| What's that you're reclining on the home page?
It's a papasan. You know, one of those comfy, round chairs..
What sort of musicians were your folks? You cite on your CD being around ukeleles and
accordions
Well actually, I wouldn't call my parents musicians per se, more that they were of an
old-fashioned school of people for whom music was a part of life and just something that you did. In our living room we had a piano and an organ as well as a basket of shakers and tambourines and other instruments my dad had picked up on travels, and making noise with all these various things was always just assumed. My dad was always experimenting with teaching himself things but never exactly mastering them...guitar, violin, foreign languages...but he did play the
organ and piano regularly and was always teaching me songs to sing with him. My mom also plays the piano and was and still is a member of a local singing group, the Choraliers. My sister and I both took music lessons (mine were on the piano) and were usually called upon to play for our parents’ guests. (We were told by our parents that this would make us well-rounded people). All the way up through our high school years, family parties and gatherings of friends usually consisted of
a good chunk of time spent singing hymns or holiday songs over the piano, or cowboy/folk songs over the guitar. So when I'd invite my high school friends to my mom's parties, the response was usually, "well, okay...but are we going to have to sing?!" The accordions and ukuleles..well...we'll get back to that.
What are some of your best memories of festival gigs?
I haven't played at a lot of really large festivals, but
at many smaller ones and each one has been unique in its own way. I must say, as silly as it will probably sound, that one of my favorite moments was having U. Utah Phillips pet my dog at the Whole Earth Festival in Davis. Not really because I was starstruck or anything (although I do think Utah is great), just that having him not know that I was a performer at the festival and single out my dog in the crowd of colorful people to stop and say hello to was such a sweet simple thing. Of course I have been known to be a little obsessed with my dog, who is featured in the booklets of both of my CD's...
I also had a great time at a festival up in Seattle called Bend-It, which took place at the Cornish School of the Arts. It was a queer youth arts festival and early in the day, before my set, I got to watch a softball game--the Dykes vs. the Drag Queens. Now while I'm not usually a sports fan, I must say, that was quite the interesting game! What are the shows at the Fox And Goose like? The Fox & Goose is sort of my home away from home as far as music goes. They offered me my first show when I was 21 and playing at their open mic, and I've played there regularly ever since. They aren't always high promo shows for me because they are free and local and I have to choose which shows to really push to my audience so as not to wear them too thin. But my friend Lisa Phenix and I host a Women's Folk Night there once amonth which provides an opportunity for local women who often times aren't getting out much, or for touring acts, and we usually have a group of regulars there...so it's a very friendly vibe and everyone has a good time.
When are you headed back to Pennsylvania and the Northeast states?
I'm hoping to make it to PA and the Northeast again sometime this winter. I'll be making it as far as Ohio and Michigan and various other spots in the Midwest in Oct./Nov. so once I finish getting that tour booked I'll start planning the next.
You mentioned Phillly being home for you for a few years.. How was that a
contributor to your musical makeup?
Living in Philly was very
different for me than any place I'd been before. It's a great city, one which I love in many ways, not the
least of which is the music! I definitely had more options there of what to see than in Sacramento or San Francisco or any of the small towns I've lived in. It's a major tour stop, so it seemed like weekly there was somebody great coming through. They had a very decent folk scene too, and jazz. Plus since I had a great waitressing job at the time and was living in such a huge city at around the same cost as Sacramento (and at far less cost than San Francisco!) I could actually afford to do these things! I was young when I moved there, nineteen and in love, and I had just picked up the guitar the year before. I had taken a year off from college to establish residency in Philly and my waitressing job was only three nights a week, so I spent a lot of time writing and soul searching. A lot of the songs on my first album came out of that time period.
What other spoken word pieces ae you working on? What topics?
Well, I don't think I have any that I'm working on at the moment, but I have a few completed ones that are unreleased. I don't tend to "work" that much on the spoken word pieces, they tend to just come and flow out and end in a completion of a thought, which is often how I know that they are to be spoken pieces and not sung. (My song craft tends to be a little different,
he guitar often inspiring the lyrics or fitting in with some incomplete verse which I then work on finishing.) So the ones that I have right now that aren't yet released are: "Let it Be" which is sort of an ode to freedom of artistic expression and "Strip Tease for Alix Olson" which I guess in addition to being about how I had a crush on Alix Olson, a great feminist spoken word artist, is about queerness and not drawing these harsh, exclusive sort of lines in the gay and lesbian community about who belongs and who doesn't, which I've always felt is kind of counterproductive.
I'm curious to note not only the humanist/feminist angle of your
musicianship but others more earthbound as well. You have Earth Girl as the title of the label, and you make references to the solstices. I'm guessing you are Pagan?
I don't define myself as a Pagan with a
capital P,
although one of the lines, coincidentally, from "Let it Be" is: “Let it be pacifist and anarchist/as exciting as true love's first kiss / let it be a matriarchal pagan revolution / the long waited return of all the goddesses.” But I don't believe in organized religion. Spiritually, I definitely connect with Buddhism and Eastern thinking, as well as some paganism, I'm sure. I believe in concepts like buddha-mind, that one person's thoughts have a subtle influence on the world, and I believe in the idea of inner awakening. And for me, part of that awakening is definitely Earth-related as far as opening one's eyes to all of the beauty around us. I believe in nature; in the interconnectedness of things; I believe in seasons and sunlight and the moon and the stars...that's where I feel connected to something greater. (Well, that and love...) So I guess that's where Earth Girl came from. That and my country girl roots.
You also hint to having water as the theme for the next album. There's a
commonality to earth and water, as I'm sure you know.
Yeah, the next album which I'll record and release in 2006, will be called "Wash Away" and it seems to have four or five songs having to do with water so far...not about water--mostly about relationships--but that's why the title, which is also the title of a song, seemed appropriate.
At the heart of
you is a percussive soul..and you've reflected that in your albums...including the steel drum as well as the earthy insistent mandolin...Now how did you come across the tongue drum?
Well, the tongue drums (wooden boxes with tuned "tongues" carved on the top) I actually came across in a music store while
there looking for congas. I had never seen a tongue drum as large as this particular one and it was so deep and resonant that I just couldn't walk away from it. I was right in the middle of recording my first album, Woman Mother Earth Sky, and I thought the tongue drums would sound perfect on a poem that I was recording. So I showed up to the studio the next day and said to Jason (my engineer who also played some bass and other stuff on the albums) "We are going to have fun today!" And we set the tongue drums up right away, threw some headphones on and recorded in one take the tongue drums which
accompany the poem "I wish".
Do you know of Utah Phillips and Ani DiFranco's duo album from 1996? I don’t have the CD but I have "Holding On", a great single...tragic/amusing
story he tells with Ani's guitars in the background.
I can't think of which one "Holding On" is off hand, but yes, I have both of the Utah/Ani albums. As I mentioned, I am a fan of Utah Phillips (and Ani), and what always amazes me about him is his ability to really understand and draw from all of this history and to connect it all together. I don't think my brain works in quite the same way, in the ability to retain all of those names and dates and
facts, so I'm quite fascinated by his ability to do so. And I think that one of the important points that he makes is that if people do not understand their history, how can they responsibly create a future? And if people don't understand the work of those that came before them, the fact that people didn't simply walk into a booth and check a piece of paper in order to be granted things like the 8 hour work day...they went on strikes, they fought for it, they died for
it...how will they be willing to do the work themselves? I think we so often lose sight of these things and people put far far too much faith in the government's desire/ability to do the right thing.
I trust you are one to point out the truth of what is going on in the world that is not being shared by mass media. Outside of music, what one or two truths do you find it most challenging/interesting to champion?
Well, I don't believe in corporations, which
is another thing I try to live by. I do occasionally make it into one and buy something...it is practically impossible not to...but whenever I can I support small businesses, especially local business. One of the things I also loved about living in Philly was that, at least when I was there, the chain supermarkets hadn't really taken over. Instead the neighborhoods simply had grocery stores just on the corner somewhere amidst the row homes, not big separate
buildings with their own parking lots, but just tucked in here and there, and that's where people did a lot of their shopping. In California we are pretty much overrun by Safeways and Albertsons, so it was very different for me and I liked the sense of community that was established by that. Of course I'm also a vegetarian (well, a piscevarian, actually) and I like to also support organic food and sustainability and going into the corner store doesn't always
support that fight, but it supports community and small business, so give a little here, take a little there. I'm not really one to define things in absolute black and white, to say that one cause is THE cause. I like the way that people can organize around whatever cause is important to them and that often times the all seem to lead to the same place anyway as far as battling the corporate dehumanizing but shiny-glossy-prettily-packaged consumer machine. I also have a much
different definition of what I need than a lot of Americans. The idea of always striving after possessions and always wanting more and more and more, but never really being happier with every new acquisition and each bigger house and nicer car just seems a little silly to me. But enough about that...
What are your favorite places to swim, hike and take in the outdoors in North America?
Hmmm, good question...everywhere? Anywhere? I have been in so many beautiful
places I'm not sure I could pick a favorite. And sometimes I appreciate a beautiful snowy rest stop in Wyoming just as much as a trip through Yellowstone Park. But here in Sacramento I spend a lot of time at the
rivers, one of our city's definite strong points. I love places with crazy rock formations and caverns and such too. Overall I guess two of my favorite outdoorsy towns are Taos, NM, which I am absolutely in love with, and Quincy, CA, where my sister calls home.
Did you ever go back to Sedona to take in the vortexes?
No, I haven't been back there yet! But I definitely intend to on my next trip through the Southwest.
Checking the gallery on your site, Southwest Spring 2004...who's that in photo 7?
That's Papa Mali and Carolyn Wonderland at a show we did in Houston, TX. I am a huge Carolyn Wonderland fan, that woman is a goddess!
Is "Restless" about Philly?
Nope, San Francisco actually. But not really specifically. Just written when I lived there.
What was it like growing up with, as you mention in the CD booklet, ukes and accordions, and adventure? What drew you initially to the guitar admist all of those interests?
Oh yeah, okay, so back to that. What that's about
really--the comment on my CD about a family history of ukuleles and accordions--is that in the past year or so I have heard from many of my relatives on my dad's side who have stumbled across me online while looking for something else and have contacted me saying, "Hey, we're related. You're Clyde's daughter aren't you? And, wow, you're a folksinger?" It seems there is a lot of interest in music on my dad's side of the family and it has been really wonderful hearing from people who I've never really known, simply because they mostly live in Michigan (part of the reason for my trip there in the late fall) and because my dad passed away when I was still a child. In part, hearing all of their fond memories of my dad has given me back a sense of him that I had lost, and in turn a stronger sense of myself. So anyway, one of the things that I found out, which my mom never knew, is that in my great-grandfather's generation there was a Chevrette Family Band! And they performed, opening for other bands of the era, and that is who played the accordions and ukuleles! So when I found that out I felt sort of a sense of belonging in it, that music was a part of my roots and I wasn't the first crazy one in the family.
There seemed to be a lot of overdubbing and multitracking of instruments. Was that the original plan for recording?
Hmmm...well I'm not sure I actually had a plan! On my first CD (which started out as a little home burned demo called Can You Hear This?, then grew into the album that is Woman Mother Earth Sky) I sort of developed the plan as I went, because I pretty much had no clue. As far as the recording of it that is. I had ideas of what instruments
I wanted to hear on the songs, but no idea of what was the best way to do it. So I took Jason's advice, and he had me do things over click tracks, although a few things I insisted on doing live, and then we added the other instruments in, usually building off of the guitar and the voice. On my second album I had more of my own idea of what I wanted to do and we mostly did the songs track by track, which took longer than if we had done all the guitar one day and all the mandolin another day, etc., but I feel like it gave the songs more of a unique flavor. As far as the overdubbing/multi-tracking I was going for the clean, super-polished kind of sound on this album and we definitely did some editing--mostly because with the banjo and the mandolin and the guitar and the bass we had 23 strings total and had to make sure they were always in sync. I have a bit of a different idea for my approach on my next album. I love recording, so for me it has just been like performing and building my own music career; I learn it as I go.
I see that Amber Padgett and Jason are part of a band in your area...Spider Silk Dress. What's your take on their music?
I think they are great! It's hard not to love Amber with her
voice and her ever changing hair color. A different style than my music, definitely, but quite loveable in my opinion (and Sacramento's opinion in general). My only complaint would be that in the Indie Rock scene sometimes the lyrics just sort of fade into the background whereas I usually prefer to have them be more in the forefront. And especially because Amber's writing is so quirky and interesting.
Have you read any of Allen Ginsberg's poetry on American politics? If so, do they
resonate?
Oh yes, I'm a big fan! I once wrote a poem about Ginsberg, but it didn't actually make it into my repertoire. It seems like it would be kind of sacrilegious
to perform a bad poem about how much I like Ginsberg...
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