Hello and Happy Thanksgiving to you lovely VIP members!
Wow! Can you believe it’s already time for giving Thanks! Well we have a lot to give thanks for, both this time of year, and every day of the year with all of your support on this musical journey and significant outreach to the world.
We are so excited that our 8th CD, titled “The Sun Runs,” was released at the Sapphire Room on November 10th to an amazing sold out show! For those of you that were able to come, we thank you for your warmth and applause as we delivered our musical musings to you, a long time in the making.
January of 2016 is when we started to record the instrumental tracks; the vocals came later, and layer upon layer of other instrumentation and vocals. Many hours in the studio, watching each other through glass, hearing the vocal tracks laid down for the first time and feeling everything meld together so beautifully. Then the arduous editing part, uggggg! Well, as you know, apparently it takes a long time to baste that turkey ladies and gentlemen! We thank each and every one of you for watching the tiny embers of this new collection of songs rise into the heart-felt, brilliant flames we’d hoped it would be! We believe in the messages it brings!
We’ve been all over the place since we last posted. We attended the Northwest booking conference in beautiful downtown Spokane WA mid October, and met some talent buyers from WA, OR, NV, and CA that expressed some interest in booking us for their 2017-2018 concert series. The historic Davenport hotel is lovely if you’re ever in that neck of the woods. We highly recommend it!
We were home for a few days thereafter before packing up for the East Coast tour. This was a fun trip as the “anchor gig” actually started as Niccole’s High School Reunion, of which she’d never attended before. No, I won’t tell you the year because that would “date us,” and we want you to continue to think how young and vibrant we are, even if we feel like antiques. So needless to say, we had a Unity church in Rehoboth Beach, DE invite us to play a concert Sat night 10/22, and for their Sunday service the next day. There was so much love and appreciation in the room we thought we were back here at home! We had a lot of pre-CD sale orders too, which we are proud to say are already off in the mail and have surely arrived in good hands!
So our trip back East was like 4 trips in one. The first two days “catching up with ourselves” at Nicc’s sister Donna’s. What a lovely lady! We call her ‘Donna Mamma.’ She took us on a lovely walk of a nature/wildlife preservation park, wined and dined us, and wow, the rich conversations that took place between she and Nicc as they told stories of their family roots and what they thought about it all. We were up till 1am every night chatting it up. What a beautiful time Nicc had with her precious sister. Was great to see her zest and enthusiasm! It was like a slumber party, true girls night out!
We were then off the Rehoboth Delaware, where we were hosted in a lovely home about 2 miles from the beach. We enjoyed walking along the boardwalk and of course the smells and sensations of the Atlantic Ocean! We landed back in Columbus, NJ where Niccole grew up, and visited with friends and family there for a couple of days before we headed to Philidelphia to see one of my high school buddies, Arcana. It had been 5 years since I’d seen her. Was great to catch up, though I only wish I could have extended time in order to enjoy her delightful company a day longer.
The next day we were on a train to Penn Station, NY. It was only an hour or so from Hamilton NJ, a mere 9 miles from where we hung our hat. We landed around noon, and went to Time Square to be overwhelmed for awhile. Niccole got a coffee from a street barista. We sat down and took it all in for awhile. Since we were only going to be there a little over 24 hours, we decided to rally to see as much as possible. We jumped on NY Tours; a bus that takes you to many favored spots and tells you about it. You can hop off, when you want to explore, and hop back on when you’re ready to hit the next location. Best of all, you’re not dodging traffic or worried about getting hit in a cross walk, you’re safe and sound on a double decker bus checking out the sky-risers. Don’t stand up though because you’re likely to kiss a traffic signal light…..no, that did not happen to us……
So we explored Chinatown and Little Italy, some of the Soho district (somewhat a part of Greenwich village). The city felt like it had its own entire vibration, like it was undulating. Parts of it felt like bling bling Las Vegas, especially around Broadway, and 8th Ave up to Columbia Circle. We saw the Statue of Liberty (from afar, but as close as we could get), visited the giant bronze Merrill Lynch Bull, that signifies strength and leadership for the country, visited sobering “Ground Zero” which wasa beautiful elegant vision and tribute to a deathly and horrific event in our history. We stopped in to the sacred Trinity Church, one of the only churches in the vicinity of the Twin Towers to survive that time. The experience was rich and unforgettable.
When we returned to ‘Donna Mamma’s’ house, it was time for Niccole’s High School reunion. Now the gal that was organizing it wanted to do something special for Niccole because it was also her birthday. She ordered a beautiful cake that was to be shared in a special moment with all of her classmates. She said quite knowingly, “are those candles the ones that don’t go out?!?” Well no sooner did she say that and start blowing did her lovely long locks catch on fire! The former class president was smacking her hair, yelling “you’re on fire!” poor fellow looked like he was going to have a heart attack! But then all was well, Niccole put it out herself, no one threw water on her, and she did enjoy her cake, even though she smelt like a smoldering pile of burn hair all night, poor love. Everyone loved her up anyway! That was a fabulous and memorable time! Even though I’m a west coast girl, and hadn’t met many of her East Coast buddies, I felt right at home. They are a beautiful group of folks, much like we are grateful for here at home and with you all. We were honored to play 4 ballads of Niccole’s for the event that night. You couldn’t hear a pin drop.
What I loved in particular was watching Nicc rally the turnpikes and highways with ease and grace; when she got her “Jersey” full on! I love that accent! Driving became a new kind of sensation as she’d talk to fellow drivers she was irritated with; when you could hear her jovial, wall-shaking laughter from any corner of the room when she was greeted by old friends; and of course, don’t forget the quintessential moment when we bit into a philly cheesesteak or hoagie! De-li-cious! Made everything complete!
(This is now Niccole, because Mo is NOT a completion freak like I am! Ha HA!!! I want to get this to you before we leave!)
We are now presently off and running to Wyoming for Thanksgiving. We have friends of ours to meet in Jackson and a private party to play the day after Thanksgiving in Alta (which is near Driggs on the Idaho side of the Tetons)
We haven’t forgotten about new mp3’s and movies. We ARE behind in getting some new stuff to you…I hope for now you are satisfied with the new CDand know that now that Mr. Winter is on his way, we will have more time to devote to writing, musing, posting. In fact, we will be working on implementing a new web site. It will be nice to have an updated sleek new site that goes along with a treasured gem of a CD!
Isn’t it cool that you guys “watched” us through this process? Remember last year when I posted “I Give Thanks”, I just wrote it and was in tears…and had the courage to just post it while it was so fresh and vulnerable. Wow! Now it’s come to fruition and it has a new name. I decided to change it to Thankful because it’s not about “I” at all…this is a worlds’ tune. Everyone can own it and YOU can be the narrator of your own thankful song! 😉
Thank you for ALL your kindnesses! We so appreciate you keeping our fires burning! Now…please pass that egg nog! *wink* Be well sweet friends!
