YAY!!! It's that time in the world again!! I have decided to do another live cd recording in Indianapolis on June 16th, 2012 at the Irving Theater. It's become a fav venue to perform in and it sounds amazing!!
This one will be different than the last one in that there will be a number of straight up acoustic songs combined with songs from a stripped down band. Lots of harmonies on those tunes and hopefully a few guest musicians to keep things interesting for all of us!!
I have created a number of packages from $15 - 1500 and beyond that will hopefully fall into your budget and enable you to help us create this cd!
So, I had an interesting epiphany yesterday as I was watching, with heaviness in my heart, the dedications to Whitney Houston (who, for those of you who don't turn on the tv, passed away Saturday afternoon).
I was thinking a lot about how so many of us artists & musicians and creatives spend a good chunk of our existence working to try to get as famous as we can. I know for a good portion of indies that really means trying to get as many people to know what you do so you don't have to keep working so damn hard to get people to come to your shows and buy your stuff...but, there are definitely those indies who really just want a record deal and fame & fortune. I have nothing against that or those people that so passionately want for that but I just continue to realize a few things...
1. No amount of fame & fortune will matter if you don't have your shit together.
2. That even WITH all that money & fame and probably never having to worry about how to pay a bill again, it still won't make you happy.
3. If you take drugs and mix alcohol or just take drugs, or just drink too much alcohol...it will kill you. It won't make you happy. It won't drive away whatever fucking demons you think you have. You won't be a cool person that healthy happy people actually WANT to hang around with. And.....your fame & fortune most likely wont bring anyone but your greedy uncle Merty happiness.
I think about the times in my 20 year musical career that I have wished for more success and more money. The times when I have looked the lives of people like Whitney Houston and Amy Winehouse and Michael Jackson (well, okay, his always did look a little unusual) and thought it must be grand to just be able to make and sing amazing music. To not have to book your own shows year after year or hope that people turn up or that you have brought in enough this month to cover your basic living bills or do you need to drop health insurance coz you really can't afford it any longer. In my head, people like those three just have to wake up in the morning and sing...if they want to. (Might I just add in these little brackets that I get that their lives are far more complicated than that...).
But here's the thing I know I have that none of them have and now, will never have.
Happiness.
I have people around me that I am loved by, people I can trust with my heart. I have a family that supports me and would jump in if I ever really was in trouble. I have a sweet home with the ones that I love and I have been fortunate in my life to be able to work through my stuff. Not for one moment would I trade lives with Whitney Houston, even before Saturdays tragic events.
On Sunday night before the Grammys I was watching an interview with Adelle, who let me say, I LOVE. My favorite part of the entire grammys was when receiving the Album of the Year award, she wiped her nose on her arm and said 'oohhhh, snot'. I laughed hard and applauded her BIG (and prayed to the musical gods that she would always remain the same). She was talking about how she has been struggling with so much fame so quickly. So much so that she has had to devise a plan of telling her groups of friends different stories about things that are going on so she knows when one of them has leaks it to the press...then she can get rid of that friend..
It made me sad for her. None of my mates have leaked anything to the droves of paparazzi that sit on my lawn day after day...waiting for something juicy to print. And for that, my mates, I thank you.
At the end of the day, I realize my life has substance and adventure and challenges that make me a more solid human being. It has love and peace and art and community and real friends and a real lover, and yes I am trying to work out if I really can afford to keep health insurance anymore, but I am healthy and have respect for my body and for what I put into it. I have people around me who aren't afraid to challenge me or to kick my butt if I am making unhealthy choices. They would NEVER sit around and watch me party so hard that it started to destroy me.
Whitney Houston's money and fame is going to do her no good now and she leaves behind a daughter that she will never see grow up.
My heart breaks for her.
Thank-filled for my life and the realness of it....
It's the beginning of the holiday season over here in Indianapolis and as I sit here at my dining room table looking out the window watching the sleet fall, a chill hits me.
I hate winter.
There. I said it.
I am an Aussie, born in the center of Australia, lived most of my life on the coast, had way too many sun burns in my life, spent one full winter ever in my life in snow.
I like it for a minute, and then it wears off.
The snow, that is.
And here I am. In the middle of what will soon become snow hell. No sun in sight for months. No coast line to run away to. No waves to frolic in.
How did this happen, you ask?
Well, it all started when.........(insert long and winding story here).
It just happened (short story).
So, as I sit here and write....thinking about the cold. A fire about to be built in the fireplace, surrounded by all the creative projects I have to begin now to fulfill xmas orders for people, my walls full of instruments that need to be prepared for their winter as well, a copy of the new Curve Magazine interview on my screen and music playing in the background I feel less like the rock star I sometimes pretend to be and more like the hard working creative individual I actually am. I want to share with you a new 'thing' I have started. It's called The Front Porch Collective...and really, it's just me and a few mates who literally sit on the porch and make stuff that we have started to sell. I just built us a website, and an etsy store and we are hoping as you start to buy gifts for your loved ones this holiday season that you will consider going local and/or independent and buying from us. All of us can make custom pieces too and all of these pieces are one of a kind.
So, warm your heart and ours...and check out our stuff here:
Pre holiday trunk show will also take place throughout the night with handmade holiday gifts from Martine Locke, Jamie Price & Dionne Ward. Check out www.inthislifenow.com and www.musekraft.com for some of the items that will be available to purchase. Get your holiday gift giving started early and buy local and handmade!
You know....you're driving through Michigan on the way to a mates house for a house concert. The van is filled with all the gear and two of your favorite people...and you start to see winery signs.
So...what do you do?
Well hell, you stop of course.
The Aussie in me can barely pass a winery sign when I'm driving alone...nevermind with my wine drinking mates.
So, here we are at the Karma Vista winery in Colma, Michigan. The new grapes are ready to be picked and we are all heading home with Michigan wine selections.
I love my job and my life. Sideways rain, hand made truffles, good wine, sweet love and friendships...what's not to love?
I hung out with my mum back in Australia in April and had the chance to spend almost 3 weeks with her and the rest of my family just chillin. For those of you that don't know, my mum was also diagnosed with stage one dementia around that time and right around the time this photo was taken (from a webcam session with my sweetheart Jamie, who got to meet my mum for the first time via webcam) she sat next to me on the couch, put her hand on my knee and her head on my shoulder and said, 'well, it looks like you are losing your mum.'
I think I have been acutely aware of the fact that my mum will die, or be taken from me, since I first realized it when I was about 12 years old. That thought has often reduced my heart to a thumping mess since that time. Watching her get older over the years, watching her lose the people she has loved and have to move on, to start life again has been tough and heart breaking. Sometimes, I am sure it's the same for me now as it was for her when I was growing up. Having her heart broken by my choices and my teenage words.
In the four months that I have been gone though I have indeed begun losing my mum. I hear stories from my brother and sister about their experiences with her. The lies she tells to get more medication, or to not eat or to not shower. The frustrations they feel over trying to explain to her and to her carers, that she has indeed had her quota of pills (this after working out she was taking her daily dosages, and then some, all at once and telling everyone she hadn't taken anything) and has indeed had visits from them and isn't all alone, as she tells them. I have weekly conversations with her where I sit and listen to the same stories again and again, laughing in all the right spots, trying to work out out new questions I can ask her that might help jog her memory and get her to know she just told me that three minutes ago. Only to find out later through my brother & sister that none of them are true. I feel bad that I am not closer, to help them through it and to be there for her as well. I hear their frustrations and fears around it all and feel pretty useless over here.
Sometimes the only thing that has kept me here in the US over the last 10 years is my mum saying to me that she knows I am following my heart and doing what I want to do with my life, and for that she is proud. I know she has always missed me. I know she has always been excited beyond belief about me coming home to be with her. I know she has always been standing in my corner believing in my life and my choice to be here.
But.
I am losing her.
Infact, I feel like there is a huge chunk of her that I have already lost in the 4 months that I have been gone.
I am trying to work my way to getting back to her for a visit as soon as I can but of course, an independent artists budget doesn't always stretch that far and airfares just continue to go up and often times throughout my day, I wonder if I am doing the right thing.
I know she still has time left on this earth, but in what form? This is what scares me. To watch her slip further and further into what seems like a horribly lonely, sad, confusing existence. I can barely stand the thought of that.
So, me and my sweet girl Jamie have been working hard on this new idea that we have. It started because I realized she was a whizz at screen printing and I wanted to learn how to screen print my own merchandise.
So...she taught me how to do it (and now, all the merchandise I have is screen printed, by hand, by us).
We worked on this idea and called it IHA - which is a sanskrit word that means 'in this life'...as in, fully immersed in life, jumping into every moment with both feet. That is how we both want to live. We also wanted to live sending a positive message into the world....even in our own thoughts and feelings. To live in love and kindness. She has taught me a lot about that the last few months.
So, we put them both together...and this is what we got:
This design is actually backwards (the photo you are looking at is taken in a mirror). The idea was that every time the person wearing it looked into a mirror, they were reminded. Another interesting thing has happened with this t-shirt though. It seems that people are turning it around in their own brains and when they see it walking towards them.....it reads, I am beautiful. LOVE THAT!!!!
To see something I help create going out into the world and making people happy and empowered is what I feel like I have strived to do my whole adult life. It's what I want to do for the rest of my life. In my music, in my art, in our t's, in my day to day relationships with people I meet....it is, in my heart of hearts, the way I want to be. I don't always hit the mark but it is truely where I want to be each time.
