Back again

It's been so long since I posted anything here that I forgot my password and had to reset it. You can blame Facebook for stealing my egocentric musings for the past year and a half!

BAND UPDATE
We finally did decide on the name "iglu" (with umlaut. Someone please tell me how to make one on the computer!) and started recording in Spring of 2008. We had one session in our venerable friend Terry's recording studio, and then Mikel and I were supposed to continue working on it at home. Mikel did make some headway, but between technical difficulties, lack of momentum/motivation, and boring excuses that come with being working parents, we ended up taking an unintended break. Spring 2009, we were all ready to regroup, but nagging cold symptoms kept me out of the studio. Finally, I recorded the lead vocals for 3 songs earlier this month at Terry's, and we are all excited to be making some progress at last.

I DON'T EVEN LIKE STEVIE NICKS, REALLY
Not that it's smooth sailing...recording vocals was TOUGH. I guess I had never really heard myself sing through headphones. It's like looking at your zits through a microscope. (Is that a cliche or did I make it up?) I'd always claimed, rather proudly, that playing violin gave me an impeccable ear for pitch. Wrong! OTHER people's pitch, not my own, apparently. (In IBOPA I was always pleading with James to fucking tune his guitar. At the time, I couldn't understand that out-of-tune guitar was part of the indie sound that would later make him a cult superstar in Xiu Xiu.) (Unfortunately, I have no interest in being an out-of-tune cult superstar indie singer. Otherwise, this process might be easier.)

Then there was the whole issue of trying to relax and sound like a badass. These are things I've never been particularly good at doing in life in general, let alone in a recording studio while paying by the hour, while also trying to sing in tune and remember the goddamned words. Rum (session one) and whiskey (session two) were helpful, but what I really realized was that "Oh yeah, I've never really done this before. I should have spent all last year practicing!" Doh!

Of course, Terry and my band mates have been nothing but supportive and encouraging. Terry is a master of diplomacy ("Oh no, it's not atypical for a singer to spend the whole session recording one song") and it was surprisingly comforting to have Mikel and John there- as long as the curtain was drawn and they couldn't see the Stevie Nicks stuff I was doing with my hands. Hey, whatever it takes to get the diva on, right? When you're no longer rockstar skinny, your entire wardrobe is from Target (and not from the hipster SKINNY teen dept), and it's too hot to let down your hair, you need Stevie Nicks hands.

So my job for the next few weeks is to RECORD MYSELF singing and drag myself through the mud BEFORE returning to the studio. Meanwhile, I'm listening to some kick-ass chick singers like the woman in the Kills (new project with Jack White: Dead Weather. ROCKS!) and hoping to glean some of their collective mojo. I will say that after having been in the studio a few times I have a new respect for singers- even the teenybopper pop stars. Maybe some of them are too doped up and computer-edited to even care what they sound like, but it's still hard work!

"YOU are in a BAND?!"
It seems like just when I'm ready to throw in the towel and just be a plain ol' mom who teaches violin, I get sucked back in to the music. I'm 40, totally out of it when it comes to today's music scene, precoccupied with one precious little 4-yr old boy and 30 violin students, hopelessly incompetent at managing my home and life, maintain a style-deprived low maintenance appearance, and -get this- I'M THE LEAD SINGER IN A BAND! (Add laugh track here.) When I told a fellow mom at swim lessons last month that I was in a band, she practically fell into the pool. I guess I'm not very convincing as a diva when in Mommy Mode (and without my Stevie Nicks hands). I'm just now realizing that most of my friends that I see on a regular basis are other moms who have only seen me onstage at my students' violin recitals. They've never seen me with purple hair, dressed like a tartlet, playing my electric fiddle between a guy's legs. I guess it has been a few years...

Just a few months ago, when I thought this project was dead and not about to be resuscitated, I had a long discussion with my friend Michelle, a former KFJC DJ who is currently a stay at home mom. We decided that we didn't need our creative outlets so much any more, now that we had both done the ultimate creative task: creating and fostering new life. What the hell did I need a band for anymore, now that I had my little Frankenstein monster to pour all of my creative energies into?

And now, here I am, trying to muster up enough energy and confidence to sing my own songs amidst home renovation headaches and summer camp carpooling. I experienced this flip-floppery years ago with my violin, which I tried to leave behind when I went to the other side of the globe for my coming-of-age adventure. Weeks later I begged my mom to bring it to me. By the end of my sojourn, I had decided to give up normalcy in pursuit of art. Once a musician, always a musician. Like ex sex maybe? (I wouldn't know- unlike the violin, I actually did manage to leave my exes behind in other countries.) Probably healthier, if I can manage to not get too neurotic about it.