I’ve been a bit quiet recently, mostly because I’ve been traveling – some travel was for music, and a lot of it has been with and/or to see family. I am in fact about to take off yet again, to Romania this time, to meet Mike’s family. It’s something we’ve been wanting to do for a long time, and I’m incredibly grateful to have the flexibility to do it right now. When I return, I’ll post some photos from ALL of my summer/early fall travels – a little retrospective montage, if you will. Read the rest of this entry »
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I used to blog about my LA experiences a lot, which people seemed to find fairly entertaining. I suppose when I was an idiot getting off the bus at the wrong place and getting into altercations with people at the 7-11 (‘member that one, folks? if not i’ll tell the story again), that was funnier than my current routine, which is more, well, routine. However – every day I notice quirky things, some of which seem uniquely LA and even uniquely my neighborhood and some that I’m sure we all recognize.
Some choice moments: Read the rest of this entry »
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I’m actually kind of quoting Aimee Mann in that title…which will make sense in a second.
So, this is how a day in my life (right now, anyway) goes. I’m working part-time for a few weeks, so I vowed on Tuesday night that I would wake up early Wednesday, work out, eat a nice breakfast, then go to work, come home, maybe go for a hike, make a nice healthy stir-fry(I’m sort of trying to detox from tour food), come home, clean, practice guitar, go to bed at a decent hour. But, of course, Tuesday night was our double header of record store visits – Aimee Mann did an in-store at Amoeba and Sam Phillips was afterward right across the street at Borders. How could I NOT to go both? And then one thing led to another and we wound up getting home kind of late. And I was so excited to see them both, and I met Sam Phillips and she was adorable and so kind (and I made Bruce’s The Promise Liveblog again kinda just by being there! Crazy. He’s also very kind and I was excited to meet him in person). Read the rest of this entry »
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“A dreaded sunny day, so I’ll meet you at the cemetary gates
Keats and Yeats are one your side…”
Holy crap, I love The Smiths! Who knew?I think I was a little young the first time around with them – I only remember what I saw later of Morrissey, solo, singing “The more you ignore me, the closer I get…” on MTV and I eventually put two and two together. Later, they seemed to have this cultish following that I was not cool enough to join. Certain fans of certain bands will treat you like you’re not qualified to join their ranks sometimes, so it puts me off – but what a stupid reason to deny yourself good music. How nice that I don’t care how not cool I am anymore.
Mike re-discovered the song “Cemetary Gates” a while back and played it for me, I think because the literary references reminded him of me and all my papers on Yeats. He burned me a CD of stuff from that album the other day and I love it. Ah, what a perfect line for this town:
“Still I’d rather be famous than righteous or holy
any day, any day, any day…”I also really love Jesse Harris recently. I went to see his show the other night not knowing what to expect, except for Norah Jones-sounding songs, and I totally love his vibe and his songs. He’s just so genuine – listening to him was like taking a deep breath.
And it really IS a sunny day, which is nice. Hope you all are enjoying it…(those of you who can. Sorry, my Michigan friends…).
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(Actually, I’ve never had the actual ‘tofurky’ in place of the Thanksgiving turkey, but I have partaken of their various products. The faux Italian sausage is quite good with pasta.)
So yes, I am a vegetarian. I look forward to Thanksgiving nonetheless – my favorites were always the side dishes anyway. And, of course, the warm fuzzy spending time with family-ness of it all. It was a tricky holiday, though, once I started college. Air travel over the holiday can be nightmarish. And it never seemed to be enough time, especially with finals hanging over my head.
That hasn’t been an issue for a few years now, but from LA, the whole redeye flight/long weekend thing does throw you for a loop. Since Mike and I will see our families a lot over the next couple months anyway, I’m ultimately extremely relieved to be staying right where I am this Thanksgiving. It will be the first time I actually make some of the Thanksgiving goodies myself, as opposed to showing up in the kitchen, asking my mom if I can help and then mashing some potatoes or something marginal and then stuffing myself. My poor mom. It’s just so easy to go back to your parents’ house and revert to total childlike ‘feed me’ helplessness. But it’s good I am now forced to bake my own pie like the grown-up I actually am.
I for one will be making a sweet potato casserole and a chocolate pecan pie and bringing it to a friend’s. I actually do love baking (I’m the cupcake queen!), and I’m thrilled to actually have enough time to do it. Both are specialties of my mom’s, so I’m making my own tradition while actually just carrying hers on. Which is a warm fuzzy feeling in itself. :) Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
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I watched that Live From Abbey Road show and was reminded of one of my great songwriter loves, Shawn Colvin. Her music has gotten me through many a rough moment. I will never get tired of letting “Shotgun Down the Avalanche” watch over me. I’d actually forgotten what an influence she’s been on me for some reason – it really hasn’t been that long since I’ve listened ot her. I used to belt out the song “Get Out of This House” when I was going through a very tough time a few years back. Sometime later I wrote “Let Me Out of This House” and thought of her song and laughed at the funny similarity in the title. I’m still disappointed at how meek my version of that feeling is compared to hers, though of course mine must have been a very different situation. I do hope I’ll write some more ass-kicking songs one of these days….”go back to your mama/go back to high school/get out of this house.”
:)She actually performed a pared down version of “Sunny Came Home” which was lovely. When she talked about how she came around to the singer-songwriter thing it seemed very much like my own wanderings through other types of music and then to the realization that my favorite thing to do is just be with my guitar…
The show was clearly a ’singer-songwriter’ one and you can see why that’s what I want to be – I adored it; Nerina Pallot came next (gorgeous. Why didn’t I really know about her?) and Ray Lamontagne who I must say I like more all the time. He’s so intense, which I very much appreciate. But the next show is, like, Natasha Bedingfield and Iron Maiden. Hmmm.
Anyway. I think I need to write some songs now. :)
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Mike and I went to hear Joe Henry live at Largo on Friday night – he just released his new album, “Civilians” and this is one of his rare appearances. Though I’ve known of him for a while, I didn’t know much about him or his music until Mike and I met Jay just shortly after he’d recorded “I Believe to My Soul” with Joe (which we promptly bought at Starbucks one cold Grand Rapids day after it came out). I’ve been listening to a lot of his music and music he’s produced since then. We were also aware he’d been recording because we used (almost) the same team that he did for my album. We obviously like the same musicians. Apparently, we’ve got some other random things in common, too, like English degrees from the University of Michigan…
:)We’d heard from Patrick himself how amazing this record was going to be and we had been listening to the tracks available on his website, so we were definitely excited for the show. They stuck us in the middle of the front “row” of tables, so close to the little stage that I could read the setlist, most of it, anyway. Which I tried not to do-it felt sort of wrong to remove the element of surprise-but it was almost impossible. We were so close that when the band was all getting on stage and tuning, there was some kind of feedback when Joe plugged in his guitar and he looked down at me and joked, “was that you?” Pretty funny.
Needless to say, we were VERY attentive, which was certainly not hard considering how great a show it was. The band included all our favorites – Jay Bellerose on drums, Patrick Warren on keyboards, Greg Leisz on guitar, etc. (“everything else” as Joe put it), Dave Piltch on upright bass and Jen Condos on electric bass for just a song (what a sweetheart. And I love watching her play. My hero…ahem, heroine). There was an incredible energy in the room – an energy that was almost intimidating – it was like VIP night there, with all my favorite songwriters and musicians on stage and in the audience. And the band played perfect arrangements for each song. I couldn’t help thinking about what I know about Joe as a producer, and how “well-produced” the whole show was, while still so natural and relaxed (which seems to be his production style, too). His lyrics are incredible and sitting about two feet away while he sang them allowed us to catch every nuance!
Do yourself a favor and check out his album. As I mentioned, he actually has some tracks available on his website, amusingly titled www.joehenrylovesyoumadly.com.
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So, I’m still plugging away at the Austin City Limits contest. I was boosted up to about 31 out of all the bands and then, though I’ve been garnering more and more votes, I’m down to about 51 now. Hopefully we can get things movin’ again over the weekend. What can I say – I’m competitive. And I would LOVE to play Austin!
For those of you who’ve told me I need to re-post the link, here you go:
mp3.comI’m really blown away by how many people I don’t know (outside of MySpace) who’ve written to tell me that they’ve been voting everyday, re-posting the bulletin, having their friends vote…wow. I always feel like I’m imposing when I ask people to do something like this, but it seems that people like being a part of the mission! Certainly anything good that comes of this belongs to everyone who voted. My fingers remain crossed…
On Tuesday night, Mike and I went to go see Michael Penn at Largo. It was an extra special treat because Patrick Warren, Mike Elizondo, Buddy Judge, and Aaron Sterling all played with him for a full-band extravaganza toward the end of the show. Patrick and Michael have played together for years, and I loved hearing them play as a duo, even if we did wonder when Aaron was going to come on and rock out! Listening to Patrick, I just kept thinking to myself, “I can’t believe he’s on my album.” There’s just no one like him, and he couldn’t be nicer on top of it. It was a treat to hear Aaron play, too – he’s just incredible, and again, we’re so lucky to have worked with him (he played on the CD release party). It would have been a great musical evening regardless, and Michael Penn was in great form, but the extra personal connections made it really special.
Wednesday night I played a very last-minute show at The Derby. It was strange but also a lot of fun to play by myself. Nothing compares to playing with a full band. It makes me really let go, and I’d probably almost always prefer it, but I’ve gotten to a point where I feel much less inhibited playing on my own. And it’s liberating, if a little self-indulgent, to be able to just do a song however you feel it and not worry about what everyone else is doing! A few folks came out to the show, including engineer Bryan Cook, who knows our engineer Ryan Freeland. We connected through MySpace and he decided to just come on out to the show. He could not have been cooler. I’m glad that our musical and social circle just keeps expanding with such great people.
Finally, we got together with some friends last night, and snacking and drinking wine turned into Mike and our friend kind of jamming on the piano and guitar. We’ve known our friend since college and re-connected out here. I re-visited his random, red guitar that I borrowed for a show once back in Ann Arbor and actually wrote “Take it Back” on. I sang a little Gershwin while our friend played all the crazy jazz chords on the piano. I used to be able to at least play changes – I miss playing piano and wish I had one – nothing like the feel of real piano keys. I should probably force myself to practice on a keyboard in the meantime, since I’m a long way from owning a house, a piano. Oh, and I want a dog, too. :)
Ah, so much to accomplish. ;) Baby steps….
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Hey there! After a lot of craziness, I was able to take a much-needed and utterly fantastic vacation recently. Which explains why I was a bit slow to respond to messages and why my last few blogs have been a little lacking in actual content. Now that I’m back, though jet-lagged, I’m excited for what musical endeavors may lie ahead. It’s time to get the CD OUT THERE! It already received its first review on musictap.net (a great one, yay!) and I’m certainly hoping for more…in that same vein, if possible. :)
Beyond that, I really do feel like LA is home for me now – and it is sweet to return home (after the laundry is all done and put away – it’s only taken me a week, ha!). I’m telling you, it’s a great place! I mean, if Posh Spice wants to live here… ;) I can’t explain it, but I’m actually very pleased that even David Beckham has chosen to call LA home. Mike’s probably more of a soccer fan than I am, but I really want to go check out a Galaxy game at some point. We watched the first exhibition match on TV last night and that was fun, even if his ankle only allowed him to play for 10 minutes.
Other than soccer, my weekend has pretty much belonged to Harry Potter. I was so excited to see the 5th movie on Friday, even knowing how sad it would make me in the end (yes. I’ve read all the books). Sigh. Daniel Radcliffe was great, I thought, and man, I LOVE Gary Oldman! Did I mention I saw him at my favorite breakfast spot once? That was my most exciting spotting yet, I think. As far as the final book, my family back in FL has basically purchased a book for each of them and said they’d send one on to me, so I actually haven’t read the 7th yet – I took the opportunity to re-read the 6th instead. I’m done with it (sad again). I have to admit that there’s a part of me that’s putting it off anyway, because if Harry dies I just frankly don’t want to deal with it yet. I’ve had enough drama (in my mind) for one weekend.
So there you have it, folks, my nerdiest blog ever! I am not ashamed. :)
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I keep saying I’m going to get better about regularly blogging and then I don’t – or I do, but in fits and starts. In my defense, we have been BUSY planning and promoting the CD release party. Mike and I are the street team, the publicists, the promoters, etc. :) More on that in the next blog. First I’ll catch you up on my recent musical activities:
1. Guitar lessons. I’m taking lessons from Tim Young when I can squeeze them in. He’s teaching me how to improvise and solo more. Lots of blues and pentatonic scales and other scales in different places on the guitar. I’m playing electric, which is really fun (and easier on my fingers, frankly). Who knew I could bend notes? I’m trying to get out of my ruts and expand my skills and songwriting – and ultimately, be a girl who can wail on the guitar. There are definitely some but far too few out there. Hopefully I’ll be shredding in no time…
2. Our show at Cafe Cordiale on the 23rd. Lots of fun, friendly people, and we made some new fans! One of them even pre-ordered a CD. One of my favorite parts might have been when this woman actually leapt up from her dinner to applaud me after I sang “Careful.” But she also full-out danced in her seat when we played “Comfort,” so that was a close second. Perhaps I’ll be a dance-pop star yet…ha ha ha
3. Rehearsing for the show on the 6th – and more on that in the next blog, as I said. But playing with Tim, Mike, and Aaron this last week was so fantastic. I’m always suprised by how gratifying it is to hear what other people do with my songs – they always become something different and better than I can even imagine.
4. Hearing Aimee Mann at Largo again – along with Paul Bryan, her bassist and, these days, producer. You should check him out on MySpace and go listen to his song “Houdini and Celia” and cry like I do. :) Jay Bellerose and Jen Condos played with him – it was the first time I’d seen Jen play, and it’s very inspiring (see my above comment about girls and guitars…). She’s the sweetest, as is Jay. And we even saw Ryan Freeland, our album engineer/mixer, too. It was a fun reunion and I got a little emotional, especially watching Jay play with Aimee Mann. I still sort of can’t believe that he’s on MY album. I am a very lucky girl. :)