The Sweet Spot

“That’s the trouble with life. No score and bad lighting”

 So said Elizabeth Taylor as she sashayed off the rooftop in Tennesse Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, leaving us to marvel.

 So many writings, scribbling, musings, etchings, of the big picture.

Destiny or random happenstance? Grand design or organized choas?

Faith or faithlessness?

 In our next series of promotional events, the age old question arises and I’m left to contemplate all this, and bad lighting, once again.

 When I was in school, working on a degree in the performing arts, I came to my studies having spent my formative years with my nose buried in books and having wrestled with the decision to go into academia and major in philosophy or literature or to pursue a life under the lights.

 The lure of the lights won. I wasn’t there long, analyzing every moment, before one of my directors, an austere Austrian elder who had a tendency to thunder his directions an inch from your nose, spit flying, while students quivered on spindly freshman limbs,told me, in no uncertain terms, to get the bleep out of my head and carve a path to my gut. He poked me in my solar plexus to illustrate his point, whirled around with a mighty flourish and strode regally, head held impossibly high, back to his director’s chair.

 Needless to say it left an impression. I abandoned my pursuit of the eternal truth in my beloved books and turned to the ether.

 The Great Meaning of it All came up in passing in a phone interview I was doing with a local radio station recently. The interview lasted about 20 minutes. It was brisk and upbeat. About midway through, she asked me if I had regrets, and, if so, what I would’ve done differently, if I could go back. After thinking about it for a second, I told her I wouldn’t change anything.

But, of course it’s not that simple and the question followed me through the next days.

 Performing is an art in itself. Unlike the studio, an unreal environment that can have the feel of hurtling through space in a craft with your crew, live performance happens with an unknown cast of characters. Which factors in chaos and randomness and can go either way.

 Our next performance is in a trendy club on the lower east side in Manhattan - a small, intimate setting. No muss no fuss no frills no fanfare. No dressing room, no soundcheck. We have dinner across the street, come back and run through harmonies on the sidewalk with Tom and Patrick, then walk up on the stage once the room has filled up.

 The sound engineer announces us from his loft sound booth and we launch into our set. It takes a couple of songs and some hand and thumb gestures to the engineer before the sound is right, but, past the dim lights, we can see, from the first verses, that the bartender, the people standing at the bar, and everyone at the tables, are moving with us to the rhythm and the music – the fans who came to see us and the regulars who’ve never heard us. Our youngest listener is adding her two cents, from her stroller, into the quietest, pin dropping moments, so her dad eventually wheels her out the door. We wave from the stage and thank her for listening. She squeals in delight and waves on her way out.

 After the show, it’s great to connect in person with the crowd. A local guy in his thirties, a regular who’s never heard us, comes up to tell me we made him cry, so he gets a special thank you and we leave, after packing up the gear and saying our goodbyes, feeling satisfied and connected. There’s nothing like that click that happens in a live performance – no matter the size of the venue or the crowd. It helps us rememberwhy we do this.

 Not long after that, we’re in the car and heading up through the country to our next performance on a local live tv show – another performance setting, another art form. Expressing your art in any form that involves significant amounts of technology has it’s own considerations. Recording a record involves finding just the right sounds, the grooves that swing, the sweet spot on the microphone, the mix that captures the essence of the song.

Film or tv is another learning curve and here we find we’re rusty.

 Rob Fraboni, who produced our first record, had a few mantras throughout the sessions. ‘What does the song want’, ‘we’re slaves to the song’ and ‘we’re all here to serve the song’. Such a great lesson I’ve taken with me since then. We’re an ensemble cast gathered to collectively realize the intent of a song and create an experience for the listener. Egos step aside. Serve the collective mission. No small task for a room full of highly charged, highly sensitized musical beings, hurling through space in a tiny enclosed capsule.

 Not unlike a tv show.

There’s nothing like a film or tv crew. The cooperation that has to exist in order to pull off the creation of the final product is a perfectly orchestrated and choreographed dance between technology and personalities.

 And then there’s the subject of sugar. Raw sugar. Refined sugar. Blood sugar.

 We arrive to the tv studio a little late, thanks to traffic and a couple of wrong turns, which unnerves me. I run compulsively on time. But we're there, 4 hours before showtime.

 The producers and crew are warm and welcoming. I check in at the front office & ask first about the food situation, since we’re in a new city.

It can be a nuisance, having your primary instrument in your body, so basic maintenance is key. My blood sugar crashes if I don’t watch it. If it crashes my physical self betrays me. All systems down. I always eat an hour before a show. That’s my assurance that all systems will be working as they should. And the system’s digestion quirks will be quiet and stilled by then. All singers know this. We need the system. The system supports the music.

 I explain and ask if there’s a place nearby where I can get some dinner to bring back before the show. I’m told no worries. Dinner is served here at 6. Perfect. An hour before showtime. I rest assured, since everything around me there is running like a well oiled machine.

My first mistake.

 Before every show, there are butterflies. That very same director at school also thundered at us, nose to nose, ‘if you can’t stand the heat of the kitchen, get out’,and ‘when you stop being nervous, you stop caring’

 We step up to our marks and begin the tech rehearsal. Lights. Camera angles. Exact song lengths, timed to the second. Baker and I run through the songs, staying focused while carefully orchestrated mayhem happens all around us. It throws us a little at first, but we adjust. A great exercise in concentration.

We've had some wonderful experience in film & tv. David Letterman, Joan Lunden, VH1, a couple of major network news features, 3 big video shoots, a documentary…great opportunities to work with incredible crews and learn so much. Working with a label opened those doors for us.
I glance at the monitors and slowly remember some pointers I was taught. I express, very nicely, a couple of concerns about one of the camera angles, and about the lighting. I don’t employ my assertive self. It's all very nice.

 I express my concern to Baker later, who goes in and says something to the producer. This makes me cringe, even though I know he, too, will say it nicely.

The producer comes over to me. He’s soft spoken, gently assuring.

 There’s no dressing room here either so I take my wardrobe to the rest rooms. There’s two. One is out of order with a ‘toilet not flushing’ sign. I change in the other one. It turns out the toilet’s not flushing in that one either. I tell the woman in the office. She inspects, then announces to us all we can’t use the bathrooms. I look with dismay at my liter of Evian water, three quarters gone.

 Six o’clock comes. Six o’clock goes. The crew, stomachs rumbling, start to gather by the door, waiting for the food delivery. Six ten, fifteen, twenty. Twenty five. My blood sugar’s in the toilet. That reminds me.
Oh yes,the toilet.
No food. No toilet.

They do this to hostages, don’t they?

I’m waiting for the lights to go out, the doors to auto-lock
They must want me to confess, but I don't know to what. Maybe if I make something up, they'll feed us.

 Six thirty the woman from the office comes out to give us brisk instructions on the order of events. It’s a lot of important info. It washes over me in a wave. I can’t absorb any of it. My limbs are rubberized. And shaking.
I interrupt her litany to ask if we can get an ETA on the food. Her tone sharpens & she suggests if it’s a problem we go out and ‘get it taken care of’.
It’s 6:35 now. The show airs live at 7. To go out now, wander around looking for a place, waiting for food to be made, eating it, and singing it…not a good plan. I ask if we can call & find out. If the delivery is 5 minutes away, no sense going with the fatally flawed plan b.
She begrudgingly agrees to do so, only after the full recitation of her procedural list. I pray the computer chips in my brain are gathering and storing, gathering and storing.

 She finishes her litany, goes into her office and emerges minutes later. Rather than bringing an update on the food arrival, she’s somehow been launched into full attack mode. I don’t see her coming.

 ‘You’re very nervous aren’t you’, she says in my face. It’s not a question. Her humanity escapes her.

 “My blood sugar crashed’ I respond, as if from a cold, deep well.. ‘It happens to me. I explained when I got here. I’ll be fine when I eat’. I smile at her. My voice is thin and weak. This empowers her.

 “No you’re very nervous’ she accuses. ‘And serious. You’re so serious. This is a fun show. You need to smile’.
She is ordering me. It’s all very severe.
’You need to have fun”.

 Fun is somehow instantly out of the question.
‘Smile daminit you’re happy’ my father used to bellow at holiday dinners.
Only he was kidding. She’s not kidding. We’re not laughing.

 ‘Our tv viewers want to see fun. I can see you’re very serous about your music’

 I’m suddenly confused. Does she think they booked a comedy act? Jugglers?

 I get into a pissing match with her. I don’t want to but I can’t help myself. Must’ve been the liter of Evian water. And the food deprivation. I tell her to relax. We know what we’re doing. I’m just trying to get her to stop – trying to deflect very word out of her mouth, every drop of toxic energy. That last half hour before a performance is sacred time. You release your demons and clear a path for only the best of energies.

She doesn’t stop.

 We do actually have great fun when we play. When the vibe is good. When the air is sweet. The air is not sweet now.

 Mercifully, she finally goes away and even more mercifully, the food comes. We wolf it down and I’m almost instantly restored to a fully functioning humanoid, but there’s a knot in my stomach and the air is charged with negative ions.

 I go in for my pre interview with the show’s host, who just arrived, and something about him anchors me, feels connecting. Still, it’s a challenge to shake it off.

 We take our marks, ready set, countdown, go. We do the show. I’m able to stay 90% focused, 90% in the moment, 90% present and in the music, with Baker, with Tom, with the host in the interview, peripherally aware of the finely tuned and orchestrated dance the camera operators, producer, director, sound engineer do together to present a seamless show.

 The other 10% of me is fending off the toxic darts that have been triggered and unleashed by the exchange before the show. I give myself credit for not being totally thrown by it, but I know I’ve still allowed it to throw me just enough to miss the magic mark.

 The show is wrapped, the crew is wonderful, the air still feels charged, I just want to get away. We gather our things. I go around to every crew member, to the producer, director, engineer, shake their hand, thank them warmly. I will not let anyone take my grace.

 In the parking lot Baker gets a call from an old friend from the Bitter End who stumbled on us while channel surfing, so it’s good to reconnect. We laugh some with him, with Baker, then head out.

 On the way home, Tom and I have the same thought – to stay off the thruway and take the country roads home. I binge on coffee and Oreos to relax. Caffeine and sugar. Elixirs of life.
The blood sugar has already attacked. Might as well blow it out.
Makes sense at the time.
Tom is loving and generous in his after show support. We give this to each other.

 Days later a DVD of the show arrives. My worst fears are confirmed. The camera angle I was concerned about is worst case scenario. It distorts. Worse, it’s shot from that angle, in close up, repeatedly. The lighting is grotesque. The 10 pounds gained over a winter in front of the computer has photographed like 30. Body parts look somehow south of the border. In some shots the camera and lighting adds 15 years. We marvel at how bad it looks, or rather I do. Tom tries to soften it with kind words until I accuse him of BS.

After the interview section, it looks like the camera angle and lighting have been slightly tweaked, so there is some small improvement. It takes 2 horrified viewings of morbid curiosity to notice Baker and Tom, who don’t look great, but haven’t fared as badly, having been bathed in the peripheral light.

 I go to the kitchen and dig out the unfinished bag of Oreos. It goes in the trash. I watch a little more. I pause it, go to the trash bag with the Oreos, tie it up and take it down to the curb.

 I decide to turn it into an instructional video.

We’re getting back up to speed. It’s time to learn again what works, what doesn’t work on camera, just like learning the art of technology in recording. How best to light. How the camera works. What expressions and gestures translate best in that medium; best express the intent of the moment.

How to advocate for ourselves. How to protect ourselves from negative exchanges, although, in all my years of performing, I’ve never encountered anything like that, except once from a significant other who later admitted intent to sabotage.

 I don’t believe this exchange was intended to sabotage. I think this person was also hungry and stressed, then lashed out. Maybe she doesn’t know what her energy felt like. It blew us, all three of us, away.

 The pursuit of that creative sweet spot we’re all seeking together, in the studio, on a shoot, in a show, is a delicate balance, like a beautiful, pin dropping moment in the dance, in pirouette, on point, where we all hold our collective breath and then exhale, having shared a glimpse of something greater, something beyond and outside of ourselves.

Even great jugglers know this.

 I remember the interview from a few weeks back. Do I have regrets? Would I have done anything differently? If I had a time machine, would I make this career move, choose this road instead of that, make this choice instead of the one I chose?

Who am I to say?

 There are children of my band members that wouldn’t be here if things had gone differently, if those moments that created them were altered by a day, or an hour, or a minute. People in my life I would never have known. Songs I wouldn’t have written. Paths I wouldn’t have crossed. Lessons I wouldn’t have learned. Someone I wouldn’t be becoming.

 Seems faithlessness is just as theoretical as faith. None of us really know for certain. Why choose regret? Maybe if it served some purpose...if it was of some use. But it doesn't and it's not
Why not choose to trust?
It is, actually, a choice. Elusive some days, but there for the asking.

 That night, winding to our home through the country roads, on the blacktop, windows rolled down onto the finally warm, sweet night air, a crescent moon over Tom’s shoulder, it occurred to me that, despite all the imperfections of these gathering moments, at the end of the day, at the end of this day anyway, I wouldn’t, in fact, just for this moment, change a thing.

The Joey Reynolds Show - Adventures in Show Biz

It’s WOR day – the late night Joey Reynolds radio talk show. We’re scheduled for 1am and Baker I, not yet on tour, or on a nighttime schedule, still, in true indie fashion up early every morning, working the typewriter keys, are pounding down coffee to stay awake. Sitting around his Aunt Judy’s 12^th Street apartment, running through songs, my eyes wandering around the room, decorated with sixties novelties, original art pieces painted by Baker’s grandfather, chunky hand crafted pottery lamps, and the violins Judy plays, I get strong a sense of a long life lived creatively.

 Midnight comes & it’s time to head downtown. We hail a cab and arrive early at the WOR studios.

 We’re ushered into the waiting area by our host, the coordinator and engineer, who is welcoming in a no nonsense step- right - along kind of way. He leads us to the desks and cubicles of WOR, which double by night as the green room. There’s an Italian tenor going on the same hour with us. Baked Ziti and Sausage and Peppers are laid out in aluminum tins. The show is being piped in through the ceiling speakers. It’s most crystal clear in the bathrooms and we all, all of us waiting to go on, find that hilarious. Cha Cha from the Sopranos is in studio with Joey, along with a 93 year old gentleman who seems to sing arias and a young newly wed couple who have created a two person show of music and characters. The couple is promoting their upcoming show at La Mamas. I hear her voice cutting through above the ‘backstage’ conversation – she sounds quirky, tuneful & inventive

 Myra Chanin, Joey's producer and on air personality, comes out and greets everyone in the ‘green room’. She comes over to me and says “I love your stuff” in a quiet voice that’s direct and authentic. I feel welcomed.

 We talk to the Italian tenor about his tour of the Feasts in the warm season. He steers clear of the Baked Ziti & sausages, to protect his voice from the inevitable backlash of stomach acid. This becomes a 20 minute conversation, with everyone involved.

He’s open and sweet tempered, instantly likable. I catch his manager’s eye a few times & smile at him, but he stares through me.

 At 1am the 12 o’clock crew is ushered out & we’re ushered in. I whisper good luck to the young bride, and that she sounded great, as we pass in the hall.

 In the studio, past the control booth, Joey is seated behind a big desk, surround by swivel chairs on wheels, with headphones everywhere. Cha Cha is seated across from him. Joey greets us, the engineer gives us quick directions, we all sit & don headphones. The commercial is over and Joey launches into the show. He’s warm and funny, has a mischief about his eyes that suggests an undercurrent of edge, but an edge not lacking in kindness. He riffs with Cha Cha, spins around his own musings, chats with the young tenor, introduces him. The tenor stands and sings. His voice is lovely. He flushes easily which only adds to his sweetness. Joey listens intently and appreciatively. There’s a rousing round of applause when he finishes and he, Joey and Cha Cha talk about the New York world of Italian Feasts in their season and the body weight of opera singers.

 We’ve been told the format is liquid and to go for the ride, so we do. The hour winds down, rich with subject, and, inexplicably we’ve not been included in the conversation. I look over at Baker and he gives me a lopsided, valiant grin, his eyes glassed over with sleepiness. He’s been up since 5am and all day managing the sound department at SIR. I know the sheep are right on his periphery, waiting to be counted.

 It’s 2am and we go to a commercial. When we come back, just after taking a caller, Joey introduces the Italian tenor, to perform his second number with his guitarist (Baker) and it’s then that we all realize that Joey has misread the sheet on who’s appearing. He shares that he thought Baker was the tenor’s guitarist and I was the tenors’ ‘main squeeze’. I’m glad my husband is home sleeping.

 We’re instantly introduced to perform and we launch into “Healing Hands” The studio microphone I’m singing into has a screw loose (as many a mike does) and won’t quite stay in position, so while I’m singing I end up in physical contortions, holding the headphones to one ear, chasing the sweet spot of the mike as it bobs up and down. Baker, instantly snapped out of a near sleep stupor, launches into the guitar part at a little too fast a tempo in overcompensation. Between Baker and the microphone, I get to practice the fine art of chase and catch up, but it all works out in the end.

 Joey applauds. We talk briefly. Joey expresses that the song is much like the music he always loved with ‘melody and meaning’ and wonders aloud if it’s coming back.

 Melody and meaning. I instantly want to tell him about all the amazing new music out there, about how the internet exploded the universe, and how the people and all they truly needed spilled forth onto the internet superhighway & ruled the day, but there’s no time. Joey thanks us, apologizes again about the mix-up, invites us back and is on to the next hour. The engineer is escorting us down the hall, full of warmth & good words about our music, chatting about his upside down schedule with the unmistakable glow of someone who lives in a topsy turvy world and loves it there.

 The elevator door opens onto the gleam of impeccably restored history and we’re led out onto Broadway, the engineer raising an assured hand to the cabs in the distance. There are, surprisingly, a number of them heading our way and they nearly mow us down competing for the fare.

 We say our goodnights, in a flurry of mutual thank yous. The engineer heads back into the world of late night WOR, the cab door closes and in the streetlight, the traffic lights and the 3am still, Baker and I ride off into the wild blue yonder.

Sage Theater

Sage Theater on Saturday was amazing. Times Square is surreal, but walking into Sage is a sanctuary.
Thank you to everyone who came - you all helped make the concert a blessed experience for us. Baker and I had so much fun sharing the new songs with you, as well as songs from the first record and everything in between. :)

There is nothing like music. Music is lifeforce.

Thank you also to Tommy B Thompson and Patrick McGrath, who sat in with us, and will be doing so on more and more tunes as we work them in. They are also amazing singer-songwriters and will be doing full shows with us as we travel out more and more. We are booking shows now for the summer, so if you want us to come to you, please let us know and we'll do our very best to make that happen.

The photo above was snapped by my new friend, Steffi Pfalz and I'll post a few more by Steffi in the photo gallery. Right now, there's a gallery of the Sage show courtesy of Brady Nelson Studios.

I have to get ready now for an interview with Heather Miller on her Lyrical Venus Radio Show on KRUU fm, starting in 10 minutes. I believe there's a downloadable podcast available after the show, so we'll post an update on that.

I promise to journal more, now that the official release is underway, and share our journey with you. Thanks for being there. We treasure you

Words and Voices

What we can't do alone we can do together.
Interesting how some words, cliches even, can suddenly have resonance. I turn on the news and my grandmother's voice pops into my head.
A stitch in time saves nine.
Oh well. Too late for that one. Whole lotta stitchin goin on now.
History is not always obvious when we're in it. Moments...flash frames...sometimes we don't know til we're well on down the road, and look back over a shoulder, that a moment happened that's indelibly etched.
Other times it's suddenly, spontaeously obvious to everyone at once. Everywhere people stand and mark a moment.
I hear my mother's voice, long gone now, saying 'there's no time like the present'.
My father's voice whispering the word 'hope'.
Oh yeah, hope. I remember that.
Sometimes we don't see how much we were losing til someone gives it back.
Well, waste not, want not. There's no time like the present. Nine hundred thousand stitches in time saves nine hundred million.
What we can't do alone we can do together