a pretty exceptional songwriting story

By now, probably most of you in New York know the astronomical success story of Kerrigan-Lowdermilk's kickstarter campaign which netted them 35K for their album project, Our First Mistake. (Kickstarter's been pretty decent to us, too). But since I've spent a lot of my time these days talking to young theatre hopefuls about the business, I thought I'd talk about it a bit for you Scottish/World readers. 


Our First Mistake finally came out this week and the last time I checked, it was like #14 on the itunes pop charts?! Congrats to Kait and Brian, for sure. 


It's hard to know where you support is going to come from. And everyone is going to take an individual path to getting what they want in this business. Sometimes, you lay groundwork for years and years slogging through things, feeling like you're getting nowhere, and then all of a sudden, you adjust one knob, and the whole thing comes into balance. 


This happens on a macro level-- like with your whole career. On a project level, like a technology platform that allows you to really reach your fan-base and raise 35K! And on a micro level-- the daily rewards that keep you going. When you get a song absolutely right. Or better. That was good, but this is better. 


I can think of countless examples of this in the stuff Steven and I do. And other friends. And with pillars of the industry. And with my favorite song from Kait and Brian's CD, "Two Strangers." The song is from their show, Tales From the Bad Years, and was originally sung by three women. 


Then K-L cast it with guys. Of course, I'm willing to admit my bias here (I will be loving and working with MK until you pry my pen out of my cold, dead hand)-- but I also think I'm right-- K-L put the most precious honeychild alive out front. Morgan Karr. Mmm. Finding the perfect singer for your song is special. And when they did that, something extra happened. Something laced with the magic you wake up every morning to chase.  Buy this track. Just buy it. Wait for "Or at least I've been told SO..." 50 seconds in and prepare to DIE. 


Because Morgan Karr sounds like sweet buttery ice cream on this song. 


I know what you're thinking. "But this is an expensive fancy kickstarter-funded recording. Bet it wouldn't sound that good live?"


Wrong.  You go, Morgan, Matt, Jay, Kait & Brian.

Happy Birthday, Haviland!

Today is the most glam-fabulous person I know's birthday. That person is obviously Haviland Stillwell. I could start listing all the infinite ways this friend has changed my life for the better. But I actually feel like the joy from our friendship can best be expressed in this video. It's from a beach trip we took last February in Los Angeles with Andrew Keenan-Bolger and excellent writer/badass chick Ashley Reed. It makes me very happy to hear everything that is awesome about Haviland echo out into the world.

Happy Birthday, Baby Bird!!!

iona's breakfast

"Great, or maybe we could go somewhere and just eat a bunch of caramels. When you think about it, it's just as arbitrary as drinking coffee."

One night in Edinburgh recently, McC, Iona and I were talking about the trend of blogs devoted solely to what the girl who runs the blog wore that day. A litany of outfits and pouty poses. I have perhaps a rather mean-spirited tendency to make fun of them, though I suppose I do see the point. I like clothes too. 


And in a way,  you could argue for clothes as wearable art. And I suppose that if you want to get down to it, the art stuff I talk about on here is just as pointless. Priorities, perspective, yada yada.  And I do think that clothes can help you feel confident...ok ok.


But for the sake of this blog (and Iona's new blog) let's just allow ourselves to be snarky about it for a minute. So Iona said, "I'm going to make a blog where all I do is post of a picture of what I eat for breakfast every morning." And she did. And it's genius. 


I like that she posts the breakfast at the end of day-- somehow allowing for a causal kind of thought process. That the events of the day could actually be traced back to the muesli with raspberries, etc. Also, Iona is a really good writer, and should probably have a whole lot of readers, so go check her out. 

tiger classic rock series

She crawls, guys. She's mobile. The world will never be the same. Here is the latest in my Tigerlily as classic rockers series. You may remember Tiger as Elton John. Now, I present to you: Tiger Springsteen. Which classic rock look should we give her next? Kiss? The Beatles St Pepper? (Because we already have the jacket for that... just saying...)

the russian arc

In my total Russian immersion the past week or so, I've watched and re-watched a lot of the Russian classic films, documentaries, etc. From a four-hour long documentary on Russian Imperial history, two versions of Anna Karenina (Vivien Leigh wins, obvs, but the Sophie Marceau has the visual). 


But no visual or experience has trumped one movie that I almost didn't watch-- Russian Ark. Russian with English subtitles and the first 5 minutes-- I'll quote Jon Schumann "deliberately paced (read: slow)." But as I continued to watch and finally went and investigated, I found out that it was both was and was not deliberately paced. 


After four years of planning and assembling 2000 actors in the Hermitage Museum (including the Winter Palace) all 96 minutes are unedited, single take, single shot on a steady cam. 


I wonder how it would play if you didn't already know a lot about Russian history-- as very little is explained. But everything about Russian Ark helped me in my quest to give a soul to some grandeur and tragedy that I have few resources to show visually-- the way Alexander Sokurov could. The way this film manages to be both comprehensive and completely slice of life-- that's exactly what I need for Nic & Alix. 


And that soul of which I speak of, hope to capture... Some days, I feel daunted having never gone to Russia. But I think about the Marquis de Custine quote (who is a character in the film) from La Russie en 1839 "Russian civilization is a thin veneer of Europe on an Asiatic soul."

Also check out the making of... starts here

the heartbreaker

Last weekend, Iona and I had a great Saturday night in watching movies and eating Chesnut paste out of a can. (???- I know, but it's delicious.) 

I was pretty worn out after a failed trip to London, but I always have fun with Miss Iona and after much deliberation, we decided on popular recent French Flick, The Heartbreaker. 


I might be a little bit in love with Romain Duris (I'm sure I'm not alone.) He is the perfect French movie star to my imagination. And he is charming, charming, charming in this movie. I smiled a lot. You will too. Check it. 

high, high so, high so-sigh, high society

I've been feeling a bit blue the past few days. I'm sure writing about the Romanovs all day long isn't helping. I  have a tendency to internalize whatever I'm writing about-- maybe that's why I like comedies. When I feel like that, it means I need to listen to some musicals (non tragic that is.)

It's also no secret that Grace Kelly is the pinnacle of pretty much everything as far as I'm concerned, so today, I'm going to indulge in some lyrics from the master, Mr Cole Porter, and Bing, and Grace, and Old Blue Eyes. And Louis Armstrong. 

If you're bored and it's as rainy where you are as it is where I am, I'd watch High Society if I were you. End of song, beginning of story...

today feels like this

Today feels like this. That is all. Happy Friday!

Orfeh sings Villain's Girl

Thanks to Orfeh, for posting this on her official youtube! It will be up on ours later today. This version reflects some of the changes we've made to the song over the years, plus some of the original things. I think Orfeh pretty much kills it. (And you know she dressed for the part!)


Happy Thursday! It's felt so nice to be knocking out so much Nicholas & Alexandra lately. I love getting stuff done. I finally caved and made a facebook for Nic & Alix, so if you feel so inclined, go ahead and like us here. 

this is not about you, man

I've been planning on writing about this since I first heard the story on NPR while I was back in the states. I'm obviously plugged into any kind of large writing prize for writers under 30 (though time is running out for me to qualify for that!) and the Dylan Thomas Prize from the University of Wales is the biggest. 


I was struck by this NPR feature about Elyse Fenton and her prize-winning collection, Clamor-- I was actually angry. Here is a woman who wins the largest writing prize you can win-- she's the first poet and the first woman ever to win it---- and her husband is worried about how it will reflect on him?! 


Talk about missing the boat. Perhaps it's just the spin that NPR is putting on the thing, but I can't express to you my degree of deep deep frustration with a husband who would diminish his wife's extraordinary achievement, as well as her very real experience of being a war wife, by fretting over what his war buddies or anyone else might think of him. 


Just listen. What do you think?

emily hogarth

My newest artist obsession is Emily Hogarth. I discovered her (and this amazing print with lyrics from "Caledonia") at my favorite little shop with no name in Edinburgh. I couldn't get the print the last time I was there, but you can bet I'll be back to snag it. I can see it hanging in my amazing New Town flat there next come September. 


She works mainly in paper cuts-- which you can tell even in her prints. I love that she says she's trying to make everyday magical. That's certainly a goal I can get behind. 


She's got a great blog and an etsy shop with a lot of her prints, including some of her other Edinburgh-inspired prints. But this one is the one for me. It's daydreamy. 


Back to writing. Day one yielded a tear-jerker song for Nicholas in Nic & Alix. It's really fun and funny to write songs with Steven over skype. But so far so good, right?! And tonight starts auditions for VOTE! in St Andrews. Hope to see some fierce belters out at the Barron tonight!

I Start My New Job Today

photos by Nick Gaswirth

Today, I start my new job. I hired myself to write full time from 10AM-6PM Mon-Fri until classes start again. With the amount of work I have to get done by February/March, it's  a necessary measure. But I'm excited since Steven and I have been asked to do some really cool things coming up. They're all due at the same time, but I guess when it rains awesomeness, it pours, right? 


Remember that concert I was telling you about back in November? Here's some pics of the Baby Birds singing numbers from VOTE! including Wicked's current Glinda, Katie Rose Clarke rocking out the revised "Mr. President." I can't tell you too much about how the song plays out in the show now (it's not in the beginning),  but if you want to know, you can come check out the production of the show here in Scotland later this Spring. (Auditions start TOMORROW!?!)


Steven and I have been working together for ten years this year-- across three continents. I think 2011 is going to be the best of those ten yet! Thanks for your continued support. 

Not a London Sunday

Hello from snowy Edinburgh. Supposed to be in London, but the snow delayed our plane so much, it didn't work out. Sad. Sophie and I were going to go to a flower market today. And Sara didn't even end up making it into London until 1:30AM.


But we had some good times on our trip. Including an outing to FabHatrix where I actually bought a hat. It looks like a fedora in the picture, but it's not. Sara, obviously did not buy the one she tried on. There was this really fabulous stressy FIT student in there going on and on about the stress of NYC. It made me feel really excited that I live in Scotland. 


I think I'm going to hit up Artisan Roast for the third day in row. It's my other favorite coffee shop in Edinburgh (next to Leo's Beanery, which is closed until January 14-- and the longer they're closed, the more I'm loving Artisan). They have dreamy beverages like white hot chocolate with lemongrass and rose and black pepper hot chocolate. Amazing. There's even a lavender one. I think it might be Steven Jamail's dream place. 

McC and I Make it to Tigerlily

McC and I have been dreaming about the Tigerlily Hotel since back in July when we cooked up this little trip of hers. Yesterday, on our smash-and-grab tour of Edinburgh, we finally made it there. While the place is already a little dated, we loved every minute of it. And you can't beat two entrees for ten pounds and two hours of good conversation. 

Today: Edinburgh farmer's market for hog sandwiches and haggis (She's gotta try it) and a flight to London! Tomorrow, I'll post more about our adventures.

fabhatrix and edinburgh

McC and I are off to Edinburgh this morning. I can't wait to show one of my oldest friends my favorite city! One of the places I'm dying to show her is this funky hat shop in Old Town, Fabhatrix. Iona and I had an excursion there a few weeks ago where I almost found the hat of my dreams.


This place literally has every kind of hat (handmade) you can think of. I wanted a lot of them. But I do have all this fluffy hair, which has always made wearing hats a bit impossible. I always think of the quote from You've Got Mail: 


"Once I read a story about a butterfly on the subway and today I saw one. It got on at 42nd and off at 59th where I assume it went to Bloomingdales to buy a hat, which will turn out to be a mistake - as almost all hats are."



But today, I'm feeling lucky. I could use a little luck these days. Let's see if my life-long quest to become a hat person can take one step closer to becoming true.

Sophie's at the Troubadour

photo by Sari Ember

Lovely Londoners- What are you doing tonight? I know what I'd be doing if I were in London. I'd be seeing the wonderful, adorable, ethereal, poet/singer extraordinaire, Sophie Ramsay, at the Troubadour. I was lucky enough to catch her practice sessions of her set while I was at Bamff over New Years, so I can say with certainty, you're in for a treat. 


Doors open at 8PM and tickets are only 7 pounds. So if you're in London, head on over to Old Brompton Road. (For the record, I'm intrigued by other performer Tinsel Mouse-- just for the name.) As it stands, I won't be in London until Saturday night. Who wants to hang out?? 


Check out some awesome Sophie here. 

positively fourth street

Late yesterday afternoon, my good friend Jon sent me an email that went a little something like this: "Correct me if I'm wrong, but is this your old corner/building?" With a link to photos similar to the one above. That is my old apartment. And my old favorite bodega. Burned down.


See those big windows. My room was right above that. I had a lot of good times in that apartment & almost everyone I know has spent the night at some point. There were 6 civilian injuries. I have no idea if my old room mates were among them. I do know it spread to my old floor. 


There's nothing like your apartment burning down for a sign you were supposed to leave New York. 

and puts apparel on my tattered loving

Sometimes, it seems like books are brought to me. Dropped into my lap for me to find at a specific moment. I bought my professor Don Paterson's new book Reading Shakespeare's Sonnets as a gift for a friend of a friend. Turns out, I bought the wrong one and so I decided to just keep it. I picked it up yesterday to read it and haven't put it down since. 


It's a book about Shakespeare's poetry, but it's also a book about poetry as a whole. 


It's told in typical Don style-- the best of his speaking style really. Completely casual, it's pretty much like having a conversation with him (But a little easier minus the brogue).  He talks about couplets being in the "country & western idiom" so much  that he'd like to hear "sung by Merle Haggard with a cod piece." Once you've gone through all 154 of them, he begins the commentary with "Last poem. Group hug!" 


And it truly is a modern, normal person's book on some of the most famous (And some over-looked) sonnets ever written. From the great Insomnia sonnet, #28 to the "young lovers: this poem is not for you" #118.


One such overlooked gem is probably my fave Shakespeare sonnet, #26.  He says this: 

There are few poems that handily articulate anything like 'common emotions'; WS's experience is too singular, and he's too weird a bloke. However, in a way he's done something even more remarkable: he's written a poem that, when you intone it, when you inhabit it, can make you physically feel like you're in love again. You remember? Love, in all its derangement, fatal hope, excessive caution, recklessness, sleeplessness, nausea, delirium, euphoria, terror, in all its strange superstitions and propitations... it all comes roaring back, and you feel, to quote CK Williams, 'the old heart stamping in its stall.'

Ah.
Do yourself a favor and buy this book. 

photo by David Sandison

bright green scotland

I know I've mentioned that all the Ramsays are cool, but this past week, I finally got to meet ALL of them, including super-activist, Adam. We bonded over a love of coffee and a train ride where I learned all the candidates in his website's "Dick of the Year" contest. It's pretty funny and today is the last day to vote. So I recommend you take a mosey on over to Bright Green Scotland and check it out. 


Personally, I'm a fan of the Italian president, Silvio Berlusconi, uniquely qualified to be dick of the year after purchasing a new (magnetic) one for a statue,  Fabrice Tourre (from Goldman Sachs-- who nicknamed himself the "Fabulous Fab" [gag]) and John Hemming, the LibDem MP who actually went and commented on his own Dick of the Year nomination. Wonderful. 


Even if you're not Green-minded, read and laugh at some of the ridiculous stuff politicians and various other powerful types have tried to pull this year. Don't forget: today is the last day to vote!

further mysteries of childhood: pinkie & the blue boy

One of my favorite memories of the part of my childhood when I lived with my mother is when the family heirloom Pinkie & Blue boy paintings came to live with us. To this day, I don't quote know their story of how we got them. How valuable they were (if at all.)


My mom knew pretty much nothing about art, but she thought these were the originals and the most amazing paintings ever. She also thought they had been painted by the same artist (they weren't). All I knew, is that I wanted to be Pinkie. Only once I was moved out, living with my dad, and had gotten the internet, did I start to research the paintings I had stared up at in our living room. 


While I doubt the paintings (inherited from my great-grandmother) were the cheap $30 print variety (Ethel was too much a snob for that kind of thing) I wonder what kind of reproduction they were for our family to assign so much value to them. And I wonder where they are now and if I'll ever see them again. 


I think about how we decide to assign value to things all the time. The gold standard. Art. Reproductions of art. I suppose it's a habit from growing up in a Buddhist organization whose name means "value creation." 


Maybe one day, I'll track them down and hang them in my house in Scotland.

murder mystery new years

Be prepared for awesomeness. My friends are fun. And the Hercule Poirot party was a huge success. I can't remember the last time I had that much fun on New Years. (It might have been the Dan Band/Mandalay Bay year.) We played fun crime games, danced to 30's tunes DJ'ed by yours truly, and Gretchen even wore a dress!

Huge thanks to Iona and Zaza for being such fabulous hostesses and friends. We lit the sky lantern covered in our wishes for 2011-- I wished for  a five figure book deal, a Broadway musical, and continued luck in meeting friends who just blow me away. Hope your 2011 is great already!