Can History majors play music? Well...what else are they supposed to do? There’s a little bit of acoustic folk/pop songwriting here for everyone, especially travelers, homebodies, young ’uns and old ’uns, dependents, tax-payers, jerks, geetar-lovers, nerds, couch potatoes, clever jokesters, and marathon runners. (we love everyone).
Jana Pochop (yes, the "h" is silent) was born on a cold, November day in South Dakota and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This may explain why Jana gravitates toward furnaces, coffee houses, tube amps, and other warm things. After picking up the guitar at age 12 and putting it down only for a brief period of learning how to drive, now she is a performing singer-songwriter in Austin, Texas who has set out to prove that a history degree does not mean certain professional death if she turns it into useful songwriting fodder. Jana finds inspiration listening to Mary Chapin Carpenter, Patty Griffin, Kathleen Edwards, Iron & Wine, the Dixie Chicks, and Shawn Colvin amongst others.
Jana’s been changing her strings a lot this past year with shows at the GoGirls South by Southwest Showcase, The Austin Woman’s Film, Music, and Literary Festival, residencies at various Austin venues, GoGirlsMusicFest 2007 in Houston and Dallas, sharing the stage with Terri Hendrix and Lloyd Maines, touring New Mexico with CMA Songwriter of the Year Susan Gibson, and recording an EP with Daniel Barrett from Austin band porterdavis . She resides on iPod play lists from Australia to California to Ireland, and rumor has it that some of her lyrics are attached to a fridge somewhere in the Midwest, though this report has not been confirmed.
She blogs furiously at janapochop.com
