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.

Playing a Junkie

This past weekend was a strange one. I walk through life rather oblivious of things. I nod a lot and go, “Yea, sure! OK.” So, when I found myself convincing my friend Joe to use my room for a book film trailer, it didn’t strike me as odd. Even if the film was about junkies, and my room was to be a piss-in-the-sink hotel.

I’ve never been a heroin junkie, but I have lived in the Tenderloin in a piss-in-the-sink hotel. I figured, why not help a fellow writer and friend out and let him use my room in a nice quiet neighborhood of Oakland, instead of a hotel where, as Joe put it, “People might assume we were going to shoot porn.”

On a related note, last Saturday night Paul, who runs Bitchez Brew, invited me and some other local writers, including a friend of mine, Joel Landmine, to read our poems at Era ART Bar. It went well, was a lot of fun.

I introduced Joel to Joe at the last Lip Service West reading I attended, the one where Zarina Zabrisky, another local writer, was on fire and wowed the entire audience, and the one where Paul invited Joel and I to read at this past Bitchez Brew. Joe and Joel became Facebook friends.

Meanwhile, Joe was searching desperately for the best younger him to play a junkie in the film trailer for his upcoming book, Junkie Love. He posted about the trailer on Facebook, having learned Evil Ed from Fright Night was going to be a part of it, and Joel posts something like, “That guy’s really nice.” Joe sees an opportunity, and follows up with, “Hey, you look like a young me (a junkie), do you want to star in my film trailer?” To which Joel says, “Sure.” Joe doesn’t beat around the bush.

Some time goes by, and a thread starts on my Facebook, but gets sidelined by discussion of the best place to film this trailer. My bedroom gets volunteered.
Then, the night of the Bitchez Brew reading, Joe approaches me and asks if I want to play in the film trailer too. I shrug. “Sure,” I say.

(It strikes me that if I had gone through with my threat of deleting Facebook for good, none of this might have gone down.)

Sunday morning, Jamie DeWolf, the director, Joe and his wife Justine, and Joel arrive at my apartment. My roommates let them in, and thankfully I was awake, had a cup of french press coffee in my hand. I was up until 3am the previous night. It was now 9am, so I was still kind of like, “Duh.” We moved all my musical instruments out of the room and Joe and Jamie start making it look like a junkie den. Syringes, spoon with “tar” and cotton in it. The mattress is already on the floor, a sheet over the window, etc. I kept looking over and seeing Joe making little “heroin” balloons by my bookshelf.

Justine tells me she needs to make me look like a junkie, so she starts putting makeup on me. Joel by now looks like a bonafied junkie, bags under his eyes, pale complexion (he’s a skinny dude, with that James Dean kind of rough-around-the-edges look about him) and I give him a thumbs up. “Great job. You look like the perfect junkie.”

Then Jamie asks if I can take off my shirt, because he wants it to look authentic. So, soon I’m lying on one side of my bed, Joel on the other. I’m half naked (in a bra) with a blanket over me, Jamie filming, and Joe giving us directions on what to do. Insert lots of Boom Chica Bow-wow jokes about bedroom filming.

I didn’t know the script for the film before hand, which was probably good, because if I had thought about it too much, I might have freaked out. Basically, Joel is my junkie boyfriend in the film trailer. I’m sleeping. He wakes up, goes out to score dope, gets beat the hell up, comes back, then wakes me up. I kind of roll away, go “WTF,” with my facial expression, then spy the balloons he is handing me in his outstretched hand. I perk up. He smiles. I smile. Junkie Love. It’s pretty devastating, if you really think about it. There’s even one point in the film where we were filming in my bathroom with syringes and fake blood for a scene using my bathroom mirror.

We finish filming, go out and eat lunch, and they all head to the city to do a different scene. At this point, I’m actually starting to wake up. I walked through the rest of the day with kind of a blurry, heavy feeling going on. I went and hung out, talked with friends, but I couldn’t shake this raw, intense feeling in my chest. The feeling stayed with me the next day and is still lingering today.

I’m kind of an empath, and so there’s a part of me that is taking in the fact that Joe lived this life, and it’s a life many people live. He must be feeling pretty wack, watching his friends enact scenes from his past. The junkie life was a life I wanted to live as a teen, because I was an idiot, and a lot of my heroes in pop culture were junkies. But as revealed in a short non-fiction piece I’m writing, I was spared that road due to what must have been angels looking out for me. Instead, I just became a raging alcoholic by age 15. The junkies I traveled with at age 15 didn’t like to share, is what it boils down to.

Maybe I’m tripping because had it been different, that might have been my life. Or maybe I’m tripping because at 15 I was a street kid and me and my boyfriend’s two best friends were junkies, used to shoot up in front of us on a mattress in Golden Gate Park. I glamorized them. Now, at 31, I don’t glamorize that lifestyle at all, and re-enacting it was somewhat brutal. Things just seem to affect me much longer these days.

But I’m glad I could help. That was a good thing to be a part of, in my opinion, although I don’t know if I can ever actually WATCH that book trailer when it comes out. Me as a junkie ain’t pretty. See below.

Bitchez Brew, Tonight

Yea, yea, I shoulda posted this sooner. I’m reading tonight in Oakland. Poetry this time. I rant about poetry and what it means to me in a post I wrote over a year ago called Taking Back Poetry: Obscurity is Not a Stamp of Awful. I kinda forgot all I felt about poetry until I was looking through the poems I’m gonna be reading tonight, and I realized they had gotten me through some rough, rough times. Reading them will be cathartic. It’s like a full circle of where I’ve been and how far I’ve come since I penned the majority of these.

My friend Joel Landmine will be reading, too, and he’s real good. Makes me a little jealous watching a video of him reading, actually. He’s that good.

Era Art Bar in Oakland 6:30pm. Bitchez Brew. Tonight.

http://www.bitchezbrewreview.com/bitchez-brew-march-2013/

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.

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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Subversion

Lately, I’ve been immersed in music. I am surrounded by a gazillion bands it seems, and friends who know of a million bands. Ten dollar shows abound. There is usually something to do or see on any given night here in Oakland.

Last night was a huge punk show called Subversion at the Metro. It was a three-day fest. I did my part and went to day 2 with some super hot punky girlfriends and was blissfully surprised to find I actually enjoyed a couple of the bands (I didn’t know any of the bands playing that day except one, Scarlet Crimson, who I had seen a number of times before headliners at recent shows including The Mob and Belgrado/Bellicose Minds).

One band, Spectres, reminded me a bit of my exes band, it was that goth punk Joy Divisionesque vibe running rampant in the scene as of late and I really dig it. The drums and bass were amazing, and I totally danced. There’s a good article about the goth gloom vibe in recent punk music here: What is G-Beat?

It mentions a few bands that friends of mine are in or have introduced me to recently that I really dig such as Alaric, Cross Stitched Eyes, Bellicose Minds, Atriarch and basically most of the bands who have been passing through Oakland as of late.

It seems like a good time to be on the West Coast. DIY culture in the form of music is alive and well. I can’t even list all the demos, tape and vinyl rips I’ve been able to access recently, some available here on this awesome site: Terminal Escape

A lot of the bands playing over the three day Subversion fest are up there, today I was able to nab Spectres, Permanent Ruin, Male Nurses, White Wards and Hoax. I bought the new Spectres album. Another song I was listening to all day had nothing to do with those songs. Actually, I would say my two songs of the day are as follows:

***

It was adorable to see downtown Oakland filled with punks in full regalia. Studs, back clothing, bullet belts, leather, jean jackets, patches, colored hawks, dreads…

The festival itself was cool. Vinyl and cassette tapes are also still alive and well, which makes this ’80s girl happy, if only for sentimental reasons. Not to mention that they both sound better to me than CDs.

As I’m broke as hell due to my dedication to working part-time in order to focus on music, music, writing and music, I’m not able to buy a lot of paraphernalia, and I don’t profess to own any band t-shirts except one I got at crossroads because it looked cool, but I liked walking around handling all the records, and seeing so many bands all in one place. These bands all don’t get paid much of anything to do what they’re doing. It’s also rad to see so many artists completely dedicated to taking their music on the road, continuing to make their music in spite of the current landscape, saying, essentially: Screw the system! We will make music!! Foreva!!

At one point during Spectres show there were a buncha fully decked out fashion punk dudes (studs, colored hawks, face tattoos, eyeliner) standing near my friend and I, glaring intermittently at us and everyone else out of the corner of their eyes. There had been a few kinda normal looking guys walking around the venue through out the night, late 30s, early 40s. OK, maybe two. I was curious about them. Who were they? Did they listen to hardcore death punk and thrash punk music at home while reading literature in between teaching classes at the University? Had they once dressed up to the nines in punk attire as well? And what did the fact that I noticed them out of the entire audience say about the current punk scene’s fashion requirements?

(Did I mention Spectres lead singer also looks uncannily like my ex-boyfriend who fronted a ’90s industrial rock band? That was really weird. Took me back)

While the hardcore fashion punks started sniffing an unknown substance out of a plastic bag my friend and I looked at them and then at each other and started cracking up. “What would we even talk to them about?” she asked me later as we both decided that we weren’t feeling like any potential future dates were lurking in our vicinity, though it did feel good to be surrounded by so much punk DIY energy in one place. Felt kind of like home. I made a motion with my hands as if I were sniffing something illicit out of a plastic bag and she cracked up, “We could go nab those normal looking guys and talk about li-ter-at-toor,” I said.

It’s fun to be able to go to shows right down the street from my house, have friends who live around the corner and also have the liberty to simply sit in my room all day writing songs, listening to music and doing a kickass yoga workout,as I did today. I mean, yes, I still have that day job, but it’s the best job I’ve had out of any jobs so far (if you read back far enough in this blog, mostly circa 2008, you will find a litany of rants about terrible jobs I held that kept me from doing much music) and people always think it’s SO cool to work at the library even though I know the truth…it’s cool, but it’s also a library.

I don’t have much to complain about except my normal general neurosis which seems much more manageable now that I’m not trying to do so many different things. Realizing I’m only one human being, if I died today I would rest happy knowing I spent as much time as I could with my favorite people, working on music and writing every single day, listening to a lot of ass kicking local music and roaming the hills whenever possible.

Not to sound like the antichrist or anything, but not having a relationship also seems to be pretty effective for making a crap load of art. I’m not sure how I’ll someday work that equation back in, but after being married nine years I think I’m OK with not looking right now. My ex-husband said to me recently, “You didn’t have time for a relationship.” That’s either real sad, real modern, or means I’m simply real focused and would someday benefit from finding someone who was also real focused, and we could meet sometimes in the middle somewhere. When not touring or recording or working. Yea, modern life. There you go.

Not Quite Dateable

I recently located a video of a reading I did earlier this year at the Layover in Oakland for East Bay on the Brain, a quarterly reading series. I read a piece called “Not Quite Dateable.” It’s serious in the beginning, but wait for it. There is humor.

How do I feel about reading my past debauchery out loud? Well, I am not unlike thousands of other writers and musicians who share eviscerating personal details to a very small audience. It’s my story. I can’t pretend my story doesn’t involve some questionable, embarrassing behavior.

My main point in sharing is the whole hinge of being a caring human being. I share because I felt alone when I went through all my antics, and I really want other people who have done similar things to not feel alone.

Every little drop in the bucket helps with these performances. It’s all baby steps forward. And yes, I do worry I will attract some neurotic psychopath who will use all my personal details against me as has happened to me in past life. Truth is, I’ve been seasoned by sociopaths, so I know the ropes now. Since I’m comfortable with my past and I’ll likely not ever work a 9 – 5 again lest I implode or spontaneously combust, I’m not worried future employers will be able to hold my confessions against me. And frankly, I don’t care. I spent a lot of years trying to be this perfect person, and it’s impossible to be a perfect person. I give up!

I am me.

So yes, here’s another personal story I read in public. I plan on many more to come!

Music Show at Vitus Tomorrow, July 18

I booked a show a while back, and it has arrived, $5 tickets are available here: Vitus Oakland

Come, hang out. The two other musicians playing with me are Dustin Thomas and Shannon Harney, both of whom are on their game, with websites, music to purchase and everything else a musician needs these days. I’m a little intimidated! But hey, I’ll be there, at the beginning of the night, playing my soulful, bluesy tunes for whoever decides to get out of the house on a Wednesday night to hear them. I believe the other two musicians will be playing with full bands. Hard to live up to that with me and my little guitar, but I’m doing this sucker. Like my friend Bucky says, it’s not like something will happen like my guitar suddenly breaks and maims a small child and everyone goes, “And that was the last night she ever played guitar…”

God, the life of a musician. I’m currently looking for a music practice space to go in on, in Oakland, so if you hear anything, let me know. Need some private space to practice all these new tunes! I moved into a room, with roommates. Adjusting to that. Yikes!

Let’s See How You Handle It

A day after writing Patchwork Solutions, my latest post, a kid at the library asked me for The Patchwork Girl book by L. Frank Baum. Seemed trippy. Maybe I need to read it. The Patchwork Girl, aka “Scraps” is a living doll, fashioned together from (one would guess from her name) scraps. She was brought into being by a magician, Dr. Pipt, using a formula called Powder of Life. He actually made her for a servant to his wife, but she ended up turning his wife into stone.

Things have been strange. I’ve been practicing something called positivity. I don’t know if you’re heard of it? It involves acting completely opposite of my nature and assuming things are all going to work out just fine. My foundation seemed to have been ripped from under me, but turns out my foundation—what I thought it was—was other people, and that’s not a good foundation. I had a foundation all along—me, and something…other. I can tell myself what I need to hear, and I can take the steps that I need to take. Other people can help along the way, but they aren’t a rock on which to build.

I may have found something…a place, but I’ll tell you more when it actually happens. Don’t want to play with the jinxes: those mystical creatures who, like little weasel cats, like to play tricks on what you think is going to happen to you. (Aneka, fancy drawing me a picture? I can’t draw them, but I’m sure you can…)

I had a show booked on Friday for three hours…wasn’t sure how I was going to fill all that space, but some other people magically appeared to play with me. Actual Café, this Friday at 7:00pm:
http://actualcafe.com/events/

I turned a corner on Sunday, somehow, when I talked with a lady who reminded me to think of other people, not just me, me, me. She also reminded me to start up a routine again, i.e. meditate in the morning, then journal, then pray, then go about my day. Like I said in a previous post wherein I spoke of Nubbles—ask the universe how I can be of help, how my talents can be used to aid others, not for me, me, me.

***

Some guy was talking the other day about how his daughter had run away when she was a teenager. He couldn’t sleep, and he prayed when all else failed. He said to the god he believed in, “I’m turning this over to you. Let’s see how YOU handle it!” And then he finally fell asleep.

I like that message. So lately I’ve been saying, “I’m letting go of finding a place to live. Let’s see how YOU handle it.” Like I’m talking some big mafia honcho up there who’s got a sense of humor. And what do you know? Something popped up, then another thing popped up, then all of a sudden I’ve got three potential places to choose from. Then someone loans me money for a deposit. And even though I haven’t been grocery shopping—trying to save every cent I have—my fridge has magically been feeding me all week. I had potatoes and onions and had some frozen meat from a butcher up north…I’ve been fed shepherd’s pie and huevos (sans eggs) and salmon and spinach by friends.

I’m kind of flabbergasted.

It’s like they say—things take care of themselves, somehow. I am currently cobbled together from random pieces like the patchwork girl, but somehow I’ve been brought back to life and am on to exciting (and scary) new adventures. I’m glad I haven’t turned anyone to stone (like Medusa?)…that I’m slowly moving forward through all this upheaval and change. Literally, everything I did or relied on before—gone. Except me. I’m here. And I’ve got my own back. And yours, if you need a friend. One little day at a time.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Last night I played a show at a local venue right up the hill from my apartment. It was lovely. At first, we had a small audience, my fellow musician friend and I, but then people started walking in, and after a time, there were a number of very attentive people watching me and listening to my songs and I tapped into that refreshing feeling of, “Oh. This here is why I do music.”

All the schlepping of the gear and the booking venues and the promoting myself is always a bit of a chore. It all needs to be done…and you never know who is going to show up. You can have absolutely no expectations. My friend brought great equipment, the acoustics were lovely and the venue catered to my allergies by making me a special meal (they will never know how much I appreciate that. Of course, they could probably just read past blog entries and they’d get an inkling).

Me and Jafar, getting ready to perform

All in all, when I’m doing music and writing, I feel truly that I am living my calling. This is where my heart is pulling me. This is where I have been going and for the first time in a long time I feel stable, confident and ready to handle all the hard work that is ahead. I know now, much more than I did when I started this blog, where exactly I am aiming and how to get there. I’ve learned to trust other artists and go out and perform and meet people and nurture relationships. Recently, a bunch of crazy synergistic stuff has happened making me truly believe I am in the exact right place for me at the exact right time.

There was a long period of time where the synergy was just not happening.

***

A lot has transpired in this past week–suffice it to say, I am looking for my own artist live/work space for a period of time due to an agreement (amicable) between my husband and I.

Doesn’t make it any easier.

Frankly, I am married to my art, so it’s like I’ve been cheating for a long time and he’s been left in the dust while I’m all passionate with my art love. I don’t know how else to explain it? Who I am is so irrevocably intertwined with my music and writing that to not have it for a couple of years in my twenties due to bad decisions and hibernation on my part was a shame. Once I finally got it back, I ignited and started to realize life is short, and if I’m ever to find out what I’m made of, I need to get back to a place where I am understood by my peers and live near more artists. The hubby would like to settle and maybe have a family. He craves, needs and deserves stability. I can’t go where I need to go in the current position I am in. This whole situation is about much more than simply art though. But that’s for me and him to figure out.

***

I am a gypsy wanderer who can flit in and out of scenes and spaces. I would love a room to call my own in all this, but am exploring subletting from a number of friends who are going on tour for weeks at a time in the coming months, just to have a place with minimal stress and expenditure.

Ideally, someday, I will also be going on tour, for my reading and/or writing. Both, I am aiming for. I’ve been traveling for work and loving it. I’ve been getting more and more leads on fulfilling work. I put my ear to the ground a few years ago, kept mining and mining and mining and my artistic community is coming through for me.

When two people have been going along for a decade thinking they’re on the same page and realize they truly both want completely separate things out of life, but still love, trust, respect, admire and appreciate each other, it’s a rough, strange place. The signs have been here all along, we just love each other so much, we were willing to ignore what we each really need, and that is currently being redefined and explored.

One of my musician friends said, “So, you’re off to a new adventure.” Yes. I am. Not an easy adventure. Not an easy choice to make–uprooting everything and moving into separate spaces (this was the desire of hubby, as he thinks I will be happier with a living space he would not be happy with, and he also thinks we can only work this out apart).

This isn’t really dirty laundry I’m airing–it’s something my husband and one of my painter/artistic soul mate friends encouraged me to talk about here, since this blog is a means to express the artistic life and the possible scenarios that can transpire.

I was speaking with a woman in her sixties who volunteers at the library I work at. She is a lover of poetry and art and we often have deep discussions about poets and writers we admire, or the advantage of art for self-expression. She was talking to me about a friend of hers who has always needed a lot of time with his art, to the point where his wife asked him for a separation. He was married to his art, too. It is admittedly hard to make one relationship work, even if it’s a best friend relationship, if your first goal is to advancing your career and your art. I don’t know if this is a flaw of mine or just par for the course.

I know there are couples who have worked out these discrepancies and are OK. Marriage is not peaches and cream after the initial years. A lot of it is hard work and compromise. This is going to be temporary, unless we both find that it would help the other person more to pursue other alternative. Neither of us wants the other to be unhappy. My husband is one of the more gracious people I know. He’s a gem. I will not let him go easily. Things are being set into place to make this work. No, I am not on the market. Keep your hands to yourself.

While I’m excited to be getting some space and looking for places where I can completely submerge myself in my art, I’m also going through a lot of painful eviscerating emotions about what this all means and what the future might hold and how it will be to suddenly support myself again completely. It’s like being ripped open. I may seem logical and unattached but I assure you, I am definitely going through it, and so is the Mr.

This will not be easy.

Other than that, I plan on visiting a few topics this week, including autonomy and the pros/cons of everyone having it in a society as well as the insanity of the artist mind, another topic I’ve been discussing with a new friend in a similar predicament to mine. Working with other artistic personalities, the need to pursue art above all else–these are all things I will revisit. Until then…Bowie.

Thestifledartist's Blog

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

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