It’s done! I’m amazed. What a beautiful gift. See it here and let me know what you think!

Ric Serena

I went to Regina Spektor’s concert at The Greek Theater last Wednesday night.

How was the show? Well….is Regina Spektor a good singer? Yes, without question. Her voice soars and dips, sings almost perfectly on pitch the entire time, is flawless in it’s transition and holds a spectrum of sounds that rival Tori Amos. Is Regina Spektor a good musician? No doubt about it, she plays the piano with expression and feeling, she adds surprising little hooks to the middle of sections that take you by surprise and does this without any hint of rehearsal. Is RS a good songwriter? Yes. I wouldn’t say she’s one of the greats, but she is good and has a style that is unique to her that doesn’t necessarily play by the rules, but exhibits knowledge of the rules and structure that makes songs memorable and sing-able. I particularly like her ‘Laughing With’ song, along with several songs off of her 1st record, ‘Begin To Hope’. Did she have good musicians playing with her? Yes, Matt Chamberlain, who in my opinion is one of the finest drummers in the business, along with a lovely very competent string quartet. So then…why did my friend and I leave after 5 songs?

First, I will admit it was bitterly, b-i-t-t-e-r-l-y cold. Probably the coldest night we’ve had so far this season. That said, I would sit through an ice storm for great music or a great artist. I should also admit that I am not a die-hard fan, I like her well enough; I own her first record and listen to it every now and again. I agreed to go out of curiosity. You understand, you like an artist at a tier 1 level. To decide whether or not you want to move to tier 2, you go to a live show. I am a HUGE fan of live music and find this the best way to really hear an artist. So I went. She delivered but she did not blow me away. She did not reach me, or move me or make me think. She did not reach into my rib cage and rip out my heart. There was no blood on the microphone or the ivory’s. But whatever…that doesn’t bother me so much because very few artists can do that. I also knew that what I saw was an accurate barometer for the rest of the show.

The crucial thing that made me choose a car with a working heater over her remaining set…she played the little girl card. Now I will ask the question I have been asking myself for about 2-3 years…..and I beg for your answers. I’m serious…school me. Why oh why do women feel compelled to behave and/or sing like little girls????? This silly, giggly awe struck thing that goes on? It’s been a fad now for about the last three years and I don’t get it. Regina is 29 or 30 years old. She wore a dress akin to an Alice in Wonderland costume with a cardboard cut out cartoon bow on her neck. She giggled as she shrugged and covered her mouth and I guess it was alluring to those who dig it….but who are they and why? Is it as simple as pedophilia? Please explain.

I look at artists such as Madonna, Chrissy Hynde, Pat Benatar, M.I.A, Bjork, Tori Amos, Patty Griffin, Nikka Costa, Suze DeMarchi and NINA FUCKING SIMONE and I don’t see one of those artists pretending to be a little girl. Fiona Apple is probably an exception, as she has a tendency to behave cute and shy in between songs…but when she opens her mouth she has the voice of a 65-year-old jazz singer who is being channeled from the gates of hell and the gates of heaven simultaneously, so therefore, she gets a pass.

Personally I can’t take it anymore. I can see that she has it all right there…and yet she’s playing it safe and all perfect and it’s sooooo boring and contrived. I want to either be on the edge of my seat, or comfortably sitting back in my seat enjoying what the artist does brilliantly without any facade.

I know, I know. I sound ungrateful, and I’m obviously not the audience for it. I’m just merely asking the question. Why is popular? I really wanted to love Regina’s show…truly. I still believe she is remarkably talented, but the image…needs an overhaul in my humble (not that anyone gives a fuck) opinion. Where is the next great female role model? Because this little girl shit is definitely getting tired.

Something happened recently. Something exciting. I met a lovely lady, Jen at my last Genghis show. She is a photographer. She asked about shooting some pics for me sometime and one day I intend to take her up on that offer. She took my Sometime In Morning CD. Her husband, Ric contacted me and asked if I’d be interested in making a music video with him. They’ve been playing my CD and Ric and Jen fell in love with the music. I checked out his portfolio and thought, why the hell not!? I’ll confess, I’ve been down this road before. I had a producer/director combination get all excited about a music video when I released Sponge Brain. We spent two days shooting two videos…lots of time, money, volunteers, energy obtaining permits etc. To this day, I have nothing to show for that. The producer never saw it through. Good intentions all around, I’ve no doubt. You see, it’s all fun and games to get a creative group of people together to shoot for a few days, but to actually sit down and sift through the footage and create something great takes more vision and grunt work, more time and energy. So alas, nothing ever came of it. Suffice it to say, I was skeptical (and graciously told Ric so), but thought, what do I have to loose.

Well…..OMG! What a fabulous day of shooting. Easy, quick, professional. Other than buying lunch, I wasn’t asked to do anything but perform. Ric is a-m-a-z-i-n-g. I’m convinced that this guy one day will be a well-known name in his field. Efficient, professional, honest, creative, realistic and thorough! He brought a crew with him, (and not just anyone, I mean guys who know what they are doing!) awesome equipment and great attitudes all round. I have no doubt that I will see a final cut very soon. I’m very excited. It’s quite thrilling.

Oh, what song? As the title states, he chose I Live In Hope. (One of my personal favourites, if I’m allowed to say so). Ric even submitted it to the producers he knows on The Good Wife. (fingers crossed). The song is also to be featured on the soundtrack for The Seven Rays by Jessica Bendinger in the coming weeks and of course, it’s part of The Secret’s Of The Immortal Nicholas Flamel series by Michael Scott for Random House.

How cool. YAY!

I Live In Hope video shoot

In a way, this ties in a little with my last post about Cinespace – you can read it here. You see, Genghis wasn’t a huge gig for me…it was a small gig that I didn’t overly promote, but more or less treated as a test for new material. I had a good turn out but I didn’t go “all out” if you know what I mean. You see, I know that JT at Genghis knows how to run a venue. One good sounding room and one good act at a time, and each act compliments the following act. There is no risk…do a show, play for people, and things like this happen! Thank you Ric! Thank you Genghis Cohen!

I recently received an email from a long time musician friend, Mikey De Lara. Mikey is an outstanding singer/songwriter. When you hear him you scratch your head and wonder why he’s playing to a room with a mere 10 people. It doesn’t make any sense. The subject of his email read “2nd to last LA show…EVER!”. He stated that he’d had enough, that LA just wasn’t working and several other reasons that supported his decision. It all made sense, but I have to confess, I felt a little disappointed and got a little judgmental about it. I thought it was too severe, giving up and that, and (like many, many of us) Mikey should just enjoy playing for the love of it and play his music for himself. After all, at some of my shows with the lowest attendance, I’ve still met someone interesting, had someone become a life long fan or even met someone who wanted to collaborate on songs, make a music video and much more. Let’s not leave out that one can always play out of town and come back. Change your expectations, I thought.

Well, any sliver of judgment or thinking to counter his “I’m giving up” email, absolutely dissipated last night. Thank you Cinespace. After Cinespace last night, I was 100% with Mikey. I was done. Done like a dinner. Moving, leaving, giving up, WTF am I doing….D.O.N.E! It’s the first time I’ve ever stopped a gig and walked off stage in my entire life. Why? What happened? Well….this is a good one, brace yourself as you may need a crash helmet! I certainly did.

First let me say, (I’m free to say whatever I want right? It’s my blog and no-one is reading it yet!) I knew deep in my bones and my gut that it was going to be a badly managed situation. I have enough experience to judge by the correspondence leading up to the gig from the booking agent. But thought to myself, try a new venue, give it a shot, play to new people, be positive, don’t be pessimistic and so on. So I said yes to a small intimate acoustic show in what they were calling the V.I.P. lounge, early at 8pm, half an hour set. I’d been to the venue many times before, and even though it had been a little on the tragically hip, too-cool-for-school side for me, I’d had a good time and seen some wickedly good bands there. Figured playing in the acoustic lounge would be easy to warm people up for the bigger room and for me to “check it out”. So I do the stuff; read the contract, promote, rehearse, organize set lists, rehearse some more, invite special guests and friends, plan what to wear, coordinate with everyone else, car pool, get money together for musicians…grab my cds and my list and cards, read the contract again, arrive an hour before as stated.

We arrive and realize that the VIP acoustic lounge, is in fact the smoking lounge. NICE! Hey…be positive…set up, play for the nice smoking people and the people that have schlepped out to see you and paid $10 for the privileged. Set up done, sound check done. Just as we settled to wait until the curtain call (I say that to add to the comedy, as there was no curtain, or dressing room). We then noticed, right outside the glass doors separating us from the bar, a band was sound checking, probably 20 feet from us. That’s strange, we thought. Then said band starts, or should I say, THRASH METAL BAND starts!!!! Are you serious? Why oh why on god’s great earth would anyone book a thrash metal band to play in a small bar at 8pm? (Note: thrash metal should have a mandatory start time of any time after 11pm, and thrash metal should have an entirely different venue from any other genre that doesn’t have the word metal in it, but that goes without saying, right? Apparently not.) So I look at our designated engineer and he acknowledges my disdain. He leaves to try to get them to play a little softer (insert laughter here!). I say “Mate, this isn’t going to work, you know that right?” He begs me to try one song to see if we can “drown them out”, turn lemons into lemonade he says. We know it won’t work, I mean how can a 1950s Gibson acoustic guitar and an upright bass drown out a double kick drum and bass and guitar amplifiers and some guy screaming within an inch of his life? We give it a shot. But, halfway through “Cat Up A Tree” I apologize to the audience and tell them we will not be playing. I walk off stage. The sound man, in between spits and spats of frantic exclamations that “it’s not my fault!” tells me he will see what he can do. Kaveh (bass player) says “Fuck these guys! Let’s just go and get dinner with your guests and call it a night!” He was right. Engineer du jour returns and then the sound drastically died down from Thrash mania, so we decided to give it a second try. It wasn’t a great show, it was a decent show, but it wasn’t a great show. We were professional and did what we were there to do…albeit reluctantly, but did so for the friends, fans and smokers there who had paid to see us play.

In the light of day, I’m not ready to leave LA, but I am ready to be waaaay more trusting of my instinct and where I play in Los Angeles. you see I broke my own rules. There are rules to booking live shows, and definitely rules to booking new venues.

Rule #1 – Go to the venue! Go before you agree to the gig if you haven’t been in over 6 months. Go on the same night at the same time you are supposed to play. Venues change management regularly.

Rule #2 – Ask about the other rooms and ask what bands are scheduled at the same time before and after you. Their names, their style, their shoe size.

There are more rules…but these are the most important BEFORE you agree to a show in a new venue.

I have a dear friend, Jeff Dean who played bass in my band for about 5 years…the sponge brain era, he’s stupidly talented. I’ll never forget this as long as I live. We were backstage at a gig in Beverly Hills, we’d been barked at, moved, told not to touch the food (it was a private party), told not park in the valet area, to self park and the list goes on. Then finally they put us in the janitors area and told us to wait until we were called. I turned to Jeff and he said, deadpan, “Next they will lay us down and just piss in our mouths!” As hysterically funny as that was and still is when I think of it, I do feel like last night came close to that. At the end of it all, it’s not their fault, it’s my fault for assuming that they would take care or their artists and do their job well. Big mistake! It’s my fault for breaking my own rules. I guess it’s true, even in the worst situations, you do learn something. I apologize Mikey. You go and find that greener pasture. I support you 100%!

Evelyn Glennie shows how to listen

Thanks to Lyle Caine for sending this my way. It resonated greatly with me…and hopefully will with you too. Amazing. If you don’t have time to sit through the whole piece, fast forward to about 28 mins or so….her finale performance is magic. http://www.evelyn.co.uk/homepage.htm

I am a blogging neophyte! I’m doing this because you asked for it…so please let me know what you’d like to know and I’ll give it to you! Also, f you have constructive (kind) ideas, please speak up about that too. I’m flying blind over here and don’t see a net in sight. HELP!

You may or may not know that I teach singing. I’m going to write a bit about it here in the new blog and I welcome questions.

I had the opportunity to work with the actor Mark Webber for the upcoming film Scott Pilgrim vs The Universe. All the music was written by Beck and Brian Lebarton, using Beck’s voice (big shoes to fill) and may I add, Mark had never sang a note in his life! I’ve taught members of Beck’s band, so that is how the connection was made. Mark came in one day for an assessment, after which, I called the producers to give them the news that Mark really wasn’t in the greatest shape vocally, it could be done, but it could take weeks, months, maybe years to get him to sing. Mark was committed, they were committed so we rolled up our sleeves and went to work. We only had 2 – 3 hour lessons daily for 3 weeks before they intended to throw him into a studio in Toronto with Nigel Godrich (yes you heard me correctly)! OMG anybody?

Well….he is quite possibly one of the most amazingly talented individuals I’ve ever met. He did it. He turned his voice around in that time and they ended up replacing all Beck’s vocals with his. I’m so proud of him. Go and see the film when it comes out!

He also has a film out…he wrote and directed it and it’s called Explicit Ills. You can find out more about it here….http://www.explicitillsthemovie.com/ Support him! He’s one of the good ones!

My favourite vintage clothing store in LA is The Way We Wore. I will talk about things of this nature from time to time. Got a question or a vintage fashion emergency? Hit me up! I love this stuff.

The Way We Wore had me speak for them on a TV segment, that will air in the not too distant future. I’ll let you know once I know the details, (only if I like the edit job!) Here’s a pic from the shoot…they allowed me to wear their clothes and I love love love this dress!
(Raymond Morales did my make up…bless him!)

Dressed at The Way We Wore for On-AIr Style Sement

I enjoy LA. I’ll be writing about that here. For now let me say my favourite venue for music in LA is Largo at The Coronet. They do it right. Oh yes!

I really enjoy eating. (no comments on that please)! From time to time I may share a recipe or a fav spot to eat. Stay tuned.

At the moment I’m addicted to Umami Burger on La Brea. OH MY GOD. It is truly the best burger that has ever touched my lips. Thanks to David Haugland for taking me there! Now, don’t tell anyone. http://www.umamiburger.com/