Life's A Song 2008

Well this took me a while. I seem to be wandering between solid internet connections all the time, and it took me 3 days to get 13 photos uploaded to Flickr properly. There's no excuse. Needless to say, the Life's A Song workshop with Terri Hendrix and Lloyd Maines was a great experience and I met and re-met a lot of great folks this year. Not a bad way to spend a birthday, either. I got play some of my new tunes for Terri that are possibilities for EP 2, and the feedback was definitely useful. The jams were awesome, even if it got cold enough to make us move inside and away from the campfire. I didn't think it got cold in Port Aransas. (In my mind if you drive that far to a coast, you're pretty close to Jamaica. My mind isn't very geographically accurate, however). Here's some photos...and while you look, go to Terri's Myspace page and listen to her new tunes! Some from her new retrospective album and some from her Christmas EP. "Bring 'Em All In" has been a favorite of mine at live shows for quite some time... Cruising around Port A... Lloyd and the dobro go together like PB&J. Campfire Jam! Inside jam! Terri harmonicas it up. I recorded "Switzerland" with Lloyd being his kickbutt producer self. So there you go. If you have any interest at all in the craft of songwriting, I encourage you to attend a workshop like this...get yourself on the list for Life's A Song or check some of the other ones across the country. They're good for you.

Monkey. File.

My job of Merch Girl has kind of branched out into what I'll just call "Monkey" although Susan usually attached an adjective to the front of that which rhymes with "fit" and I take as a term of endearment. I'm enjoying it quite a bit, and this week we spent a lot of time filing things. It made me want to go home and file a bunch of my own stuff...but I'd probably need to hire a Fit Monkey of my own. Yesterday morning before a filing frenzy, Susan had a radio inteview on KGSR to play a song and talk about her performance this weekend at the Empty Bowl Benefit. More on that in a future post (but go to the benefit!). We had to be at KGSR kinda early...which means we had to be up even earlier. Coffee was in order.

And so it begins...

Yeah, I get to spend my birthday with Terri and Lloyd and a bunch of fun people. Score!

Yak Yak Yak

Katie took this shot of Dan and I both holding our elbows at 93 degree angles chatting in the car. No, we weren't talking to each other.

JP Project No. 3

Whew. Dan, Katie, and I are back in our respective places tonight in Austin after a fun and whirlwind trip back to the homeland. Albuquerque, while gorgeous year-round, is especially gorgeous in the fall. Leaves actually change color there, and I got to wear a hoodie a lot. Woot! Our annual house concert that my business partner Josh and I organize was a great time...we can't believe it's the 3rd year we've pulled this off. We're getting streamlined with it and Josh is pretty awesome about organizing a party for 60 people. I was so glad to see everyone and catch up with everyone's lives. It's also neat to catch everyone up on my life in Austin and to introduce them to some of my favorite Texans, too. Dan packs me in. Three people. Six guitars. We all fit! Breathe in and buckle down. Making good time. A little pre-show gathering. Dan and Katie discuss...coffee? Katie was the awesomest Merch Girl ever. Look at that display. So I'm full on mom's rhubarb pie and some green chile as well (not at the same time). Good stuff. If you were there, thanks for coming! If you're in Albuquerque and want to come next year, let me know. Who knows who will show up as the special guest. This is another busy week...Friday brings the Life's A Song Workshop weekend with Terri Hendrix and Lloyd Maines. SO. EXCITED. I happen to have a birthday over the weekend, as well, and I can't think of a better way to spend it than in Port Aransas with a bunch of songwriters. Bring it! After I sleep for 8 hours...

Danapo and GO VOTE!

Do it. Last night Dan and I played our first gig together...it was a bit of a warm up for our show in New Mexico. It was great in all aspects...we had fun playing music together, some of our favorite people came out to support us, and the weather was perfect. Who can beat that? Oh, and Dan found good parking. He wins. Dan+Janapo = Danapo When I play bass, Dan calls me "Sassafrass." Hehheh. Photos courtesy of Ron Baker - thanks, Ron!

Sunday in Luckenbach

Sunday brought about a benefit concert in Luckenbach, Texas to help the Old Quarter Acoustic Cafe in Galveston rebuild after Hurricane Ike. A bunch of people and artists turned out, and it was a glorious autumnal-like Sunday afternoon. And I had never been to Luckenbach (with Waylon and Willie and the Boys)...so Katie and I took it as a good excuse to jet on down the road. Plus, SusanG! was playing. I mean, come on. We also got to see Band of Heathens and Ray Wylie Hubbard. Awesome stuff. My hand at 60 mph. Excellent crowd, lovely day. Susan Gibson and John Greenberg. And I got to see my PUPPIES that I had missed since I have not been Merch Girl for a couple of weeks. Aww. Look at that face. (I stole these last two from Katie).

Numbers and Koozies

Well it's been a while, not for lack of activity. I have been spending a lot of time in preparation for the annual JP Project No. 3 in Albuquerque -- where I take a special guest back to the Burque, we have a house concert in a cool house, and I get to see everyone I miss and meet some new ones I'll miss by next year. Last year Susan was our special guest, and this year I'm happy to say Dan is making the drive. We've got some surprises for everyone, which means...REHEARSAL. And Jana tries to remember all her parts because her brain is small, and she starts talking about herself in 3rd person. Sigh. It's all fun, though. I have been working on a little film aspect for the night and it involved me crunching some numbers, and this one stuck out...the number of miles I have driven as a Merch Girl (well, I didn't drive most of them, I sat most of them) This number is since July, when I started merching, so it's really only 3 months worth: 6622 No wonder I feel like I need a massage! On a slightly unrelated note, this is what my favorite Fort Worthian, Amy, made me with masking tape and sheer genius one night. I realized I hadn't properly given it blog time. Yep.

At the Fairmount in Fort Worth

If you squint, you can see the band. Blogging from the merch table...our buddy Amy is here with HER video camera, and she just informed me that she has video of me singing along to "Happiest When I'm Moving" from about 12 minutes ago.  I thought the filmmaker was supposed to remain BEHIND the camera, Amy, hehheh.  The Merch Girl (TM) is a trademarked term to be used only with official permission and affiliation with Susan Gibson, Inc.  Or something.  Yay Fort Worth!  I like it here.

Bowling in Comfort

Susan played at Phil's Firehouse this weekend in Comfort, Texas...Phil's is a neat venue complete with 4 lanes of bowling. The kind of bowling where real people have to set up the pins after you knock them down. So cool. Phil was nice enough to loan me bowling shoes for the night because I like to wear bowling shoes. The set up: The gig was definitely a strike and not a spare. Drama! Of course...the merch: If every gig ended with bowling...well, that would be sweet.

Homeward Bound

Last gig is done...Charleston, South Carolina was a fine town to end the whole shebang in. Now we're driving south to Augusta, Georgia to stay the night...it's about 2 AM and we thought we'd get a head start on the 20ish hour drive home to Texas. It's been so much fun and learning and good people and music. LOTS OF MUSIC. More on all of that later...we've got 20 hours of driving to do.

Hello, Charlotte

We're driving through Charlotte, NC.  We have seen about 42 Waffle House signs today. This is my pen from the Country Music Hall of Fame.  Still waiting on that hit song... I get to see my cousin at the gig tonight!  She moved to North Carolina this summer, and I thought it would be a while before I got to visit...surprise!

Seeing the Sights

The morning started off at Pancake Pantry, one of those famous places where everyone who is everyone goes, apparently. I had the Carribean Pancakes. Tasty! We did some wandering, but found a lot of closed doors in Nashville. No, we weren't looking for record deals...but we found out that things close at 5 PM and that's pretty much lame. The Country Music Hall of Fame was closing when we got there. And the Ryman was closed when we got there. We did get in to some gift shops, though. Susan and I both picked out pens at the Country Music Hall of Fame, which will inevitably allow us to write our first multi-million selling hit songs. Oh, wait. It will allow ME to write my first. Hehheh. We stopped by Bug Music on Music Row so Susan could drop off some records - they administrate her publishing. Interesting how Music Row is a non-descript little street with brick houses and such, and all the deals that affect a lot of music in this country are made here. We stopped at the legendary Tootsie's Orchid Lounge, where all the Opry stars used to hang out... And Cotten Music and Gruhn Guitars, where I will one day drop a pretty penny when I get a pretty penny to drop... Tonight we lucked out and saw an AWESOME show at 3rd and Lindsley - Catie Curtis was in town. She's a Boston folkie and I have never gotten to see her play before. Great show! Tomorrow it's off to Decatur and Susan's Eddie's Attic show! Another legendary venue...the good life indeed.

Recording in Nashville

So we booked some time and recorded today. Well, we booked our hotel room...and made it a studio. Susan has some new tunes that she wants demo'd, so we spent a good chunk of today messing with mics and cables and figuring out the best acoustics. Of course, in the bathroom. Tonight Susan and I are both going to play at a writer's night, thanks to Susan's very cool and fun publicist, Brandy. WRITER'S NIGHT. NASHVILLE. Heck yeah. Can't make this stuff up.

Susan on the Billy Block Show

Nashville, TN 9/23/08

12:30 AM: Outside the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville

The Mother Church of Country Music...

Viva Nashvegas!

We left the gig last night and got a little ways down the road to Morristown, TN. It was kind of late. We started late because somehow we had it in our heads that Johnson City was on Central time again, so we thought we had time to kill at the venue. In fact, it was Eastern time, so we started a little late. Oops. But it was all good. We DO know that Nashville is on Central time. We're on the road to Nashville now. We stopped for lunch in Knoxville and wandered around their Market Square district. Very cool old buildings. We grabbed a brochure at the hotel last night. Conversation in the car: Jana: Hey Suz look at this! Dolly Parton! RIVER BATTLE! Susan: No. Jana: But, it's Dolly. Susan: No. Jana: And then there's...a river battle. It's new. Susan: No. Jana: I'll work up a version of "9 to 5" for the next gig? Susan: ...No. Oh well. River Battle with Dolly Parton another day.

Hello Johnson City, TN

At the Acoustic Coffeehouse in Johnson City about a minute ago...

From South to North

Greetings from outside of Asheville, North Carolina.  We left Lawrenceville about 2 PM and Suz plays in Johnson City, TN tonight.  The kudzu vines are amazing and I feel like I might get covered myself if I stand outside for more than a few minutes.  There are lots of mountains in South Carolina and North...it's chilly today and we're all wearing our hoodies and driving with windows down.  The dogs are sleeping on the couch after a rest break in Greenville.

Oh Atlanta...

Great house concert in Lawrenceville, GA tonight right outside of Atlanta. We left Birmingham at a leisurely pace, discovering that : a) It's hard to find a mailbox to mail stuff in. The blue official kind. b) Bugs were all over the front of the van. c) Boiled peanuts are sold in cans around here. As we went through Alabama it was kind of freaky to see evidence of a fuel shortage.  Entire gas stations were closed or there would be one pump open with a huge line of cars.  There didn't seem to be as much of a problem with diesel, which is good for Susan.  Cuz...we have gigs to be at. Thank goodness we have a plastic Jesus, a cute turtle, a gig potato, and a can of boiled peanuts on the dash for good luck. More tomorrow...it is so ridiculously late you don't wanna know...

To Lawrenceville, Georgia today...

The road split between Birmingham and Montgomery...and there was a bug splatter on the windshield.  I wanted a photo of the sign but I was a little slow. Traveling in style.

Songswap in Birmingham!

Susan is songswapping with Beth Wood tonight in Birmingham...here's a shot of Suz being an attentive listener.  Beth is awesome. Birmingham is beautiful!  So much history here.  But we gotta get up and drive to Lawrenceville, GA tomorrow...

We are...

On the road! Somewhere on I-20 going into Louisiana...

T-shirt Plethora

Lessons learned this weekend: - Just because the weather people say there's a hurricane coming, and winds, and rain, and the city shuts down and cancels a bunch of stuff, and you huddle up with lots of Diet Coke...does not mean that you will get any hurricane weather or even wind. Or rain, for that matter. Nothing 'round here, folks. That's ok. - Inking t-shirts with Sharpie takes a LONG time. Katie and I watched lots of hurricane coverage and 1.5 movies while I inked 3 shirts. - Sharpie does remarkably well if you take your time. - I am no calligraphy expert. The results: We're lucky. It's true. My favorite.

Hurricane Party

Well, something's blowing in from the south: In the spirit of Mary Chapin Carpenter's line from "Down at the Twist and Shout" -- "they have a hurricane party every time it blows" -- my buddy Katie and I are going to hunker down with some hummus, Diet Coke, and blank t-shirts and Sharpies. See, I decided that being on tour as a Merch Girl for 2.5 weeks...well, no one wants me to wear the same Susan t-shirt every night. No one wants that...probably especially Susan because she sits in the van with me. So Katie and I have been coming up with clever things worthy of a t-shirt. I'll share what we come up with later, but one of Katie's suggestions was "Merch Girls Do It On the Bar." Oh my.

Another Teaser

Man I love these Animoto slideshows. Anyway...New Mexico Boy!

A Music-ful Day

Phew. I have that happy tired feeling when you know you did your job well but it took a bunch out of you. I spent a lot of the morning rehearsing a new tune because it's a co-write (my first "real" one, I think) and I know the parts I wrote really well, and am having to internalize the other lines a little more. Fascinating. Cheat sheet. I also have a wild hair on a new chord and picking pattern, and today brought some workable words...so there's something new in a holding pattern. I spent a chunk of the afternoon trying to flag it in. We're still circling the airport on that one, but I like where it's headed. Who knows. Then I had a voice lesson. We sang "hee hee hee" over and over again and I learned about where your "hee's" should come from. Not your throat. Stop that. Then there was the gig, which was very fun. And since Year 2 of Folk Music Grad School is shifting into focusing on "outer" stuff...like performing...Red Leaf's new Stage Performance teacher came to see my gig. She took notes. That was a little nerve-wrecking, but she's way cool and we meet tomorrow to go over her notes. It's perhaps best we are meeting right before my next gig so I can apply her thoughts to the show. (Her name is Jess Klein and she is awesome and you should totally check out her music, and I hope she does not mind me blogging about her because I just did!) I don't know if part of the outer training will be how to haul a PA around without breaking a sweat, but I could use that class, too. Yay summers in Austin! I'm so ready for fall. And thus ends my random day.

Labor Day Weekend

Spent the weekend on the road again (now it's stuck in your head! Haha!) with Susan selling t-shirts and CDs to the fine folks in Wimberley, Marble Falls, and Fredericksburg. I realized that on the San Angelo trip I took a lot of random photos of odd stuff, so this photo essay will focus on...the music. Plus Suz was kind enough to let me play some tunes this weekend. Her only requirement is that I play "Paper Rock Scissors." I can handle that kind of employer demand. Susan's tie dye fit well in the artsy town of Wimberley at the Cypress Creek Club. This is me trying to be cool. Marble Falls was next - a show at the gorgeous Uptown Theater. Susan played great...and then the UFOs started to hover. Doo doo doo. Wrapped up the weekend in Fredericksburg at the Auslander. Here's a shot of the crowd behind Susan and Michael. Susan let me borrow her band. I get the coolest band members lately! Then she took over photographer duty so I could blog about it. Classy.

A Teaser!

My brother found a neato site called Animoto. Much fun with the slide shows. Here's a chorus from "Paper Rock Scissors" off the new record: (Yep, I played everything you hear on the record. Cheap labor!)

It's Done. And other random updates.

Well...we have a mastered version of The Early Year that is going to be the one that everyone gets in their mailboxes, email boxes, on their computer speakers, and on their turntables. Ok, no turntables. We're not doing a vinyl release...yet, hehheh. I am proud of it. With a capital P! And there's the cover...woot! What is holding me up right now is that I am a little slow to comprehend the embedding of ISRC codes on the tracks, still...so I did not realize I needed to register with the RIAA before this could occur. So I am registering, and then we'll get the codes, which get embedded in the master, which gets shipped to Oasis for duplication. I hope this goes fast. Today is busywork day so I can get my PO box set up (as much as taking orders from my home address via the internet is appealing, haha) and file our paperwork for Bourn Records. And send a fax to the RIAA. Who has a fax machine these days? Oh, that's right...business people. (And Kinko's! Woot!) I am still all happy from last weekend at Threadgill's. Jamming on stage with Terri and Lloyd and Glenn was pretty much a highlight of my...forever. It's neat to think about the things I've been fortunate enough to do in my two years of living here. A lot of the above paperwork and business stuff is thanks to Terri and Lloyd and their never-ending sharing of smarts and experience. From the Life's A Song workshop last October to Terri letting me harass her and pick her brain all the time throughout this past year...it's good to have people who have your back. Dan and Suz and Terri and Lloyd are all really insanely integral parts of me as an artist and of this record...I hope it does them all proud. Thanks for the chance, kids.

Thursday Hijinx

Today I saw The Dark Knight and hung out at KUT while Susan played on the radio. That was pretty fun, I had never been in there before. We were live in Studio 1A...the very same one Terri and Lloyd were in last Saturday (see the audio below). Well, Susan was live and I was doing my best to very quietly sit at her feet. She did great and the KUT folks were class acts. Literally: feet. We decided such seriousness and quietude in studio required Thai food and a loud explosive movie. I'll admit it right now on the intertubes...this was the first Batman flick I have ever seen. It wins. I guess I'll have to work backwards.

Threadgill's with Terri and Lloyd

What happened last night? THAT happened last night. I was surprised at the end of my set by Terri, Lloyd, and Glenn joining me on "Blonde on Blue" and "Paper Rock Scissors". Talk about fun! Such class acts. If you came to the show, thank you so much. Such a fun night, and thanks for braving the raindrops! More on the evening later, I am off to Gruene Hall with my college buds to show them some Texas culture... And thanks to Maestro for the photos!! His clicking finger was on fire.