I just wanted to announce that I have officially started a myspace page for me and the Brigade. I posted two songs off the record if you wanna hear a bit of what I have been talking about all this time. I hope to be posting some new pictures and blogs soon so stay tuned and become my friend. It’s a great way to stay connected!
myspace.com/christamaeandthebrigade
If you are interested in any listening to some older material , feel free to check out my older myspace page as well. I am planning on keeping that going and posting individual projects and older material.
We all came together this week to celebrate the birth of Mr. Jon Lee Ellis, our drummer. It turned out to be a great night. Jon is very talented and shares the love with many different musical outfits. We all had a chance to jam at his party. It was an amazing evening and everyone had a blast. It just reminded me of what a tremendous blessing it is to get to play with The Brigade. Stay tuned for upcoming shows through out the next months and witness his magical percussion style for yourself.
I just ran across this gem on youtube. This tune has a special place in my heart, no pun intended, because it struck something inside of me. I immediately fell in love with ska. I dug everything about the song from the dub organ to the horns to the harmonies. I didn’t know at the time but A Message To You Rudy lead me down an enchanted path towards Jamaican ska. God bless those gangly kids in their high water pants.
It’s been a long road now folks , putting this record together and I am very happy to say we recently added an amazing musician to the project. It turned out to be a real thrill. He is a violinist named Trevor Lloyd who I met at a farmers market playing with a digiridoo player. I was drawn to the sound to the didge because the time I spent in Australia , and they were really putting down an awesome vibe. I enlisted him to play on the record and he showed up in full form. It was the first time I had the opportunity to work with a live musician in the producers chair, and it was a fun and enriching experience. I think he added a beautiful quality to songs like Constellations, Carelessness and Las Vegas Lullaby. I was looking for a rich, down to earth feeling and he really pulled through on that. Look for him on his myspace page …
Hey folks! I apologise for dropping off the face of the planet for a while there… I have no excuse but I’ll make a few… business of life, holidays , cookie baking and New Years partying. Hope you all had a wonderful holiday season , but for now it’s back to the business of the business.
Just want to let you know that in the middle of all this hustle and bustle , my brother and I cut a little acoustic record called Red Meadows. It’s been a dream of ours for a really long time, and I am thrilled to see it actually come into fruition. We did it just days before he flew off to teach English in Saudi Arabia for a year, so it felt like it was the perfect time. It is an 11 song album that is strictly acoustic. My brother picked out 5 songs that he wrote, I got 5 of my own , then a tune we wrote together.
We have all the tracks cut at this point, so now we are in the mixing stages. I will keep you posted on it, and will upload one of the tracks here when I get them in my hot little hand. I look forward to a productive and prosperous new year and I wish all the best to you and yours!
Just had to write about the most awesome show my very dear friend and I went to see Tuesday night, Pearl Jam!!! It meant a considerable amount to me for many reasons. First, Pearl Jam has and will always be an undeniable influence on me and my music. The strength and stamina those guys have was really impressive. They have been doing their thing for so long now, and it shows.
At first, I was a little apprehensive because I wasn’t sure what message they were going to be sending out. I bought their latest record Back Spacer right before the concert and the first song was basically an all out rant about escapism from pain. I was a little dissappointed that the self absorbed angst was still front and center in their songs, but now that I have been able to listen to the record a few times around, and I have found more depth and deeper levels than those initially expressed. I heard about love, family, and hope mixed with dispair and mortality.
I can accept that life is a broad spectrum of both good and bad, and where better to express that than in your music? That’s when one can battle it out in constructive dialouge. No winner has been named , the fight still goes on, it’s yet to be determined, but I think in the end the winner will always be the side you choose to take.
At the end of the day, the show was AMAZING! Solid, fun and a fan’s dream come true. Thank you to my good friend Leona for celebrating my birthday in that way!
Steve and I have spent a few good hours working on tightening up all the vocals and harmonies, and I am happy to report that we are pretty darn close to wrapping things up in that department. I am looking forward to working on something else besides my parts. I have gotten to the point where I feel like I have done the best I can, so I am ready to move on. I think it’s about that time to call up the other players and start talking about what they can add to the project.
The fortunate thing is that I don’t think we need a whole heck of a lot of anything. The way I see at this point, I am looking at putting a little keyboards here and there, some pedalsteel or mandolin, and most of all- some nice dualing trumpets. Even if I don’t get anything else on these thing, I want those trumpets! So we’re getting to the fun part soon….when I figure it all out folks, you’ll be the first to know.
Well, we’ve been in recording this record now for a few months, and I have to say I feel ready to get back out there and start playing again. I guess life just has a way of flying by, and before you know it summer is winding down and leaves are falling… well they are falling somewhere, not so much in southern California. I know of a few cool places to check out and start booking again, even if the record is not completed. What have we got to loose? I’ll keep you posted…
If you really want to watch a quick dissection of a record, feast your eyes on this. Pearl Jam’s new record is coming out next month, September 20th ( my birthday…well happy birthday to me!) I found this video and it’s like I’m a kid again. Studying the lines on the faces of these guys, to see where they have been and what they have been up to. Pearl Jam has just been such a force in my life. In so far as speaking the words for me when I couldn’t or evoking the emotion I didn’t have at the time. Manifesting the dream, man.
Even though in this day and age, I usually download music onto my ipod. September 20th, I am going to walk into a good old fashioned record store and buy myself their new album as a birthday gift to myself.
I was so happy to return to the realms of Mambo Records this week. I had quite a bit of unsettled business to attend to. I brought good ol’ Jaggedy Kaye with me, so he could see how the whole operation went down. It was a good night . We filled in a lot of the remaining vocal parts, which was the obvious next step. I am really happy the way it is coming together, even thought it can be difficult to listen to myself over and over- especially when something isn’t working as easily as I had it in my head.
Nevertheless, I think it really great to have such a seasoned professional working on this record. Steve really has a good sense of letting me explore the vocal arrangements, but knows when we are belaboring a part, or if it is not necessary. In fact, his perspective has allowed me to think of my vocals in a new light. I tend to like lots of layering and harmonies through out the entirety of a song, but now I am starting to minimize the use of harmonies for maximum effectiveness. I think it’s worthwhile, because it allows the story to be told without the congestion of too much else. This is a new way of thinking for me, and one that I am happy to explore.
The Record | christa | 
April 5, 2010 2:48 pm | 
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