Golden Gate

Proud Parents. 7.27.2011.

Where it all began...

Well, it's a rainy Friday morning here in Berkeley and I'm on the pull out couch at my friend Isobel's.... where I'm camped temporarily before my flight eastward on August 1st. This has been an incredible year, full of ups and downs and new challenges, but with that so much new growth and learning and expansion more into the person I've always wanted to become. When I think back on it all I'm so overwhelmed with gratitude about how quickly everything fell into place... meeting Luke, then Evan, then Travis... finding the rehearsal studio close by, being surrounded by other musicians who inspired and challenged me... raising the money for Kickstarter...  at the beginning, it seemed surprisingly easy, and somewhere along the way it turned into the most difficult thing I've ever done. Every lesson I've learned, I've learned in retrospect. How to fundraise. How to lead a band and organize practice and be diplomatic and negotiate. How to get my sound the way I want it. Performing. Recording. Patience. Time. Money. Relationships. Endurance. Idealism versus reality. And I still know absolutely nothing.

Except for the one thing I DO know with absolute certainty, which is that this is what I want to do, and work at, for a very long time. If there was anything that gift of Kickstarter money gave me, it was that conviction, which is worth more than anything. So thank you, thank you everyone who was a part of bestowing that gift upon me! Whether I'm in the rehearsal room with the band, or recording in the studio, or tinkering with new tunes with Luke on the roof or in the laundry room, I feel at peace. Even if I am frustrated by something in the moment, there is this deeper sense of satisfaction and fulfillment that I get when I am creating, entertaining, expressing. No matter how topsy turvy my life might be, it all feels worth it when it gets grounded in those moments, grounded in the song and the art and the story. I studied art history because I was fascinated by the lives of artists, and now for better or for worse I feel like I am living my own rock and roll saga. Someday I promise I will tell you the full and uncensored version! : )

But for now, let me tell you what we have and where we are headed. 2,000$ was, unfortunately, a naively small amount for me to fundraise for a fully mixed 8 song cd! Most people spend that much, if not way more, on one song alone! I had invested a considerable sum of my own money into practice time to make the studio dates go as smoothly and efficiently as possible, which they did, and the producer was duly impressed. But once we got through our two full days of recording I was left at a sort of panicked stand-still as to what to do next. All of the songs sounded great- except for Magical Mist, which Roger made me play to a metronome click track, thus sacrificing its natural pauses. Listening back to it made me cringe and so it got put on a sort of back burner, even though it is a song that I love and sounded amazing, ethereal, and haunting every time we played it live.

Now we had five group tracks to work with (Sweet Tangerine, Train Song, Highwayman, Hot Damn!, and Bird in Norwegian Wood), and I still wanted to do extra time to record two acoustic tracks (Break Me Down and Adelaide). Luke and I went back for a half day to add in guitar work, and then for about a month I took a hiatus from the studio while I worked a combination of housekeeping, web design, and folding tracksuits and hocking handbags at good ol' Juicy Couture to earn money for extra recording hours. Around this time Roger took on another project with a guy who seems to have money that (according to Roger) far outweighs his talent, so a lot of the times we wanted to get into the studio it would be booked. It was frustrating to feel like we were losing the steam from the Kickstarter campaign and the debut of The Liz O Show, but with Evan, our original drummer, permanently back in Boston, the studio being booked, and my computer screen having died, there was not a whole lot I could do. Except for hang out at the Berkeley library in my downtime and read books about the music business.

The books started shifting my perspective one chapter at a time, and soon the standstill seemed like a blessing in disguise. When I started envisioning the album, my intentions for it were mainly to have an awesome product to give to my friends and family, sell on my Boppity Bear website, maybe promote while I drove around the country in some brightly colored van. It was not particularly strategically thought out (as my dear mother pointed out to me when she came to visit in December). But I simultaneously had (and I admit, have always had) visions of making music videos, getting the songs on the radio, getting, well, famous. In typical Liz O fashion I hoped this would just magically happen once the cd was made. Realism has never been my strong suit. BUT I also think- I know!- that in insisting upon my idealist visions, I at least approach where I want to go, even if it is a much longer and windier path than I initially expected.

And the point I am trying to get to here is that reading these formulaic, step by step books on breaking into the music business gave me an increased and, I think, grounded, sense of determination and optimism. Because I realized while reading them that I don't actually WANT to be an independent, do it yourself, singer-songwriter. I want to go big. I want to be Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Florence and the Machine, Adele. Maybe not so much Amy Winehouse. R.I.P. I want surreal vibrant candy colored music videos with trains and honky tonk bars and gypsy mountains and bayous and always lots of sex appeal. And I'm not ashamed to admit it. That's always been my dream, and when I think of how far I've come from a couple years ago when I was meekly testing out these songs on acoustic at open mike nights in Portland, Maine, I think I can go a lot farther in the next couple years!

So, with the advice of the music business books in mind, I headed back to the studio with a new game plan; get the very best songs mixed as best as possible. Have those five or six function as an EP, and use the very best three as demo songs in landing gigs, finding new drummers on the West Coast, and sending out to record labels! The best way to attract the attention of a record label, however, is to get a buzz going. Which involves, of course, having a band again, and performing tirelessly and consistently. Which, for some reason, I've always been weirdly afraid of and emotional about. I have weird patterns when it comes to building a fanbase, in that it is something I have subconsciously refused to do at all. I lose track of email addresses people give me, never contact them, change locations every few months, and don't go back to venues once I've been successful.

At one open mike night at the Dogfish Cafe in Portland Maine, I had started to build a considerable group of friends and fans, which became very clear to me in the moment that I was playing my second song and I realized the entire bar was listening to my every word. I couldn't hear anything except my own voice, which was definitely a first in the usually loud and raucous Dogfish. I went on to debut my ten minute song about the adventures of a French telephone, and they stayed riveted, people actually coming closer, neglecting their beers to focus on the story. I was incredibly intimidated. But I didn't let it affect my performance. Afterwards I got a standing ovation and a call for an encore. The open mike MC gave me a bear hug. It was the most exhilarating night of my life. And I didn't show my face in the Dogfish for two months after that.

So what I'm trying to say here is that usually my emotional blockages about something mean that there is something really rich waiting once that stone is overturned. And so I'm so excited for the next phase of Liz O Show life, which is hitting the stage! I'm so glad I have found fellow bandmates, particularly Luke, who are sharing in these dream with me and holding me accountable to fulfill it. We've already started testing out our next batch of rock and roll songs, and we recorded a couple of them such as "What You Pay For," "Megan," "Hit Me High," and "The Hullaballoo," with a student at the School of Audio Engineering for practice. This week we've been in the studio finishing work on our two biggies, "Sweet Tangerine" and "The Train Song." We also have "Break Me Down" and "Adelaide" mixed, and Roger is taking a break before he mixes "Hot Damn!" and "The Bird in Norwegian Wood." "Magical Mist" and "Highwayman" are left outstanding for the moment... I'll either finish them here when I get back, or at a studio on the East Coast.

For now, I am looking forward to a period of rejuvenation... seeing family, frolicking with friends in the Magical Forest that is Omega, sleeping, being at the lake, working on the packaging and artwork for the album/EP, getting Kickstarter rewards in the mail, building an absolutely fantastic website better than ever before, and gearing up for the next chapter! Hopefully there will be some music making with Evan in Boston, and there will most definitely, my friends, be Bingeing with the Buddha.

Get ready for the belligerence.

And my deepest love to you all.

LOVE,
Liz O!

The Berkeley Diaries

new look!

Hello friends! It's been a while since I've updated since there was that whole phase where my computer screen went kaput, and before that phase I had been hoping to expand my online presence again (re: obsessively update posts and statuses so you knew what I was doing every moment every day, and knew that I was doing MUSIC, and working on getting this cd made, because heaven forbid you think anything else...) but then I kind of took my computer dying as a sign that there were other things to focus on, namely, making money so I COULD make the cd, and having a healthy balanced lifestyle so I didn't burn out, so anyway that's what I did through the months of June and July. 

I lived in two different sublets in Berkeley, where there were sunshine and flowers and comfy beds to sleep in, and I worked sometimes from early morning to late at night, at two different jobs in the city, commuting back and forth. And since I didn't have my computer in the off time when I wasn't working, I did things that were previously in my character, like went to the library and got stacks of books (mostly on magic and the music business), and things that were previously OUT of my character, like COOKED. Cooked! Yes, cooked. No really, I did. It was weird. But kind of good! Mostly, sometimes.

Except for when I got all paranoid about the bacteria that may or may not be present in turkey and baked it to a crisp and failed to enjoy it even while crisp-like due to hypochondria about undercooking. I also gave up sugar and bread and alcohol and carbs, and so really my life was very monotonous except for when I gleaned new bouts of inspiration from my books about the music business, or played Break Me Down in the garden and looked for four leaf clovers (I found at least twelve. I'm a freak. A lucky, lucky, freak!)


So, anyhoo. Below you will find pictures from my "Domestic Goddess" phase, its rise and fall (the fall being the popcorn explosion all over the kitchen).

The Domestic Goddess Strikes Again! And Again, and Again!

Quinoa and beet salad!

Chickpea curry!

Veggie Enchilada Pie!

Not my proudest moment. 

Definitely not my proudest moment.

Bad getting worse.

A return to glory!

Fiesta Mexicana!