Hello Lovely Friends,
Mo and I are galloping off to the Oregon coast tomorrow bright and early and I wanted to jot a few words down to you special “peeps” before July is merely a memory!
Some obscure song-writer wrote, “I can’t hold the hands of time, but hold your hands in mine”. Time…it marches on so quickly and I know this has been an ongoing “theme” of some of these blogs. Every time the 1st of the month comes around I am bamboozled with how quickly the month passes. And I also go through the realization that I may NOT have taken enough time for my “art” in WRITING new song. I was on such a roll the beginning of the year and wow…I need to either get up earlier or block a time in my schedule for creating. It’s a hard priority but a very important one!
I have made advances on getting our studio in a place to BE creative (does that count? Ha ha!) I have been getting things organized in our studio and at some point would like to get my friend Patrick from Audio Lab to come help me “set up shop” for an actual recording studio we can go “live”. I have been thinking about my next “record”. (What’s a record? Ha! Remember those beautiful days? I would spend hours and hours in my room with my LP’s. Reading the liner notes and ogling over the pictures of Elton John’s Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboys…Styx, REO Speedwagon, Pink Floyd, Queen! God time stood STILL back then!)
I haven’t drawn any conclusions as far as records go…only that I want to do the next one myself, in house. I want to take my time on it and have it be a joy. I want to breathe LIFE into it and I want the emotionality of the collection to carry through. Another words, I want to have control of the genesis of sound because I KNOW what we sound like. Whereas all the years I’ve done recordings, I’ve had a man in the booth tell me what we “should” sound like. Ha! Ain’t growing up grand?! Ha ha! I am. Little by little!
Right now, in the height of our season, it’s a bit unpractical to talk about a “record” (or recording for Spotify to earn all the dollars LOL!) but it has crossed my mind. I’m letting you into this “whisper”. What is ours to do next in music? This has been a question wearing on my mind. What haven’t we done? What more is there to learn? How can I push these walls down and make my world bigger?
Our weeks have been slammed most weeks from Thursday to Sunday and now and then with an extra gig on a Tuesday or Wednesday. It’s much like a FULL TIME job, which I’m sure you guys may think, “Umm, that’s what I do!” Ha ha!
I agree! You “worker bees” that wake up at the crack of dawn and kick butt 5 days a week, you are those silent hero’s! We don’t get the chance to celebrate you enough. Mo and I turn on when most of you are turning off, we turn UP when most are turning DOWN, we mid-week when most of you are week-ENDING, we are hungry and sweating when most of you watch in the coolness of the misters and eat and listen. And when we are not at a show, those thousands of details rail our minds till we spill them out on to do lists.
Like this trip for instance, a million things to prepare for, yet we are privileged and excited to go to Oregon. First of all, there are friends on the coast we look forward to seeing. Secondly, Mo and I have been vying for this concert at the Hult Performing Arts Center in Eugene for well over 4 years. It’s a BFD! We were slated in 2020, but you all know how THAT turned out! Everything went out the window!
So…we are looking forward to BIG shows in different towns, but also very much looking forward to playing out of town gigs with our waggy tail drummer Meghan Kelly Watters! Her and her wife Lindsay are two gems that we adore spending time with! Hallelujah for awesome musical chemistry & friendship!
And some good news! We get to take our van “Sparky” to the coast too! It’s out of necessity really! My Mercury has a small leak in the water pump – yikes! And I couldn’t imagine the stress of going to the coast with the possibility that it might break down! Sparky will indeed get us there. We may spend what we make on GAS (right?! OMG!) but, “the show must go on!” Ha ha!!! We posted some pictures for you of our first outing with Sparky. She’s NO WHERE NEAR DONE but she motors along AND has a bed in the back we can stretch out on!!!
If you check out the pictures, you will also notice the screech owls in our back tree. (Photo by Nette Schaff). Aren’t these buggers so cute!!! There are some pictures at the Sandbar (thank you Kathy MacLean) and the beautiful river shot is from our trip to McCall this past month.
I hope to do a better job “creating” for you this next month…and I SO APPRECIATE the understanding and support you all give to us with your smiles and devotion! Thank you so much! As I write this, Juno is under-foot deathly afraid of the fireworks going off outside. Sigh….poor pooch! Hold your pups and each other close!
Thank you friends! You mean the world to us!
Much love,
Niccole, Mo and a very scared Juno Dog!
Happy Independence Month (Year…Life!)
