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Tomorrow will be my very first album‘s tenth birthday. (That’s Nitia Cheveallier’s gorgeous cover art you see there.)  My engineer and my friends and I recorded it over the course of about two weeks at Young Avenue Sound in Memphis. My first big-deal recording studio memories all come from Young Avenue Sound, which was a great place to work and build dreams. Those were two of the most important weeks of my whole life, and the weeks, months, and years since have been nothing short of amazing. The songs keep coming, the shows keep coming, and I keep getting to meet more amazing fans, make more amazing friends, and share in your stories.

Even so, I can hardly believe it’s been a decade.

I know that I’m a different woman now than I was back then.  I’ve had so much bliss, so much heartache, learned so many lessons and had so much fun.  One reason that I’m grateful to have done that first album?  I have a beautiful, audible snapshot of the girl I was when I started this whole thing.  The girl who quit her job and took the leap, who believed in herself hard enough to grab her dream with both hands and TAKE OFF.  And I’m So Proud Of Her.

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I’ll be making my first appearance ever in Youngstown, Ohio on May 7 2014, and I have some really quality people backing me up. 🙂  Today I’m featuring the Silver Grove Society of the Mahoning Valley on my blog.  If you’re in Ohio, look them up!  They have a meet-up scheduled for today (Tuesday) as a matter of fact.  The meet-ups are the 4th Tuesday of every month at Denny’s in Liberty, Ohio, starting at 7pm.  If you’re free in the area tomorrow and you’d like to connect with this group, that’s where they’ll be.

Here the group’s Facebook group page.  It’s a closed group, but you can get a pretty good sense of it from the link, even so.  Here’s their next public event, a May Day rite on May 3rd, 2014.

I believe in people supporting each other, and the SGS is all about that spirit of community.  From their page:

The Silver Grove Society is the community face of the Covenant of the Silver Grove. We host public sabbat rites and monthly social pagan meet-ups and hope to eventually offer classes and workshops on a variety of Witchcraft/Paganism-related topics. Our goal is to foster a sense of community among the area pagans as well as provide an opportunity for fellowship…If you come in peace with an open heart you are welcome.

I’m pleased and proud to have this group’s sponsorship for my Youngstown concert. 🙂

This past weekend in Cape Girardeau, MO was a TOTAL success for me. Incredible. I felt like a visiting monarch. My Cape fans and friends showered me with flowers, packed the house both nights, and couldn’t have made me feel more welcome. I’m so grateful to have had such a positive reception for my first concerts there.  It’s safe to say that I’ll be back!

The coming weeks will be full of win, too. I play Chicago this Saturday at Chi-Fi’s Geekapalooza, and then I get to give a concert at my college on April 10th! Crazy, humbling and wonderful, that, and it’s something I’ve always wanted to do.  I was hugely inspired to become a touring performer by the touring performers who came to campus to give concerts when I was a student.  It’s gonna be cool as hell to stand where they stood and sing to the current student body.  I hope everyone enjoys the show, and I hope at least one person gets inspired by it!

On April 12th I’ll be with my Big Bad Gina sisters and a host of talented others (Summer Osborne, emma’s revolution, Holly Near, Ginger Doss, Wahru Cleveland) at the Amazon Music Festival.  You wanna be there for this if you love powerful women rockin’ out for all they’re worth, standing in their power.  My concert will be at 2pm, and the awesome continues straight on through the day and into the night.  Click the link above for more info on all the performers and to get tickets!  Festival pass is $50, $25 for students with valid ID, and free for kids ten and under!

Then it’s back on the road for a St. Louis show (at last!) on April 17 (tickets here), ANOTHER Chicago concert with Alec this time (woohooo!) on April 18 (tickets here), and then a return to Pegasus Books in Madison on April 19 (tickets here – cheap seats available through April 1st). All of this is my way of ramping up to FKO and another run north of the border with Heather and Ben, which will be yet another glorious gem in the crown of my springtime. Can’t wait to share more of my new, blues-and-jazz influenced goodies with you all!

Just yesterday evening I heard about the weekend landslide in Washington state.  Many of my Seattle-area friends and fans have checked in to say that they’re all right, and I hope to hear more good news.  My heart goes out to those directly impacted by this event, their families, their community.  That part of the world is precious to me, and it’s awful that something so scary has gone down.  Sending my love to the Northwest, always.

Prepping for my Cape Girardeau concerts today.  Lots of rehearsal planned for this afternoon.  Next weekend I’ll be in Chicago for Chi-Fi, and I’d like to officially put in a vote for winter to leave the Windy City alone.  Snow on the first day of spring, sheesh.

Those of you who celebrate Ostara and the Equinox today, I hope you have a lovely time of it!  My ritual will come out in my singing this weekend, my worship in witnessing blackbird song and breathing fresh air. 🙂

Yesterday I spent the afternoon at Pinnacle Mountain State Park with my creative sisters Kelley Naylor Wise and Jess Otto having a picnic and bouncing creative ideas back and forth. We were having an impromptu poi spinning class in the visitor’s center parking lot when the lovely Macy Jenkins of THV11 and her camera man Jake came over to interview us!  Macy asked great questions for her piece on Spring Break, and she even took a minute to try spinning with us!  Girl’s got skills.  It was cool to be interviewed about taking time to play outside.  Not sure if we’ll make it into Macy’s final piece, but if we do, I’ll definitely link it here.

I took today off and ended up giving a good, long concert to my best friend and her infant daughter. Said baby girl was rapt as I played guitar, whistled, and sang. It was wonderful to be the recipient of so much joyful, unbiased attention. She’s generally a happy kid, and I know that she’s been listening to music since before she was out of the womb. Still, I’m feeling pretty special after the experience. It’s amazing to be playing a song for a little one, to notice that her eyes are glued to your hand as it forms chords on the guitar, to watch her watching you and trying to figure it all out, and clearly thinking that you’re the coolest thing she’s ever seen, even though she’s yet too young to be able to use words to tell you what she thinks. I had to share. Hope this makes you smile. 🙂

Next smiley face dedicated to the fact that Heather Dale’s Celtic Avalon project is now 100% funded and then some!   If you want to get in on the rewards she’s offering for backers, you’ve still got three days to jump in, and to help her hit a pretty awesome stretch goal.  🙂 🙂

Speaking of stretch goals:

Wanna see me threaten Ben Deschamps (briefly) with a (scabbarded) sword?  Heh.

CELTIC AVALON is almost at its funding goal!  Less than $5k left to raise, 5 days to go!  PIE!  PIRATES!  PIE-rates..?

Once the project hits $40k, I may have to write a Pie Pirate song in celebration. 😀

This weekend, I have TWO concerts in Cape Girardeau, MO!  I’ve never played there before, so we planned a double whammy.  🙂

Friday night I’ll be giving a FREE preview concert and Q&A at Game Knights Books & Collectibles.  Thanks to Cheech for hosting!

Saturday night, I’ll play my big show at Dockside Upper Deck, thanks to Jerry Swan, Jennifer Picker, and their whole team!  The Facebook event is here and the page to get tickets is here.  Hope you can join me if you’re in the area!

Everyone please be safe as you revel today.  Celebrate with your head on straight. <3

I’m home with a sick kitty today, watching the blustery rain from safety.  Hope you’re all safe and warm, too. Minko, our jellicle girl, isn’t feeling well.  She’s having a little bit of water now, with Ryan’s help.  We’re hoping she rallies, as she was bouncing all over the place last night at zoom o’clock.

I felt very, VERY strong during last night’s concert. The occasional mistake was less devastation, more seasoning in the recipe. It’s amazing how tough we can be on ourselves. The trick is to keep going, keep working, keep practicing, keep doing what you do. The trick is to dial down the wicked, nasty, hateful voices who tell you you’re not good enough. I have to work on this constantly as a performer and composer.

I received a host of requests for this show from fans via Facebook, and most of those requests were for songs I hadn’t had a chance to perform in a long while.  I’m grateful to have had a chance to brush the cobwebs away from those dear friends; we made a fine showing, indeed.  I’m also grateful to find that they still thrive in my heart, voice, mind, and fingers, that they had not forsaken me from long neglect.  I was worried, a little, but again, the trick is to practice. 😉  Highlights included performing “Follow Me Down”, “Eulogy Song”, “City of Marrow”, and “Were-Owl” with Ben and Heather for the very first time, with just a smidge of rehearsal backstage before we got going.  Sheer magic, I’m telling you.  Magic and synergy and trust.

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Last day to get tickets for my Little Rock concert tomorrow with Heather Dale!  We have about ten seats left.  The nice thing about playing in such a small space is that there are no bad seats. 😉

Heather has undertaken a spectacular project to get more Arthurian legend awesomeness out in the world, and she’s asking for your help.  Check out the project’s page here, please tell your friends, and become a backer if you can.  Personally I’d love nothing more than to see Celtic Avalon spread its wings in the near future.  The fundraiser has eight days to go.  Oh, hey- it’s Pi Day!  Happy Pi Day! Did I mention that Heather frequently includes pie in her campaign video updates?  Mmmmm, pie.

I got to spend some time with one of my favorite people this week, and she let me know that she has a poetry event scheduled for next month, in the same space where Heather and I will be singing tomorrow!  Check out the info below, and if you wanna come down to the Gallery and get wordy, I highly recommend this event and this poet.  I’ll be there.

I’ll stop crowing about my Little Rock show with Heather Dale on Saturday for just a minute. 🙂 Next weekend I get to sing in Cape Girardeau, MO for the Very First Time, and I’m pretty excited. This’ll also be my First solo concert of 2014: no bandmates, no special guests, just me. I’m saying EXCITED instead of nervous. 😉  That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.

I’ve got a little show and a big show- Friday March 21 and Saturday March 22 respectively, a freebie and a ticketed concert.

In my heart, the weekend in Cape is known as The Little Concert That Could. The team who helped me put it all together, captained by Jennifer Picker, has got brass balls made of tenacity and win. We had to change locations THREE TIMES, but they still didn’t give up. We’ll be helping out the Women’s Safe House in town with this show, and this venue has no age limit while the first one was 18+ . Everything’s turned out beautifully. So I hope you can be there, if Cape is close to home for you. Or even if it isn’t. People have already been driving some pretty impressive distances for my shows this year, weather or no weather. 🙂

Here’s the info about the free show, and here’s the info and the ticket link for the big Saturday show.

I get to sing with Heather Dale one more time this month.  Check out the BIG Arthurian legend touring show project she’s working on! It includes silly pie antics. 🙂

Performing with Heather and Ben is always a treat.  We frequently mix up our setlists so that no one has to wait to hear anything- we back each other up and switch off taking the lead, and it works beautifully!  I wish everyone could experience that kind of mutual support while performing.  It’s really magical.

SO.  Gallery 360 is our venue this Saturday night!  If you’re in the area and you want to see our show, make sure you get your ticket in advance!  There are only 40 seats available at the Gallery, and we don’t want anyone left out (literally) in the rain.  Grab your tickets here.

I’ve opened up song requests on the Facebook event page for the concert!  If you’d like to request a song, please do so here.  And if you’re not on Facebook, just contact me directly to request a song. 🙂