moment that Gio entered the world, I knew that he was special! I found many similarities in our characters in the way he watched and studied his surroundings people even as an infant! My mother told me that just like Gio, I was born very quiet and very curious! My mother was distraught about me being born so quiet and asked doctors if something was wrong with me! When Gio came into the world in the same way, I had no doubt that we were cut from the same cloth! As most parents do, we think our kids are the cutest EVER! With that in mind, I had an impromptu casting of a family with a baby for the Pampers brand! Oddly enough I had two different calls about the casting… One, from my agent Charlie Wright… And two from an actor friend of mine named Joe! Joe called me and asked me if I had just had my son (at 5 months) and that there was a casting for father and son that he saw online on a casting website! We went in for the go see and to my surprise they needed a mother of ambiguous ethnicity! Given that Nino has always been mistaken for other nationalities, I felt that she would be great in this casting as well! Long story short, we were all casted for the Pampers shoot! I found through my life (before being a parent) that most parents vie for their cute baby to be a Pampers or Huggies baby or any sort of baby product baby! This opportunity fell in our laps at the right moment! Needless to say, we were very happy and blessed that our son was chosen to be a part of this moment in his journey! As Gio began to grow through the first couple of years of life, his characteristics and personality began to blossom! He had a natural affinity for music… He would sing around the house with different melodies of songs that he may of heard on the radio on the drive or even watching me and my home studio record! His curiosity was off the charts as he would grab a set of earphones to hear what I was working on... All the while trying to sing a couple of bars into the microphone as I was doing some studio work! 

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I could vividly remember a time when I introduced him to a couple of clips on YouTube on our television and I looked up a child drummer… It was interesting because we had just bought Gio (now 11 months) a small little drum set! I sat him in front of the television and played this clip of this prodigy little boy playing the drums!

To my surprise he began to look at the TV curiously only to play the drums just as he saw little boy did! I am SO glad that I had my iPhone recording this moment, not knowing what to expect but was ready for anything! Being a dad in this day and time it's so interesting when it comes to all of the DIY things we can do as parents nowadays! I would take all of his pictures videos other little moments of his life in various ways! Yes, at times I feel like that nerdy dad on Modern Family that has so many harebrained ideas to make his family happy with his random "gifts"! Now, nearly 4 years old, Gio is growing into himself and is quite handsome (if I do say so myself)! There was a period of time that no casting agencies would take him because of his age and needed for him to be AT LEAST 4 years old! We're now looking into finding the right agency to represent him here in New York, to give him a chance to succeed in this ever changing business! I by no means a stage dad or mom or whatever you may call it these days, but he's always had a natural talent to charm people to sing to anything he hears once and to just be a kid! My mother never pushed me into anything as a kid, but would always encourage my natural interest and my gifts in order to nurture them in a more structured environment! I was always shy as a kid and never opened up until I was at least 17 years old… At which time, I auditioned for a magnet school in Virginia and made it! I've been singing and acting since! I want Gio to be better than what I was because he has an opportunity to be much more starting this early in life! Not to mention having TWO parents to raise him, whereas my mother was the only one! Not to mention how cute he is at his age given how beautiful Nino is and his "cool" hair and all! We are 2 happy parents that are blessed to have Gio; AND Anna; 9 (from Nino's previous marriage)!

Love this shirt

Love this shirt

Our Modern Family

Our Modern Family

They get along famously and love each other VERY much! They hate to be apart also! This love doesn't come without occasional pulled hair and a few broken toys along the way, but that's normal and always has been!                        

As for Gio, if you are in New York and know of an agency that would be perfect for Gio, please let me know of any info you may have!

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Follow our journey on Instagram and Facebook ! 

As always...

COMMENT and SUBSCRIBE  

Snow... Snow... Go Away

There are so many perks to living in New York… There is the endless electric night life… There are the inspirational bright lights of Time Square… There is the infectious shopping from 5th ave. to the boutiques and vintage shops of Brooklyn… There are also little undiscovered eateries on every corner…  Not to mention, style for miles from the fashionistas of the Upper East Side to the Bespoke shops of Chelsea! 

One thing that doesn't excite us New Yorkers is the SNOW... and TONS of it! 

I live in Brooklyn and ACTUALLY have vehicle (SUV to be exact) 

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Given last years winter, I knew that I had to protect me and my Family from the ills of THIS winter! Thank GOD I got it because this winter is worst! 

Just when you think there will be a "break" in the weather to transition to Spring, ANOTHER wave of snow is forecasted to take the wind outta my sails! I could vividly remember when I was growing up that when the calendar hit "March", there would be one good rain to wash away the snow! Soon after, we'd set our clocks ahead 1 one hour and look forward to the warmer weather of Spring! It is now March 5th and no Spring in sight! I know that just recently wrote a song about our 'social' climate entitled, "When Will It End", but now I'm REALLY asking about our physical climate...

Outside my Home

Outside my Home

WHEN WILL IT END?!

Share YOUR "Snow" experience via Comments or Photos... 

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Yes, I'm Blogging

I started a blog because I feel like it was about time given that many have asked me to! I've been blessed to have a unique multifaceted life that is predicated on my family, my career, my friends, and the spontaneity of God's gifts throughout my life! My family consist of a loving Mother who's raised me and my brother on her own from Washington DC to Virginia Beach! She's a rock and a source of a lot of my strength and love in my Music and in my life! My Music career spans nearly 20 years, singing with various artists, singing for various companies, doing voiceovers for various products and commercials! I've toured with artists internationally!  I've supported artists on well-known television shows such as Good Morning America and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon! Artists I've supported include, Michael McDonald, Larry Carlton, Keri Hilson, Imagine Dragons, Lucy Woodward, and Alexander Kogan! I've even been casted on NBC The Voice Season 2! Many of you may not of seen me on season two but it was an experience that I will always remember! (I'll save the details for another blog) I was casted in my first featured film, directed by Clint Eastwood (Jersey Boys) What a great experience it was to be directed by the living legend! An experience I will never forget!

Valentine's Day  

Valentine's Day  

At the turn of the New Year, there were some AMAZING things that happened! I asked my beautiful Little Lady (Nino Kolotashvili)
of 5 years to marry me! We have a beautiful three-year-old son together named Gio! We never wanted to make a big fuss over marriage but we felt that it was good for our family! There is no timetable as to when we will get married but when we do, it won't be a big huge to do! Another wonderful moment that I've had in the month of February was the opportunity to sing with Grammy award-winning band, Imagine Dragons on Good Morning America! It was a wonderful opportunity I was afforded through a good friend of mine, Stephanie Alexander… (Amazing singer in her own right)! It was a wonderful opportunity to sing with some of New York's top session singers! We all got along famously and we laughed and sang as well as shared each other's resume and experiences! Some of the singers included working with the likes of Sting, Madonna, Stevie Wonder, Mary J Blige, Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, as well as on tour with various superstars! As far as my Music is concerned, I just released my latest song on Sound Cloud and YouTube! "When Will It End" deals with things that ail our society as a whole and offers a peaceful plea to be a better people! 

So in closing, it's been a great start to the New Year! The proof is below...

Stay tuned to my next one... 

SUBSCRIBE BELOW... 

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Performing "I Bet My Life" with Imagine Dragons from new album  

Performing "I Bet My Life" with Imagine Dragons from new album  

with Dan Reynolds Lead Singer of Imagine Dragons

with Dan Reynolds Lead Singer of Imagine Dragons