new music luv: emilie mover August 25, 2008

i admit it. sometimes, i watch crap television. usually i don’t watch any television, but we recently got a slingbox. so now i indulge if i’m bored/ stressed.

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so there i was in the midst of an unspectacular lifetime movie (ya i know. shutup.), when a commercial for bounce came on, and it had a cute little ditty going on in the background. for kicks i googled the lyrics, and came up with its equally cute little canadian singer, emily mover.

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she has experience as a jazz singer, and you could guess that within her first few notes. the tone of her voice is silky, even, and rich. it feels lovely against the backdrop of her songs — some of which are fully orchestrated affairs, and some totally stripped down.  i also think that elements of the production conjures an old vintage feel to it.  but with a newness mixed in at the same time. my favorite track is “mountainside” — she manages to make it sound so lush, even with nothing but acoustic guitar and voice.

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i’ll be downloading her so hard once i have the time/ money. note to self: watch more lifetime movies in order to discover new and interesting singers.

day(s) in the life August 21, 2008

here are some pictures from a few weeks ago. while these pictures have nothing to do with music, they have to do with me. and i make music. and since i’ve gotten my new camera, i’ve decided i want to post some pictures about my day-to-day living. then when i get too embarrassed about it, or someone makes some negative comment, i’ll lock/ edit/ delete everything. like always

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roberta’s pizza. empty on a saturday afternoon. it’s a 5 minute walk from my house here in bushwick. jessica, chris, matt, and i went for lunch.

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jessica and i. (and max, my cat) i’m ready to conk out in this picture.

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me & matt @ life cafe, the next day at brunch.

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chris

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the tables in the restaurant, which are filled with people’s postcards, flyers, and business cards (mine is in the bottom righthand corner!)

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drool.

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life cafe drink specials.

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on the walk home, there were these dogs running around in a field. four of them. two dressed in the minnie mouse outfits, and two in the camo outfits.

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moving on to another random day… harlem is a very interesting place. here are a bunch of styrofoam heads. 135th and lenox.

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taken in a courtyard of a place i’m working at right now.

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my feet.

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in the back room @ the bitter end. with my friend louisa, who i was about to perform with.

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louisa in action.

online strategies for chantilly 2.0 August 18, 2008

okay, so it’s really hard for me to keep up on all this social networking stuff sometimes.  i enjoy it.  i wish i could be better at it.  but i feel too overwhelmed by other things in my life to do a decent job at it.  i am a person who gets excited by projects easily, then abandons said projects when something else excites me more.  then i have a pile of 50 uncompleted projects to finish.  then i have a panic attack.  haha.

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i will also say this about myself- it’s hard for me to differentiate what is too personal to write about.  this is such a problem for me, that i fight with myself about it, and most times don’t end up writing anything for fear of leaking things i’ll later regret saying.  sometimes, what i have to say can be very scathing and bitchy. because that is just the tone of my writing if i’m in a bad mood, which is when i tend to write the most.  it’s bitten me in the ass a good number of times, the most recent incident causing me to permanently lock my personal online journal.

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also, i just tend to get discouraged with, or bored by certain sites ( like myspace), so i tend to only care about them in an on-and-off fashion.

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then i look at people like julia allison, who i’ve never heard of before i read that article, who lives her entire life online. it makes me wonder what the best strategy really is for being successful at this little online game? to be an enigma or bare it all? sure, people like to be voyeurs. and she gets attention, but people hate her for it. and shit, i’ll admit it, i’ve got a really thin skin– there’s no WAY i could take criticism like the kind she gets (i know, musician is the wrong line of work to be in if i can’t take criticism, aye?) i just want to be able to share things about myself without going to that extreme. but is it possible?

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i’ve been thinking about this lately, because as musicians, it’s up to us to find fans and keep them interested. part of that is doing things like blogging, and twitter, and all that other crap. i want to be able to just write whateverthehell i want, but i can’t. what can i say, i’ve got a dirty mind or not just that, but an angry mind… a scared mind. or just an overreactive-and-prone-to-post-when-i’m-emotional mind. aside from the dirty part, i’m not sure these are the best things to try and reel people in with. and i’m not sure unflattering character flaws are the best things for random people to know about other random people, anyway.

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still, there’s always that urge to want to blab everything about onesself, even if it makes us feel vulnerable… then inevitably delete/ edit/ lock what was written out of embarassment. it’s what i always do.
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in conclusion, i don’t know what the anwer is. i guess it’s different for each one of us.