Well, another year has passed and a new one begins.  It has been quite a year for Retro Active (how many cliches do you think I can fit in one pragraph?).  After beginning the year on a shaky foot, and those who know us know that I mean that literally, with a disastrous trip to Las Vegas in February, things started to look up!  After breaking her foot 2 days into the trip, Amy L took great joy in my pain as I was forced to stand next to David Hasselhoff for a photo op!(I'm not a big fan of the Hoff).  We'd like to take this time to thank all of patrons, near and far, including Black Glass for sporting our shirts on stage, for making 2007 such a success!  Thank you for your continued support at local events, the great e-mails with stories and great comments that many of you have shared, and for telling all your friends about Retro Active and shopretroactive.com!

After a very busy Spring Break, we geared up to celebrate 2 years of business in May, and shared (our love of) cake and ice cream with all who visited the store and wished us congratulations.  A special thank you to Jason and Cold Stone Creamery here at Broadway At The Beach for adding to our celebration.  Bike Week '07 was insane, and a lot of fun!  We saw about 9 concerts in 4 days including Firehouse, Bad Company, and I think our favorite one that week was The Charlie Daniels Band and the Volunteer Jam!

Before we knew it summer was upon us, and the Kiss Coffeehouse was getting ready to hit a milestone of their own, being open for 1 year.  We'd like to thank Brian, the Coffeehouse owner, for including us in his celebration, which was attended by none other than Ace Frehley himself!  And how can anyone forget that fateful day in June when an unexpected, but most welcome visitor, wandered into Retro Active?  Yes, June 19 is now and forever STEVE PERRY DAY at Retro Active.  We're still recovering from that encounter!

The weather got even warmer, but not near as hot as it was for Amy L in Oklahoma in July for the 1st Annual Rocklahoma Heavy Metal Concert Festival.  For those of you unfamiliar with Rocklahoma, it is 3 days of concerts, over 30 different bands from Twisted Sister, Dokken, Queensyche and Slaughter, to L.A. Guns, Bang Tango, Steelheart and Enuff Z' Nuff!  If you are even considering attending next summer, stop considering and order your tickets! (CLICK HERE for ticket info)

All of a sudden, it was August and time to head back to Vegas.  We made up for lost time from February, and found some fabulous new product!  We came across a few star sightings, including a distant glimps of Jess from Bret Michaels' Rock Of Love reality TV show, and we got our picture taken with Ron Jeremy!

As soon as the summer season was over, we got busy with some serious equipment upgrades!  We remodeled...again...but I think we got it this time!  We're psyched bout how the store looks.

Fall also brought about some new adventure for us as we became a sponsor for the 80s Monster Bash, presented by Spectra Records, on Daniel Island (Charleston), SC.  Quite a different direction from the heavy metal of Rocklahoma, the 80s Bash consisted of 6 pop bands: Survivor, The Romantics, Flock Of Seagulls, Tommy Tutone, Cutting Crew and Naked Eyes.  It was great being a part of that show, and meeting Mike Score of FOS was amazing!

As we prepeared for the holiday shopping season we decided that we needed one more event to round out the year.  Well, that, and we really wanted to see our good friend Chad Stewart.  So we co-sponsored a show with L.A. Guns at the Sound Garden, and they did an in-store meet & greet with fans.  To Tracii, Paul, Jeremy, Chad, and BB& Alec, thanks for being such great guys and making our last event in '07 a very memorable one!  We'll see you in L.A.!!

One last bit of business to mention, and it's an important one.  After long consideration, Amy and I decided it was time to cut a few apron strings between us and the operations of the store, so that we can have time for all the exciting things that we have planned for 2008.  We are happy to anounce the addition of Caroline Koury to our staff as our new Store Manager.  We are very excited to have her on board and look forward to a very productive year!!