Divisadero/Marvelous Toy/One Trick Pony

I went out as promised last Friday night and attended a dual CD release party for two local bands, Marvelous Toy and Divisadero, with special guests One Trick Pony. The show was at Pehrspace, a non-profit venue and art space in Historic Filipinotown (just south of Echo Park). It’s BYOB with friendly habitués, the kind of place where the bands sell their music out of suitcases after the show, and it has an awesome artist-friendly policy: with $5 cover, 60% of their proceeds go directly to the musicians that play and the rest goes to pay rent, utilities, etc. The crowd was near capacity all night and the music-loving audience was truly appreciative of all of the performers. The first act One Trick Pony performed as a three-piece, with guitar, violin, percussion and textured vocal harmonies. Randolph Williams III formed the band in 2003 and his former manager Jenny Teixeira joined later as drummer. Williams' voice is soulful and his lead vocal meshes well with Teixeira's soprano backing; violinist Charlene Huang provided haunting strings to the core duo for this show. There is poetry in One Trick Pony's lyrics and a quality of longing that's very touching. They played a short set, intended to end with the one-two gut-punch of "Children I" and "II", but their audience wheedled more, and the band gladly obliged with an encore song (with Huang in an aside to Williams, "I really like this place!).

The second band Marvelous Toy was on board to celebrate the release of their second collection, All Is Quiet. Founder Jordan Hudock fronts the band on vocals, guitar and keys and also writes the songs, flanked by his brother Cody Hudock on keys and sleigh bells, Franck Fiser on drums and percussion and Ny Lee on backing vocals, piano and glockenspiel. Bassist Justin Fields pitched in for the Pehrspace show, with Hudock saying, "He makes us sound like a good band!" They played a mix of music from the new CD and older songs - one highlight was "You Were Brighter," a song from The Disappearing Heart (the group’s first CD) that has a memorable video, viewable on their MySpace page. One Trick Pony played only a handful of songs due to time constraints, but Marvelous Toy delivered a longer set of nine tunes, closing with two great numbers from the new EP: "The City is a Washing Machine," a love-hate song to Los Angeles, and what may be their strongest track to date, "Waiting for the Fire." This song has settled into me for a long run since the show, and I told Jordan that he needs to get it into a movie - it's very dramatic and melodic and would lend itself really well to film. Marvelous Toy manages to combine modern indie pop with a Western sound to make something that is truly unique.

The final band Divisadero opted for a full-on orchestral effect, bringing nine people to the stage for an epic set. They were debuting their new release Lefty, a concept album about the life of a boxer during the Dust Bowl era. With influences ranging from Woody Guthrie to Sonic Youth, the lineup included everything from saw and spoons to churning bass, heavy guitar, a cello and another guest appearance by Charlene Huang on violin. A loop of atmospheric black and white film imagery was projected onto the wall behind them throughout, elevating the show to the level of performance art. I have to say, I was absolutely entranced. The combination of the moving images and the wall of sound created an effect like a cascading waterfall of energy. I sat on the floor right in front and absorbed the spectacle for over an hour, and when I left I still felt tingly from all of the sensory input.

It's easy to see the motivation for each of these groups - these performers threw themselves into their music heart and soul like mad, passionate lovers. It was beautiful to see, and I found it all very inspiring. I also love Pehrspace and plan to go back as soon as possible - it's exactly the kind of place I want to support.

Check out the following MySpace profiles for more info on these bands:

One Trick Pony: http://www.myspace.com/onetrickpony

Marvelous Toy: http://www.myspace.com/marveloustoy

Divisadero: http://www.myspace.com/soundsofdivisadero

And last but not least, Pehrspace: http://www.myspace.com/pehrspace

Marvelous Toy at Pehrspace - New Music Release Party

I am going to Pehrspace tonight in Echo Park for the CD release party for this band:

http://www.myspace.com/marveloustoy

I reviewed their first CD for Performer Magazine (quoted on their website, here: http://www.marveloustoy.net/press.html) but have never made it to a live show. There's a bar-b-q in the parking lot beforehand - this should be fun. I'll do a followup review of the show.

All I See Is Darkness

This is so funny.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/fashion/18GOTH.html?_r=1&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin

I may be grown up, but I am still Goth-identified.

Music Industry Self-Destruct Mode Continues

Here's an interesting music-related article:

http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=130766

I especially like the description of the business as "delusional." That's just spot-on.

More Etsy News

I posted about fifteen more vintage clothing items for sale on Etsy, and I sold one within an hour of logging off. Must be a record. I noticed my shop has more fans, now, for a total of fourteen. I spent some time this weekend making jewelry and trinkets from fabric which I will post soon in the crafts sections. I also convinced my designer/artist friend Oz to start an Etsy shop last week to sell his paintings and drawings. As soon as he gets some items listed, I am going to form an Etsy team with him to have cross-promotional events for both of our stores. His shop is named Forestgod, and mine is Fleur D'Amour, the flower goddess - an unbeatable team.

My latest shop updates are here (also in the sidebar to the right):

http://fleurdamour.etsy.com/

New Fleur D'Amour Photostream at Flickr

As I noted on my writing blog, Parsifal's Horse, I have posted a number of photos from my recent trip to France to my Fleur D'Amour account on Flickr. They can be viewed here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/fleurdamour/

I took hundreds of pictures and will be adding more in the weeks to come, so please check back. I am also adding the link to the sidebar at the right for future reference.

Words and Music

I've been neglecting both this blog and my music activities because I've been very focused the last few weeks on editing my first book, The Flower of Knighthood, and self-publishing it online. I took it to a conference in France and the preparation for that has been consuming me as well, but I got back home this past week and have been working on updating all of my sites and social networking to set the stage to move forward on all of my projects. I'm going to start focusing again soon on upgrading my computer system so it will be enabled for more comprehensive work on my music, and I've been doing some research on more music magazines to approach with my writing. I did attend an amazing music event in Rennes, the town I stayed in in Brittany, the most northwest region of France. The group was Diabolus in Musica, and they set the poetry of the trouvere Chretien de Troyes to music and performed it live with traditional Breton instruments and visual effects reminiscent of the illustrations in illuminated manuscripts. The show was about an hour long and free to attendees of the conference. It was part of a whole series of events sponsored by Rennes in association with an exhibit of King Arthur material at the Champs Libres, their local arts center, library and museum. Rennes is a college town and the capital of Brittany, and while it's relatively small, it's extremely cultured for a town its size. Brittany has a long Arthurian history, and the conference has been held in Rennes twice before, so they were happy to have the organization (the International Arthurian Society) back for another cycle.

http://www.diabolus-in-musica.net/english/indexframeen.html

http://www.leschampslibres.com/36392593/1/fiche___pagelibre/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rennes

http://www.uhb.fr/alc/ias/version_ang/ang_historic.htm

On a musical note a little closer to home, but also fairly definable as diabolus in musica, I've been listening a lot lately to the two newest Nine Inch Nails albums, the instrumental Ghosts I-IV and the unorthodoxly released The Slip. Both are awesome, though some of the lyrics on The Slip are even more disturbing than the usual NIN. I'm going to a couple of the upcoming shows on the Lights in the Sky Over North America tour, and I'm looking forward to them. All of the NIN shows I've been to over the years were among the best live shows I've ever seen.

Etsy Update

I've had my shop active on Etsy since June 1, and I already have made nine fans and three sales, two of them international, and I got my first criticism today, from someone who disagreed with how I worded an item listing. Welcome to the public sphere, Fleur D'Amour. I also posted a lot of vintage items over the weekend and have more to put up this week.

Making Bank

I made my first two sales in my Etsy.com shop! I am very happy. I set it up to finance my art projects, and I'm glad to see it generating some interest. I was pleased the other day to see that five people have already listed me as a favorite shop, and now I've sold two small items. The store has only been up a short time and I've listed about twenty items so far. I have a whole rack of vintage dresses I still need to post, and some cool 1980's shoes, and a lot of little things that I made. I've got my work cut out for me the next few evenings, but it's already paying off.

Part of Ladytron/All of Datarock/Sorry, But I Missed Modwheelmood

I promised a review of the Ladytron show I went to, but I can only provide a partial one. The evening did not go very well. It got off to a rough start early on because of a low-speed car chase that happened right in front of me in Hollywood (see the details here: http://cbs2.com/local/Chase.Crash.Suspect.2.737325.html) and caused delays all evening. I was late getting home because of it, and late getting back out, and missed the first band, Modwheelmood, entirely, which is a big bummer. I also did not realize I had missed them until Ladytron came on, because I thought they played second, not in the opening slot. I was stoked because I found a decent parking space on Sunset, but I was missing MWM all the while I was walking up to the Music Box. Datarock was the second band, and I did see all of their set, I sat down just in time for it. I had heard of them but wasn't really familiar with anything beyond their name. They're a four-piece from Norway, and while not really a classic for the ages, they were really funny. They all wear matching red tracksuits and dark wraparound shades, and when I first saw them in a magazine a while back, I remember that I thought, ok, what is THIS all about? The look kind of turned me off at first, but then I realized they were European, and it became ok, which I can't really explain, except that it works better for slightly geeky but sweet Scandinavians than it would for middle American smart-asses, which is what I thought they were at first glance. (The tracksuits also remind me of a time when I was working at an office in lower Manhattan that fronted onto Chase Plaza, just above Wall Street, and I came down the escalator to the ground floor to be confronted with the sight of the Beastie Boys dressed in tracksuits made of fun fur in primary colors, hopping around under a giant outdoor metal sculpture and being filmed for a video.) Datarock spent most of their set jumping up and down and did a coordinated Oompaloompa-like dance at one point that was hysterical. Their opening song was an ode to Molly Ringwald and the crowd was happy with interactive numbers they knew well, including I Used to Dance with My Daddy and Fa Fa Fa.

Ladytron came on after a protracted period of downtime - it must have taken a lot to set up their synth bank. Unfortunately, the stress of the earlier cop drama I witnessed and the resulting difficult time I had getting home, all as the coda to a busy week, had taken a toll on me: by the time the headline act came on, I was exhausted and had a bad headache and a worse attitude. The earsplitting volume and epilepsy-inducing strobe lighting effects didn't help. I lasted three songs before I felt so physically sick that I had to bail. I went home and got in bed and slept for thirteen hours. I'm not sure if it was just that I was overstimulated and overtired or if I just don't like this particular band live, but I felt a real aversion and had to get out of there. So, sorry, y'all. If I get a chance to see the band under better circumstances, I will, and will write a more comprehensive review. I like seeing shows, and I like writing about them. I've been doing this for so long that I write the review in my head while I am watching the band, whether I've got an assignment or not. This was just a bad night, and I used up all my good cheer on Datarock.

Crafts Shop Progress

I bought a new digital camera last week and have been busily taking photos of merchandise I want to put up for sale on my Etsy.com vintage and crafts shop, the one that I hope will provide some additional funding for my art projects. Check out the sample photos on this post to see what kind of stuff I plan to have in the store. I'm working on writing item listings this afternoon.

Music Box

I am going tonight to the Datarock/Modwheelmood/Ladytron show at the Music Box in Hollywood. I'll come back with a review in the next few days.

She's Crafty

In order to speed things up a little in my aims to get a brand-new Apple laptop for my music projects, take some more classes, and pay for some recording studio time, I have opened up a little vintage and crafts shop on Etsy.com. I like to make things, and I like to do vintage resale, and this way I can make some extra money by doing something that I really enjoy. I'll also add the info to the sidebar on this and my other blog, but here it is, too, in case anyone wants to stop by and check it out. I haven't listed any items because I've been busy figuring out how to set up the shop, but I should get some things up for sale by later this week.

http://fleurdamour.etsy.com/

Spin

I thought of a really good idea for a music article, and I just pitched it to Spin. I hope they go for it. If not, I have some backup ideas for other places to shop it, but it would be really cool in that magazine.

Love and Rockets = Emotional Fireworks

A little more about the Bauhaus final project and break up for freaks like me who are interested. I have not heard Go Away White yet, but it makes sense that this level of volatility exists in that band. You can definitely hear it in their early music.

http://mog.com/Sturgell/blog_post/141197

Coachella

I have to miss Coachella this year because it's on the same weekend as the LA Times book fair that I feel I need to go to, but three of my housemates are there this week doing set up on different projects. I am trying to pitch a magazine article interviewing all of them about what they are doing. One is on crew, one is a VJ and visual designer who is working on an installation and the third is on an event team with an outside organization. I think this article could be amazing. If it does not get picked up, I am still going to interview all of them for my blog.

More Microphone

I emailed Bob Wayne from Sunburst Recording Studios today and asked him about coming back into the studio over the summer to use the Neumann microphone I discovered in the mike technique class I took there. I loved the way my voice sounded on it, and I'd like to build some tracks around a vocal line recorded on it. Bob called me right back, and is going to have his Pro Tools guy contact me to figure out the best way to approach this, since I want to incorporate the vocals into electronic compositions.

Gothic Lolitas, Forest Spirits, Love and Rockets, and Galapagos Tortoises

I wanted to chronicle my weekend because it was very enjoyable. I did a lot of different things than I have been doing lately, and it felt really good.

On Friday night, I got home and my housemate Brent asked me if I wanted to join him to watch a movie. That sounded like a really good idea, so we headed upstairs. He had not picked anything out yet, so after some fits and starts we both decided we wanted something not too taxing on the brain, and fun. He recommended a Japanese animated movie called My Neighbor Totoro, and from the opening credits it was obvious that we had made the right choice. It was made by the same guy who did Spirited Away, Hayao Miyazaki. Totoro is about two little girls whose mother is sick with tuberculosis in a hospital and who move to the country with their college professor father. In their new home, they encounter soot sprites and bunny-rabbit spirits and they find the shamanic world tree. Deep in its trunk, the littlest girl Mei meets Totoro, a huge and benevolent, if inarticulate, nature guardian. The world of the movie is very like a Shinto folktale with animated dustballs and an overlapping of imagination and reality. I really enjoyed watching it and went to bed happy.

For my first stop on Saturday, I participated in an Earth Day sale event at Buffalo Exchange on LaBrea. The store has vintage and resale stuff, and they were putting a bunch of items out for $1 each with all of the proceeds to benefit a Galapagos tortoise habitat rehabilitation foundation. I thought there would be a big crowd, but it was a really weird scene. I parked around the corner and walked up and there were about twenty people milling around on the sidewalk. At first I thought they were at the restaurant a few doors down for a brunch waitlist, but as I got closer I realized they were indeed at the store. The way the sale was being handled was that one bin at a time of the cheap goods were being brought out from the back, and the people were hovering in wait for that. As soon as a new bin was carted out and set down, they were on it like piranhas. I’ve literally never seen anything like it. I’ve done my share of thrift-moshing, and I’ve seen grown women scream at each other at the Barney’s sale in Manhattan, but this was something else. There was even a sign on the wall saying “Cash Only” and “No Fighting!” Apparently there was a physical altercation the year before; way to get into the charitable spirit of the event, guys. There was some stuff that no one wanted, a few picked-over bins that I rooted through, and I found one faux tortoiseshell (how ironic) belt that I liked, with a sort of rune pattern on it. I paid my dollar and left so I could go eat something and find parking for my next stop, which was the highlight of the weekend. Amoeba Music in Hollywood participated in Record Store Day, the event designed by indie music retailers to ask for support from fans and to give back to the music community. Amoeba had bands coming in all day for guest DJ spots, and the 2 pm slot was occupied by Daniel Ash and David J from Bauhaus and Love Rockets. I LOVE those bands and I got gothed out in a long black dress and arrived early to stake out a good place near the stage. It turns out there was not much of a crowd specifically there for them (besides the usual weekend frenzy at Amoeba) because the set wasn’t promoted very widely, but there were a handful of other black-clad fans there who must have responded to the email blast like I did. I was looking at CD’s around 1:45 pm near the front of the store, and turned to head to the back of the store for the set. There was a dude walking right in front of me in black knee-high boots, leather pants and a wool military coat, with long black hair. I thought for a second, the way he's dressed, he must be here for Bauhaus. Then I realized, no, he IS Bauhaus – it was Daniel Ash. Yaay! He was walking in with a box of vinyl to spin, and vanished into the backstage area with an Amoeba employee, a lady whom he seemed to know well. David J showed up a few minutes later, wearing a really nice black suit. I hung out by the small but expertly-curated media book section until Brently Heilbron came out to announce raffle winners and Bauhaus. David J spun for the whole hour, starting with the famous whistling song from A Fistful of Dollars and segueing into dub reggae and electronica. He’s very proper and professorly, and seemed a little rattled by the rapt attention he was getting from fans grouped around the stage, including me by that point; I had picked up an armful of books and was camped out by the country music bin. He stepped up to the microphone and gave a “nothing to see here” announcement to reiterate that he was spinning and not performing, but only a few people trickled away. He then announced that he had a stack of stencils designed by an artist friend of his free for the taking, and put them and a bunch of stickers on the stage. I went up to get some, and a friendly audience member handed me a stencil, which depicts the angel from the Go Away White album cover along with the Bauhaus face logo. Daniel Ash came out a few minutes later and started a surprise autograph signing. He was very sweet and personable, talking to everyone and signing as many stickers and stencils as anyone wanted. I got in line and when it was my turn I told him I was very glad they have a new record out. I stepped back toward the book section and kept reading the stuff I had pulled out while absorbing the music and general vibe. One book I looked at was Gothic Lolita, a collection of hundreds of photos of Japanese kids, most of whom dress like china dolls or Marilyn Manson. One girl was my Japanese soul sister: her apartment looked exactly like mine except her books were in Japanese, otherwise it could have been decorated by me. She is a clothing designer and I loved the self-made velvet suit she was wearing. I also read an astrology book called Rock Your Stars! which was sort of enjoyable in a dumb way. The last book I looked at was a photography book by David Byrne of Talking Heads. I saw some of his work in a Soho art gallery in New York City a few years ago, and this book was really cool. A lot of the photos were from Mexico City and featured things like a booth full of cherubs and Baby Jesuses for sale in an outdoor market. The last pieces were a series of photos of books on topics of spirituality whose titles when strung together seemed to point out a pathway to paradise. I could feel all of the images working on my subconscious and combining with the music, and it was all very creatively stimulating. I was done with all the books I wanted to look at, so I put them back and then I went over to the Goth/Industrial section and wandered around there for a few more minutes. The set finally wrapped up and Daniel Ash disappeared, but then I noticed that David J had stepped downstage and was also signing things and talking to people, so I hurried back over. Mine was the last autograph he signed, and I had to duck under obnoxious people with a digital camera to get to him, but he was very gracious and waited for me. I wanted to get him to sign the stencil, too, as well as Daniel Ash so I’d have a complete record of the event, and so I could hang it up on the inspiration board of images I keep hanging over my desk at home. (It's in good company there, because the idea board already has a lot of angel imagery alongside other music stuff. It's like superconcentrated creative energy that I use to help me write.)

As an aside, this was my third close encounter with Daniel Ash. I saw Love and Rockets back when I was just a teenager, and I stood right in front of him in a small club in Austin, TX. We sort of stared at each other because I was only about four feet away from him on the front row. I clearly remember I was wearing cool black leather lace-up boots that were new and that I was very proud of, a black t-shirt and red tartan pants, and my mother's old black cashmere cardigan sweater that she bought in Scotland. My second brush with him was when Bauhaus opened for Nine Inch Nails on the With Teeth tour. Daniel Ash ran into the audience playing guitar, and came and stood right in front of me. I also reviewed his solo album a few years ago for a music newspaper on Long Island. As for the rest of Bauhaus, I met Peter Murphy once long ago in New York City and he seemed very, very strange. I think he is a brilliant performer, but I also think from my brief observation of him that he is the kind of artist who has a very challenging demeanor, not a mean person, but not approachable in any sort of normal way. It's very difficult to interview someone like that; I did not interview him, I was just sort of around after one of his solo shows, and watched him interacting with fans. I'm not sure I would want to interview him, although I love his music. I could be completely wrong about him, there is also the issue that after a show, the artist is often emotionally tapped out, or supercharged and ready to hit the town, yet that is when everyone wants to talk to them, and it's not fair to judge them solely on how they present themselves in that moment. They've already given it all up on stage and just want to get away, and who can blame them? But also factoring in the difficulties Bauhaus had that caused them to break up in 1983, and the interpersonal issues that apparently arose during the making of this new record (this is absolutely fascinating, see the last paragraph under "Reformation": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauhaus_%28band%29), I think that there is something about Mr. Murphy that is indeed complicated.

After Amoeba, I decided to go back to Buffalo Exchange to see if the crowd had dispersed. It was on my way home, and I still wanted to contribute more money to the turtles, and as I had been leaving before, I had heard the guy working the sale say that the bin they had just brought out was the last one. I swung back by, and the pandemonium was gone. It was just me and one girl who worked there in some awesome shades and an ‘80’s sweater. I found four things to try, and gave her a five and told her to keep the change for the charity. I ended up giving one of the t-shirts I got, for an L.A. skate and surf store, to my housemate Dave because he moved out here from Florida a few months ago with a light load and he needs clothes. I also got a cool polyester ‘70’s shirt that I may resell somewhere else, not sure yet. I like it but am not sure it’s me.

I love thrifting because I love clothes and I always notice them, and one girl at the Bauhaus event stood out to me because I was so impressed with her personal style. She was wearing all white except for a black waist-length cape decorated with a vintage brooch, and she was small and very pretty with long dark hair sleekly pulled back into a ponytail. She was subtly goth and very elegant in an understated way. I was also happy with what I was wearing, a long black handkerchief-hem cotton skirt with a lacy Mexican dress layered over it, with sheer ankle socks, an unstructured jacket, also black, and a gold purse and flat shoes I bought at Target that are made from richly patterned and multicolored ribbons (http://www.target.com/Xhilaration-Sable-Ballet-Flats-Tapestry/dp/B000PW502G/sr=1-2/qid=1208823777/ref=sr_1_2/602-3825320-7192648?ie=UTF8&index=target&rh=k%3Aribbon%20shoes&page=1). I’ve been trying lately to update my style while keeping true to my roots, and I really liked that outfit because I felt it looked both classically goth and modern. I’ll have to remember it.

On Sunday, I just did chores around the house and worked on my manuscript rewrite for The Flower of Knighthood, and that was all good, too, because I was a little tired from the rest of the weekend. I said in my last post that I wanted to get out more, and this was all awesome. I really have been holed up in a cave writing my Parsifal book and it feels good to introduce some more energy flow. Stay tuned for further adventures.

For more on the Galapagos tortoise charity drive: http://www.buffaloexchange.com/bulletins_det.php?Bulletin_ID=787
For more on David J: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_J
For more on Daniel Ash: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ash
For more on Amoeba Music: http://www.amoeba.com/
For more on My Neighbor Totoro: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totoro

Silver Lake

I plan to start going out more often in Los Angeles, because the music scene is so amazing here right now. I've met a lot of musicians with my freelance writing, especially for Performer Magazine, which covers the indie scene. Local bands I have covered include Earlimart, Twilight Sleep, Great Northern, Everest, West Indian Girl, The Deadly Syndrome and Marvelous Toy. I've also covered West Coast regional bands like Minus the Bear from Seattle and San Francisco goth group Veil Veil Vanish. I go to The Echo and Spaceland a lot for shows, and I want to start branching out more. There is so much going on here on any given night you have to pick and choose well, but I get so creatively stimulated when I do go out that I am trying to avail myself of the resources and get out there. I have been kind of out of the loop the last few months, because I was writing my second book all of last year, a project which completely took over my life, and then I was taking music industry classes during the first quarter of this year, but we're coming into spring and summer, and I want to get out and circulate and see some bands. Rock on.

Mike Technique

I took the second part of my mike technique class on Saturday, and it was awesome. It was held at Sunburst Recording Studios like the first session, and we finally got past theory and to actually working with the microphones. I learned that for recording, my voice sounds best by far on a condenser microphone. The best effect we got was on a $3,000 Neumann condenser mike, but a decent second choice was an AKG model, because not all studios are going to have the premium one. We also tried me on ribbon and dynamic microphones, but the condenser mike really brought something out that the others did not. I have an alto voice that's slightly breathy but is strong on the lower notes, and the Neumann really captured all of its qualities. I sang an original song, This Is My Gift For You, that I wrote a while back in NYC, and everyone liked it, and liked my singing voice, which was nice to hear.

To hear a demo soundfile of This Is My Gift For You, please go to: http://www.fleurdamour.us/SOUND.html

Music Magazine Editorial Project

I may be getting some project-based editorial work soon at a music magazine here in Los Angeles. The assignment would involve helping editorial staff pull together old materials from their archive for an anniversary issue coming up. I would be able to do the work on my own time, which is great. I'll post more about it once something is concrete. This is from contacts I made in the UCLA music industry class that I just took.

Fleur D'Amour

Fleur D'Amour is a lovely princess,
Heiress of the queen, the goddess,
Sweet reflection of her mother,
The divine incarnated as the daughter.

Fleur grows in a lonely forest.
Love is lost 'midst rainstreaked tempests,
Tossed into a tower very high,
Held against her will in captivity.

Who amongst the kingly princes
Would step forth as fate evinces
A destiny of thus twice-doubled good?
Whoso would venture into that wood

To thus claim the hand of virtue?
Whoso would grant this girl her rightful due
Whence he sees how fiercely she has strove?
Whoso would claim the heart of love?

- Fleur D'Amour - Lyrics Copyright by Susan Brooks - All Rights Reserved.

To hear a demo soundfile of this song, please go to: http://www.fleurdamour.us/SOUND.html

Fleur is Germinating

I've been somewhat remiss lately in both working on my music and updating this blog, because I have been really focused on my writing projects. I've been working on my books and journalism, but I am hoping to get more of a balance going with my music by summertime. One music project I have been working on lately is making reference recordings of all the songs that I have written and that I want to actualize. I have about sixty that have complete melodies and lyrics, and about twenty more that are lyrics only and need melodic development. I am saving up to buy a MacBook Pro, because the laptop I have is inadequate to my needs for making music the way that I want it to sound. For now, I am making hard copies of the songs for my own reference, like a sound library. I'm also working on updating my songbook. Some of my lyrics have evolved a little since I set them down, and I need to bring them up to date. Administrative stuff like this is kind of boring, but it helps me develop and refine the songs, so I feel like I am laying groundwork for the future. I plan to have the computer by August after I return from a conference related to my book-writing, and hope to spend a lot of late summer and fall working on composing instrumental parts to accompany my vocals.

Music Industry Classes

I need more exposure to sound equipment, so I've been taking some classes lately in studio recording at Sunburst Studios in Culver City. The courses are offered through Los Angeles Westside Extension and Los Angeles City College, for anyone in L.A. who might be interested in taking them in the future. I've taken an all-day recording seminar and one three-hour mike technique class, and I have part two of the mike class coming up. Last fall, I also took a class in Cubase at Pierce College in the San Fernando Valley. I just finished a class through UCLA Extension called The Music Industry Now: Where Is It Headed? which covered music marketing in the new digital media era. That class was amazing. We broke into teams and each group presented a marketing plan to break an artist. I have very little marketing experience, but it was really a good learning opportunity. I had a fantastic team, and we got the highest grade in the class, not to brag - I lucked out and got matched up with great people. I am trying to take a lot of classes in this kind of thing right now because L.A. has so much to offer in media and music that I don't want to miss anything that might help me.

My Latest Music Journalism - Twilight Sleep

There will be some overlap on this blog between my music and my music journalism. Here is my latest music article, a profile of Los Angeles/Silver Lake band Twilight Sleep published in Performer Magazine.

http://www.performermag.com/wcp.spot02.0804.php

The Importance of Artist Support

I live in an artist's community in Los Angeles, and we recently had houseguests. One lady wants to make a career of singing, and plans a move to Austin, TX to pursue that dream. I used to live in Austin, and I think she will do well there. She is interested in bluegrass music and Austin is a great place to develop traditional forms of music like country, bluegrass, folk, etc. I went to the University of Texas and the music scene was always thriving in Austin, and more so now with the SXSW festival every year attracting more attention to the town. (As an aside, I attended some of the very first SXSW - it was held in a hotel downtown, and consisted of only a few panels and no performances that I know of. How things have changed.) I bring this up because we started talking and she told me that she has written a handful of songs. I pulled out my songbook later and looked at it, and I remember the very first song I ever wrote, and how excited I was about it. It's a few years later and I have now filled a notebook with songs, some finished and some in progress. I showed her that songbook to encourage her, and to demonstrate how if you keep after something, you can cultivate it to fruition. More support needs to be given to young artists, and I want to help as much as I can to support all kinds of creativity. I did not get as much support as I needed when I was younger, and I have had to work very hard to make up for that. If I can help someone else blossom into their creativity, too, that makes me very happy. That's one reason I chose the name Fleur D'Amour for my musical activities. More love could help the whole world flower into its full potential.

Another World to Conquer

Welcome to Fleur D'Amour, a blog whose purpose will be to chronicle my activities as a singer and songwriter. Fleur D'Amour is my performing name, and is French for "Flower of Love." This weblog will be a place for me to talk about recording the songs I have written and about the process of developing ideas I have regarding my music and its presentation.

For anyone who is interested, I am also a writer of books and an arts journalist, and I have a separate blog for those areas at http://www.parsifalshorse.blogspot.com. I recently began that blog as an umbrella for all of my creative activities, but it quickly became apparent that it will work much better going forward to break the music and the writing into two separate blogs. There will be some overlap between the two, most especially between the journalism and music, but I work deeply in both fields, and it seems better to provide a forum for each in order to do it justice.

I hope to use this space to detail some of my progress, both creatively as I work on my music and more materially as I make efforts to release and distribute it. I am excited about the wide-open new world afforded by the internet, and I look forward to direct interaction with an audience.

-Susan Brooks