I grew up watching my mom singing jazz standards in nightclubs and dancing to Laurie Anderson and Bobby McFarren with my dad, between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles. I don't actually mean between the two, but in either one or the other. Nevada and I have never been close. At least not in a personal sense.
When I was nine I started singing in a nondenominational choir around the Salt Lake City area, but was discouraged after two years when the choir-master told me my voice was "like a squeaky gate." But then, I was never a great fan of that Santa Lucia outfit.
At about twelve, after being taken out of public school and moving back to Los Angeles perminently, I joined a band in my desperate need of a social life, and also my unrequited love for the drummer, who was two inches shorter than me, and undoubtedly uninterested in retrospect.
However, we did a mean cover of Enter Sandman, let me tell you.
It wasn't long before I'd picked up a guitar and an old Cat Stevens book. I wrote a song with the first two chords I learned, and promptly forgot it. It was hard to remember anything with the noise that ensued at band practices. I was too busy trying not to sound like a squeaky gate, which was hard, because the guitar amp was usually as loud (if not louder) than my microphone, and the drums were always mid-solo. When I was unable to do anything but yell unintelligibly in rhythm, I quit, and started classical training shortly thereafter. By then, I was sixteen.
Occasionally I get the itch to have free hands onstage and the comfort of having other personalities to bounce off of, especially when I see those positive dynamics in other groups. But overall, I'd say I made the right decision in leaving. It gave me a chance to recuperate on many levels - the music I was writing at the time was trite without any good reason, and sought a reaction more than an understanding from the audience. If I were naturally charasmatic within the constraints I'd found myself... enough to get away with titles like "My Uncle Hitler is One Nasty Pickle," saying "fuck" every other word, listening to Linkin Park while loathing Michael Jackson, and wearing spikey dog collars... perhaps I could have ridden that wave without minding the nodes on my vocal chords. The truth of the matter is, well, that I did mind the nodes and yes: I absolutely love Michael Jackson. And Prince. And Depeche Mode. So sue me.
The things we do for acceptance! Oy!
Out of frustration, I spent a lot a lot a lot of time on my own - rarely picking my guitar up because I was sick of the strings snapping on me, and writing all the time. And somewhere between the loving, the losing, the opportunities that kept appearing before me, and my slow-to-come-but-ever-growing self-respect, I was able to discover the following things:
I am a firm believer in cutting umbilical cords prior to allowing the outer world its interpretation of whatever shape your fruit has taken.
One can only be as concise as the moment is or was (if that), and glean that perspective in the ways they know how to. Art works wonders when it speaks for itself.
Most of the time, I like to remain as inconspicuous as possible as an "artist."
I prefer not to over-analyze what I do.
The more I talk about art, the less I find the time to create it.
And it has been from these things that I've worked ever since.
I am a lover of the mundane, and a heavy procrastinator.
And I have an album you can buy for $10 (in addition to shipping, if that's what it comes to). And it's swanky.
For more information on that, feel free to email me: [email protected].
If you've made it this far down the page, and your word-thirst still ain't quenched, you can find tidbits of my day-to-day @ www.portiblelog.livejournal.com. All in all, thanks for stopping by.
