Ben Taylor – Sally Taylor

New Hope, PA – “Bye Sister Sledge” – February 2, 2001

There’s a 4:00am wake-up call on Martha’s Vineyard from my brother Ben, who journeys over to my cabin in the woods with a cup of chai and a tired, no-lipped grin. He waits patiently for me to shower and pack, then takes me in the white Volvo through the blue, snowy, Vineyard roads that lead down to the ferry. These twisty roads are more familiar to me than the childhood I spent traveling them.

The boats in the harbor tremble to and fro in the bitter, shivering water. Ben throws my blue guitar case on the upper level of the luggage rack. This is the brand of winter I identify with. It’s not a soft quiet snow, or a decorated Christmas tree. It’s a bite in the air that makes me squint and clench my shoulders toward my neck. It’s the blue that covers everything and gets under my fingernails. It’s chapped hands and lips and frayed thoughts. It’s hissing evergreens buckled into their roots in a windstorm. It’s the ghoulish vapor that quiet coffee makes, the smell of flapjacks that dad bakes. It’s the goodbyes hollered from loved ones at the mouths of trains and boats over the wail and grumble and churn and bolt.

“Gu bye brother luv,” I say reaching up to give Ben a hug.
“Bye Sista Slege,” He hollers across the parking lot as I board the ferry.

Thus begins a day that threatens never to end.

When the ferry pulls into Woods Hole I take a car to the Amtrak station in Providence, a 9:58 Train to Trenton NJ, and at 3:00 PM, a car picks me up and drives me to “The Lambertville Inn.” The Lambertville Inn is in New Hope, PA, and couldn’t be a nicer, homier place to stay but for one thing — There’s only one room and in that one room, there’s only one bed and, when I arrive, I find one Christopher Daniel Soucy looking very uncomfortable sitting on the edge of that one bed. It’s not as if we haven’t had to sleep in the same bed before. Over the first year of touring I recall sleeping head to foot at least one time with each band mates. But it’s not my favorite thing in the world (no offense Soustopher, you know I love ya.)

“Darnit,” says the promoter when I get him on the phone after the 3^rd try, “we thought you guys were a couple,” “Duo, not couple,” I correct. “Shoot, the hotel is all booked up at the moment,” he apologizes and Soucy and I go out for dinner resigned to our sleeping arrangements. Luckily, the Inn had a last minute cancelation and Chris, wound up in his own room.

The Show was cool. It was in a high school. We opened up for John Sebastian of “The Lovin Spoonful” (Who, coincidentally, my father once opened for in the early 70’s). Our dressing room–a converted classroom, was guarded by some of the kids. They who carried our gear and stood outside our “backstage” door, protecting us, from what I’m not sure. But we never got shot or killed in any way so I guess they did a hell of a good job. One of them was in a band called “Urban Funk Monkeys” and he slipped me a disk to listen to. Not bad Sam.

Sally (Middle) Michael Park (left)
and Todd Rotondi (right)
Photo credit: Gene O’Brien

After signing some CDs and taking some pictures, we went on the town with some friends who’d come up from NYC to see the show.

White tinker bell lights hung from rafters. Snow blew from white shutters and the wind whipped and stung as we walked around the quaint town of New Hope.

We ended up at a local club called John & Peters. The place was stuffed to the gills with handsome women and men wearing Peruvian wool sweaters, slung over chairs like dirty laundry. We didn’t make it home ‘til 5:00 am (I told you it was a long day). The wake-up call came with a ring so loud it tripped me out of my dreams. “Could you possibly call me back in 5 minutes?” I said desperately to the automated wake-up voice before realizing it was a recording.

Ouch!

On our ride to the Philadelphia airport, Soucy and I reflected on how quick, easy and lucrative to our mini-tour had been. But something had been missing from it—something important. When we climb into Moby as a band in Colorado and make our way to the crusts of the nation, there is a commearadery forged between us. When forced to sleep in one bed, laugh at the same billboards, help each other through a hard time, subsist on gas station food, load in each other’s instruments, pick out each other’s stage cloths—that’s when the real music happens as far as I’m concerned. We are bonded as a band under the pressures of the road. While the limos, separate rooms and plane rides were luxurious, I missed the struggle and connection that comes with less. It’s interesting, I thought as I took a seat next to Soucy on the plane, that what makes the road hard is what makes it good.

“Homeward bound,” I said, perching a blue pillow between my head and the plane’s oval window. To which Soucy responded with Simon & Garfunkel’s,

“Home, where my thoughts are na na.

Home, where my de do de da.

Home, Where my la las waiting silently for me.”

I laughed but then the tune got stuck in my head and any time either one of us mentioned the word “home” we’d break into song. Unfortunately, neither of us could remember the lyrics and were forced to do “na na’s” and “do de’s” in place of lost words. By the time we reached Denver, the utterance of the word “home” was banned and if one of us slipped up and said it, it was followed by the universal, fist shaking sign for “I’m going to strangle you if you we don’t stop singing that song.”

None the less….It’s good to be home…“Na na na na la la de do da hm hm…”

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San Francisco, CA – “Visiting my Childhood” – Golden Gate Park – September 4, 2000

Performing at San Francisco’s iconic Golden Gate Park, I’m catapulted back to my childhood adventures during mom and dad’s outdoor concerts. The air is crisp and sunlit, carrying that familiar nostalgic scent that instantly feels like home. I can almost see my younger self playing hide and seek with my brother beneath tables draped in starched white linens, dodging the charcuterie displays that always tempted us—despite being warned to tread carefully.

Backstage, ghost-like plumes of smoke rise from the grill pits, blending with the tawdry scent of the beer tent. It’s a sensory recall of raucous laughter, stumbling musicians, and performers’ spirited spouses hauling pitchers between tents, painting a vivid picture of those vibrant days.
Out on the lawn, facing the imposing, insect-like black stage, there are white blankets scattered across the green expanse. There are free-range children everywhere, their faces adorned with painted butterflies and dragons. The sloping hills are a mosaic of disheveled towels, flapping-armed dancers with sun-kissed smiles, and blue cherry snow cone stained tongues sing along to every song. Charcoaled shish kebabs smoke somewhere in the distance… and then there’s the music.

Hours upon hours of M U S I C. Pure and exhilarating, the melodies float through the air, mingling with beer-buzzed cheers and pleas from the crowd for “more” and “never stop!” The harmony of it all surrounds us—the music, the hum of conversations, the sound of children, and the cheering merging seamlessly with the cloudless sky.

After our set, Los Lobos takes the stage, high-fiving us as we exit, arms loaded with our instruments. Their genuine compliments leave us awestruck. We retreat to the beer tent, our golden pale ale winnings spill as we find a spot on the sunny lawn to watch Los Lobos own the stage. My lungs feel fuller on days like this; the sky seems infinite. I dance with a little girl whose face is painted with angel wings. At the end of each song she yells “AGAIN!” and I can’t help but wonder if she is me, visiting her adult self from all those years ago.

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Boulder, CO – “Vanity Fair”- Between Tours – August 30, 2000

After the John Cafferty show I flew to Martha’s Vineyard for a family photo shoot with Annie Lebowitz for Vanity Fair. I know, this is a huge honor and how dare I mention all this privilege in one sentence. It’s disgusting—an embarrassment of riches — and I should hate myself for normalizing it and I do, believe me, but it gets worse. In the following days, People and US magazine sent reporters to the island to do stories on me—Just ME!!! and I got all caught up in my ego’s sparkly spiderweb. The attention made me drunk and blind and disgustingly ambivalent about it all. Make-up artists curled my eyelashes, lighting specialists lit angles I didn’t know I had and cameras snapped mechanical bites off my soul.

But as the fog of attention lifted and I made my way back to Colorado on the 25th, I felt a brutal hangover from drinking so much false love. I was worried about how easily I’d given myself to the adrenaline and glitter of being celebrated. Didn’t I know better than to get high off that kind of affection? Hadn’t I gone to therapy for a year, for god sake, to ensure I wouldn’t get hooked on applause and yet there I’d been—no resistance whatsoever—guzzling for the cheap buzz People and US and Annie and Vanity Fair offered. I wondered, as I wandered past first class, to my coach seat in row 16B, if my recent heartache had something to do with how readily I’d welcome the drug of artificial affection.

Thankfully, Boulder brought me right back down to size. Rehearsing for a week in a rundown, grungy garage warehouse sandwiched between a homeless shelter and “The Bus Stop” (Boulder’s local titty bar) will bust even the most resilient of egos.

Tonight was our last practice before we leave for the West Coast tomorrow. The warehouses were quiet when I arrived at 7:30 but within the hour, 20 bands would fill North Boulder with a soup of colorful sound—Thrash, Bluegrass, Punk, Rock and Reggae would all blend in the humid air outside our open garage doors until the neighborhood was a brick of impenetrable noise. There would be bad covers of “Brown-eyed Girl,” bad covers of “Blinded Me with Science,” and bad covers of “Fire and Rain.”

While I strung my guitar, musicians skulked like skinny, crooked shadows in the slick, wet parking lot — smoking cigarettes and waiting for their drummers to show up.
Some of them actually live out here in the warehouses — those who can’t live off their gig money or tour too much to justify paying rent on a real apartment. Kyle, our own drummer, used to be one of them. He showed us where he’d made his bed in the very space we were practicing in. “Unit #50 costs $35 bucks a night whether you’re rehearsing or sleeping,” he told us.

Even though it was raining, we left the door open, like the rest of the bands, to avoid the musty, dank, moldy stench that grows on you if you hang around one of these spaces too long. The fan was on and I came up with the brilliant idea to spray my gas station imitation Drakkar into the spinning fan blades to make the room smell better, but when I spritzed the fan, the imitation Drakkar flew directly back at me, into my hair and eyes. The guys howled at my idiocy and I laughed along with them.

We rehearsed for a couple of hours just to polish intros and outro’s and then, loaded up the van. We leave for Salt Lake City in the morning. As I helped Delucchi shove the last guitar into the boot under a yellow street light I thought back to Martha’s Vineyard just days ago — how fast I’d gone from feeling like the bell of the ball to just another struggling musician in a van. I hugged my guys goodnight and drove home to get one last good night’s sleep. I crawled like a hermit crab into my bed and dreamed of the road ahead. It’s good to have my feet on the ground again.

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St Louis, MO – “Disaster” – Cicero’s – May 31, 2000

The Vineyard was just what I needed and while I felt a pang of anxiety when the boys pulled away, leaving me at the airport, I was glad to miss three days of Missouri, “Roller Coster Haven,” and Pabst Blue Ribbon.

On The Vineyard, my mama and I drank chai tea and curled up on her couch. Between her velvet throw pillows, she triaged my shredded heart and we laughed between my tears. She taught me her beauty secrets, “always put a streak of highlighter down the bridge of your nose to make it look slender” and, “use your taupe eyebrow pencil as a lip liner.” She toured me through old photo albums and we listened to sad songs and I wrote a few of my own. Mama absorbed my tears and brushed the hair from my forehead while I told her what a fool I’d been to fall for Sam.

At the end of Memorial Day, when I came downstairs with my overnight bag and a guitar case full of new songs, my mama was awake. Her hair was piled into a little spiky nest atop her sweet head. She greeted me in the kitchen, in her soft robe, a spatula in one hand and a plate of her famous shredded apple Swedish pancakes in the other. We ate with our hands. She poured me a giant glass of grapefruit juice and sang to me, my own lyrics to remind me just how strong and capable I am of getting through this. I hugged her and told her (because it’s the truth) that she’s the absolute best mommy in the world.

On the plane to meet up with the boys, I listened to one of the new songs I wrote and tinkered with the lyrics. It’s called Disaster.

Disaster

I broke my own heart
For the good of my pride
For my own piece of mind and
Left my soul deprived
Now there’s sleepless and sky and
my memories to ride and
A picture of you left on my bedtable side

You’re a distraction to my lonelieness
While I’m in ink jotted
On your “To Do” list
But there’s love in your words
And there’ll be one last kiss
Goodbye and I’ll miss you and
Whatever this is

Now out of this picture, you smile in my face and
The image of you bellow me, I’ll erase
Now I’m a disaster and you’re a disgrace
How funny that this should be “love”

There’s something about this pain
That makes me feel happy
Happy to feel anyting at all
I’ll listen to sad albums and
Cry all day long to
Get you out of my system
One more track then
I’ll move on

Now out of this picture, you smile in my face and
The immage of you bellow me I’ll erase
Now I’m a disaster and you’re a disgrace
How funny that this should be “love”

Missouri was a scorching 95° when I flew in to meet back up with the band. I shaved my legs in the airport sink (sorry, I know that’s gross) and slipped into some stage clothes in a stall feeling like some B-list superhero. I hoped the slip dress mom let me borrow would be appropriate attire for the heat but when I arrived at the club, the air conditioners were cranked to sub-Antarctica, and traversing through two clashing climates for load in made me convinced I was catching a cold.

I remember one summer when Ben and I were kids, my dad took us out on the road and there weren’t enough bunk beds on the bus to accommodate both the band and two little kids. My dad set up a couple of cots on the floor for us and being 6 and 9 we didn’t much mind camping on the floor of the bus. However, the AC was on full blast and my brother’s cot was directly in front of one of the vents. One morning, after a particularly long overnight drive from Pittsburgh to Illinois we woke to find half of my brother’s face frozen and as the day continued, it wasn’t thawing. The poor bugger couldn’t blink let alone take a sip of water without it dribbling out the left side of his mouth. Turns out, my brother had Bell’s Palsy. He spent the rest of the summer with one eye patch over his eye which I tried to make him believe made him look like a cool pirate.

The show went all right. Cicero’s is sort of a jam band gig. The walls are plastered with posters announcing coming bands named: “The Kind,” and “The Shwag,” etc. I don’t mean to stereotype the place. It was clean, (intensely) air-conditioned, had ultra-friendly employees, and filled up pretty nicely for a Wednesday night.

The best part of the show for me was catching up with the band in the green room (literally just a bathroom with black walls and a handwritten note on the door that read, ”Not a Public Restroom.”) Inside the “Not a Public Restroom,” of a green room we elbowed our way around empty gear cases crowding in with us like extra players waiting for show time. Kyle sat on the toilet and warmed up his wrists against an empty drum case, “Thrum thrum thrum.” While I washed my face I listened to Kenny’s excited retelling of each and every roller coaster they rode in my absence. Delucchi laughed at Kenny’s “wooshing” reenactment noises, reliving the experience through Kenny’s vivid retelling.

I was grateful to secondhand smoke their memories, to be getting ready to play another show, to be Sam-free going on one week now, and most of all, grateful (after 5-weeks out) to see Boulder on the horizon.

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Day 70 – “Returning to my Childhood Home” – March 23, 2000

I’m driving back to the studio when I pass my old address, 135 Central Park West, the one with the flat my new album’s named after (#Apt. 6S). The doorman outside is unfamiliar and though I’m seriously contemplating looking for a parking spot and trying to go in, I wonder how I’d explain myself to the austere new doorman. I imagine myself approaching under the iron-clad awning in overalls and green Patagonia fleece and saying something ridiculous like, “Hi, you don’t know me, but trust me, I used to live here and I’d like to go to the 6th floor and take a little look at my old childhood stomping grounds if that’s OK.” The idea seems absurd but before I know it, I’ve parked, slipped my little red camera into my pocket, and locked the door.

The gray-blue stairs of my childhood feel narrower underfoot than I remembered. The last time I walked them they’d hosted at least a dozen voracious paparazzi trying to wrestle my image from my face. My brother and I were adept at the camera dance and knew to take cover under hoods and collars to avoid them, as though they were a sudden rainstorm.

Today there are no cameras, nothing to fear or avoid. But I feel more uncomfortable than ever confronting the tall, Slavic doorman in the lobby. “I’m making an album named after an apartment here that I grew up in, #6S,” I gulp when my intro is met with a suspicious sideways glance. “I don’t know. Would be possible to let me up for just a second? I’d love to take a picture of my old door for my liner notes. Would that be OK?” I’m sure he thinks it is not OK. But, you can’t judge a book by its cover. The new Russian doorman not only believes my story but is delighted to know I’m naming my album something relating to the building. He calls the new tenants and sure enough, I’m invited up.

As I walk the mosaiced hallways down the red strip of carpet, memories flood back. I recall practicing cartwheels with my friend Lark Previn, one of Mia Farrow’s kids, after ballet lessons. Once we’d navigated the grippy hands of the paparazzi outside, we’d uncover our jacketed heads and in long braids and peach leotards, do round-offs and back handsprings down the broad red carpet to the elevator. Lark, second eldest after Soon Yi, always accompanied me to the 6th floor so we could practice our moves a little longer in the 12-foot floor-to-ceiling mirror outside our door.

Waiting for the elevator—the same elevator I once measured my growth by the numbered buttons I could reach—I look up at the crystal chandelier still awkwardly missing gems my brother and his friends used to jump to knock down for their shiny, clear teardrop collections.

The mirror on the 6th floor still warps in the center, making me appear slimmer and taller. I ring the back doorbell and it chims its familiar (still-broken) chime, “Ding, futz,” “ding, futz.”
A small, Latina house cleaner wearing distrust across her brow lets me in even though her boss is out and she wonders out loud about the consequences of her actions. She follows me closely in her head tilted, small-stepping way as I tour my old home in what I hope is the least threatening way possible. I don’t touch walls or handles and let the cleaner reveal what she thinks prudent to show me.

My old room has been converted into an office but still has the white shelves that once housed my dolls. The back alley view from my old window with its cast iron grate looks the same as usual as does the long white built-in closet but none of this is mine. I packed up my memories long ago and I realize I am only a ghost here. Most likely, a ghost that’s making the cleaner nervous.

The photo I took that day of Apt #6S front door

I thank her and leave Apt. #6S with its view of Central Park and slimming mirror and chandelier with its missing prisms and as I thank the doorman and descend the paparazziless steps I feel a little hollow but at peace.

At the studio, Mike and I work late (till after 3:00 am). Neither of us in any shape to drive back to the city, we set up an impromptu slumber party on Whitney’s white, leather couches. We use our jackets as blankets and elbows as pillows. Morning comes too soon but we open our eyes with determination and enthusiasm for This is it. The finish line. This is our last day in the studio!

…..Of course, there’s still more to do—mastering, artwork for the CD, The creation of a press kit and launching of a PR campaign, booking a new tour to promote the album (with our BRAND NEW BOOKING AGENT JONATHAN SHANK!!!!), Getting CDs pressed and getting our new drummer rehearsed. But the album, for all intents and purposes, is finished.

I am the proud mama of 13 new bouncing baby songs. And I’m gonna let you in on a little secret. Something nobody yet knows. We’re gonna combine “How Can I” and “Bicycle” to make one long 12th track and throw in a hidden “sally as a little girl ‘pumpkin song’” in between, just to give people something fun to find if they leave the CD running too long. So now you’re in the know! Thanks for following along on this record-making journey. Enjoy…

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Day 67 – “Naming the Album 6S” – March 20, 2000

I grew up on the Upper West Side of New York City with a sprawling view of Central Park from apartment “Success.” At least that’s what I heard my parents say when they directed the local grocer for deliveries or their fabulous, bangle-wearing friends for parties. It made sense, after all — my famous parents lived in an apartment called “Success.” Of course, they did and, of course, my brother and I lived there with them; born into success, not owners as such, but entitled squatters. It was only when I started writing pen pals that my understanding was shattered.

“In the return address,” my mom dictated, “you’ll write Sally Taylor, 135 C.P.W Apt #6S NYC 10023.”

“How do you spell ‘Success'” I asked.

“A-P-T period. The number 6 and the letter S,” she directed, unaware she was shattering a belief I’d held since birth. Alas, apartment “Success” was only ever apartment #6S (Floor 6, Southern facing apartment). “Success” was as illusory as the great and powerful Wizard of OZ. #6S was The Man (woman and children who lived) Behind the Curtain; A real address with real lives and problems and joys and failures and, yes, successes too.

I’ve decided to name this second album after my birth address “Apt. #6S” to remind me where I come from; both a delicious, outrageous illusion, and a geographic address as real and permanent as its bricks and mortar.

This CD is a dedication to making success where you live.

APT #6S will be released in early May and will be available online from this website and at shows.

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Day 57- “My Dad’s a Badass” – March 10, 2000

I’m coming down with something. My nose is runny to match the watering of my eyes and the pounding of my head. It was a mistake to think I could fly to New York Monday and then back the next day to lay down horns without compromising my immune system. But there was no way in HELL I was going to miss my pop getting inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Paul McCartney did the induction honors. He was lighthearted and loose. He talked about the start of The Beatle’s record label “Apple,” back in the 60s and how after looking for some talent to put on it, came across a recording of some “haunting” guy who could really sing and play the guitar. They signed James Taylor immediately as one of their first artists. Paul handed the mic off to my dad with a hug. Pop was dressed n black looking not unlike the award he was presented.

Handsome, humble and hysterical my dad held his shiny, new chrome statue in hand. He thanked everyone from his mother to his tour bus company for helping him receive the honor and then, looking severely at the weapon-like statue in his hand said, “I only hope one of these doesn’t fall into the hands of someone desperate enough to use it.” He was a champ and it was a thrill and honor to watch him along with my brother, grandmother and his “snookums” and fiancé Kim, be recognized and embraced by his musical community.

But now, I’m sick and for the past 4 hours (no exaggeration) we’ve been trying to move a horn section on “Fall For Me,” into place. My ears don’t work right anymore. There comes a point in listening to a track where I can predict where flaws are coming and mentally prepare my brain to adjust my ears so that I don’t hear the blemishes. It’s a very odd and frustrating phenomenon. While there isn’t a specific term for it, the concept relates to how brains anticipate musical patterns. The ear develops expectations based on a song’s structure, and when something deviates from that structure (like a mistake), experienced listeners can (intentionally or unintentionally) anticipate it and adjust their focus. I might leave the studio tonight thinking everything sounds perfect, only to return tomorrow to find an entire vocal track racing, or pitchy or missing a lyric. It’s infuriating.

Time does not pass; it just piles up on itself like dirty laundry. It’s 9:45 when I glance at the clock. Then, after what seems like 20 minutes I look again and it’s only 9:47. Two slender minutes have passed and I’m glaring at time as though my intimidating expression might speed the second hand around the racetrack perimeter of my watch face.

I’m in no immediate rush. The rush is not against the minutes but against the months and so I push on fragile seconds to get home, to get to the studio, to get to the next song, to get the artwork done, to get to the plane, to get to New York next Monday, to get this album mixed down, to get this album mastered, to get it pressed, and packaged, to get the band rehearsed and out on the road and promote it. And so I rush it all toward an uncertain future, as though my intimidating expression might speed the second hand around the racetrack perimeter of my watch face.

And now it’s 9:50 and I’m still sick but also still grateful I got to see my dad inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. You’re a badass dad.

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Martha’s Vineyard, MA – “Gig with Mom” – February 27, 2000

I flew home to Martha’s Vineyard on Monday. The winter landscape was purple and honey and the water undulated in a metallic cerulean dress. We rehearsed all week, my mother my brother, and I, for a concert in New Orleans that’s scheduled for tomorrow. My mom doesn’t like to perform period, so rehearsals are mandatory not only to tighten up the band but to loosen up the mom.

While I’d hopped a United economy seat to Boston before a two-hour Peterpan Bus and a ferry to The Vineyard, I was leaving the island in style. Yes, indeed. I’m currently writing from the belly of a cush private plane en route to NOLA. There are platters of cheese & crackers, sushi, and mini omelets. There’s champagne and linen napkins and seats that, not only recline but pivot 180º. I feel VERY spoiled. There are pros and cons to having famous parents. This is a pro. The plane parts the sky like a comb through straight hair and the pilot addresses us personally when he tells us what we can expect from the flight.

But as clutch as my surroundings are, while I’m writing it doesn’t much matter where I am physically— I could be anywhere; in the back seat of Moby, the Alaskan outback or the waiting room of my dentist’s office because I’m not where my feet are. I’m in my own little world. I spend the majority of every day here; daydreaming, remembering, foreseeing, creating, conversing with my better angels, and conspiring with my little devils. The world I escape into is sort of like the “I Dream of Jeannie” bottle. It has velvet cushions and taffeta drapes and is built from a lifetime of amalgamated fragrances and fabrics and love scenes I once watched on TV. In my head, I’m always in luxury because I really love my life, even when it’s challenging, it’s always got cheese platters, 180º swivel chairs on demand, and duct tape to fix almost any situation. It does not, however, have sushi so I must admit, it’s a total plus to come out of my Jeannie bottle, grab a little California roll, and a smidge of wasabi before heading back into my bottle for the next paragraph.

What it feels like to go into my writing world

I’m excited about Mom’s gig but it couldn’t be coming at a worse time. The record is left unfinished back in Colorado. I feel it sitting inside me like an unmade bed. It’s hard to leave a project undone and unchaperoned, especially in that zoo of a home studio back in Boulder. But I’m crossing my fingers and toes that nothing bad will happen in my absence and that I’ll be refreshed and ready to dash to the finish line when I return.

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Day 28 – “Sometimes Hums Along” – February 10, 2000

There is a draft in my heart. I try to shutter the door against it but the cold gets in. I am pregnant with a sorrow that tosses in my belly, kicking to be born into song. I go through Kipp withdrawals 6-7 times a day. Sometimes they manifest when I’m feeling lonely and instinctively want to call him to tell him something funny or ask his advice about something I’m unsure of. I miss him at bedtime. I miss him in his kitchen at Timber Trails making breakfast and matte. I miss him at night, out on the town dancing his unique straight-arm dance. Most of all, I miss the man who was my best friend—the one I shared my time, secrets, fears, joys, body, dreams, and life with for the past two years. Now, he’s gone, and I hide in the studio, away from the ghost of Kipp who still lingers in my home. Ugg, my home with its unmade bed, unwatered plants, sleepless nights, and screaming phone. Ugg, my kitchen with its haunted faucet that drips, drips, drips into my subconscious, blending with an assortment of hums, mumbles, and sighs.

To make the situation more confusing, in the midst of losing Kipp as my boyfriend, my brother has decided to take him on as his manager. I have no idea how to navigate this situation.

Thank God for my mama. She’s been there for me through all of this. All my instability, regrets, fears, anger, and insecurities. Last night, she stayed on the phone with me until my tears sealed my eyes shut, then lullabied me into a stream of dreams. She managed to give minimal advice—just comfort, which is all I really wanted, not a cure. Definitely not a cure. A cure would require energy I just don’t have right now. This morning as the dull winter light haunted my room, she called just in time to distract me from my impending woes. She told me she’d found photos of herself in the studio from when she was pregnant with me. One of them had a speech bubble she’d written at the time that prophetically read, “Hey mom, let me out, I’ve gotta sing my song.” She read me old-school reports from when I was six as I drove north up Broadway, and stayed on the phone making me laugh until the mountains around the studio ate our cell reception.

In the newfound silence, I was consumed again by my grief. Boulder was white—like frozen breath, blank sheets on the bed, Clorox, sheep, sightless eyes that cannot sleep. There was nothing outside except white, as though someone in charge made a typo in the morning and ended up whiting out the entire day.

I grabbed my guitar from the trunk and walked, coffee in hand, through the narrow parking area towards the studio. I was looking down at my mug to make sure I didn’t spill when I walked straight into a 13-foot pole saw tied to the roof of Chris Wright’s midsize Mitsubishi. For anyone unfamiliar with this style of tree-trimming device, it’s a combination of a scythe and saw attached to a long pole used to reach high limbs. These tools are notoriously sharp in order to accommodate the user’s lack of leverage from the ground. The blade struck me right between the eyes and before I made it through the door I could feel blood pouring down the bridge of my nose, cascading down my chin and dripping into my mouth. Soucy put ice on it and some lavender oil. Chris Wright arrived as Soucy was patching me up. He was in striped pajama bottoms slurping milk from a bowl of Captain Crunch, and between bites mumbled something about “gotta watch where you’re going.” It’s official; I hate Chris Wright.

We’re working on vocals for “Without Me,” which seems appropriate. It’s a song about how lonely and hollow it feels to be loved when you’re disassociated and without yourself.

I know there is a day outside
A night or a starless dawn
I’ve seen her out there smiling
Just off the front porch lawn
She’s sitting up impatiently
In her best wedding gown
She’s waiting for the spring to come
And though she has no voice for song

I feel she enjoys listening
And sometimes hums along.

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Boulder, CO – “Sibling Show” – Trilogy Wine Bar – January 14, 2000

I’d booked the gig months ago without considering two key circumstances:

1. I’d be in the throes of preproduction with barely enough voice to laugh with let alone belt out a solo acoustic show with.
2. I probably didn’t have enough material to cover a two-hour set by myself.

As the days approached the opening of Boulder’s newest nightclub ‘Trilogy,’ my limitations, both vocally and mentally, became painfully apparent.

Pre-production was wearing on me. It was wearing on all of us. 11-hour days spent on our feet, basking under fluorescent light bulbs, strapped like mules to our instruments — it was grueling. The worst part was that there were times we’d be approaching the completion of an arrangement only to realize, four hours in, that we’d been moving completely in the wrong direction. Michael White, our producer, has the patience of a monk—something the rest of us lack. We’re moving at a rate of 1.5 songs a day and I’m so saturated by my music it’s hard to bear another listen. I wear my jammies to save myself time when I return home late at night. I eat health store sugarless gummy worms between takes and drink yerba mate tea. I try to keep my voice from slowly disappearing but there’s no doubt about it, it’s going; and now… this gig.

Realizing I’d need help filling a two hour set, I called my brother Ben, who happened to be in Boulder for his own show. “Wanna play a gig with me this Friday?” I asked, I’ll be fun,” I promised but didn’t know exactly what to expect myself. He agreed and a great pressure was lifted off my back. I was truly jazzed to play with him. We’ve never really done anything like it before. I mean sure, he’s come up to sing backups at shows, but we’ve never actually co-worked a room. I was looking forward to it.

It snowed the day of the gig. Big chunky flakes landed and stuck like velcro to my sweatshirt as I walked, head bent, guitar in hand, toward the venue. Sound check was smooth in the spanking new theater. Pedicured red velvet curtains kissed the hem of the stage and candles, shackled in iron sconces, tripped and bounced their light against black, high-gloss walls. I asked the manager, Josh, if there was a backstage Ben and I might work on some harmonies. Josh looked worried — a ‘left my keys at home’ worried, not a ‘the venue forgot to create a backstage’ worried. Then he remembered ‘the storage space’ and directed us to a large-ish closet furnished with partially unpacked boxes, an overhead bulb, and a couple of low stools, which no doubt had been recently set up for us. We were grateful for the privacy. The storage room’s pine shelves were lined with jumbo jars of garbanzo beans and stewed tomatoes. Bottles of foggy, blue-grey, clam juice stared down at us from the mezzanine as we took our seats.

We worked up a set list and some loose harmonies in that little storage room. As friends arrived, they joined us in our closet. It was a comedy of errors as we packed ourselves in like sardines, hung snow-covered jackets on broom poles, and knocked drinks out of each other’s hands with rogue shoulders and elbows.

The sibling show was a success. Our harmonies were effortless and our banter was playful. We slipped in and out of songs like old familiar boots. The crowd was energized and somehow knew the words to some of our songs. By the end of the night, I realized I’d managed to hold on to most of my singing voice even though my talking voice was completely gone. I sold some CDs and even traded one for a massage. When the candles were blown out and the new Boulder club stage had been christened, Kipp escorted Ben, Brian Mcrae and I back out into the storm and up to the Fox Theater to watch Carl Densen’s Tiny Universe. We funked out to in proper form into the farthest reaches of the night.

One more day of preproduction. Oh please, tiny voice, hold out.

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