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Correspondence: 2009-06-17: Note From Amy I am backstage at The Calvin Theater in Northampton. I had a great day, took a long bike ride and ate Thai food. Emily and I are really digging playing the new songs on this tour. I put together another little clip of work in progress. Here we are arranging a song of Emily's called "Love of Our Lives." Mitchell is directing us as we play through the song. This one took a while to get down, but now we open the shows with it. Enjoy! AR
Correspondence: 2009-05-29: Note From Amy It’s
late; I got sidetracked by the spelling bee on TV. Whew that was
tense, but very fulfilling. The May tour was super! The food drive is gaining momentum and at this point we have collected nearly 2 Tons of food plus financial donations to distribute an additional 28 tons more. You are all really doing your part.
We enjoyed the music and company of some excellent opening acts - Matt Morris, Anais Mitchell, and Terri Hendrix with Lloyd Maines. Here's a little video of Salty South with Lloyd on Dobro, and Terri on Harp and vocals.
Okay, here's the next installment in our series of Poseidon And The Bitter Bug studio sessions. In this arrangement session, we are working on a song by Emiily - "I'll Change."
Here is what we find: Mitchell Froom expounding upon his vision for the song; Amy taking as many written notes as she can; Clare playing some stunningly gorgeous bass in a very cool way; and Emily singing and playing her way through the song with songbird clarity. You might notice that some of the harmonies did not end up on the CD; they were too busy. You also might notice that we put an instrumental break in the acoustic version of this song, which featured Allison Brown on guitar. Those are things we haven't sorted out at this early stage, but it's pretty clear where we're headed. More
next week :)
Correspondence: 2009-05-18: Note From Amy & Emily
New Orleans is still in a rebuilding and recovery process from the hurricanes and floods of 2005. We'll be passing through there in a few days and wanted to do something special to give back to this amazing city and cultural landmark. One of our close allies, Sweet Home New Orleans (SHNO), has done some brilliant work in returning musicians to New Orleans to continue living and playing music in the city they call home. SHNO is a non-profit organization whose mission is to support the individuals and organizations that will perpetuate New Orleans' unique musical and cultural traditions. They help New Orleans musicians, Mardi Gras Indians, and Social Aid & Pleasure Club members get on their feet, get to work and revitalize the community and cultural economy of New Orleans. Over the last four years, SHNO has provided over $2.4 million in direct financial assistance to more than 2,300 members of the city's music community. At our Tipitina's show on Saturday May 23, we'll be hosting a silent auction with the highest bidder getting to sing "Closer to Fine" with us on-stage that night. You'll also get to take home a recording of the song's performance. If you'd like, you can go in on the bid with up to three of your friends. At the show, look for the silent auction table where you can make a bid on the prize and learn more about Sweet Home New Orleans. We will accept cash or credit card for the highest bid. The auction will close at 11pm. Thanks ya'll. We look forward to seeing you at Tip's! Amy & Emily
Correspondence: 2009-05-12: Note From Amy Hello, I am currently in San Francisco. I just had an incredibly healthy and tasty meal at Gratitude-yummy! This is the first installment in a series of scenes from the rehearsal, arrangement, and recording sessions for the making of Poseidon And The Bitter Bug. The video camera was passed around from tripod to hand to hand. Everyone pitched in to document a bit here and there. I will be posting in the order in which it was shot. I haven’t even seen all the tapes, so I will be discovering just what we have as I go. My iMovie skills have a slow learning curve, but I think these videos in their raw form will shed some light on our album making process. To set this up a bit, at this point, Emily and I have spent a month alone arranging the songs, and then a week with Mitchell Froom tweaking our duo arrangements and experimenting with keyboard parts. The videos begin during the process of fine tuning our arrangements even more and bringing our bass player, Clare Kenny into the musical scene. (All apologies to Clare for starting our filming process while she’s in the hot seat.) Matt Chamberlain will be joining us on drums when we hit the recording studio. We had worked on the song “Digging For Your Dream” the day before this series starts, but that tape got corrupted….Hopefully, we will see some footage later of where that song ended up. In this first scene, Emily, Mitchell, Clare, and I are working on “Sugar Tongue.” feeling the fire in a big way.
Correspondence: 2009-05-05: Note From Amy I have heard and seen so much incredible music these past few months. Sometimes, it dwarfs my own stage experience, because I often find I'm more of a fan than a musician. Not to be self-deprecating at all, I am just feeling the fire in a big way. Here is a list of shows I have seen that have won me over to the bright side: Detroit7 - You have to YouTube them! Japanese garage rock at it's best. Brandi Carlile - She's been doing an acoustic tour with the twins in small rooms, previewing some of her new songs. What a treat. They prove to be perfectly magical in the small spaces and the intimacy lets you experience the rock vibes in a big way. The new record is coming soon and it's going to be her best yet. Bruce Springsteen - Bruce is one of the only bands I want to see at an arena. He plays it like a bar and no matter what song he chooses, the show never lacks for me. He is ever present, soulful, fun, deep and a man of the community. Michelle Malone - She is in rare form these days. Her guitar rises above the rest and her voice is whatever she wants it to be. MM has a new CD out called Debris, it's getting rave reviews. Once again she proves she can rock like no other. I was blown away by her most recent show. Ani DiFranco - We just played a show with her in Madison, WI - the 100th Anniversary Party/Benefit for The Progressive Magazine. I haven't seen her in a while and I have to say, I was stunned at the power of her performance. I regretted how long it had been because this is the kind of energy that can keep your life humming along. Screaming Females - Well I didn't actually see them, but I YouTubed them on Emily's recommendation and wow, talk about guitar players, the woman fronting this band is killer. I ordered the CD the old school way, from Don Giovanni Records, and you probably should too. There's so much good music out there right now, that I was glancing at someone's mix CD and didn't recognize a single band.... that was exciting, always more to discover.
As some of you know, with the help of Rock for a Remedy and our audiences, we have been collecting food for community food banks as we tour. At this point, over 1 ton of food has been collected and this food has been donated to local food banks in each community we have visited. In addition, our audiences have made financial donations that will allow these same food banks to distribute another 22,000 (11 tons) of food to those in need. We have also collected over 500 pounds of pet food on the April tour. A big thank you is owed to the national Humane Society of the United States. They worked diligently to connect us with local animal shelters and rescue organizations in each of the cities we visited. They specifically paired us with organizations that have established pet food banks and are already serving those in need. We'll be continuing this food drive through the summer. We'll be taking food donations in every city and pet donations in most of them, so let your friends know to check out the website about the current campaign. Thank you for making such a big difference in these hard times.
While I was on tour, I did get a chance to visit the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis and see where MLK Jr. was assassinated. I can't believe I had never made this visit. I felt the power there, but in a very humble way. The site of the museum is connected to the motor lodge where MLK Jr. stayed and spoke his last words off of a balcony. It's such a plain little motel, it made me realize what a man of the people he truly was. That's a strange way for it to occur to me, but I stay in a lot of hotels, a lot nicer than that one, and I guess it made me feel pretty small and awestruck.
Okay, I think that's about it. Stay tuned. I am working on editing all the footage we took while rehearsing and recording Poseidon and the Bitter Bug. It's coming your way very soon. Amy
Ray P.S. And here's Gracie saying "good night."
Correspondence: 2009-04-03: Note From Amy 4-3-09 Delta Flight 125 I am heading out to California for the first gig of our new tour season. Our new record has had its first week of the world and everything feels in order. IG’s are playing at the Dinah Shore Golf Tournament, a first for us. We’re taking advantage of an early arrival and hunkering down in a dressing room for the day to practice our new material with Julie Wolf. Julie will be on board for the majority of our tour season on keys and accordion. This is especially exciting since out new record has so many important keyboard parts. Emily and I have just finished a crazy run of promo shows and a trip out to Singapore to play The Mosaic Music festival. Singapore was a totally new experience, our very first Indigo Girls’ gig in Asia. I started the trip in grand fashion. As luck would have it, I ended up on a luxury airliner with all business class seats. Actually they were more like cubicles. I could have been happy flying twice as long as the 18-hour journey just to take advantage of the quiet time and space. hmmmm ahhhhh…and the service. I think I am officially spoiled by Singapore Airlines.
I tried my best to avoid the insane jet lag and made plans to do something as soon as I arrived. Our sound engineer-Brian, guitar tech-Sullie, and I traveled out to the Singapore Zoo. Animals seemed like a good destination for my tired brain. I used to hate zoos, but it seems like my obsession with seeing certain animals outweighed the nagging sadness of seeing them in lock up. This was one of the new “natural environment humane zoos.” I figure no matter how natural the environment, it’s still a cage; the animals are martyring themselves for the cause of educating humans to be more in tune with species endangerment and extinction. It turned out to be a really fun day with some amazing animals. I really liked seeing different monkeys just hanging out in the trees. While winding up our zoo visit, we got hit by an afternoon, monsoon-like rainstorm, but Sullie worked a little magic and got us a taxi back to our hotel. These afternoon showers became a staple of our very tropical stay in Singapore. Our
trip to the Singapore Zoo
Our hotel was located in the middle of the hugest shopping malls I ever seen. Singapore is famous for being a trade center and they really don’t mess around. I think from the earliest of times (like the 1500’s), its location in the midst of the trade winds created a situation where ships had no choice but to stay a while and it became global trade center. The 100’s of shopping malls, and I am not exaggerating here, seem to be an extension of that. The population is hugely diverse and you can hear a good many languages on any walk through town. We had a great time doing press because all the interviewers were clever and had a good sense of humor. It was strange but very pleasing how consistent that was.
We weren’t back in the states for a day before we left for Austin, TX to play at the South By Southwest Music festival. I was completely spacey from the travel. The first of three shows we played, I made a ton of mistakes-all apologies to whoever was there. I just couldn’t remember chords and words for the life of me. It got better with each show. We had a surprise invite to do the Perez Hilton show. He was super nice to us. Our last show was at Stubb’s-our normal haunt in Austin. I haven’t been to SXSW in ages and I used to go every year and hear a bunch of bands and discover new music. This year, even though I felt pretty delirious, I went out for shows on both nights we were there. My favorite two shows were Daniel Johnston and a band from Tokyo called Detroit7. This trio of two women and a guy played a bad-ass garage rock set as part of Japan Night- a night that I always try to catch because it never fails to blow me away. I danced like crazy and sweated, and had what I can only describe as a religious experience. Not unusual for me, where music is concerned. I bought the T-shirt and the CD!
See ya out there on the road. I know times are tough, so we appreciate you buying the tickets and showing your support for live music :) xoAmy
Correspondence: 2009-03-24: Note From Emily and Amy Dear Friends, We all know that the economy is hurting badly. Job losses, home foreclosures, and pay cuts are just a few of the crises Americans are facing. But did you know that 1 in 8 Americans are going hungry? 35 million Americans are unable to put food on their tables. Last year, the demand for food from food banks rose 30%. There is something we can do to help. During our 2009 Spring and Summer tours, Indigo Girls will be partnering with Rock for a Remedy to help our neighbors who are hungry. We are asking you to join us in this effort. Rock for a Remedy (RFAR) is a grass-roots non-profit organization bringing together socially conscious musicians and their civic-minded fans via food drives all across North America. All donations are given to area food banks in local communities. What can you do? Please bring food to your Indigo Girl’s concert! Bring canned or boxed non-perishable foods. These will be donated to a food bank in your community. If you bring 4 or more food items, you will be entered to win a signed copy of our new cd, ‘Poseidon and the Bitter Bug’ and other memorabilia. The only shows where we won’t be collecting food are April 4th in Palm Springs and April 30th in Wisconsin. For all other shows, we welcome your generous donations. In addition, we will be working with animal rescue groups and pet food banks to organize the collection of pet food at concerts. Declining household incomes and foreclosures have meant that some pets cannot be fed. We believe everyone’s bowl should be full! Please check our website for updates on pet food donation concert nights. We can come together to ease the burdens of those hit by hard times. Bring your voices and your gift of food to the concert and we will rock for a remedy. With Big Thanks, Emily and Amy For
more information, www.indigogirls.com
or www.rockforaremedy.org.
Correspondence: 2009-03-17: Blog From Emily I
can’t believe it’s been almost a year since we made ‘Poseidon and
the Bitter Bug’. Matt Chamberlain, our drummer for ‘Poseidon…’ only
had four days available (he is one of the most in-demand drummers
in the world), so we cut 10 band songs in four days. I found the
pace to be exhilarating and the decision making process to be unencumbered
by the luxury of time. We had to go with our gut on performances.
Sometimes in the studio, the more you belabor things, the less energized
they become. So I really feel that the particular pace of making
this record was helped by our limited budget and schedule. Working
with Mitchell Froom is a fantastic experience, and he played all
over this record (thankfully!) and elevated the songs to a new level.
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