Vail, CO – “Let’s Rodeo” – The Catacombs & State Bridge – July 2, 1998

The CD is mastered!  I have in my hand one shiny, polished, bouncing baby CD. I hold it in my hands and look through the donut hole in the center staring into my future.  This is the CD from which all other Tomboy Bride CDs will be copied.  It scares the shit out of me.  Now I feel like I truly understand the saying “Fruits of your labor.”  This music production is not for the weak-hearted I am exhausted and completely freaked out.  How on earth did I end up with this thing that seems to breathe without me and yet IS me?  Listening to it on the car speakers on my way home from mastering is unbearable.  Each note sounds off somehow yet I know  I’m just too close to it to hear it without all my insecurities clapping my ears like a schoolyard bully. 

I played “Catacombs” this week with The Women From Mars, a collection of local gals who get together monthly despite where they are in their tour cycles.  We play together to benefit breast cancer research.  The night was vibrant and it was healing to be surrounded by my mountain sisters; Wendy Woo, Jude, Nicole Jamrose, Liza Oxnard, and Libby Kirkpatrick to name a few. We strung guitars and tried each other’s gloss and essential oils in the green room. We nicknamed our backstage “the womb” and we bonded, listening to each other’s latest strummings and celebrating our girl power.

I returned home to a call from Phil Ramone (of The Ramones!). He told me he’d loved my tape. “You’ve got a lot of nice stuff here Sally. Send me the CD when it’s done. I want to present it to Music Boulevard,” he said. I was thrilled and flattered.

Kipp asked me to open up for Zuba (the awesome band he manages) for a strand of Colorado gigs.  I was grateful for the opportunity but after our first gig at “State Bridge” outside Vail, standing up under a sign that read “Let’s Rodeo,” singing with my little acoustic guitar for cowboys and Hell’s Angels I realized I’d gotten in over my head.  Kipp and I scored a top bunk in the band house.   The night was cold and every two hours a train passed through the yard so loud it might’ve raised the dead.   The following day Zuba did a radio interview where the drummer, Wallace introduced himself as: “Hi, I’m stoned.”  I’m going to see if Kipp will excuse me from the rest of the dates.