The Ups and Downs of Life as a Performing Artist

For every spectacular live stage performance you watch that seems like it was seamlessly evoked from thin air, you can bet that there were hours and hours of time spent in dark, crowded practice spaces going over those same songs again and again and again.

The performing life is odd. I don’t even know how to describe it. Especially for a person like me who is a library assistant (pretty much a librarian without librarian pay because I don’t have my MS degree) by day, musician by night. Most days I spend sitting in a quiet, old, dusty building in the middle of a semi-rural neighborhood in the Bay Area, helping old people find books about how to not die and kids find books about farts and diaper superheros. I have to make rent somehow.

My sister drew this for me, to describe my life.

At night, I am in a practice space with other musicians (the members of my band Kyrsten Bean, and the members of Nicky Garratt’s band Hedersleben), working on either songs I wrote or songs my band mates have written and we have all collaborated on. There is a lot of drilling of the same parts over and over again, debating about what works and what doesn’t. We record our practices and then I listen to them while I’m driving to the library the next day, to work so I can buy food and gas to fuel my life.

On Thursday night, Hedersleben had our first little sampler show at the Oakland Metro. It was a blast. I met a lot of awesome musicians in the bands that played after we opened, and in the audience of people who had come to check out this krautrock thing we are doing. It felt very good. I didn’t sleep much that night. The next day was the slowest day ever at the library. I sat at the reference desk or in the back room staring at the walls or ceiling, catching up on library projects, helping patrons, but mostly sitting. Staring. Wondering if the night before had really happened.

***

That night after work, I went over to see the launch of my friend Joe’s book, Junkie Love. I helped with the trailer for that one by playing a junkie. My friend Joel was the star. It was filmed in my bedroom.

I was nervous to finally watch it for the first time in a room with 81 people, but when I finally saw it I was impressed. It’s a little love story. About what a junkie thinks love is–about dope being love and love being dope.

Here it is, anyhow:

***

It was the same thing that night. I went to the book launch, it was exciting to see my friends kill it with their readings and to watch the trailer I had been a part of.
After the reading, I bumped into Alan Kaufman, who had come to support Joe. We ended up having a conversation about performing life. I don’t know why I felt compelled to vent to him about it, he merely asked me how it had been filming the trailer in my bedroom. I told him that it had been heavy, and I’d felt like crap for a week afterwards. He totally got it. Alan is a beat poet, wrote the book Drunken Angel (which I am just now cracking open and is amazing). He’s been there.

I told him about how I’d just had a performance the night before, how exciting it was. We had a guy from a record label come out to see us, everyone loved it, I was on cloud nine. There are tours being booked, details being finalized. We are recording an album at the end of the month. I have a show with my own band being worked on for May 30 as we speak. So much of what I love. So much awesomeness. Then I spent the next day sitting at the library.

“That’s awful!” said Alan. I looked at him, and I knew he meant that exactly how it feels to me. That it’s not working at a library or being around books that is awful, it’s the contrast between being in the middle of a cosmic synergistic excitement hub of splendor and then having to drive to work the next day and sit and stare at books.

I’m not complaining, don’t get me wrong! I love libraries. It’s just a strange, deflating transition. I find myself sitting there asking myself if any of the excitement actually happened. Which of these scenarios is my real life? The one where I am on stage in my element, doing what I love, carting gear in and out, talking music language with fellow musicians, or the one where I am sitting still at a reference desk at a library in the middle of nowhere, a city most people don’t even know exists in the Bay Area as it’s unincorporated.

It’s enough to make me feel stark raving mad sometimes, the ups and downs. I love my life. I love doing music. I love that I took my dreams of childhood and am finally bringing them to fruition. But there are things I got to talk about with Kaufman that he just got immediately. Doing performances and then sitting in your room for days trying to decompress. Having your ego fed, having it inflate, and then having the pin stuck in the balloon as the air fizzles out over the next couple of days. Our conversation blew my mind, was just what I needed. Joel, who had rode with me to the event, didn’t need a ride home, so then I went home to my diet coke and gluten-free cookie and stared at Facebook. Then I went to sleep, and got up to go work at the library.

5 Signs You Are A Modern-Day Musician

1. You’re in more than one band or project at the same time.
Do you find yourself constantly consulting a calendar so that you can squeeze in another band practice? While you’ve got four band projects going, do you get asked to take on an additional band project and say yes because THIS project might be the big one? Do you find yourself on multiple email lists or text clusters with various groups of musicians you call band mates trying to once again negotiate the details of the same weekly practices you’ve been negotiating every week for a year due to everyone having various work/life schedules? You might be a modern-day musician.

2. You work a day job for less than you’re worth in order to balance band practices/shows and tours.

Do you find yourself spending another day staring at the cottage cheese ceiling at your day job wondering why a talented mofo like you is spending so much time for so little money doing something they don’t even like to do? Do you have to constantly remind yourself that you CHOSE this job so that you could dedicate the majority of your time to music? Do you stare at your bedroom with the mattress on the floor and thrift store clothes all over the place, eating another bowl of beans and rice in front of your keyboard bench which doubles as a table for your outdated laptop? You might be a modern-day musician.

3. You have no consistent love life.
Do you find yourself put out by how quickly your friends are hooking up? Do you stare at photos of your married friends and feel a slight twinge of doubt about your life’s path? Do you find yourself so busy with work and band practices and eating rice and beans that you consider hooking up with one of your multiple band mates just for the convenience of the matter, but remember the cardinal no-no of bands just as you find your band mate making moonie eyes at you and look away? You might be a modern-day musician.

4. The thought of actually going on tour excites and horrifies you at the same time.

Do you kind of dread the go ahead to tour from your band mates/manager/band leader because you know it means quitting your job, eating more rice and beans, cramming into a van with your smelly band mates, schlepping gear and playing in small clubs/houses/coffee shops day after day? Do you also get thrilled at the idea of random discoveries, playing music every night, serendipitous encounters, all the new people you’ll meet and being able to say to people, “I’m going on tour in the fall?” You might be a modern-day musician.

5. You play bills that include two or more of your bands.

Are you the bass player in one band and keyboardist in another? Do you sing backup vocals and play guitar for one project and main vocals for the second? Do your bands books shows with each other and go on tour together, making it so you end up playing back to back every night you play out? Does this seem normal to you? You are most likely a modern-day musician.

Want more 5 Things posts? Check out 5 Observations About Bacon, 5 Helpful Links for Reading, Writing and Productivity, 5 Signs You Are a Writer, 5 Signs We Are Hoping for the Zombie Apocalypse, and 5 Signs You Are a Musician

The Thought Monster

I am going to talk about the thought monster today.

The thought monster seems to have a special love for buggin’ inside the minds of artistic people.

Once a week, I make the pilgrimage out to Dharma Punx in San Francisco on a Friday night during rush hour traffic for a half hour meditation and hour lecture on mindfulness. It seems to be helping with managing the insatiable thought monster who resides in my own brain.

A few weeks ago, the guy who was speaking, Vinnie I think, was talking about the voice (thought monster) in our heads, how it doesn’t ever want to shut up. He recommended we tell it to fuck off. But not in a way that we are engaging with it. It absolutely LOVES being engaged with, is waiting for a little debate. No, just a little, “That’s nice, now shut up.” Or, “Oh, hey, you’re talking again?”

He also said that the voice tends to pop up more whenever we try to challenge our own comfort zone. The voice is there to keep us from bucking the norm. It developed for healthy reasons over years of evolution, but can be an inhibitor to moving forward and growing outside of your self-created limits if you let it keep you down. Every time you try to challenge what is familiar, safe, notice that voice? Yep. Me too.

Lately, the voice in my head is relentless, likely because I am doing things I’ve never done before with my music. I’m challenging myself and going after what I’ve always dreamed of doing, in spite of the nut gallery going, “Nur, that’s dumb. You’ll never bla bla bla.”

While I’m sitting peacefully at the library or in the practice space or in my room or driving aimlessly somewhere, it crops up. “You should just give up.” It says. “Music is too hard. The band you’re in is too challenging, you can’t do the tasks required of you. They’re going to find out you totally suck and you’re an imposter. Quit while you’re ahead. You’re almost 32, you’re practically dead. Your looks will fade soon and nobody will care, it’s all about image, not talent. Music is for the young.”

It’s all bullshit. Mostly, I act as if that voice isn’t there and continue to practice my guitar, voice and keyboard in the spaces I’ve allotted to do these things regardless of what it says. Sometimes it gets a little bit of momentum when I take a few days off from practice. “You aren’t practicing enough. You suck. You’re gonna blow it. How can you even think you can do a show coming up? You’re such a pretender. Everyone else is better than you. Remember how much you used to practice as a teenager? Where did that get you when you stopped. Nowhere. That’s where you’re headed again.”

Sometimes, I consider what it says for a moment during those times. Think about moving to the woods, living a quiet life without any challenges, without ever changing what has become rote and easy. But that thought makes me want to explode. I am not leaving this life unless I know I’ve worked as hard as I can on what I seem to be meant to do, no matter what naysayers and the anxious nail-biting thought monster in my head that don’t want me to challenge societal norms want me to do. There’s enough room in this world for me to do what I love full-time. Or die trying.

Kosmische Music

I’ve even spending an exorbitant amount of time when I’m not at work or at one of my many band practices sitting on the mattress in my cheap rented room geeking out on space rock music from the late 60s, early 70s, and newer. Bands like Midday Veil and Ash Ra Tempel.

It helps that I’m in a Krautrock band. What the hell is Krautrock, you ask? I explained it a while back, here: You’re Never Too Old To Play Music.

On Friday, I found out about a show playing at the Gem and Bolt in Oakland, a beautiful live-in exposed-brick warehouse converted to show space at times, one of the coolest spaces I’ve ever been in. I decided to go for research and enjoyment. The opening bands were impressive, especially the drummer, who helped the first band, Brain Fruit, from Seattle, out on this night, but belonged to the second band, Midday Veil. Both bands had a strong Krautrock vibe, and it felt synchronicitous, just like this whole endeavor I’ve stumbled into. I feel like ever since I was turned onto Krautrock music last year, it’s taken me on a ride that is just beginning to pick up steam. Who knows where it will go. It’s like all the musicians who channeled their energy into this psychedelic, soulful, spacey music put out enough energy to reach decades into the future and fire up musicians that hadn’t even existed at the time, like me and most of my bandmates, for their own tripped out journeys.

The band I’m in, Hedersleben, is full-on Krautrock influenced. We’ve been meeting up to three times a week to work on music, and I’ve been listening to hours of our wacky and amazing jams practicing riffs and pulling out ideas to run by my bandmates, because apparently we are playing a show in Oakland in May. To go to a show where at least one band was doing what we intend to do, but in an amazing, realized fashion full of heart and feeling, was really cool. Lights and projections and amazing aural soundscapes.

The night at Gem and Bolt ended for me somewhere around 2am. Nommo Ogo, a band I also really dig, was played trippy dark music, costumed people were dancing around, the lead singer, a tiny mustached guy with his shirt off, was gyrating and embodying his freaky self while chanting behind a glowing purple orb as a guy with a sophisticated projector etch-a-sketch type thing and a sheet over his body drew light pictures on everyone. At this point, I was exhausted, and I was wondering how many people around me were on psychedelics. Not that I mind, I just don’t do them. And I needed to ride my bike home before I collapsed. So I fled. But I had a blast, and learned a lot. It’s so important to go to shows if you’re a musician, to see what other people are doing.

I’ve been sick on and off for about four months, no joke, from flu to bronchitis to spring cold and maybe bronchitis again. I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve been attempting to keep up at three bands, a county job and writing performances in the middle of what is still a kind of stressful bohemian time for me, but it’s frustrating. Maybe this is just what doing music full-time in your thirties while working a part-time day job to make ends meet feels like. It’s inspiring me to take better care of my self so I can have the energy to continue schlepping around amps and keyboards and guitars and singing into a microphone for a long time hence. Nik Turner of Hawkwind, a quintessential krautrock band, is in his 70′s and still going strong. I want to be that person too when I’m older, playing music as a life path, not for a fleeting minute of fame. It’s who I am, not a flash in the bucket.

A lot of synergy happening lately. It’s a good time, albeit stressful and busy. I’m fulfilled doing music projects most of the time. Scheduling around a county job is hard, but often things work out, regardless. And I’ve had the best luck with music equipment lately. I got rear-ended, but it didn’t cause much damage, so instead of replacing the bumper on my 2006 Honda, I was able to find a keyboard amp and a guitar amp for insanely reasonable deals. Gear is one of the hardest parts of being a musician.

So this is a meandering post. I’m exhausted, but wanted to throw out an update. I’m enjoying the odd moments when I get the practice space I pay in on to myself or when my roommates are not home and I have peace, quiet and space, because in Oakland, there is not a lot of those things. It’s a lot of social, busy, hubbub and I can’t hear myself think or contemplate without going to the woods. And being sick so much has inhibited my woods adventures.

So…here’s to maybe a future where I can carve out more peace and quiet. Or maybe someday afford my own quiet space. Ha. Not in the Bay Area, right? Gotta accept what is. Roommates, noise and cheap rent. It is what it is. I chose the life of a musician. Or it chose me. Less money, more time on music. Hard work in the dark for years without any monetary rewards, but happiness at doing what I love and knowing if I died tomorrow, I did my best, maybe more, to live my dreams, regardless of what people told me about what I should be doing instead.

Out Here in Limbo Land

I’m in an odd state of limbo. Waiting to get over a hump. My life is kind of hanging in the balance. Musicwise, relationshipwise, workwise.

Right now, my band mates are driving to South by Southwest for their other band project. The other keyboardist in my band got hooked up as synth player and dancer for the other band our other mates are in, and so she’s out having a blast with them. It’s OK. I’ve got stuff to do here. Work, basically. I’m supposed to be writing a melody for a song for this band, and I’ve got two ideas but I don’t know if either is the right direction, so I’m waiting to share them until my band mates get back. Then we’re supposed to put our noses to the grindstone. I talked to my boss today about switching to a sub position where I have flexibility and control over what shifts I pick up around the county. No health insurance, but, well. Don’t we all struggle with that dilemma these days as artists? Permanency and health insurance or flexibility and no health insurance.

There was a time, year or so ago, when all I wanted was to be surrounded by artists. I got my wish, and now I have an arsenal of people to talk to. When I was trying to figure out what to do about my, “I might have to tour,” dilemma, I talked with a couple of people who do music as a living, or did music as a living and they were like, “Yea, go for it,” and they helped me talk about options. Everyone was like, “I think you should do it.” Which isn’t even a question for me. I was trying to figure out how, and now I have an option, I’m just waiting to find out if/when we are actually touring in a few months, or if it will be later.

I also found a really cool guitar player for my own band project, the one that’s more a casual project where we might play a show sometime in the future and have about 8 songs we’re working on right now. So that’s good. Just slow.

And tomorrow I have practice with my girl friend, we started a band called SO WHAT?!? that’s like an avante-garde project. Covers, punk songs, screaming, fun. Everyone we get involved is super stoked about it.

I’m such an excitement junkie, I want to be doing performing, touring, recording and practicing ALL THE TIME. I’m a born performer. Born for excitement and hard work towards music goals.

I’m sure I will get my wish, soon. I’m trying to tip the scales so that’s the deal, instead of music still being something in the gaps. I need outside impetus, like tours coming up or an album to record or a show to play to keep me motivated. It looks like all of this is in the process of happening or I am working towards it happening, whether with these projects I’m currently doing or others.

It’s all learning.

It’s the waiting that kills me. And all the stuff I have to deal with in the interim. Trying to work hard to be the artist I want to be and not be distracted by drama or boys or whatnot.

But I kind of love the drama.

My friend Kirsten reminded me the other day to remember to do my daily practice so I don’t get the freefalling feeling I’ve been getting. Usually, I wake up every morning and write a page, write in my journal, meditate and do tarot. Then I make sure I hike once or twice a week, do strength training twice a week and fit in some yoga or bike riding. I also have to remember to eat three meals a day, stay away from too much caffeine or nicotine and not get too caught up in anyone else’s needs or wants.

Ha. I’ve had people come to me for help recently, with addiction problems, relationship problems, you name it. And these are important things too. I write this blog and I share my experiences with people so that I can help them. My journey here has been rough at times. If I can help someone else get through the rough times, like others have helped me, well, life is meaningful.

Plus, I have to remember to not drive myself into the ground, to actually have some fun. Milkshakes and the like.

I was talking to another friend outside of one of my favorite coffee shops to frequent, and he was talking about having to write some stuff coming up and being blocked. I moaned about having to write a song and a column and do some readings coming up.

Why are we whining? We’re doing everything we want to do. It’s slow, but we’re moving towards our goals. Everything is OK. There are many days with no excitement, and then there’s a ton of excitement. And then many days of no excitement.

That’s life?

Where Can Creative People Afford to Live? (Part 2)

One of the most popular posts on this blog, by far, is Where Can Creative People Afford to Live These Days?

I’ve been meaning to get back to that one, as I’ve struggled with this quandary myself for years. Just today, I was ranting to someone about how I hate having to work a day job, that our society is set up so that I can’t afford to pursue what I love to do. And then the voices come into my head of other people who say, “That’s just the way it is.” Well, screw the way it is. I’m gonna find a way to be a fully self-supporting artist without having to work for someone else in a rote schedule, mark my words.

So where can creative people afford to live? Have I found any solutions? Well. I’m not certain you want to follow my route. I broke up with my husband and moved to a Victorian flat with two roommates in Oakland. I live in a nice neighborhood where I feel safe. Oakland is an awesome place to be right now. I’m surrounded by musicians and artists and writers and beautiful weirdos of all kinds. There’s always something to do, always a show to go to, a coffee shop to write in, a restaurant to eat at, a hill to hike. My rent is under 400. I live on about 1,000 a month. I ride my bike, I have a budget for groceries and gas (mainly I use the car only to get to work). I have a good friend who has kept his rent around 400/month too, he lives in a warehouse room with a loft. There’s a pipe over the bed, and the bathroom is down the hall, but he’s able to go tour in Europe for six weeks out of the year and record in LA for a month without losing his music clients (he teaches lessons) or his place to live.

It’s a lot about who you know, too. I got my place because a friend had lived there. My friend got his warehouse place because he knows the owner of the building. So there is always that to consider.

Is my current situation ideal? It’s better than it was. Sure, there’s guilt for not being a conformist member of society, for not forcing a broken marriage to work, for pursuing my dreams. And I may have to live predominately on potatoes the rest of my life, however long or short that is, but I’m trying not to think about that.

But aside from that useless emotion, when I look at the bottom line, I’m in business for myself and music/writing come first. With writing, it’s easy to work it around a day job. With music, not so much. There’s touring and recording in the studio and all of that. Day jobs that have a set schedule and health insurance and permanency, like the one I have at the library, are not drop and run types of jobs where you can be like, “Yea, I need to go on tour in June, can I have six weeks off?” Nope. So I haven’t quite find a total solution to my current dilemma which is, there will definitely be studio recording coming up and touring, but I don’t know how much, how long, or when exactly, and I have a set schedule at the library that is not flexible, except with long term planning and enough vacation time. I am not sure what I’m going to do to accomodate my music/writing come first goals without starving to death (yet), but I imagine I will figure something out.

As it stands, I’m exploring my options, but I’m feeling a bit stuck. OK, a lot stuck. I’ve been able to work my local performances and freelance jobs around the library schedule so far, which is four days a week. But nothing as big as what’s ahead. There’s the option of asking to be a permanent intermittent employee, which is basically someone who substitutes around the county at different libraries. That would give me some more schedule freedom ideally, but you can’t pick really what’s going to be available or open and sometimes it’s a crap shoot. And no health insurance. The only other job options I can think of are bartending, waitressing, the same old drill. Which I’m down to do if I need to, though I wouldn’t necessarily love either.

In a perfect world, or my ideal world, I would continue to develop the community of artists, writers and musicians I have around me and we would help each other out with sublets, jobs, shared dinners, essentially be a total community for each other. It’s happening more and more for me lately, the human network, and I’m really happy with it, but it’s still a total struggle. Living alone as an artist seems to be more manageable to me than trying to live with a partner, but maybe someday that will happen again, too. I don’t know.

So maybe my next post will revisit what jobs artists can do that won’t detract from their ability to pursue art, because that seems to be what I ended up talking about here, aside from my current sitch and how I’m trying to pin down a set schedule for upcoming recording/tour so I can decide whether to jump or keep my feet put.

Busy, But Alive

I do admit, sometimes I get a little bored with writing this blog. I know, I know. It’s my own blog, why would I get bored? I have to keep reminding myself of what the point of this blog IS, actually. And the point really is kind of the meaning I’ve made of why I’m here in this world–to share my creative journey and process in hopes what I struggle through and overcome can help other creative types do the same. I want to inspire people to not be afraid of their art, because I have found that art, to me, is one of the most important things in my life, outside of human connection, and the two go hand in hand.

I just spent a crazy week driving to Las Vegas and then over to LA, writing an article for a freelance magazine while in Vegas and visiting my bandmates in the studio in LA while they were working on their other band project. I saw friends and family, and now I’m back home, working at the library and trying to get my own band projects going. I’ve got two readings coming up in March, and one live performance in April.

I’ve been doing a writing group with two of my best friends, and it’s been successful! We all trust each other and are sharing work we’re excited about. I’ve been working on a short book about my teens, when I hitchhiked across the country, and I just shared a chapter with them, which means I’m getting ready to put my nose to the grindstone on that. I have a lot of chapters.

Writing is hard work. It takes time. And balancing writing and music and live performances and travel while you also have to work a day job is difficult to boot. I may always be slightly broke, but at least I’m fulfilled. And I do admit, after weeks of social, social, social, the library is nice to be back at, the hills nice to hike alone.

No huge epiphanies were had on my trip–I’m finding lately that hashing up the past and trying to figure things out isn’t always helpful. People in this country are overtherapized, I think. We talk too much about our issues instead of living life. The moment is now. And now. And now.

I thought I’d offer you a brief update, so you know I’m not dead, or neglecting you, my faithful handful of readers, forever, just kind of getting my bearings after a couple of busy, busy weeks. Decompressing.

Train Hop The Future

“Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.” -Charles Bukowski

Sometimes, I believe that when you throw a buncha creative stuff in a black hole it fuels some mythological unknown beast somewhere who holds the keys to creative freedom and one day BOOM, your hard work pays off and it makes sense. But until then, you gotta white knuckle it.

My life is profoundly weird and intriguing. And so is yours, and yours, and yours, if you just look around and see with your own eyes. Like today, I bumped into a guy wearing ostrich cowboy boots on the way down from my hike, and a little girl ran screaming, blasting out everyone’s ear drums in the library. I talked with a girl I met over a decade ago (before I stole her boyfriend, who is ex for us both) who has my exact same name and is one of my best friends and most favorite people in the world.

I texted with a guy who I’ve known since I was five, my psuedo (and psycho punk) older brother, (we grew up in the same church and the same small town), who is my new band mate, about music files we did last night, four hours of jamming, him on drums, me on guitar, with our keyboardist last night, some psychedelic, trippy music we were surprised turned out really well. We are going to send it to the gatekeeper of this project…we need to write a whole album, soon!

I listened to samples of songs I’ve been working on with a really cool drummer and bass player for my own band project on speaker while hiking because I forgot my headphones.

I read a chapter about Faust, a German Krautrock band who were supported by a record deal in the ’70s in Germany to make an album, when record labels were just throwing out money for experimental bands. They got basically a year of free living and recording studio and they fucked it off to make love and do drugs. They told the label they were going to be the Beatles. They ended up being…rather obscure.

I read about Harmonia, members of Neu! and Cluster who escaped the Krautrock drug scene to go be serious on their own, working with Brain Eno at one point before they all broke off into their own solo projects.

I worked on an essay I’m writing for a women’s issues reading fundraiser coming up in March, about wearing a dress to impress a boy when I hate dresses, but I’m trying to make it about so much more than that. It’s about Mormanism and marriage and expectation, about trying to be someone you’re not. At least, I hope it will be.

I read poems I had published years ago, trying to figure out which ones to read in March at a reading series in Oakland. I found a book on Nefertiti for a patron who came to the reference desk at the library, and then I wondered about the ancient Egyptians for a moment, and how they tie in to psychedelic Krautrock music. So much mystique. So much material to mine.

Just another lazy Saturday. The world is full of stuff to write about and learn about and as long as I’m learning, I feel alive. As long as I write and do music. As long as I stay focused on DATING MY MUSIC, and not getting caught up in what other people think, feel or do. I read the beginning of Joni Mitchell’s biography “Joni” today, and the writer was talking about how in our society we have to be defined by these limited structures of what is acceptable. Don’t be too different! Make sure you are only eccentric in a certain construct, prefabricated by the people before you!

Let’s stop modeling the lives of the artists before us and become our own indefinable artists. The world is ready for more trail blazers, more people following their hearts, letting fantasy take them away, thinking big and open and wide and outside of all these lines and barriers that pin us in and in and in, let’s get out, like crazy hot air balloons, go wild, what’s the worst that can happen?

We’re not hurting anyone, but we are pumping air into our art so we can go curbing like Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, riding the wheels of our creations around corners, thrilling in the trip of whatever we believe destiny will be for us. In a parallel reality, I have done and am everything I ever dreamed, which is why I don’t think we are limited so much as we think we are. Nope, the world is filtered through our own perceptions, and the strange cosmic joke is, in order to get more and achieve what you dream, you have to first feel as if it is possible and embody it, validate it.

We are love, already. It’s opening up to that, accepting it, and from that, we attract and build on what already exists. It is IN us. We cannot GET it from anyone else. That’s the key. So train hop to your future, and I’ll train hop to mine, but we will get there, the limits are only in our own brains.

The Week of Astounding Music Synchronicity

Last September, I sublet my friend’s practice space while he was on tour in Europe. Having just gotten back into an urban area, and never having used a practice space before, I was stoked. There was a PA system, I could hook up my guitar to my little 4-watt Vox and blast my vocals through the microphone, scream if I wanted to. I went in there whenever I could. My schedule was basically work, eat, practice space, write, sleep. I was able to get a lot of my songs into more useful shape, and the work I did in there led to me recording a little demo in November, which has led to more projects and nice feedback.

I wrote a while back about how I was getting into this whole Krautrock music thing. I’ve been reading Krautrocksampler. I also got a really cool book from the San Francisco Public Library called Cosmic Krautrock and Its Legacy, which has pictures of all of these compelling experimental bands that came out of West Germany during the late ’60s, early ’70s. Some of the bands, like Neu! and Faust have been credited with being proto-punk: precursers to punk music.

Youtube and blogspot are the greatest things ever for finding entire ripped LPs of music that is out of print or hard to find. I’ve been taking naps with Harmonia and Cluster and Tangerine Dream and Neu! playing in the background, getting dressed while listening to Can and Amon Duul. Right now, as I write this, I’m listening to Faust.

After months of discovering obscure post-punk and metal music, this trippy experimental psychedelic ambient music made of organic instruments and sampled sounds and strange undulations of instruments meeting in a rise and fall together and separately is totally awesome.

And it feels likes it’s sucked me into some strange alternate universe.

About a week ago, a friend posted that one of his bands needed a keyboardist who was drama free and available to tour and record. I saw it and wrote in my journal that I wanted to do something like that. About five minutes later, he called me up, asking if I could play prog keyboards. I told him that I was more of a keyboard-light person, but he insisted I get the name of the guy in charge of this signed Krautrock project. After a number of very positive emails in which I sent clips of my work and some background about myself, confessing I was mainly a singer/lyricist/guitarist, the guy in charge of the project sent me about 14 Krautrock songs I’d never heard before that he said he is influenced by for the project, some sheet music of songs he is working on, and invited me to come to one of their practices. I felt like I was in a really cool Krautrock school for about three days, as I listened to the songs and practiced ideas based on the music he had sent from the project.

Then, I was hauling my two 88-key keyboards and electric guitar down to my friend’s practice space a few blocks from my house, along with a Fender Twin Reverb amp my neighbor had let me borrow.

There were other people trying out that night, a violinist and a Krautrock influenced concert pianist. I took over the microphone, free styled some spacey spoken word poetry, sung some on-the-spot melodies, played some piano and guitars and basically kicked ass, while everyone else kicked ass on bass, keys, drums, guitar and violin. We all made some lovely music that night, and it fit, it was fun and felt good.

The next night, I had my own band practice, and the following night, I was invited to West Oakland to jam out with some old-school punks who have a recording control room in their practice space and wanted a female musician to round out their songs. I made up words and a melody to one of their songs, they played some of mine. The light was dark, the amps were big, and we did the best cover of Fascination Street by The Cure I’ve ever heard. We played my songs, Iggy Pop, Joy Division, and PJ Harvey. I basically screamed into the microphone for four hours, dream come true.

I came home Wednesday, Thursday and Friday night and face planted on my mattress. It took me a good half hour to hour to get my shit together enough to get into my pajamas. I’ve been trying to kick this nasty bout of bronchitis for a few weeks now, so after the excitement I had this week I spent the majority of three days in the house, on my bed, totally sick again. A friend had a show down the street, another was spinning some of my favorite music at a bar down the street, but I went to neither, just sat in my pajamas, and time crept by like nothing had happened. Until the guys I’d jammed with Friday sent me samples of the covers we’d done and I was happy all over again.

It’s been hard to let it sink in, how rad last week was. On Sunday, I got to sit in on a practice for the new Hawkwind lineup, another project the gatekeeper in charge of the Krautrock band is in charge of, and I wrote a few pages of writing in my notebook and at one point, my friend was trying to drum and sing at the same time and they all three looked at me sitting there and before I knew it I was singing vocals to Lemmy’s song “Silver Machine,” the one that hit the charts back in the ’70s, as a placeholder while they recorded their run through for the keyboardist.

You would think at this point I would be like, my life is freaking weird, but I wrote something in my notebook while I sat in on that practice for three hours: “If you’re tapped in, all the synchronicity doesn’t seem so weird. If you have a master plan, always, once you focus, the players come out and then everything makes sense, but it’s because from the beginning, from the get-go, you believed that something would come through. You made it happen.”

I posted on my Facebook music page that the best compliments I received last week were, “She’s got some pipes,” and “You’ve got a great scream.” A friend of mine added, “You also joined a Krautrock band with a couple of legendary bastards.”

Anyhow, it’s been busy. I’ve also been working on a piece of writing for an upcoming reading, a profile of a new favorite coffee shop for Oakland magazine, and a crapola of other writing, in addition to trying to get my own songs polished up. I never realized what hard work it is to be in charge of writing all of the songs for a band. The bass player and drummer I’ve been working with on my songs since November are great at helping me add transitions and space into my songs, but we are moving at a pretty glacial pace, and my amp is a piece of crap unless split into a bigger speaker, which I don’t have. So my new goal is to save up for a good amp, which means I need to not be sick anymore, and have some free time when I’m not working on writing or music or at the library. But I can’t really see that happening any time soon, so I’m going to come up with a Plan B, which is to stumble onto some funds or a side project.

Friends have been texting and calling, “Let’s hang out,” and I’m always off to practice or doing some writing. But this was the life I’d wanted and planned for years. I’m not complaining. I’m happy as pie immersed in music all of the time, constantly digging up new music to listen to, reading about it in books I get at the library, writing about it, creating it. No matter what my sicknesses I catch or how sad I am over missing my ex-husband or whatever, I can find a home in music. Like my friend Kirsten said to me last night, ” You’ve always been a musician, you’ve always done music, so whatever project comes along, it’s what you were born to do. It won’t go away.”

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It Takes A Village

A thought struck me while I was cooking breakfast this morning: I would never be where I am today without the things I’ve been through and done in the past. And where am I now? Stoked on life. Having so many amazing moments I didn’t think were possible.

What did it take to get me to lower my expenses, be honest about the fact that in order to pursue my art and be true to myself I couldn’t live the life I was living anymore? It took losing my health and my sanity and my marriage, that’s what. I had to be at a point where I had what seemed like absolutely nothing before I could take the reins of my own life and go after what I know I came here to do in a way I never have before: Music. Writing. Being Me.

Nothing to lose. Everything to gain.

I used to be the world’s worst invalidator–of myself. And because I was constantly putting myself down I attracted people who criticized me in subtle ways that were corrosive and toxic. Then I internalized the beliefs of the people I’d surrounded myself by, as well as my own, that I couldn’t do what I wanted and survive.

It’s just so wack the way the universe works. I had to go through some terribly hard shit to get to the point where I realized life is short, I could die tomorrow and I will be bloody pissed if I didn’t do my damndest to own being the performer and musician and writer I’ve been working at being my entire life. It’s what I’m here to do.

I also used to be really good at playing the victim. I would blame circumstances or other people for my lot in life. It was the doctor’s fault for putting me on horrible back pain and anxiety medications that destroyed my health and nervous system and made me face the bowels of hell (it wasn’t. I sought him out, and I had a pre-existing addictive personality). It was my husband’s fault for wanting a more conventional life and not understanding that art is not and has never been a hobby for me (we were different. That’s all. Neither his way nor mine was “correct”). It was my full-time job’s fault for making me work so much (I chose to work 9 – 5 through my early twenties so I could go on more trips and buy more material things).

And I was real jealous. I had a hard time accepting other people’s successes because of my own lack of success at going after what I really desired. I also thought there wasn’t enough to go around. I held onto an American society competitive market attitude.

So what changed? I got off pills, first of all. Then, I acted as if I already was what I believed I was. I told people I was a musician instead of saying, “Er, sometimes I kind of play some songs and stuff.” I surrounded myself by people who would call me on my shit and demand I take action, instead of supporting me wallowing in reasons I couldn’t do what I believe in. I started taking control of my life instead of being a passenger in it drifting this way and that.

And I continue to do other things. Daily meditation. Journaling for hours a day to find out who the hell I am and what I really want. Making sure that if I’m not happy with my life I make tiny goals to move me towards my bigger goals. Giving myself credit every day and not looking for it in other people as much. Writing gratitude lists.

And eventually I ended up where I am now. Surrounded by people whose lives I respect and admire, people who are successfully doing what I want to do, therefore don’t naysay the possibility of doing so. If you talk to someone who hasn’t tried, they’re going to likely tell you you will fail. I intend to stick with those who have succeeded, and remain teachable. I have faith that if I was given talents I will be able to use them in this life.

***

Last night, I got to jam out with some amazingly talented musicians doing krautrock style music (irony after all the krautrock stuff I posted a few days back, eh?). I lugged my keyboards and guitar out to my friend’s practice space; a musician girl friend down the street let me borrow her pimped out Fender Twin Reverb Amp. I got to sing, and play piano and guitar. We had an electric violinist and classical pianist who were trying out a jam, like me, alongside one of my oldest friends on drums, and a guitarist and bass player whose creds go back through a ton of amazing bands and decades in the music industry. They’re all paid, working, gigging musicians, amazingly talented, and people I want to be more like.

I came home and face planted on the bed, deliciously exhausted. Tomorrow, I have band practice for my own songs, we are working on seven of them right now. Friday, I’m going to go try out as singer for another band project, we are going to cover some PJ Harvey songs to warm up. This is how I am going to continue working my life. Music, music, music.

You know, mostly in my former life, I was afraid to be myself, and afraid to be happy. I thought I had to be negative and tough to protect myself. And I kept attracting people who reinforced this belief system. But I’ve learned in the past year, after leaving everything that was comfortable to me and starting all over again, that I don’t need to have people near me who make me feel small. I want to be around people who make me feel good and believe in me, so I started believing in myself. I deserve that.

I am grateful to be alive and doing what I love on a daily basis. I’m also grateful to all of the people who have helped me every step along the way. I read a quote the other day that said love is good when given, but better when shared, and I do believe it takes a village to raise an artist. We need each other. And I look around me and am so proud of my kick ass friends, writers, artists, musicians, who have walked with me through this past number of years. We are all doing amazing things with our lives. Success is how you define success. To me, success is managing to do so much of what I love, with or without validation from society. I told one of my friends last night that this has been an amazing year so far. “This will be a year to remember,” he said.

You never know what you can create if you believe in yourself.

Thestifledartist's Blog

Pep talks for writers, musicians and artists (myself included)

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