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...

Video release

I am so grateful that someone as talented as Zach Von Joo has made a video for one of my songs, and I can't wait to celebrate! We're doing that at The Lost Church in San Francisco on June 20th, the video will be made public that night at midnight. Local faves Bramble and Briar are opening, and Zach will be doing film projections during my set. 

It's a dream, it's strange, it's made in film and super 8 and goes with the song beautifully. Zach has worked on a number of other local music projects, including collaborations with Hannah Lew of Grass Widow. You can see some of his personal work on his vimeo channel. Here are a few stills :

The song is The Deer Convention, the title track of my last album.

Yay!