Strange Cake

Yesterday I had cake at my bank! Yes, we celebrated with balloons too!

Why? Well, it's like this. MY bank failed and then was bought by this other mega bank, and so they made a cake for everyone!

We, making our deposits, in line, could have some - chocolate or vanilla, with awesome black frosting in industrial letters that said CHASE. And blue frosting for their cool insignia.

Except that by the time I got there it just said ASE, and the black was sort of bleeding into the white frosting. And the blue frosting was smeared around the foil that the cake was on.

And it was all pretty gross.

But I got to write this blog in my mind while I was staring at it in line, so it was all worth it.

Bye Wamu, I eat cake and wave goodbye, to whatever you were and whatever is replacing you. The world is weird. It was always weird, and now it's just very apparent.

Pics from Grass Valley

My Dad is a wonderful photographer, and he took these photos at the Copper Top Lounge a couple weeks ago when I played with Bri Anne Michelle, my step-sis.

It was a beautiful night.

I'm working more on the album release - planning shows, publicity, and looks like it will just be a few more months. Summertime! 

 Talking with the folks from Insider's Network, a great organization that consults with independent artists, giving great advice and direction. It feels really good to get this going, get it out there.

And if you haven't seen the new Myspace page, check it out!

Next week's blog will be an interview with one of my favorite songwriters, Angela Correa. It was awesome talking to her, can't wait for you to see it.

First Show Tomorrow

Tomorrow I go to Grass Valley, CA to play a show at the Coppertop Lounge. It's in honor of my step-mom Cath, her birthday, and I'm playing with my step-sister Bri, who's releasing an album in April.

I've been sitting at the piano and playing the tunes, singing away.

This is the first show since I had my baby, so it is a big landmark, sign-post, lightbulb, a big deal. It's right that it will be me and the piano, simple and true, to start back in.

I miss my baby, and now I sing for him. It goes along with all the changes of my heart and body that come with making a baby inside me, and then letting him go. That tenderness and softness is where music comes from now, it is like a crystal cave, dark and light at the same time, loud and soft, more open than before. I know he hears me.

I practiced with Max the amazing drummer on Monday, and it was satisfying to hear those drums again, to sing loud with the microphone again, to be back in that mode.
It is good to play WITH people, to join those sound waves together, it's a good drug.

So here's to the first step of the next phase of the road, to more music, more songs, more shows, more life.

Playing Chopin from the score

The comfort of the notes lined up on the page of my book Chopin Nocturnes is a unique experience. It is somewhere between listening to a recording of the piece and writing my own song. I get to follow this music without coming up with it; to play it not knowing exactly what will happen, letting it lead me.

Somehow my mind and hands makes the notes on the page come out through this big, watery instrument, onto hammers and strings and vibrations. The melodies are painfully beautiful, so satisfying to bring to life over a hundred years after they were written. I hum them for days afterwards.

I finish a tune and turn the page to start another, again, it unfolds and winds its story around and I follow it like a path and allow it to happen. I pause where it feels right, I slow it down, I turn a phrase just how it should be turned in this moment in time according to me.

This one starts out in a minor key. It is melancholy but so true, not over-exaggerating its sadness, just the right amount of dark. Some moments of bittersweet happy, chords like a hymn in church, some comfort, some wise words, then back to the pretty sadness, building quietly to the end, and then, after several slow, held out chords to finish, a surprise, subtle gift of a redemption, a major chord, so perfectly placed that you almost don't notice.

But for me, it was a ray of light, it was as though, in your last breath of life, you saw how it all fit together, how it was all worth it, how even the darkest moments the pain added beauty. I wanted to say thank you to Frederic, for that poignant moment, because I didn't remember that ending, and as it came out under my fingers, I cried because of the hope that vibrated through the room and then faded to further ends of the universe.

Pictures from Recording in Portland

We had such a good time recording with John Askew in Portland. We split our time between Type Foundry and Secret Society as we were tracking. I played this awesome old rickety piano with tons of personality and the ghosts of many song-filled fingers hovering over it.  Type Foundry is in an industrial sort of area, as you can see, with an awesome bridge sprawling out over the river right beyond the driveway. The floors are wooden, the light is from the window, pretty rare for a  studio to have natural light.  Max is playing the drums and he nailed it. We had so much fun. We ate so much! Being pregnant I just couldn't get enough. I made everyone else gain weight too!  Secret Society is all red and plush and new and quiet, sort of the opposite in feel of Type Foundry, a great balance to strike for our project.  Up at the top, that's John on the left, me (Jessica) in the middle, and Max on the left. 

 I'd highly recommend working with John - he's got great ideas, is a talented musician and songwriter himself, he makes you feel great after every take, and knows how to streamline the process to get it all done and done as close to your idea as you can get it.  He holds a great space for creativity to come out. His site is http://filmg.com/ 

A big compliment from a little boy

Kids seem closer to everything, GOD, the earth, rhythms of the universe, so it makes me feel like if they're getting into something I made, than it must have been on the right track.

Here is Mateo, a sweet little boy of my friend Tonya, dancing to "the maji" from the recent Christmas album.

the Harmonium

I can walk by this beautiful instrument in my studio, and be transformed. It has this great antique smell that reminds me of being a kid and our heavy wooden walnut furniture, the way it smelled when you opened cabinet doors.  It's loud, it drones, the air passes through the reeds and it gets me every time. I can sit and play with it and not be writing, just feeling the sound pass through me, through the table, into the air. It is good for me to play without the intention of getting something, but just to be there.  They use it in India to chant to, to have a note that keeps everyone on the same frequency. It sounds old and romantic, like an accordian, it seems to have a real voice.  I used it a bit on the album that will soon be released.  As a piano player, I generally play a keyboard when playing live, pianos are rare and hard to get tuned for a stage and all, so it's so wonderful when I get to play something that makes its own sound, that I can feel the air passing through, that seems to play its own melody as soon as I touch it. 

Happy New  Year! Happy January! I'm so glad the holidays are over, they were really tough this year, and I wake up down and out. I know it's not forever but it's how it is now. I miss my darling boy.  Life is full of heartache. And it's full of beautiful simple things. Really, I feel like I don't know enough about life to say anything about it. Ha ha, miss writer-of-songs. I guess I'm always trying to figure it out, always saying you can't. That leaves lots of material.

Have a good first week of 2009. Imagine good things. It makes them closer.