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Welcome back y'all. Today I wanted to get into my history with playing in bands and live music and that experience.

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So to give you some background, I started writing music when I was in like eighth grade and I did not know how to play an instrument other than maybe, I think the first song I learned on guitar was Adrian by Jewel.

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And I would pick it, which go figure it now I pick more than I strum.

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So that was kind of my sister had a guitar and a boy had broken my heart and I would like go into my closet.

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I remember I had like a walk-in closet and I'd go sit in my closet at night and like bang on my guitar and sing because I didn't want my mom to hear me because it was really embarrassing.

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But I, my sister's boyfriend at the time, heard me and ended up connecting me with this guy, Joe Wood.

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And yeah, Joe started coming over and like playing guitar, like putting guitar down to the songs that I had written.

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And we just like took over my mom's living room and they were like six, seven years older than me, I think.

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So it was pretty funny because I was like a 14 year old girl commanding a band of guys that were much older than me.

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But they were like my big brothers and it was just really my first experience in that like really special chemistry that you create when you play music with people.

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There's just a, there's nothing like that bond. There really isn't.

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It's very different from a relationship bond.

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It's a very different feeling, but you do connect in like a really special way when you play live music with people.

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So yeah, Joe would come over and then Chris, who was my sister's boyfriend at the time, picked up bass.

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Like he taught himself how to play bass so that he could play in the band.

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And one of our first shows was at my, I performed at my homecoming dance.

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I performed an original song called These Tears.

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And yeah, I remember I went out there and my microphone was off and I sang the whole song acapella because I was in an auditorium full of all my, my entire high school.

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And so I just belted it and then I walked off stage and they were like, we just turn the mic back on, go out there and do it again.

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So I walked out there. I did it all over again and it was great.

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And I, that really gave me the confidence to get ready to start playing out.

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I mean, granted, I don't think we played a ton of shows back then.

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We did a lot more like practicing and like we would go to this studio in Little Rock and my dad would pay for like, I don't know, like an hour of studio time.

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And we would track, you know, a couple of songs, maybe like three or four songs at a time.

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And this was in the days where you'd like burn CDs and I'd burn the CDs and I would like print out the little like paper things that you could put on.

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So I branded it. I went all out.

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Some people may still have those CDs because then I would go to school and I would just pass out my CDs to people at school.

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So I was that girl in ninth grade.

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And yeah, we started playing gigs around Arkansas. We played.

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Chris was went to a college near us. And so he was, I think he was in a fraternity and we played at his frat house.

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So it's like a big crawfish boil.

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And it was it was a fun experience. You know, I was able to like go into bars that, you know, you are allowed to get into those bars if you're the performer.

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So I was like, you know, 1415 playing in bars in Little Rock.

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Shout out Jennifer Cox, who's I think one of the first people who got me a gig in Little Rock at God.

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What was that place called back then?

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I can't remember. I played it later. It ended up being like three other bars.

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But um, yeah, I had some really great people who supported me in that.

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And it was a really special experience.

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And that band kind of came to an end when I was like going into, I guess senior year, junior year, I got a little boyfriend and like, I don't know, he was, we just, I like focused all in on my boyfriend.

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So this goes back to, we'll talk about this, but I tend to do more music when I'm single.

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That's always been the case. But yeah, so I then ended up going to college in Los Angeles.

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And I was, I did like the girl pop duo thing with my cousin for a hot second. We touched on that.

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But then after I graduated, I actually found this band.

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And now in hindsight, I remember why I did this. So when I was in, right after I graduated college, Joe was in a car accident, my old guitarist and passed away.

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And that was really, that was really hard for me. And I think I, like a lot of music poured out at me when that happened.

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And I really missed playing live music. So I found this band on Craigslist.

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And honestly, I don't even remember what we called the band. We actually never played live.

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We would go and practice in this guy's apartment.

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And it was me and two other women and three guys. I remember Gary was the name of the guy who put it together.

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But like they basically had it all already set up when I showed up.

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And we would, they had like a whole list of things that we would sing. And it was a bunch of music that like was like older.

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I mean, these guys were like 30 years older than me. They were all, I think most of them, maybe not the girls, the girls, I don't know.

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Sorry, if you guys are listening. I don't think 30 years is right, but they were all older. I was the baby of the band.

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But that was fun because I ended up learning a lot of music that I wouldn't have known otherwise.

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And it felt like a really safe space for me to start to like get back into playing live. And I'm, gosh, my memory.

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I'm having a hard time remembering if I played guitar. But after Joe passed away, that was the time that I really poured myself into learning guitar.

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And I think they did let me play guitar a little bit when we do our practices.

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Yeah, we would just get together like once or twice a week and sing a bunch of music. And like the goal was to eventually book a gig.

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Did we book a gig? I can't remember. I ended up leaving LA. I ended up moving out of LA.

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So when I moved out of LA, I moved back to Arkansas. And I had a very, very, very short lived. I don't even know if I want to call it a band there.

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But it was called Midnight the Cat. And it was with one of my friends from college.

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And we played a couple live shows. And then he went back to California. And that was when I really started like having the confidence to play by myself.

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Fully, I just started booking myself. And, you know, I think it was Cheryl Crowe who I got this advice from.

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Not personally, but I think I heard her say this once that you should practice out.

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You're going to practice better if you practice, if you make your practice your live gig.

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Now that is not to say to go into a live gig with no idea what you're doing.

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But once you get to that level, you should practice out because you're going to practice better when you're in front of people.

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You're going to get better that way. You just have to get over yourself. You just have to like throw yourself into the moment.

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And so it's really the best way to get a lot better really quickly.

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And so yeah, I started doing that. And I mean, definitely my first bunch of shows. I mean, that's that's what being a musician is.

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You get out, you fumble, you grow, you learn what works, you learn what doesn't.

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But I remember I this is back when like I would print out the tabs. So like there were some songs I knew I didn't have to look.

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I didn't have to reference anything. But there was a lot of songs that I wanted, you know, we're talking some of these gigs were like three, four hours sets that I would play.

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So I needed a lot of material to not be repeating stuff over and over again.

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So I remember in the beginning, I would like print out the tabs from Ultimate Guitar, which like talk about Monopoly.

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I don't know any other place where you can learn. I've always used Ultimate Guitar. You guys let me know if there's a better place.

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But I feel like that's existed since like Napster. I remember that's how I learned guitar.

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But anyways, I would print out the paper. And for those of you who know me, I hate touching paper.

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So I would like put it in laminated sheets. I had it in like this big binder. So I had like a binder, this thick, full of just tons of covers.

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And I would take that out. I would have my little stand. And yeah, I'd flip through I'd reference that I got really good at being able to like play, read, do all of that at the same time, like read the music.

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And when I'm saying read the music, I'm not I actually cannot read music. I and that is why I didn't go to music school.

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You know, what I I thought about going to Berkeley, but it felt so intimidating.

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Berkeley College of Music when I was in high school, because I had no idea how to read music, and it felt like so far off to be able to do so.

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I still don't know how to read music. I learn everything via like tabs, or I know how to read tabs, and I know how to read chords.

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But yeah, so if you are on the fence about learning guitar and you feel like you have to learn know how to read music, you do you do not.

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I'd say most a lot of musicians these days don't know how to read music.

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But yeah, I then got an iPad and that totally changed the game because then I didn't have to carry around that big bulky thing.

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But so yeah, for like two years, I was just playing solo for a long time, mostly out of necessity because it was my main source of income.

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And I didn't want to have to split the money. It's easier to travel when it's just you. There's so much less.

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There's so much less equipment when it's just you. And yeah, you get the whole the whole pot.

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So that was it was really out of necessity that I did it. But I will say I then linked up with a guy named Steve Bates.

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God rest his soul. But he was like, he, I don't know, he's like my mom's age, I think, or no, he was probably 10 years younger than my mom.

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But he had been playing in Littorock for a long time. He was like one of those seasoned musicians and like big Led Zeppelin fan.

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He was just he was incredible. I was so lucky that he agreed to play with me.

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And I think it was my mom or maybe my mom's friend Cindy who linked us up. I can't remember, but I'm really glad I did because we had a very special live music connection.

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And he almost felt like my like first like mentor that was almost like a father figure mentor musically.

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So that was really special. And he actually was the one who played with me on my first gig in New York when I booked that gig.

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Before I moved up here, I booked a couple of gigs in New York City. And one of them was at Arlene's grocery.

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And so Steve drove up in his in his bus. He had like an awesome like music band and brought his girlfriend Donna and they.

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Yeah, he played this gig with me and it was amazing. And so that was a really special like live music kind of soulful connection experience.

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And it felt totally safe. It felt totally like there was never any line that ever felt crossed.

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And yeah, sadly he passed away a couple of years later.

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And yeah, I still think about him a lot when I play music. I think about him and Joe a lot.

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But yeah, so I had kind of referenced this on an earlier the producer episode where I talk about how I found my band in Brooklyn. Also found on Craigslist.

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So I yeah, I had been in Brooklyn, I would say for like six months I had been dating that producer.

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And I just got to the point where I was like, I really want to play out and I want to like diversify what I'm doing and see how looked on Craigslist and Brock had put out an ad and it was like the same kind I think he said something like

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Massey star and I think that's what got me. But yeah, they kind of already had a band put together and they had been playing so it was Brock and his friend, Plucky Alex Plucky from college and Danny the bassist and they had been playing together a little bit.

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And so I showed up and Brock had like his own songs. I had my own songs we kind of approached it like a Fleetwood Mac vibe and started playing around Brooklyn and practicing a lot out in Bushwick.

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And yeah, that was awesome. That was like such a good experience to get back into the magic of playing live with people.

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And I referenced in an earlier podcast episode how I screwed it up by sleeping with one of the members of the band.

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Don't do that. I don't recommend it. I do not. It's not a good idea. And it will mess up your band. So sadly, that kind of completely through a wrench in my, my band situation and like look I'm friends with them.

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And now we all moved on and and I mean Brock and I ended up working together later on the album I released in 2020 he produced it.

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So yeah, it was all worked out in the end but overall like there's just really nothing else like playing live.

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And I'm getting to the point where I'm really itching to get back out and I've played a couple shows, like by myself.

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And actually, I do have a show coming up that I should talk about and this will be, I think most likely a solo show.

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But I have a show in April that is part of this like artists group that I've done a couple shows with them before but shout out Laurent he puts this together and it's amazing.

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But this concept is really interesting. So what we're doing, it's like telephone basically.

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And so they're like 12 different artists, mixed media, some musicians, some comedians, some live performer, it's just it's the total mix.

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But basically each artist has a month. So someone started with their, like each group got a prompt starting September 15.

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So I'm the second one on the list. So as of October 15, I'm going to get a piece of work from this guy.

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And I'm going to have a month to create a piece of music based on that work.

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That piece of music, I'm then going to pass on actually to my friend Alex, my old roommate, who will create a visual art based on my music and then pass it on and so on.

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So it's basically like telephone, but for artists.

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And I'm really excited for it. I'm really interested to see what everybody comes up with and how the art works together.

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So I'll definitely be promoting this more closer to April.

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But yeah, it's a really interesting concept and I'm happy that I actually randomly met Laurent when I played a open mic night in West Village.

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And I rarely do that where I show up to open mic nights, but I just was like feeling really called to at the time.

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And this is your sign.

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If you have a ping and I know I sound all hippie-dippy, but guess what? I am hippie-dippy.

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If you have a ping, meaning like just something like in your gut that tells you to like go somewhere or do something and like listen to it.

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Listen to it because that one thing will lead to another thing. You just don't know where that could go. And that's life.

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So yeah, I'm really looking forward to that live performance, but all in all, I would like to play music again with people.

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And specifically, I have never been in a band with women.

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Okay, no, there was a girl Celia who played violin, who played with us once, but that was like, that was to the extent of it.

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And I know I had the pop duo, but I'm talking about like a band where everybody's playing together.

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I have never played with a woman or women.

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And so I really want to put a girl band together for a couple of reasons.

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And I, while I've done it, I think it's really, really, it's hard to find male musicians who don't cross that line.

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Or really, I have a hard time believing in male friendships in general with single straight men, because so much of the time it crosses the line.

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I'm just really in an era where like, I would love to put a band together that doesn't fall apart.

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And I think my route, my next route is the girl band route.

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So if you live in Midtown or New York City, and you like playing pop music and you want to get together and jam, hit me up.

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Because I would love to put that together. And yeah, I've got a lot of material.

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So stay tuned, y'all. I am definitely going to try to be booking gigs and promoting that here.

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And yeah, as always, thanks for listening. Hope you liked my band backstory.

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And yeah, have a good one, y'all. Love ya.