Wide Awake

Wide Awake


Hi Kiddums!
Happy Summer to you.
Click above for a cover of the glorious Katy Perry song, "Wide Awake."  I recorded it in my piano room at home, so it is a very demo-ish demo.  But enjoy it anyway, in all its pop glory.


xo
A

Red Hill

In the dim light of Red Hill restaurant

I scratch the bug bites on my ankles

My skin indented from all the worrying I’ve done to them

I say to my brother, Isn’t it strange?

How things just don’t happen the way you think they’re going to?

And he laughs behind the candle in the mason jar

He laughs behind his glasses

Yes, dude, he says

Believe me, I know just what you mean

We aren’t old

We are young

And yet it feels like time is running out

I was supposed to be Fiona Apple by now

Wasn’t I?

He was supposed to be a famous director

But really

We are just ourselves

Roughed up a bit

Lazy patches of pain floating around us

From all the shit that’s gone down

since we moved to this desert of a city

Our father

who still works at 77,

who still goes to the office every day

Taught us to push and fight

To make something of ourselves

And the truth is we might

But there’s just as good of a chance that we won’t

So I pay my half of the check

With money I made teaching piano lessons

He slides the rest of his beer down his throat

Standing up and pulling his hoodie around his shoulders

We wander out to his car in the parking lot

To a soundtrack of cars and the sun hissing out of the sky

And the most likely outcome

Is that we will have moments of joy amid long stretches of monotony

Like everyone else

And it won’t be what we hoped

But somehow it will turn out to be exactly

what we needed

"What This Looks Like"

It's 11pm on a Tuesday and my throat is breaking.


Someone is taking a scissors to the inside of my throat.  I am onstage at a bar in Hollywood and I am standing behind my keyboard and people are ordering drinks and shouting flirty things at each other and having meaningful conversations and I'm singing but I'm sick and things are coming out hoarse and rough.  Luckily it's 11pm at a bar on a Tuesday, and the people who are watching don't care that my voice isn't 100% clear as a bell, they're just here to hear music and have fun and bob their heads to my drummer.  But I am having a hidden meltdown, wanting to lay down and go to sleep on the stage, wanting to drink ginger tea on my couch, pushing to keep going because my real self loves this more than anything, but my sick self is throwing daggers at me, some of which include "no one cares about you singing up here," and "you don't connect with audiences," and "you're too old for this shit."  And I don't know.  I don't know who I'm supposed to be up here anymore.  


It's terrifying.  I play my set, I kick my whisky glass over halfway through and curse at myself, I get off the stage and hack up half my lungs and then smile and chat with people and give some hugs and feel generally like a giant impostor.  And then a girl comes up to me, and grabs my arm and says "What is your name?"  And I tell her and she says, "I loved your songs.  I am going to look you up when I get home."  


All it takes is one of these to make all the other stuff seem ridiculous.  


I watched this video the other day for the first time, and it blew me away.  I hope you guys will watch it, if you ever wonder how artists are going to continue making music when they are no longer getting paid for it the way they used to.  Or should I say why they are going to continue.  The film is by Levi Weaver, a lovely person and great artist.  Thank you, friend.  You've said it all.

Summer

The summer he didn’t propose to me

I broke a bit for a while

I threw up some armor

Filled in the fractures when they came

On weeknights

I would meet Sarah and Emily

at the Cat and Fiddle on Hollywood Boulevard

We’d grab a bench on the outdoor patio, lie

and tell the waitress we’d order food in a while

And watch the sun set rose-colored behind the buildings

People sitting with their elbows on tables

Hyped up after work and happily chatting

I’d suck on a wine glass

Never getting as drunk as I wanted

But knowing if I kept it up I’d be sick

We would talk about anything

except for the fact that he hadn’t asked me

We’d make jokes and choke and spit up

It was

A line to the courage I required

to drive home and sit silently beside him on the couch

A cord to the restraint I would need

not to perch on the red brick steps that led to our backyard

and scratch my arms with my fingernails until they bled

It was the only reason I did not disappear that summer

But instead kept coming, coloring myself back in

until I was solid again

Troubadour Show May 31st!

Children.


I am thrilled to let you know I'll be playing at the Troubadour on May 31st!  I'm opening for Active Child, who you can read about and listen to here.  I will be playing lots of songs from the upcoming record, so you'll get to hear some new stuff!  Exciting, yes?  If you are coming and you have a favorite song you want to hear, let me know in the comments.  Looking so forward to seeing you there.


A

Buy tickets to the Troub show here.


(picture above is me playing at the Troubadour in the old days.  When I was pissed off and stuff.)

Music for the Children, Yo

So my friend Angie works for this amazing charity, Education Through Music LA.  They help bring music programs to disadvantaged schools.  A few weeks ago she had a party at her house to benefit the charity and asked me and some of her other friends to play some jams.  The best part is that she has an upright in her house, so I got to play it.  And Miss Angie and our friend Aliza sang along.  Here's a few pics.  And go check out ETMLA: http://www.etmla.org/

photos by Megan McAtee

Photo Day

I was hanging out at my friend Sarah's place today and we decided to take some photos.  Of me, in the woods, in a chair, and being kicked out of the chair by someone small and cute.  Enjoy.