The Amsterdam!

So last night was my show at the Amsterdam Bar and Hall. It is the new rock venue in downtown St. Paul. The desperately needed new rock venue in downtown St. Paul.

Downtown St. Paul, as a city, is…different. It’s special. You could say it’s a bit “touched”. There is really nothing here. There is so much nothing here that meters are free after 4pm every day.

Most of the bars in the area serve only to be a place for people to drink at before and after Minnesota Wild games. There is one other rock venue in the area, Wild Tymes, and I’ve played there before. But, even with their fantastic sound system, they are still catering to the sports crowd instead of the music crowd. If St. Paul wanted to establish itself as “real” city, it needed a “real” music venue. And it now has one.

And I got to play there last night!

Photo by Matthew Becker

It was my first solo show since June and my first solo show at a bar since I don’t remember when, so nerves were in full force. And, thanks to the Wild game that got out just before I went on, the place was pretty full. Personally, I know I struggled a bit at first, but once I got going, I think I did alright.

I’m also having a real issue with my guitar and tuning. I throw the capo on and I have to completely retune. Not just a little fix, like it’s off by whole notes. It makes for a lot of between song tuning and I hate tuning. Really wish I could get a super nice guitar. I’ve taken to setting up my setlists so I have to tune as little as possible.

The other bands joining me were Pocahontas County (local bluegrass band), Skye Carrasco (violin playing singer), and American Dust. I did not catch American Dust’s set as I did have to work this morning and it was very late.

Setlist for the Amsterdam Bar and Hall 10/27/11

-Johnny B. Goode (Chuck Berry cover)

-The Paul Simon Song

-The Party

-Can’t Even Tell

-Minnesota

-Flavor

-Good

Photo by Matthew Becker

Photo by Matthew Becker

This was also my last show for a while. Not by choice. I'm trying to get some more on the calendar.

....In other news....

Tomorrow is Cannonball!!! What is Cannonball? It is a road trip/scavenger hunt a friend of mine puts on. Groups of 4 get in their cars and drive to different destinations throughout the day to complete assigned missions with the last place being a lodge of some sort where we all present our days via a video presentation and then...party!

Good times.

Dream Log #9

I’ve been having the strangest dreams lately. Very vivid. Very stressful. All of them. Filled with stress. For example on Sunday night I dreamt:

I was getting ready for work in the morning. My husband had left for work on his bike so he was out of communication and I was home alone. I was in the bathroom doing my hair or whatever when I looked down and I saw a crack in one of the bathroom tiles. My heart sunk. Dammit. Now I have to deal with getting this fixed. Oh, well. At least it’s just the bathroom and just one tile. I can deal with it.

I continued with my morning routine and went back to the bathroom to finish getting ready. I stepped on the floor and the broken tile and grown to a large crack running down the middle of the room. The floor had separated and you could see the icky old linoleum we used to have underneath.

I started to panic. Thought about calling the husband, but remembered he was on his bike. Panicked alone for a while, but finally calmed down – reassuring myself that it was just the bathroom floor and it’s not the end of the world and I can deal with this.

I go to leave the bathroom and the crack has spread to the hallway. Now there is a big hole in the floor outside of the bathroom. You can see straight down to the basement. Once again, I start to hyperventilate. How the hell do you fix this? I don’t even know where to begin.

I’m now in full on panic mode. One thought I remember having in the dream is that, well, at least Murray isn’t here. This hole in the floor would be so dangerous for him.

And then, I start to calm down again. Still reassuring myself that I can deal with this. It’s not the end of the world. I will get through this.

I leave the hall to go find my phone to call a repairman. I enter the dining area of the house and look up. The walls and ceiling all have big water bubbles everywhere looking like they are ready to burst.

I begin to panic again.

Then I woke up.

The Finger

When you really think about giving someone the finger or when someone gives you the finger, doesn’t it seem so silly? I mean, what’s the point? Why is it so offensive? It’s a finger. Look at your middle finger right now. Does it offend you? Of course not. Yet, if someone else aggressively showed you theirs, your blood would boil a little bit.

I bring this up because I’ve come to the realization that I might be a bad driver – or at least an aggressive driver. Someone that angers other drivers on the road. It seems more and more often that I get slightly road raged on. Nothing too horrible. Usually just someone going out of their way to make sure that I see their middle finger. I’ve started to find it so funny. Probably because when they do it, they are holding it out at arms length, eyes squinted, lips pursed (or mouthing swear words), finger shaking back and forth tensely, just trying to push all of their anger into the very tip of their middle finger nail, hoping maybe it will somehow turn into an electric stream that will then penetrate their car and hit me right between the eyes.

But, really, it’s just a finger.

Silly, Johnny.

Lyric Of The Day

"is it getting heavy?

well i thought it was already as heavy

as can be"

-from "Waiting for Superman" by The Flaming Lips

The Female Singer/Songwriter Vs. The World

I love my acoustic guitar. I love the immediacy of its sound. I love that I don’t have to plug it in just to get an idea for what will work. I love that I can plug it in and distort it and make it sound all crazy if I want.

LOVE my acoustic!

What I don’t love is the stigma attached to it.

When you’re a girl with an acoustic guitar and you take to the stage, an idea of you automatically forms in everyone’s mind. You’re going to be sad. You’re going to sing sappy love songs or angry love songs about how some man hurt your feelings. And if you aren’t those things, well, then you’re either a folk singer who is going to sing protest songs about abortion or you’re going to pretend to be Ani Difranco for your 40 minute time slot.

You can never just be a musician playing songs.

You’ll never be a person in a band. Even if you have an electric guitar, people treat you like a novelty. You better tart it up in fishnets, hot pants, and knee-high boots. If you don’t have the body for that, well, then you better be punk rock enough to pull off the angry, stomping, screaming, smeared make-up, tattooed, swearing bitch from hell persona – and you better make sure you acknowledge often how fat and/or ugly you are so that people can laugh and talk openly about it and not feel bad about themselves for doing so.

I don’t really know where I’m going with this. There have been countless articles and blog posts written about women and their struggles in the male-dominated music business.

I guess I’m just finally seeing it first hand and it grosses me out and makes me get all stabby.

Why can’t music just be music?

I’ve been struggling to come up with a tag line for my music, something I can put on my one-sheet or bio that will give people at venues an idea of my sound without solely sticking me in that singer/songwriter box that means you can only ever play a show with other people who have acoustic guitars as their main instrument. Oddly enough, I see plenty of males with acoustic guitars opening for Rock Bands. Somehow that’s different…

And then I get upset that being considered “just a singer/songwriter” or a “folk singer” makes me angry. Those are great genres to be a part of. I just find it so frustrating that I’m being told by people that they are going to put me on a secondary frequency because I’m not officially a Rock Band. Or they assume I’m not a Rock Band because they see an acoustic guitar.

The acoustic guitar has come a long way. Don’t put it in a box.

And don’t put me in one just because I play one.

C'mon, Vogue!

I used to be able to do the dance routine to the chorus of this song. I used to whip it out at weddings when I was a teenager and "impress" my family.



Okay, for real, I used to know this entire routine.

Now I'm just going to listen to this song while I go file.

I'm all grows up.

And Madonna is freaky now.

That is all.

Annie

I went out last night for a happy hour. When I got home, I was desperate for something to chill out to while I sobered up a bit and ate some dinner. I chose the movie Annie.

I had wanted to watch some TV on DVD, but I’ve exhausted my collection and just could not even consider watching Arrested Development for the umpteenth time – no matter how much I love it.

So, I put Annie in the DVD player. It has been ages since I last watched it, but it was a pretty big movie to me in my youth. I loved to sing along to all the songs.

The first thing that struck me watching it this time around is how much of an impact it had on me. Within the first 5 minutes of the movie, I heard so many phrases that I use in my daily life today.

The second thing that struck me was how sad it made me. I mean, sure, it’s a movie about orphans. I guess it shouldn’t be a jolly good time. Except, it’s kind of supposed to be. Miss Hannigan and all of our drunkness, the adorable girls singing and dancing and doing silly things, little orphan Annie and her precociousness….

….but the opening scene made me cry. There’s Annie sadly singing out the window a song about parents that abandoned her, wondering what they might be like: “betcha he’s rich, betcha she sews, betcha she’d make me a closet of clothes” while her orphan family lay in their beds looking sad and alone.

Heartbreaking.

Then drunk Miss Hannigan comes stumbling in and makes them get to work and you realize these children are being cared for by a drunk who only cares about the government money they bring in. They have no one but each other.

Annie sneaks out one day and comes across a dog with cans tied to its tail being chased by a group of hooligan boys. I can’t tolerate animal abuse – even in movies. It just makes me so angry. Once again, the tears started to come. But, oh, look at tough little Annie beating up those boys to save the dog…who she then tries to shoo away and who then is almost taken away by the dog catcher until Annie, once again, jumps in to save him, probably seeing the parallel in this dog’s life and hers.

She brings him back to the orphanage and tries to hide him from Miss Hannigan with no luck. Miss Hannigan says she’s going to put Annie in the paddle room and Sandy (the newly named dog) to the sausage factory.

1. The Paddle Room???? What is that???? What happens there???? Does she have someone on hand just to paddle these poor girls????
2. The Sausage Factory???? Did they make sausage out of dogs back then???? I know times were tough, but gross. Surely it was an empty threat meant to scare Annie…but still….

Then in comes Grace, secretary extraordinaire to Mr. Warbucks, the Billionaire. Mr. Warbucks wants to bring in an orphan to live with him for a week. A week. Just a week.

Annie is the chosen one and she and Sandy get swept away to the Warbuck’s estate where she is shown the amazing life she’ll get to live for a week.

Just a week.

What kind of cruel joke is it to bring a sad 10 year old orphan into your ridiculously extravagant home where you have people on hand whose only purpose it to make your bed or lay out your clothes and then send her back to her shitty abusive orphanage where she is forced to clean toilets and eat cold mush every day? Who thought that was a good idea? I mean, this is supposed to be for PR purposes for Mr. Warbucks. What kind of PR would he have when he dropped her back off a week later? Would he at least donate some of his billions to fix up the orphanage and hire a replacement for Miss Hannigan or would he just return the orphan to their squalor?

I don’t think you thought your cunning plan all the way through.

I stopped watching after the big musical number where the staff shows Annie just how awesome living at Warbucks Estate is. One, because I had to go to bed. But, two, I just was watching it a little too logically and couldn’t buy into it anymore.

But, we all know how this story goes. Mr. Warbucks can’t help but fall for the darling little Annie and ends up adopting her after a series of crazy events. He also falls for his secretary and they all live happily ever after.

Except…what about the other orphans? I know Miss Hannigan gets arrested. But did they fix up the orphanage? Are the girls all going to have a nice place to live while they wait for the parents that will probably never come?

Heartbreaking.

Ultimate Mix CD #3

Ultimate Mix CD #3

1. "Weaks in the Waves" - Adam Svec - Weaks in the Waves

2. "Go for the Throat" - The Elected - Bury Me in My Rings

3. "Achin' to Be" - The Replacements - Don't Tell a Soul

4. "My Pet Snakes" - Jenny and Johnny - I'm Having Fun Now

5. "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)" - Missy Elliott" - Supa Dupa Fly

6. "Joyful Girl (Danger and Uncertainty Mix)" - Ani Difranco - More Joy Less Shame

7. "Close Watch" - Agnes Obel - Philharmonics

8. "LeO" - Haley Bonar - Golder

9. "Up Was Given" - Rank Strangers - Red Square

10. "Long, Long, Long" - The Beatles - The White Album

11. "You're Only Lonely" - Micah P. Hinson - Micah P. Hinson and the Opera Circuit

12. "Stars" - Hum - You'd Prefer an Astronaut

13. "The Universal" - Blur - The Great Escape

14. "The Last Living Rose" - PJ Harvey - Let England Shake

15. "Monsters" - Lucy Michelle and the Velvet Lapelles - Good of That

16. "The Curse of Great Beauty" - Clem Snide - The Ghost of Fashion

17. "Codex" - Radiohead - The King of Limbs

18. "In My Mind" - Amanda Palmer - Amanda Palmer Goes Down Under

19. "Sleeping By Myself" - Eddie Vedder - Ukulele Songs

20. "Harlem, a Letter Home" - Sekou Sundiata - The Blue Oneness of Dreams

21. "Stay" - Belly - Star

Ultimate Mix CD: Because Sometimes Some Songs Belong Together

Nomadic

I had a show at The Nomad World Pub on Thursday. I played with three great bands:Brad Senne, French Films About Trains, and Colder in Moscow. It's currently Colder in Moscow's Minniseries residency at The Nomad for their upcoming CD release. I really enjoyed them. They were like a cool mix of Halloween, Alaska and The Jayhawks - if you can imagine that. Also, their guitar player rules.

I made the mistake of wearing long sleeves, and the sweat did flow. I hate that I sweat so much. But, what can you do? Honestly, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

I also hit my head really hard on a shelf while picking up my guitar. It hurts. Still. Even if I just lightly brush my bangs, it hurts. I've also had a headache ever since. Maybe I should be concerned?

Setlist for The Nomad 10/13/11

-Cohabitate

-Cast a Spell

-Float

-Can't Even Tell

-The Party

-Good

-The Paul Simon Song (it was his 70th birthday, too!)

-Salt

-Here

I've Got Nothing

Seriously, I’ve had nothing to say for the past week. I have been racking my brain for things to write about and nothing is there. Nothing.

I have topics set aside for times like these, but my desire to write is just not there this week. So why force it (like I’m doing now)?

It is my Friday today, though. I have tomorrow off because I have a show tonight and I’m playing late and really don’t want to have to think about how I need to be at work at 8am while I’m trying to perform at my best.

I am looking forward to my time off tomorrow because I get to spend some of it with my dearest friend, Kimi, who got married on Monday. I wish I could have been there to share in the moment, but work gets in the way. This is life. And sometimes life is pretty stupid.

But sometimes it’s awesome. And her joy and happy newlywed bliss is a nice reminder that really awesome things happen sometimes.

Things just seem kind of different now. It’s a weird feeling. Is there maybe a shift happening in the atmosphere of my life? Fingers crossed (as long as it’s positive).

And so, I leave you with this thing that is just awesome that I stole off the internets:

Funny Things (To Me)

Alright. Time to lighten things up around here.

There are some things that strike me as hilarious - for reasons I can’t explain - every time I see/hear them. They may not be funny to you, but gosh darnit, they are funny to me.

1. Close All the Tabs?

There is a blog I love called Hyperbole and a Half. Allie Brosh is a super funny gal with super funny drawing capabilities. This post in particular had me cracking up, especially the repeated “Clean ALL the things!?” (Honestly, you’re going to have to read that post to “get it”).

So, at work I have to use Internet Explorer. I have to. The database I work in only works through IE. Often, I have multiple tabs open. Every day when I shut down my computer, it asks me if I want to “close all the tabs?” and every day I think of Hyperbole and a Half and every day I chuckle.

2. Just Clap Your Hands

The company I work for is big on recycling. We have signs up in each kitchen detailing what can be recycled and where to put recycling and all that stuff.

When I first started working here someone put a post-it underneath the Bottles and Cans header on one of these signs. It read: Just clap your hands.

Every time I went into the kitchen, I giggled about this. Alas, it has long been taken down.

If you don’t know why this is funny, shame on you for not knowing your mid-nineties alternative all-stars. Watch below:

3. Dirty Dancing Comic

I discovered this comic strip on the internets a long time ago. It is now posted in my cubicle for daily laughter.

4. James Hetfield Shopping

I mean, come on:

5. The Misfits

Back in high school I hung out with a group of guys who introduced me to music that as a teenage girl from a small town I might never had heard or given a chance. One of these bands is The Misfits and one of these guys we affectionally called Twid. The other two guys we will call C and N.

C and N used to use Twid as sort of a punching bag. We all did. He took it well. I think he secretly liked the attention. He was a big dude, so he could certainly handle himself if he ever got fed up with it.

Being that we lived in a small town with nothing to do, we spent a lot of time just driving around and listening to music. C and N used to love to make up new lyrics to songs. But my two favorite songs they would mess with were the following Misfits songs:

“Horror Business”

“Where Eagles Dare”

All they would do is change the pronouns in these songs to say Twid, but for some reason it was particularly funny in these songs. So lines like:

“you don’t go in the bathroom with me” would be “you don’t go in the bathroom with Twid” and “I’ll put a knife right in you, I’m warning you” would be “he’ll put a knife right in you, Twid’s warning you” and “I ain’t no goddamn son of a bitch” would then be “Twid ain’t no goddamn son of a bitch” and so on and so on.

Even typing that, I started to giggle. Maybe you had to know Twid. Or maybe you had to be a 15 year old girl riding around in cars with boys being stupid.

6. Re-Tard

There is a scene early in the movie The Hangover when the guys are driving to Vegas. Zack Galifianakis is talking about Rain Man and he calls him a re-tard. Not a retard (pronounced retard), but a re-tard (pronounced ra-tard – accent on the second syllable. I have no idea how to write that to get the pronunciation across). After seeing this movie in the theater, I laughed myself to sleep thinking about this line. Still do sometimes.

7. You’re Mom’s House

I was using Foursquare to check in somewhere once and one of my location options was “your mom’s house”. I thought that was the funniest thing ever. So clever, yet so stupid. Basically, I will laugh extensively at any sort of “your mom” jokes.

8. Frank Reynolds

Frank Reynolds is a character on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia played by Danny Devito and he is funny. He’s always calling his ex-wife a whore or random women whores. Expect, he doesn’t say it like whore, he says “hoo-ore”.

I laugh every time.

So This Happened

Way way back on September 23^rd, I went to see Ani Difranco and Anais Mitchell at the Pantages Theater. I was really excited for this show. Ani has always been a favorite of mine and Anais is a new love and the Pantages just seemed like the perfect venue for them.

And then my dog died the day before.

I still went to the show. It was very bittersweet. I was relieved to have something to look forward to and take my mind off of things. But I was so easily distracted and when I would listen, I found myself finding sad dog meanings to almost every song and then I would cry.

Thank goodness for dark theaters.

Anais opened the show with a short set. Too short. I could have listened to her all night. Her voice will slay you. She sings with such emotion and conviction and her words…I swear she is the new Paul Simon. She just has such an ease with lyrics. The words just seem so natural and flow so well.

She stuck to mostly songs from her album Hadestown, a rock opera based on the myth of Persephone, Hades, Orpheus, Eurydice, etc, etc (it’s really quite the album and quite good) and new songs. She’s captivating to watch. She tends to wiggle and kick her feet when she plays. She was at the merch table post show so I went up to say hello. I didn’t really know what else to say. I wanted to gush to her about how my dog died the day before and how her song “Changer” has such a different meaning to me now and how it is so beautiful and heartbreaking that I almost can’t listen to it anymore. But then I thought better of that.

Ani played well. She’s such an amazing performer. She played by herself and just took over the whole room. She even had a bit of a cold, but you would have never known if she didn’t mention it.

It was also her birthday.

Her sets have been pretty standard of late. I’ve been reading grumblings on the internets for years now from people complaining that she has so many albums and why doesn’t she ever change it up. But, when you’re there in the moment and you’re watching and listening, it doesn’t matter. She’s just so good.

The audience was great, too. Much better than the First Avenue show from a couple of years ago. People were respectful and the inbetween song “I LOVE YOU!!!”s were kept to a minimum.

She was happy, bouncy Ani. I like happy, bouncy Ani.

Her setlist was as follows (in kind of the correct order for the most part):

• Shy
• Angry Anymore
• Swim
• Promiscuity
• Unworry
• Way Tight
• Reckoning (first time I’ve heard this live. LOVED it)
• J
• Garden of Simple
• Splinter
• As Is
• Everest
• Zoo
• Gloating
• If You’re Not
• Which Side Are You On?
• Both Hands
  
• Angel From Montgomery (John Prine cover)

So, thanks Ani and Anais, for providing a lovely distraction in my time of need.

Recording Day 3

I spent somewhere around 8 hours in the studio yesterday...and we completed just the drums and a couple guitar parts for two songs. It was a long day, but it flew by. I had said that I wanted to take my time with this album and get everything right so that's what I'm doing. And I'm happy about it. I really want this album to be great. And, it's sounding great. I'm so very excited.

It was also nice to know that I still care about all of this. I had found myself feeling very apathetic towards things this past week. Nothing seemed important anymore. It was nice to get into the studio and really dig into something. Sadly, it's going to be another month before I get back there. But I have a couple of shows in between and it will give me time to work on the next round of songs that we'll get started on next time.

And, I was around a dog for the first time since Murray passed away. I was nervous about it, but as soon as I saw him (Roy the dog), I felt very comforted. I was happy to know that I could still be around dogs and pet them and say nice things to them and not immediately break down.

Sigh. Now I'm thinking about Murray again....now I'm blue.