Many thanks to David of the Frozen Fire Mailing List for the info.

The Kasim mention is "The rest of The New Cars' lineup is Utopia bassist/vocalist Kasim Sulton and former Tubes drummer Prairie Prince.

"I think that we have, collectively, probably a more aggressive approach than was previously associated with The Cars," said Rundgren, who came on board last August. "Part of that comes from having a completely new rhythm section in Kasim and Prairie. They've been in my band so they're used to playing a kind of music that is more aggressive, let's say. The new band reflects that new level of aggression.""

There's also an article on the same website here (it doesn't mention Kasim by name) with the slant about Blondie opening for The New Cars.

It's doubtful that Kasim Sulton saw much of his family in March 2006 as he spent most of it in Los Angeles and, according to his post in his journal, he was only home for one day before he went to Germany for the last few days of the month to demonstrate his signature bass at MusikMesse in Frankfurt.

Kasim's time in Los Angeles was a mixture of work with The New Cars and recording both bass and background vocals for the forthcoming Bat Out Of Hell III album with Meat Loaf. There was about a week of promo work for The New Cars which started with the big press conference on 14th March at The House Of Blues (complete with a live performance). They also recorded two TV shows as a band.

In contrast March 2005 saw Kasim at home the whole time as he appeared in the musical Movin' Out (on Broadway) in 14 performances, plus he was the Musical Director for an important show-case of a new artist in New York at the beginning of the month.

In contrast again(!) March 2004 saw Kasim Sulton on the other side of the world as he played 8 concerts with Meat Loaf in Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand (Kasim played opening sets at 7 of these!!) and he held two online chats.

The article is dated 3rd April and it says "The K Sulton Signature Bass is expected for retail availability in the United States this week". It also says that "The K Sulton Signature Bass will be offered directly to consumers through fine music retailers like Cascio Interstate Music in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Ed Roman Guitars in Las Vegas, Nevada; House of Guitars in Rochester, New York; select Sam Ash stores, other dealers throughout the United States and Europe, and online worldwide at KSultonBass.com".

However, even I can understand what "Kasim Sulton (bassiste et chanteur du groupe Utopia)" means!

A couple of quotes from the second page of the interview are:

"I always think it's disappointing when I go to a show and a band introduces a bunch of new material and doesn't play the stuff you really want to hear. Most people initially will want to hear us play the favorites; they come to hear those guitar solos, and everything else. People want to hear those songs performed the way they grew up with them, and it's my pleasure to play them. I'm not one for changing things so that they're unrecognizable from the records."

and

"We'll do "Open My Eyes" by the Nazz and also "I Saw the Light," one of Todd's [solo] songs. We may do more of his material. When you have a guy as talented as Todd Rundgren in the band, it would be foolish to have him sing just the one set of songs. He's such a strong writer and creative person that it allows us to go forward with new stuff. That's what we hope to do. If everything goes well, we'll record a studio album of all-new material.
But you can't spread it out too thin. People are coming to see a New Cars concert. Then again, there's no attempt to confuse people to make them think that Ric [Ocasek] and David [Robinson] are there. That's why we call it The New Cars, and it reflects the differences in personnel."

Many thanks to Milo for posting this link.

This will Kasim's first time playing at this venue and from the photos it appears that normally the area where the concert will be held is a large open space and they add chairs for the concerts. There will also be a great backdrop to the concert - the Palomar Mountains!

Unfortunately for some reason The New Cars and Blondie concert is no longer listed on the Pala Casino website (concerts both before and after 16th May are listed though).

Looking at TicketMaster.com today two seats together could still be purchased for this concert in the 19th row of this 57 row venue.

Also on E-Bay.com here there is another copy of Lights On but this time on cassette. The opening bid is $0.99, there are no bids so far and the auction ends on Wednesday.

According to KSultonBass.com here The New Cars are expected to make appearances on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, The Late Show with David Letterman and The Ellen DeGeneres Show! (This was posted on that website on 13th March.) The website also promises that Kasim Sulton will be road-testing his signature bass on The New Cars Road Rage Tour!

Previously all they could view was a postage size version of the site (which was too small to be able to read any of the index) with a big black box below. Unfortunately the site is now not centered on the screen for users of Internet Explorer and the Photo gallery has stopped working!

Also, the gamma version (which has been online since February 2004) does not have a link to purchase Kasim's solo CD Quid Pro Quo nor the facility to sign-up for his mailing list. (The link to Kasim's mailing list is on the KasimSulton.com page here but stopped working in January and has not yet been fixed.)

As stated above the gamma version of the site went live in early February 2004 but the links to the Video Vault, My Studio and Set Me Free Club are still "Coming Soon".

As the message from Kasim from February 2004 says on the front page of the website "There are a lot of features that will be unveiled as the days progress so, no rush. Easy does it." !!!

The official website of the show does not specify exactly what they'll be playing but some other TV listings websites say that it is a repeat of their performance which was aired on 27th / 28th March (singing Not Tonight) but on 21st March they also recorded Just What I Needed so it's possible that they may show that song (although Kasim Sulton appeared to doubt that it would ever be aired!).

If you're too impatient to wait until Friday see the show then The New Cars performance can be viewed here!

No official reason has been given but it may have been delayed to reduce the time between the two releases to cut down on the number of import purchases.

Eyes Left!
Smiling
Feeling sleepy? (Well, it was an early morning press conference!)
All change places!
Back to smiling mode.
Kasim trying to break his foot again!
Snuggling up.
A smile to finish with.

I'm going to the first 10 concerts on The New Cars Road Rage Tour (plus two on the East Coast). For each concert I only bought a basic ticket (i.e. no packages except for the Konocti concert when I had to buy a barbeque ticket to get a reserved seat) and in each case I managed to get a seat relatively near the front.

These are the actual amounts charged to my credit card:

5/12 Tunica, MS - $70.80
5/13 Grand Prairie, TX - $95.47
5/16 Pala, CA - $100.25
5/17 Phoenix, AZ - $157.75
5/19 Las Vegas, NV - $93.85
5/20 Universal City, CA - $95.35
5/23 San Diego, CA - $75.50
5/25 Saratoga, CA - $148.95
5/26 Reno, NV - $102.75
5/27 Konocti, CA - $109.50

5/24 Atlantic City, NJ - $53.80
5/25 Uncasville, CT - $44.30

It appears that the tickets on the East Coast are cheaper than on the West Coast! Phoenix, AZ is the most expensive out of these 12.

Many thanks to Joe Evans for the heads-up.

The New Cars - a foot-tapping band!:

However these do come at a high price! For example they are selling seats for the Grand Prairie concert on 13th May in the sixth row for $240 each. (In this example you have to buy two tickets and when shipping and taxes are added it totals $532.59 for the two seats.) When tickets first went on sale I bought a seat in the second row of the same block for $95.47 including all charges.

They are also offering 2nd row seats for the Las Vegas concert on 19th May at $865 each (plus charges). My seat in the 4th row at that venue was $93.85 including all charges.

On Thursday the Admin person on the messageboard attached to The New Cars official website TheNewCars.com posted in response to fans' concerns about how ticket sales for the concerts are gong, "ticket sales have spiked in the last couple of weeks - so no need for concern".

The whole article reads:

The New Cars -- which also features Cars co-founders Elliott Easton and Greg Hawkes and Tubes drummer Prairie Prince -- perform on June 30th at the DTE Energy Music Theatre, with Blondie opening."

Many thanks to Dweick for this link.

Entry to the competition is free (other than you need to be a member of their online website which is also free) and you have to simply e-mail to say why you believe that you (or a friend) deserves to win the competition. The link above has full details.

Many thanks to TRiFanOK for this link.

(Other fans have reported seeing "2 for the price of 1" offers for at least one concert.)