I’ve been meaning to blog for a while, and since I haven’t I’ll have to do a bit of an overview. I realize now that it’s been a rather momentous week.
Thursday, Feb. 15 – Worked on a new song…it’s a little depressing (I was in a funk) but it may have potential. I’ve been writing lots of little half-songs recently, which is odd for me, but this one I basically finished the form of.
Friday, Feb 16 – We went to see Aimee Mann’s “Valentine’s Revenge” show at Largo. I really love the whole “variety show” format she’s into these days. Well, in my eyes she can do no wrong, but nonetheless, it was really a very well put-together, entertaining show. She had Paul F. Tompkins (funny-and who knew he could sing?) and Morgan Murphy there, and she had Grant-Lee Phillips do a couple songs (his voice is just perfect, always). Paul Bryan, Jebin Bruni and Jay Bellerose comprised her kick-ass backing band. I’d never heard Paul play before and I see now why Mike is so into his playing. It was so good to hear Jay play, and equally great to see him and catch up a bit. I’ll never get over how nice he was and is to us. He even asked Mike to come back on Saturday night to see the show again and, apparently, to throw back some scotch. I had to work…but I shouldn’t be greedy. I really can’t complain (though I did, let’s be honest).
Saturday and Sunday, Feb 17-18 – Worked most of the weekend: more Mozart mania with LACO! What I caught of the concerts was lovely, and I had a good time post-concert on Saturday night at Charles’ Billiards in Glendale with Pulse, the ‘young professionals’ (for lack of a better term) group we young LACO staffers are building. Addie and I played a very hard-core game of table hockey.
Monday, Feb 19 – A day off, and a full one…rehearsed and grabbed some food with Mike and my favorite half-Romanian Steven Nistor. Steven is hilarious and rehearsals are always really fun. For some reason having to leave home and have official ‘rehearsals’ has gotten me much more motivated and focused as far as my playing and singing go. I feel like I’m getting back into it, whatever ‘it’ is. Mike and I also hiked and went to see “Music and Lyrics,” which was kind of silly and cute. I thought the more satirical parts of it…like the little quasi-Britney character…were spot-on. We tried to catch Maria Bamford at Tiger Lily and she was nowhere to be found…
Wednesday, Feb 21 – After work I drove to Hollywood for the end of our mastering session with Gavin Lurssen. He, like everyone else who’s worked on he album, is incredibly nice. He talked me through a lot of what he was doing, and it was like going to ‘mastering class’ with a very insightful teacher. And the album sounds GREAT! (If I do say so myself, har har). Then we scrambled back to play with Steven for the SoCal Music Live competition at The Derby. There was a decent crowd there overall and our set, while short, was really fun and seemed to sound pretty good. I love playing with a band! Love it. It was also really great to play for and to meet some new people who seemed to dig the music. That’s always good…apparently, score-wise, I’ve made it into the ‘top 5 females’ in the competition. Woo hoo! I do like to win. At table hockey or music competitions. Ha.
Friday, Feb 23 – Heard a beautiful concert with Steven and Mike, given by the young and incredible Calder Quartet. I went to support the efforts of their PR people, who I know through work, but enjoyed the music so much and was really glad I went. They did some late Shostakovich and Thomas Ades, and I used not to like contemporary composers all the much, but I guess my ears have stretched – I loved it all.
ok, enough for goodness sake…i need a nap, and this is becoming War and Peace.