More Leonard Cohen

As I'm reading Sylvie Simmons' excellent biography of Leonard Cohen, I'm Your Man, I am reminded of this long-standing project I have of recording a tribute album of some of his songs. They have been such a huge influence and inspiration on my songwriting...Last fall I started to record some of the ones I'm planning on doing - little demos in my room and on my iphone...the sound wasn't so bad! Here is the first one I did, also the last one I learned:



The rest of them are on my SoundCloud page.

A poem

I will set down my rings

And bracelets

Take off my shoes

And stand there before you

Bare

of all necessities

My fingers through the air

Like wands

Rods

of destiny

Weaving a tapestry out of the small corners of time

Each gesture drawing me further into this palpable mystery  -

Gathering of stardust

Echoes of the wind

My body a transient carrier for

Grace

          dance

                     light

And the vastness of love

- Los Angeles, May 14th, 2014

Studio Time

Some photos from the studio, where I've been spending some time...and of my awesome collaborators: Yohei Shikano (engineering/production), Chris Carlone (drums), Daniel Seef (bass), Kaitlin Wolfberg (violin)- also on back up vocals, Bart Davenport, Rob Danson and Charlie Clark (not pictured), and on trumpet, Dayna Richards (also not pictured). It's brewing!...

All from my Instagram account.

Sofar Sounds

Happy Thanksgiving my american friends! Here is a live video that was filmed last August by Sofar Sounds: Los Angeles, with Chris Carlone on drums. Love it! thank you to Sofar Sounds and their incredible audience. 

Tomorrow night I will be playing in the lounge at TAIX in LA - come chase that turkey with friends and music by the fireplace. Set time 10:30pm
1911 W Sunset Blvd, 90026

Leonard Cohen - A Bunch of Lonesome Heroes

If you weren't able to attend the Leonard Cohen tribute in San Francisco, here's a phone video of my performance. I really love singing his songs. This one has so many layers in its writing, and always reminds me of Joseph Campbell's concept of the Hero's Journey. May it inspire you to be your own hero and share your talents and stories with the world...

Solstice Skyline

This happened on August 3rd at the lovely Solstice Skyline event in Pasadena, CA.

LA, there's a show coming on

Hello 2013!

This is L.A.-related but if you're not in Southern California, please tell your friends who are. This will be I believe my first L.A. show in a proper venue since I moved here in September, and it's at the Bootleg Bar. Coming up next week, January 30th! It's a little last minute but we're excited to play and hoping to see a lot of our L.A. friends there.
I even made a nice flyer to try and entice you.

Tickets and info: http://www.foldsilverlake.com/event/212483
I will be playing with Chris Carlone on drums, expect a couple of surprise guest appearances on other instruments as well...and my electric guitar came out of retirement! (for part of the set at least)

** Holiday Special **

I am offering a holiday special on my LP The Deer Convention. Free shipping on US orders until December 31st, as well as a 10% discount- just enter 'yule' at check out. I also added a (free) gift wrapping option. To order just visit the Bandcamp page. Give vinyl for the holidays!

If they (or you) don't have a record player, or if your shopping is very lat minute (like mine!) there is always iTunes. They let you gift a download, and you'll have three releases to choose from. While you're there, check out the wonderful review they wrote for the Tiny Specks of Delight EP. I simultaneously blushed and smiled reading it but ultimately I have to say I'm very happy about it.

A happy holidays  season to you all, whichever it is you celebrate! There will be more holiday cheer on this blog next week hopefully. Elves are hard at work over here.

They keep coming

"Tiny Specks of Delight, the song, video by Zach Von Joo:

The One

A new video!

La Bretagne en Eté

This town has been good for my music playing...last of note, I recorded a live video with Chris Carlone. He produces a series called Live at Carlone's that he started in New York City. This was the first West Coast session! He's also an amazing drummer and multi-instrumentalist, multi-talented guy. We had fun with the mirrored angle, and there's even a little interview in the beginning- that you might be able to watch, unlike me; watching oneself talking on camera...weird!
I love how this came out though, take a listen:

Tiny Specks of Delight

Exciting news! - first of all, I am pleased to announce a new partnership with the San Francisco-based record label Kitten Charmer (Kristin Hersh, Crime, Carletta Sue Kay). Kitten Charmer is releasing my new EP, Tiny Specks of Delight. It was co-produced by Monte Vallier (Swell), and as of October 2nd, 2012, is available on every digital platform worldwide - iTunes, Amazon, eMusic, Spotify, MOG, you name it, it's there!

We're celebrating with two California shows: one in San Francisco on October 14th, and one in Los Angeles on October 19th.  If you are around these parts please come and say hello! The San Francisco show will include the premiere of a new video for the title track - produced by Kitten Charmer and directed by our favorite Bay Area filmmaker, Zach Von Joo. We'll be at the Make Out Room, with the Moore Brothers and Eight Belles. The L.A. show will take place at Origami Vinyl, everybody's favorite record store on Sunset in Echo Park. And- I will have a band for the San Francisco show (with special guests!), and some accompaniment on drums for the L.A. date. Getting excited!

I have to admit I am very proud of this collection of songs and love how they came out sounding. Here's peek at the cover, and a few words about it:

"With instrumentation varying from very sparse (guitar, harp and pedal steel) to full band arrangements, the songs on Tiny Specks Of Delight encapsulate a certain idea of the West Coast sound - breezy and open -  while offering a reflection on that eternal process of falling in and out of love - each song centering around a different point along love's roller coaster of learning and liberation.  Contributions by Tom Heyman and Marc Cappelle (both long time Mark Eitzel collaborators), Russ Blackmar, Matt Montgomery, Willow Willow, Chris Molla, Christina Zirker, Amber Lamprecht and Bennett Grassano, make this a bit of a more produced collection than the last album."

Also available through Midheaven.

Carole King

A little sad to have just finished Carole King's new memoir, A Natural Woman. I felt so inspired as I found myself immersed in her unending world of musical creativity. Some facts are just extraordinary - I was amazed to find out that she was only 18 when she wrote this song with Gerry Goffin for the Shirelles, including the string arrangement (I always loved that one)- her first attempt at string arranging for a recording I think. And of course, she also wrote some of my all-time favorite songs, wether sung by her or others...here are a couple of quotes from the book that struck a chord with me:

- (on songwriting) "Alabaster Lady is one of those songs that came through me, rather than from me. As soon as I recognize that a song is coming through me, I try to get out of the way and let the process be guided by whatever is driving me beyond what I think of as craft. People have different names for whatever inspires them, but anyone who's ever created anything from that place knows exactly what I'm talking about."

- (on recording Tapestry, and the amazing convergence of talents at that particular time and place -something I wish I could channel somehow!) "With the Carpenters recording in Studio A and Joni Mitchell recording Blue down the hall in Studio C with Henry Lewy engineering, Lou and I would be recording with Hank Cicalo in Studio B. Seven blocks east, Peter and James were recording Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon at Sunset Sound with Richard Orshoff at the control board. A constant stream of singers, musicians, friends and family flowed in and out of the recording studios along Sunset Boulevard. At A&M we commuted dow the hall. Sometimes we commuted between A&M and Sunset Sound."

Now I'm looking forward to watching this documentary.

Klimt

Looking at Klimt's drawings and studies for his paintings made me think of the parallel with the song in its acoustic form and the finished produced recording... The exhibit was beautiful, this was one of my favorite drawings :

Fish Blood, 1898

BLUE MOON #5 - Let's Stay Here

Welcome to the final installment!
This is a song written at another friend's house, Caitlin's. I was just back from a trip to Europe and looking for a place - nostalgia, hopes, possibilities, and the soft sand of the atlantic coast all found their way into the song. In open G tuning; I often play this one last in a set - like this time, complete with hugs at the end! - check it out on vimeo and youtube.

I hope you liked this series, please feel free to share your felings in the comments.

A big thank you to Lisa Moro for the video, and to The Lost Church for the amazing space.

And to my partners in crime for that show, Sam Heminger (stand up bass), Amy Fowler (mandolin and harmony vocals) and Zach Von Joo (video projections).

photo (as in the last post) by Rikki Ward

BLUE MOON #4 - Looks Like It's Gonna Rain

Written at my friend Kara's, where I was staying while being between places in San Francisco, for someone who didn't quite measure up. Because Kara loves her, I was listening a lot to Joanna Newsom's Ys at the time. The song started while I was walking around, the clouds were becoming grayer, there was some rain on the way.

Watch it with Amy's lovely voice harmonizing with me, on vimeo and youtube. (and hear the Lost Church's chairs cracking!)

BLUE MOON #3 - Like A Woman In Love

Some songs hardly need an introduction, and this might be one of them. You meet someone, everything feels so new that it's hard to put into words - is it love? or something like it...

The video is up on vimeo and youtube - with some laughter in the beginning, due to a previous false start...

BLUE MOON #2 - Bumblebee (like you've never heard it)

Written in Golden Gate Park - my friend Chantale, who was visiting, dragged my hung over ass out there on a sunday morning to take photos. I brought my guitar. After I was through playing all my songs, there was nothing left to do but figure out what was next, and this bumblebee happened to hover  by the bushes nearby, so I started singing to it. As we walked out of the park the lyrics for the second verse came to me, and by the next day I had a song. It still feels like that song wrote itself, the best feeling really.

This version features Amy's wonderful mandolin part, a rare treat. And it's up on vimeo and youtube (also on facebook of course) - enjoy!

BLUE MOON #1 - In Time

Welcome to the first installment of what I'm calling the BLUE MOON LIVE VIDEO SERIES - a series of live footage that was recorded at The Lost Church in San Francisco last June. Starting today - the blue full moon of August this year, fittingly a rare occasion - I will be releasing a song a day for the next five days on youtube/vimeo/facebook.

For the first segment, I chose a song I wrote about something I feel strongly about - how we treat women in the world, and what impact it has on said world. It started a few years ago when I realized that if only we treated women better, we'd end up with a better world. They carry on the love and if thwarted, aren't able to properly transmit it. The latter half of the song was informed by my buddhist practice and how we women have a mission to live a full, happy life - so sort of the same idea.

I hope you like it! And stay tuned for the rest of the lot...

Driving around Highland Park after the rain

A double rainbow 

(almost)

In any case, a good sign for new beginnings.