5 december 1999
give a girl a few megabytes and see what you get . i'll tell you a funny story. last fall there was a cool chill in the air, and on one particularly rain-drizzly october night, my hub and i decided to rent a movie. it was a wednesday. we go over to our usual very seedy blockbuster - homeless folks hanging in the doorway, leftover mcdonalds' containers out front - and we see two people i knew in college who are now, incidentally, in the record business. we make polite-ities and ask them if they've seen any good movies. and they recommend, with all their hearts, a movie called "the ice storm." they said it was an astute comment on our society and one of the most exceptional, poignant films they've ever seen. ok. so of course we get "the ice storm" and go home. we discover that it's three hours of depressing, dark, dank, desperate souls entrenched in a menage of adultery, alcoholism and suicide. not a real uplifter. so, hub and i are lying in bed around 12:30am after watching the entire saga (which probably has its redeeming qualities, i guess, being that ang lee directed it), and patch leans over and says, hey! that was a damn depressing movie! do you think those record people are trying to pull one over on us? and i said, yea, you know, it does look a little suspicious. and, i say, if we had our wits about us, we'd see fit to take vengeance upon their fancy italian import furniture record exec house. luckily patch had just gotten a whole shissle full of toilet paper from his favorite store, k-mart, earlier that evening. so, in the middle of a cold and wet chicago weeknight, we hauled out of bed, donned baseball caps and jammies, and took to the streets. just imagine what two kooks and fifteen rolls of t.p. can do!
November of the last year
of the 20th century
here's a cool word: sizzle. they tell me these musings are taking a turn toward the surreal, the bizarre. well, they are truly meant in a stream of conscious kind of way, more to amuse than to actually relay information (see the rest of this website if you seek information! or buy an encyclopedia, morton). let's talk a little bit about this guy i saw speak the other evening. his name, well, if i tell you his name, i am offering him more free press which he doesn't need. let's just say his initials are: ndw, and he has written a bunch of books on his talks with god. well, they're conversations. he takes his yellow legal pad and starts banging out questions of all kinds, then god answers. then this guy, ndw, calls up his publisher friends and says, hey, i just talked with god for like five books of information - i'm not kidding here, god has a lot to say, he says - and are you interested in paying ungodly money to let me tell the world about this? (never mind the fact that i am 50 and broke and my wife left me and took the couch. it is *because* of those things that god has come into my yellow legal pad and told me to call you and get a five-book deal, and an offer for the rights to my story!) so. patch and i go see this guy, because sheila and fernando are going and we never get to see fern due to his hectic restaurant life. anyway, three cynnics and a catholic later, we are all mesmerized by this guy. hey, maybe this guy does talk to god. maybe that limo outside is a deserved reward for his messiah -like tendencies. and then i got to thinking, as i've been listening to beck and radiohead lately, gee, prince is putting out a record without a label, and celine is selling millions and jewel's writing poetry, and every joe is gaining glory and signing book deals. and, mort, is it because they have something to say? is it because they have earned - through sheer brilliance and talent - the holy trail to "the good life?" maybe. but i honestly do think celine is a singer unparalleled in heaven. she is opera-like in her technique at stoking the star-maker machinery (whoops, let my joni mitchell worship creep in), i mean singing pop ditties. and how can you put a price tag on that?
October 9, 1999
moments away from millennium. does anybody read these? it is 7am and flu-ridden, ridding five-day symtoms, unable to fully rest due to a combination of one chilly lofted room and the ecstasy of near-cd completion. what took me so long? matt wants to make a video; everyone wants to buy a copy, play a copy, give it to their uncle freddy who works at sony...what took you so long? finding new bands on the various sites. there's a cool one with a so-so name called actual size at listen.com. groovy dudes who love beck, king crimson and jazz. show in new hamphire soon. i'll be out east anyway, what's a road trip? i like the young energy and as i mentioned before, chemisty and in-fighting....can't claim to know their band suffusion. all i know is something intriguing about the goo goo dolls (maybe just the lead singer) and jack kerouac, oh and that one-person show? whimpy to not put it up. girls' field hockey? why, it's the most underrated contact sport in history!
September, 1999
this was no exceptional gig other than the fact that it made me realize what needs to change. we used to have the youthful edge of a real rock band, full of chemistry and in-fighting. now it seems like players wearing tuxedos and a paycheck. not terribly interesting. my favorite recent club experience was seeing someone else do it, a new band called shiny. they laced the stage with white fur and white drapings, then showed up in all-white apparrel . the lead singer had a white light on his face most of the time, and the music smoked unbelievably. funny thing is, no one will probably ever know who shiny is. but there is a legacy: their four-song demo. why do so many artists work in oblivion? you can cite god or fate or competition, but you can't argue the beauty of a well-crafted pop tune in the basement across the street from the liquor store where dinner drunks sniff remnants of snare hits. is it talent? does all talent come to the surface? is it up to the artists to force popular discovery? or do we leave it in the hands of rock buyers and pop sellers and some guy named blake who floats the beamer from show to show? comfort and rock don't usually converge. so this is weird. but then again, maybe comfort is contentment and contentment is happy and happy, though uninteresting, is nice.
August 28, 1999 - Fall
another month has skirted by and "summer's ending" anxiety is setting in. all the europeans are going back to work; mickey is donning his black beret; and we ponder the year's definition. it isn't january 1st, or december 31st when we define ourselves: it's fall. when we sense the onset of autumn, we assess what we've done, what happened, so we can learn from it, leave it and start all over again. new books, new school teacher, new attitude - we've inducted the fall season...it's a chance to make good on the fallen promise. the vacation is over, the fun is closing in. well, you can't have the fun without the work, is the american attitude. so, we gear up for the work. we contemplate what purpose we have to move from a to b each day, what's the point of deciding anything? and the golden dusk glow of an autumn evening is perfectly conducive to its pursuit. sometimes it feels like killing time - a job, a family, a life. fall is the time to try to grasp a sense of meaning, put a name on the face of purpose... judaism has it right; jews assess and atone for ten days in september, collecting into one meditative conscious - a profound personal agreement to re-evaluate and soul search en masse. one act of rosh hashanah - which marks a new year beginning september 11 - is to cast away past sins into the water. it's a spiritual symbol of starting anew, one subconsciously performed by most people at the first sightings of fall. we release the years' mistakes from the clutches of our conscience and sense the beauty of a forgiving fall. thank god for fall. the leaves float to the ground and so does the troubled will, we hope. this isn't the end though. there is yet another year to fail or win or grow, another set of decisions to encounter. and beyond them, an eternity of falls.
July 12th, 1999
poor lee of sonic youth. he must be really, really bummed. the band truck was stolen with all of the equipment. that's a devastating suckwind. all i did was crack my nice taylor a few weeks ago by dropping it onstage, and when it came back almost new, i was still freakwack.
the gig last night went fine, and i think by now they're all at least "fine." but at the kosovo benefit in june, that was uncommon. i'll name some others: navy pier sometime in may, good magic; lyon's den a while back (don't remember when) was real cool; martyrs' in january!; gunther murphy's recently was a good one - not too many folks there, as all my posse seems to show up to navy pier all summer, but i was "feeling experimental." the boys were making fun after the gig, and all throughout, and now it's the tagline of each show: "steph, you feeling experimental tonight?" it seems so useless to count on the good vibes of a particular gig to keep the uplift beyond those few moments you're playing. when it really gets great - when the band goes to donald fagan land - when i am hearing things to sing before they come out, then it's like god comes to the party. i felt a religion thing at brother jimmy's that night at the kosovo gig. someone was just showing me the way, and i followed.
i guess that's how great songs are written. having only been a true songwriter for the past few years, i admit that i have yet to fully experience the glow. maybe in pieces. a chorus here, or (more likely in my case) a bridge or a lyric there. but whatever made beast of burden, crazy love or court and spark spark, it's not about what college taught you. i'm a kook to mull it over even now. it ain't about thinking for diddly.
i took a songwriting class last fall, which was so amusing. about 20 some odd folks in there listening to great songs for a few hours, talking like: "yea, that's a great song!" "wow, now that's a song!" and no one knew jack about how to go home and write one of their own. some people say you have them or you don't. well, i will beg to differ because i couldn't sing three little ducks until well after college, when i forced myself to take a lesson. the only thing natural 'bout that was the wanting...wanting to learn how chaka shocks, how stevie wonders. singing ability wasn't god-given. and if it wasn't, what was? well, that's my cynnical practically-post-20-something-rock-chick sentiment.
One day in late June...
no musings last month. sorry, i guess the busy gig schedule leaves little time to amuse. and i'm engulfed in recording madness! i cannot contain myself over the excitement i have about this project, an analogish exercise in distilled production mania. danny shaffer is a playful inspiration (we're at his studio in chicago) - yesterday he said to me: "steph, when you're happy, i'm happy....when you're not happy, i'm still pretty happy...but you're not happy." thanks to him and his irreverance, i'm trying hard enough to want his attention; but not so much that i need to impress him a smidge, that gutter dweller! i hope you like this recording because it is damn good and soulful, lawdy, smell the soul!
when i think of soul, i remember a recent private party where scott bennett (a singer/multi-instrumentalist) decided he was james brown for ten minutes. he interspersed tunes with tellings of his jail time, then broke out into: "i feel nice....like sugar and spice...i fell nice....'cause i beat my wife..." it was raucous. nothing funnier than errant white boys getting down at the drake.
thank you for enjoying this web site, andrew has made it excellent - and thanks to those of you who are voting for me in the lilith contest! last year's winner found herself running around with her newfound mafia management team, entrenched in a global bidding war. not that we care about commercial success one iota! but just in case we change our mind, please vote for change my mind, then email me you did so i can put your name in a hat for an advance copy of my new cd. i already know i am indebted to many of you for earthly favors, but please remember, in our last life, i was your faithful servant and you paid bodiddlysquat. no offense, and i'm over it, but how 'bout a little payback time? send me some sugar, bruthas, sistahs! i'm in 18th place and on my way to top 10! maybe, just maybe, you're the one vote that could push this careening barrel over the hillel. mazel tov! it's a happy summer!
April 1999
i was munching on my organic tv dinner the other day, when i spotted a bug-like creature jetting up the corner of my amp. the critter didn't realize it was expelling its last breath when, sadly, it met a quick, painless death. my little victim reminded me of a dream in which i spot a spider -a huge mammalesque spider - in my loft. luckily, tom skerritt is there and upon discarding of the spider, advises me to redecorate. leave it to a guy like tom skerritt to scare up some well-intentioned betty white critique in a freak drama of a dream. his disturbingly welcoming apparition appeared because we just watched him in the sundance creation, "smoke signals." it's a beautiful movie about two coeur d'alene indians and a penchant for poetry.
penchant for poetry. new name for a band? perhaps a folk trio? i like anne delangis' name for our new band, betty & veronica. she tends to be really clever, anne. our first gigs will be this summer, and they are sure to be damn cool. her hooks combined with my bridges (some would say my choruses make great bridges!); her nancy-from-heart voice and my obscure, underexalted personality! w o w. it's kitsch meets chops; big hair meets rich pipes; mary richards meets blondie. it's all good.
the trek continues, and i want to thank those of you who are coming to this page again and again, checking out my site, keeping up-to-date on these goings-on. we've had over 20,000 visitors since January, and that is a lot! andrew's pinned a glow on my very reality. what talent, the ultimate in creativity! i've known him since high school, when he and phil used to mock me in algebra. sooner or later i figured it better to join - rather than be mocked by - them. so here we are engulfed in the mockery together. designing web pages, having forgotten what x equals.
if you give others the gift you'd like to have, it will come back to you. so, to you, i recognize your sheer endurance, welcome offbeatedness, and lovely works of soul-quenching creativity. i wouldn't squash you if you laid a hand on my amp. maybe you could figure out how the damn chorus button works. anyway, if you have anything unusual or pleasant to say about my music or performances, please sign the guest page. check out our racy schedule. and happy almost summer!
March 1999 - Stream of Babble
David Bowie's site - wow. The guy is a marketing machine ( www.davidbowie.com). First the David Bowie bond was sold (against future royalties of his records) for 10 million, and now he has his own ISP. He had a songwriting contest, too, in which the winner wrote lyrics to a Bowie tune, got flown to NY for the recording of it, and obtained a 15k publishing contract with Bug Records. This inspires me to be more creative. I - ummm - have had my share of dry slumps. Depression is an ugly, instinct-killing beast.
I am reading a book called "God and the Big Bang Theory", (by Daniel C. Matt). I'm a little into astronomy and evolution these days. I finished "The Bible Code", "The Moral Animal" and "Conversations With God", and have had a good look at religion and space. We are ants of ants. I think I'll write a song about that.
Today I order a new Alesis keyboard. This is so exciting, because I have never had one, not since the piano I borrow at my parents' house..My song, "Easter Day," might be construed as controversial. The lyrics (written five years ago) are:
on easter day, my resistance is high
while the angels free up to fly
i'll be inclined to reminisce, and pour out my remiss
he comes around here now and again
disrupting the day by creeping in
he appears in your face sometimes when i kiss you
but he's not what i'm missing right now
when i smoke up the stoop outside
you take your communion easy,
so spill the faith on me
your mama leads a conversation jump
spitting up jesus from the depths of her coffee cup
she thinks that i'm the one, or maybe she's given up
but she's saved you time and again
from the unrepenting man
and me from the devil on my shoulder ...
hail mary, hold me over...
don't be the fallen angel by the wayside -
like the other saints
who couldn't cry - who continue to be my alibi
peel the pagan seal away
like holy water, it'll drip and lay
while we eat up our easter day
mister "die-if-i'm-wrong"
tell the priest we're taking him on
we'll forgive every indiscretion and consecrate a tradition
but heed the lesson,
today i'm a praying woman
and if it's religion i need,
then spill the faith on me ...
I like a lot of religious themes. My song, "The Devil," mocks TV evangelists who take cash for prayers. Though that's more a money theme than a religious theme. At some point, one has to take one's destiny by the reins. As an ant of an ant, that is.
