As I've posted here in recent weeks, I started a new interview series earlier this month, "One Rad Song".  It is a blog that features written interviews with artists and songwriters about individual songs from their catalogs.  I set out to track down the people I've been most influenced by and was pleasantly surprised when I heard back from several of them right away.  The first two interviews were completed and posted within ten days of my initial inspiration to do the project.  Since then, I've reached out to many more artists, of all kinds, hoping to maintain a steady flow of dialogue within this new community.  I went into it expecting rejection and even silence from a number of the folks - that seems normal for something like this.  What I didn't expect was the very noticeable pattern that has emerged throughout this process.

Without getting into specifics as to exactly how many artists I've contacted, I can lay down some basic percentages here.  So far, of the male artists/bands that I've sent some form of contact to, whether it's been direct or through some sort of management, eighty percent have responded - and all within forty-eight hours of receiving my message.  It's been everything from, "Yes" to, "Can we do a different song?" to, "Is it possible to do it later in the summer?".  Either way, I'm hearing back.  The twenty percent that I'm not hearing back from had been factored in previously.  One the other side of the coin, exactly zero percent of the female artists/bands have responded to my request for an interview.  Zero.  No one has so much as said, "No".

I hate that I'm in a position to be tallying these numbers.  If someone else gave me this report, I'd blindly defend the team that I'm actually a part of, which is Team Female Artist, claiming that there has to be some unseen element causing such an extreme divide.  But, I am the one sending out the exact same pitch to every one of these people, and I am also the one writing interviews for some really incredible musicians - all of whom, are men.

It's not even that I take the situation personally.  It just raises a brand new set of questions for me.

• Are female artists harder to get in touch with, via their website or social media sites?  Do they have more people between themselves and their audience?
• Are female artists less inclined to talk openly about their work and processes?
• Are female artists less inclined to be interviewed by another woman?
• Do female artists feel like they've had to work harder to get where they are, and therefore feel like they shouldn't have to talk anyone who lacks a certain level of notoriety?
• Do men have better professional manners than women?

I hope that none of the above is true.  I hope that it's all just the result of extreme coincidence(s).  Because, otherwise, I have to come to grips with the fact that I'm part of a group whose collective response to a simple thing is straight-up bizarre.  All I can say is, I come in peace.  I just want to talk about the work.

Like Connie, I'm hoping, waiting and living without for the time being.  Let's talk music, ladies.  Otherwise, stay tuned for an interview with myself.  Don't make me do it.

 ~buick audra

1.  Right out of the gate - I have no outstanding musical proficiency on any instrument.  I'm a self-taught guitar player and songwriter who took a whopping total of six voice lessons about twenty years ago.  I'm no prodigy, nor super hard-working player.  I'm not even really interested in learning to play or sing correctly, which may sound lazy - but I don't think it is.  I just happen to be OK with my style(s) of doing what I do.  That being said, I'm in no way suitable to be in anyone else's project.  Because I don't speak the technical language of music very fluently, I'm a bit of a bag of rocks in a setting where people are calling out chords (or god forbid - numbers, here in Nashville).  I suppose I could sing with people, but I usually don't want to, and that's that.

2.  I don't care how anyone else thinks I'm supposed to be doing what I'm doing.  This is a pretty big piece of the puzzle, from what I understand.  It seems that artists today who have the backing of labels, management and that whole slew of other people I don't understand the roles of, all have this common denominator: they take direction.  Of course, there are people who get around these parameters and do it their way, and to all kinds of critical acclaim.  I, so far, am not one of these people.  I'm not saying I don't have hope for things to come, but I've definitely paid the price for not just doing what I was told, when my alleged potential "success" was on the line.  I wouldn't do it differently if given those same choices, but having the pink slip to my soul has meant that almost no one has heard my music.  It boils down to this one point for me: why is your way better?  If anyone can really answer that question for me, I'm open to the conversation.  But if your reason includes anything to the effect of, "Because that's what worked for ___________"... I'm all set.  I'm not trying to be like anyone else, so their art model won't work for me.

3.  I'm embarrassed by self-promotion.  I'm a member of the world, and I've moved out of the phase where I was a straight-up self-saboteur, but I'm nowhere near being the kind of artist that is comfortable with the endless stream of bragging that is expected when you make stuff.  I am crazy proud of my work, and would love for people to check it out, but I'll be damned if I tun into a third-person-speaking ego-maniac who thinks their every action and thought merits applause.  I see this happening to my peers, and it makes me feel so gross.  Stop the madness, guys.  We all know it's you writing your own bio.  Please.

4.  I loathe all but three recording engineers I have met in the wide world.  There are a number of people I'd like to work with, but my track record with the trail of dead behind me is sordid at best.  (For a longer explanation of why, read this.)  This may not seem like a very big deal in the grand scheme of things, but it is, and here's why: in the absence of said engineer, and more importantly - the equipment that they bring to the table, I'm making my records by myself.  Don't get me wrong, I love all that I'm learning along the way, but it takes for-fucking-ever.  Also, I have like, no gear.  If it weren't for the insane generosity of a few of my friends in the music community, I'd be tracking straight to GarageBand with a USB mic.  So, I'm a famous borrower of mics and pre-amps (I finally have my own monitors, thank you), and I work when I can.  My albums take an average of two years to be made by this process.  All of that just to avoid being in the excruciating presence of the freakshow of know-it-alls that sadly populate the recording world.

*Special note - mastering engineers not included in this statement.

5.  I've never co-written a song that I'd record for myself, nor do I do the work to have my songs recorded by others.  I write anywhere from fifty to eighty-five songs per year.  It's not a huge amount, but it's no small amount either.  I'm in that awkward place of having far too many songs to ever record on my own albums, while also having no outlet for putting the rest of them to any real use.  To boot, I occasionally co-write with other artists (usually at their request), and then pile those works on to the growing mound of Songs That Will Go UnRecorded.  Something happens to me in the co-writing process that dilutes my emotion around the subject, and turns it into an exercise of what my brain knows how to do: build songs.  It would be magical if any of the other people I've written with actually cut the songs themselves, but so far I'm zero for forty or so.  Pretty crap-tastic numbers.

There you have it.  I'm sure there are about seventy other reasons, but this is what I have today.  I love what I do, it just doesn't pay the bills.  With that, I'm off to work on an album that I started in December of 2009.  I told you.

~buick audra

I sat on my couch all day yesterday, still battling with the residual illness of my most recent bout of strep throat.  I watched what felt like fifteen thousand episodes of the The Office (the American one), and half-assedly knit a birthday gift for a thirteen-year-old I'm sort of related to.  This is what resting looks like for me.  It's dreadful and dull, and all I've really got in me these days.  It's been a long year, after the thirty-four long ones that preceded it.  Next year will be the same, and I no longer have illusions about that sort of thing.  I was born with a certain set of equipment that makes my life feel like this.  Some days it's incredible; others, less so.

I'm usually a musician.  When I feel or think things to any kind of extreme, I write my way out of it.  It's been a handy coping mechanism, and one that I place tremendous value on.  I very much believe that it has saved my life a time or two, and for that I'm quite grateful.  On a lighter note, it's also given me more laughter and delirium than anything else, hands down.  Because of this, it has priority seating in my arena.  The past four years that I've spent in Nashville have been the most prolific for me, to date.  I could get into bragging about how much I've written and recorded in that time, but I've recently realized that I think that's gross.  The race to win, at whatever it is people think they're competing for, looks really lame when you see it from the sidelines.  Who cares if I wrote one or three hundred songs?  Anyone who does care is weird, in my opinion, as it's no one's business but my own.  Let's just say that I made some work that matters to me.  That's what counts.  Some of it's wrapped up with a tidy bow and some of it's still in process.  Lately, progress is at an all-time low, and I mostly think about the work in the abstract.  People are waiting on my actions (some more patiently than others), but it changes nothing.  I don't have the drive today.  And yes, that feels very strange for me.

I recently watched the documentary about the band Rush.  Aside from that group of men being profoundly inspiring in every way, their story gave me some comfort and hope to hold on to.  Not being a diehard Rush fan, I was unaware of the timeline that their music followed, most notably around a very long hiatus they took in the wake of Neil Peart's personal losses.  His daughter and wife both passed away within a very short time, and Peart literally drove around the country on his motorcycle for several years, abandoning everything in his life, including the music that had been so central to his story up to that point.  All three band members assumed the project was over, and they accepted that, wholly.  That was what blew my mind.  No ego was entered into the equation.  No terrible non-Rush project formed out of the ashes.  No shitty solo albums emerged.  They just accepted what was happening.  Isn't that just the key?  I've never been part of a real brotherhood like that, where if one of us needed to fall apart, the others would allow it and love that person through it.  Nor do I have that within myself.  I wasn't taught it.  That kind of love, tolerance and acceptance is the product of masterful parenting and support.  I didn't get it and I don't have it to give.  (I can hear my friend Josh correcting me, telling me that I do, in fact, have this quality to give... And I love him for it, but it isn't true.)  It doesn't mean it's not mine to have in this lifetime, but I am currently without this component.

On my couch, my mind listens to the Committee of Useless Thoughts, and we all begin to agree that I'm probably nuts beyond repair, destined to repeat the patterns that I'm wired for.  My six-month-old Taylor guitar is snug in her very nice case in the other room, untouched.  Two of my dear friends bought me my own SM7 microphone for Christmas, and it's still in the box.  I have eleven songs that await my editing and post-production, and they're trapped in the hard drive until further notice.  Lastly, I'm three songs into a really wonderful new record with a band that shaped up towards the end of this year, and I can't move forward on it at all.  I've got nothing.  And I'm having a really hard time accepting all of it.  Who am I these days?  Where's the girl who's always working on five different things, with a high fever about all of it?  I don't have any more of an idea than you do.  But, if you see her, tell her to call me.  I'll be watching reruns of a TV show.  And when I run out of those, I'll find a new show.

I heard Tom Waits on the radio the other day.  He was dodging personal questions that were being asked in an interview by rambling on about all sorts of other eccentric B.S., as is par for his particular course.  He's artful in that dodgy way.  Most of what he said was what you hear in his music, and having been a listener for many years now, I'd heard it all before.  But, he did rather eloquently describe the stage that I find myself in lately.  He compared the creative process to the structure of music.  To paraphrase, "In order to have music, you have to have rests.  Sometimes you're the sound, and sometimes you're resting."  So, after many years of being the sound, I'm in the rest.  This too shall pass.  This too, shall pass.

Thanks for listening,

buick audra

So, after several weeks that included producing the vocals on my brother's new album, having two dear friends come to visit the Fort from Boston and working on songs for a new record that I'm a part of with some dudes... My thoughts for tonight are on the chances we give others as well as ourselves.  Let's hope I can mold these ideas into something you can bite into.  Sometimes my mind feels like it's just a series of bright colors and melodies, and the articulation of such can be tricky.  First, let me say that I'm filled with peace and gratitude right now.  I'm aware of how beautiful life can be these days, and it's helping me to shine new light on some otherwise dark areas.

I once had a friendship for twenty years.  I held the relationship in impossibly high regard, as it had weathered all kinds of tests, both physical and emotional.  Sometimes I think I worked harder on the presentation of the friendship than I did on the connection itself, but that's all behind me now.  It ended some years ago, leaving me with a pile of unanswered questions that I sift through from time to time, hoping for new insight.  It does come, slowly but surely.  Once in a while I hear something awful about myself that they've said and all of the old, bad feelings come flooding back.  You see, the worst thing that happened to me in that dynamic was that I felt like I never got to grow up to the other person.  Not literally of course, but figuratively.  Who I was at age fifteen was who they held me to being, all the way up to thirty-two.  It just didn't work.  The best that I can do today is forgive us both and keep my own mouth shut.  Hurtful behavior plus hurtful behavior doesn't equal forward movement; it equals further damage.  A wise person once said to me, "Don't be sorry, be different."  This is me being different.

I think we have a filing system, as a society.  We have labels that we apply to people we know (and don't know) that make it easier for us to navigate life.  In my community of fellow musicians, I hear it all the time, particularly the negative files:

•  "Oh, he's not even there for any of the records he supposedly produces."

• "If you want a grumpy, indifferent engineer who won't give you any feedback - he's your guy."

• "Nobody ever works with him twice."

Mind you, every single one of those statements has been made in my presence a multitude of times by people who have never worked with the folks they're talking about.  They're going on hearsay, or gossip.  They're going on insecurity and therefore judgment.  They're going on fear.

In family settings, these character assignments are present as well.  Someone is always The Mess, while another is the Overbearing Over-Achiever.  And don't forget about One-Who-Is-Blind-To-All-Bad, and the popular Overly-Honest.  I've been called a number of these things, and have done the same in turn.  We get used to the roles we all play, and just ramble through life believing our own titles.  Well, I invite you all to look again.  Look at your loved ones.  Look at yourselves.  Look at who you all are today and celebrate the new information, if the situation calls for it.  Some people will be in the same place that they were the last time you checked, but not everyone.  That super uptight cousin of yours might have spent the last five years doing yoga and learning how to let things roll off of her back a bit better.  Your brother may have learned how to talk to you about who he is and what he's about.  Your kid might be working on their stuff in a twelve-step program.  Who knows.  All I'm saying is that there's a whole lot of life out there, and it forces us to grow, sometimes in spectacular directions.  By closing the book on the possibility of change in others, we say that we also can't be expected to improve on who we are.  And we can.  We do.

With some lighted road behind me, I see now that I've likely disappointed as many people as have disappointed me.  That's a sobering realization, particularly after thirty years of thinking I was the only one who ever sustained injuries in the wreckage.  It also helps me to understand that I'm just a traveler on the path, and not out on my own, as I so often feel.  Everyone's doing the best they can with what they know.  As we learn, we do better. 

Here are five things that have always been true about me, since nearly birth:

1. I love Michael McDonald.
2. I don't love the Beatles.
3. I believe in the existence of vampires.
4. I cry every single time I see Kermit sing the' Rainbow Connection' in the Muppet Movie.
5. Instrumental fusion jazz makes my brain short out.

And here are five new truths about me, from the last year or so:

1. I still don't know my way around Nashville very well, after three and a half years.
2. I love Car Talk on NPR.  LOVE.
3. I'm going to move to Los Angeles next June.
4. I really enjoy editing in ProTools.
5. I like those spicy pepper flakes on my pizza.  I've seen people use them for years and never knew what I was missing.

See?  In big and small ways I'm evolving, even though I may never care (ever) about the Beatles.  I truly hope that I'm given second chances when I blow my first ones, and aim to be the kind of person who can grant that to someone else.  It's always rewarding when I do.  Once in a while I get to experience a whole new side of someone I love, and it's usually because I've let go of their title and just allowed myself to hear what they're saying in the moment.

(And, for the record, I'm absolutely dying to work with all of the guys that I listed by way of their respective reputations above.  I ain't scared.)

Thanks for listening,

buick audra

tal·ent  /ˈtælənt/ Show Spelled[tal-uh-nt]  noun

1. a special natural ability or aptitude: a talent for drawing.
2. a capacity for achievement or success; ability: young men of talent.
3. a talented  person: The cast includes many of the theater's major talents.
4. a group of persons with special ability: an exhibition of watercolors by the local talent.

buick audra

I got into that band later than I should have, and even then I was only sixteen.  I moved to Boston at that age, and they had just become huge following the release of their fifth album, It's A Shame About Ray.  The first three things that I ever knew about them were:

1. They used to have two singers and songwriters, but the other guy (Ben Deily) had quit the band.
2. Juliana Hatfield was going out with the remaining lead singer dude, and scored a bunch of vocal spots on the album because of it.
3. That guy did tons of drugs.

I had just moved from Miami where I had spent the previous three or four years attending any punk, hardcore or rock show I was allowed to.  I owned way too many over-sized t-shirts for Krishna and straightedge bands, and an equal number of ill-fitting army fatigues.  I preferred safety to danger, structure to chaos and life to death.  Drugs scared the shit out of me.  They still do.  It might have been my first awareness of a musician I loved being an addict.  I dare say it was even before the grunge thing had turned so scarily dark.  Andy Wood of Mother Love Bone had died, but he was never that pivotal artist for me... And it was still a few years before Kurt would pass, and eventually Layne.  And anyway, those dudes were all the frickin' way over in Seattle.  We were in Boston, and this guy Evan was making truly great music right down the way, you know?  I remember that being an exciting time, like there was something happening and we were living through it.  For as many bands as I saw in Boston over the years I spent there, I never saw the Lemonheads.  We were all too young to get in to those shows when Ray was out.  We could see all ages shows at churches or Food Not Bombs rallies, but all the venues on Lansdowne St. were off limits.  Even the Middle East and T.T.'s were a toss up.  It all depended on the show.  But, you could guarantee that you were too young to get into shows where the principle song subject was getting fucked up.  So, I missed it.

I've been away from Boston for a while now, but have followed Evan's story here and there.  It's quite a story.  I don't need to tell it here, because it isn't mine to tell, but along the way he has made some incredible music.  He's also had some pretty ideal band mates in that catch-all band of his, not the least of which were Karl Alvarez and Bill Stevenson from my favorite band, the Descendents.  That line-up toured together about five years ago, and I cannot believe I missed it.  Sigh.  The tours are legendary for the dramas that occur, and so I wasn't sure what to expect last night.  This tour is supposed to be the celebration of the twentieth anniversary of Ray.  They've been advertising that the band will play the album in its entirety.  That almost happened.  Almost, but not quite.

I was the girl who got to the show before doors even opened last night.  After waiting for twenty years to hear these damn songs live, I was eager to be somewhere good during the set.  I had two hopes for the night: that Dando would show up, and that he would play 'Rudderless', my favorite song he ever did.  Seeing as how he's the front man for the band, and that song is on the album in question, one might presume that these were givens... And that person would be foolish to do so.

There were two opening bands, both of which are supporting the whole tour.  They were entertaining, and excited to be a part of the show.  But, let's face it, when you're all there to hear music that you've loved for an age, you just want to hear it already.  Evan took the stage solo at about 10 pm.  He played about a half a dozen songs like that, with just a Les Paul and sounded really true, for lack of a better word.  He sounded true.  The guys joined him after that and they started to play the album.  It kicked ass for all of two songs.  Two.  Then Evan claimed that he was losing his voice and couldn't play over all the noise of the band.  The next two songs were supposed to be the title track (and biggest hit of his catalog) and my song.  He capo'd up for 'Ray' so that he could sing it lower, and played it like it was just some song.  I suppose it is.  He started to play 'Rudderless' and then decided not to, for fear that he couldn't sing it.  My little gay heart cracked a bit, but I was committed to just letting the experience be what it was going to be.  After all, he'd shown up, hadn't he?

All told, he played for an hour and forty minutes.  That's a really long show.  People like Prince play sets like that.  Throughout the course of the night the band rejoined him for about six more songs and then let him finish alone.  He played most of the album that he was supposed to be honoring and just a whole lot of other music, some of which was his and some of which wasn't.  It wasn't all amazing, but a lot of it was, and it all went through me.  It left me with a lot to think about today.  Aside from the performance, here was an artist who played to an audience like we were all just hanging out in his living room.  He was oddly conversational and interested in what we all wanted to hear.  He accommodated what he could, and apologized for what he couldn't.  Yes, he was struggling with his voice, but he hung in there, and his guitar playing was great.  He remembered the words to roughly thirty-five songs, and I know that he didn't anticipate playing some of them.  Even before he went on stage, he was out in the room all night.  He watched both of the opening bands from the audience and was actively happy and engaged with what they were doing.  Who's like that anymore?

I have no idea what goes on with Evan Dando.  I don't know if he's still married, divorced, on drugs, sober, happy, murderous, Satanic or Baptist.  And I'm not sure I care.  The dude's a fellow traveler.  He wears Converse just like the rest of us, and is doing his thing, which happens to be writing really incredible pop songs.  I've learned a lot from him in this last twenty years on my own journey of trying to be a good musician who is, at the end of the day, true.  And, I continued to learn last night.  Even when it wasn't going well for him, he played through.  He smiled at the ground and swore aloud.  His beautiful chord progressions had the occasional "FUCK!" layered over them, and it was perfect.  It was exactly as it should have been.

And, the very last song he played was 'Rudderless'.  Thanks, Evan.

And thank you for listening,

buick audra

This isn't from last night, but it's lovely and you need to see it.



When I first entered the space, I was alone.  I quickly picked up on the sonic element of the piece, and started to quietly sing while I looked at the perfect sky above.  I took one photograph, to both remember the moment by and share with my husband who was in Brazil at the time.  After a few minutes, a couple entered.  The woman immediately sat down at my right and started taking photographs with a very serious camera she was carrying.  Her partner sat across from me and smiled quietly to himself.  He started to sing, obviously curious about the sound, as I was.  His voice was so lovely and soothing, and while I couldn't quite place the song he was singing, it sounded familiar and perfect at the time.  We all smiled at each other, and they got up and moved on.  Moments later, a mother and son entered.  The boy was about seven years old, and filled with youth and electricity.  He immediately couched down in the center of the space, which is filled with black sand, I'm guessing to absorb any rain that falls through the hole at the top.  He kept grabbing handfuls of the stuff and watching it run through his fingers, over and over.  His mother, on the other hand, paced all around the outer edges of the space, looking up at the opening from every possible angle, like she wanted to get every perspective she could before it was too late.  This time I was the one to leave first, but not before I closed my eyes ans said a quiet "thank you" for the experience I'd just been given.

It really connected to something I've been thinking about lately, which is the subject of how we all learn.  In that five minutes I spent in a piece of someone's art, I observed my process, and the processes of four other people.  It was very telling.  I first read the names of the piece and the artist, then sat still, looked and listened, and then I tried what seemed like the best move at the time.  Pleased with the results, I documented the moment and sat still for a spell longer.  The woman who took pictures entered and immediately acted on her urges from a stationary point, and then left when satisfied.  The man who sang had almost the exact same process as me, which was crazy to witness, like a mirror.  The boy was thoughtful yet active in a repetitive manner, while his mother acted non-stop and was constantly moving.  All of those decisions were valid, and all of them were probably indicative of who we are in other areas of our lives.  That's what makes us such a fascinating species.  We learn.  Or, at least some of us do.

Education is an interesting thing.  There are so many ways to learn, and consequently, so many ways to teach.  There are the researchers who then share their finding through lectures, classes and writing of their own.  There are the this-is-what-I-was-told-and-so-this-is-what-I'm-telling-you people.  (They comprise too high a percentage of our public school teachers in this country, if you ask me... But, who asked me?)  There are the physical instructors who have mastered whatever it is they do or make, who can share a step-by-step process with their students.  And then there are the do-ers, the people who lead by example and educate those who can keep up with them along the way.  Those are my favorites.  Everyone I admire in this life is one of those.

I spent the summer after my graduation from art school trying to "teach".  The director of a summer arts program for kids contacted me, having heard that I could both sew and play music.  I didn't have any reason to believe I couldn't do the job that was being asked of me, so I accepted.  The good news was that I made two dear friends that summer, and they are among my closest to this day.  The interesting news was that I couldn't stand teaching.  I felt pulled at, tired, annoyed and generally like a fraud.  Who was I to be telling these children when and how to create?  Just because it's class time doesn't mean you should suddenly become inspired and jump into the business of making.  I simply disagree with the whole underlying premise there.  The best I could do was offer the techniques I knew, and give them high-fives.  They were either going to create or not, but it sure as hell wasn't going to come down to me.  Plus, the thing I noticed (and resented) most was that I stopped creating as much while I was teaching.  That was the real deal-breaker.

I went to art school because I was interested in some methods and mediums that I knew fragments about.  I specifically did not go to music school for fear that it would ruin music for me.  It was the right move.  Art school was a great experience in that it taught me how to think about my work, how to present my work, and how to defend my work.  I use these tools every day of my life.  The special added bonus was that my department head was a terrible teacher.  She was a woman who had at one time been a practicing artist, but had long since abandoned that life for one of raising a family and "teaching".  She had the curriculum down to a science and spent her days rattling of dye formulas and weaving patterns.  She was my worst nightmare, and I was hers.  I couldn't have cared less about how to weave this or that Apache shawl.  I wanted to talk about the anti-feminist issues that surrounded Barbie.  I wanted to put on a rock opera.  I wanted to play in a rock band wearing nothing but my underpants and war paint.  It was a long three years in that department, but it was a defining time for me.  For every project of mine that she blocked, two more sprung up their place.  I did twice as much work: the work needed to fulfill my scholastic requirements and the work needed to fulfill my own artistic vision.  She was a pain in my ass, but her presence made me the artist I am today.  In that setting, I discovered that I learn the hard way.  And I'm alright with that.

I taught myself to sew and I taught myself to play guitar.  For that reason, I do them both incorrectly by technical standards.  Also for that reason, my stuff is weird and individual.  I've been asked by people here and there to teach them how to do one or the other thing, and I always politely decline.  It's not because I don't want them to know how to do those things, but it's because I wouldn't know where to start.  When you're self-taught, there's no A-B-C to your process, you just "do".  I always tell these people that the best way to learn how to do something is to learn how not to do it.  The mistakes are the truths.  You only sew an armhole shut once before understanding why that part stays open.  I've enjoyed this journey of mine, even though it's sometimes painful and confusing.  I don't want to be told "how", I want to know "why", and if tripping and falling is my way, then so be it.  At least I'll get a good a look at the uneven ground that brought me to my knees, right?  The other reason I don't teach is because I believe in everyone.  If I can figure it out, so can you. 

Thanks for listening,

buick audra

"I'd never say it doesn't mean that much to me.  Glad, anyway, to see you struggle free."  ~Jawbox

I hope that at the end of my life, I don't have a headstone that reads, "Here lies Buick Audra, who didn't play well with others."  I mean, I hope I don't have a headstone at all as that would mean I had been buried which sounds terrible, but that's beside the point.  In all honesty, though... It's been a rough few years with me and collaborations.  I'm not so crazy as to think that it always boils down to the other party being the problem, but I also can't shoulder all the blame.  Perhaps some of us aren't collaborators.  Perhaps some of us just make stuff on our own.  I appear to be in the latter category whether I like it or not.

To be fair, I seem to do alright when it's not my project in any way.  I very much enjoy lending my ear or voice to other peoples' work, and don't run into any to struggles there.  I understand that it is their vision we are working towards; I am merely stepping in for a moment, and whatever the final outcome is: I'm fine with it.  But, anytime I enter into a so-called partnership or major collaboration where my art is in play, there will be blood.  Over and over again, I play a part in terrific disasters that are disappointing, frustrating, maddening and a colossal waste of time.  The sinkhole of bad human behavior usually sucks the art right down into it, to boot.  I count three major failures in this arena, and they've each locked me up for periods of time.  The first and most significant of the three had me in a medium security prison of the mind for what felt like an eternity.  I'd fool myself into thinking I was earning good time, but then a fight would break out and I'd end up in solitary confinement and be right back where I started.  The next one actually upgraded me to maximum security, but I served a shorter sentence.  The final stay was minimum security but it stung just the same.  Jail is jail.  I aim to stay free, but it's harder than you think.  I'm currently on probation and I'm watching every step.

It's hard to pinpoint exactly what the issue is.  I know, the mind reels that this could be the case, given the amount of time I've obviously had to think it over.  But, it's true.  I think it has to do with this expectation that, on top of attempting to co-create something of value, we'll also be great friends.  We'll be Super People who get along famously and agree on everything, and if we don't, we've done the wrong thing altogether.  But art is intense and turns you inside out.  The process of making it can be more intimate than making out with a person.  How are we to be perfect and pulled together at all times?  I've said it before and I'll say it again, those abandoned projects are like kids I had with inappropriate partners that were put up for adoption before birth.  It never stops being awful.  Years later, people you haven't seen in ages ask you about it, assuming you carried that child to term...  Because the last time they saw you, you were pregnant.  And you give some vague answer about people being different and quickly try to change the subject to something else.  Only there isn't anything else, because for me, my work is the whole story.  Like I said, it's awful.

So, here I am with my girls, Rose Ink, Singer and Family Album.  Everyone's doing well, thanks.  I do think about the orphaned ones, more often than you'd guess, but try to forage ahead as best I can.  Recently, one of them was left at the doorstep, providing a brand new situation for me to face.  You see, I've never had one come back.  I've never tried to re-create a bridge that had previously been burned to ash.  Do I make a new bridge out of popsicle sticks?  Do I have to go back over at all, or can I just get a megaphone and yell across the water from my shore?  Message in a bottle?  I'm open to the feedback, believe me.  My mind works better when I write its contents down, and so in the recent weeks since this new scenario has unfolded, I've done some brainstorming about how not to land myself in the same holding cell of worthlessness I seem to end up in, post break-up.  Here's what I have so far:

1. Maybe music isn't marriage.  (But it is... Oh well.)
2. Maybe I need less than I think I do.  Only, I just got through convincing myself that I need more.  It's all very confusing.
3. Maybe the release of an album I don't have individual control over might not kill me.  (Doubtful.)
4. Maybe the primary purpose of releasing the music overrides the personal bullshit between its parents.  I know something about coming from a wreck of a situation.
5. Maybe I'm supposed to be learning something here, and who wants to be the kind of person who can't learn?
6. Great things have come from people who don't see eye to eye.  Great, great things.

These are all things to think about.  I make no promises.  If I go quiet, I've let myself fall back into the cracks of who I am.  It happens.  But, I want to see the Big Picture and stay focused.  I may even want it badly enough to stay out of trouble this time.  Just maybe.

Thanks for listening,

buick audra

To speak on the arts is too general, so I'll hone in here.  I'm a longtime fan of Andy Warhol's work.  His entire movement, and the players within it, have always fascinated me.  I find his approach to have been both genius and mystifying.  He was clinical yet passionate, giving us pieces that vibrate with color and seize your attention with their exacting, high-contrast presence.  For all that I've read, seen and studied about him, I've never grown tired of the information or the imagery.  My living room speaks to that truth, as almost every surface references him in some way, whether subtle or obvious.  He was a person who literally founded an entire multi-genre art scene in New York over a few short decades, and we are still captivated by it today.  His peers were countless, but among them were Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, David Byrne, Debbie Harry, John Waters and Robert Mappelthorpe.  Robert Mappelthorpe.  I started hearing that name young.  My mom liked his work and shared it with me and my brother before we were old enough to comprehend the intensity of it all.  My mom is like that, and that is a wonderful way to be.  Before your mind develops fears, judgments and biases, it's much more open.  When music and art enter such a pure mind, it does beautiful things with that information.  So, Mappelthorpe's iconic and graphic imagery entered my child mind and all I saw were humans and shapes and contrasts.  His work has remained that way for me for all of these years, until recently.

I read Patti Smith's autobiographical book Just Kids over the summer.  It had been recommended to me by many people whose opinions I hold in high esteem, and the premise sounded lovely.  I knew that she and Robert had been romantically and creatively linked early on, and thought that the book would be illuminating and exciting to read.  I expected to feel some grief, of course, as he's now been dead for twenty-two years, but I didn't expect to feel all of the other things I felt as I made my way through the pages.  The book chronicles the friendship, love affair and collaboration of Patti and Robert from the time they met in 1967 to the end of his life in 1989.  They met in New York after having recently moved there from their respective homes in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.  They were both about twenty years old at the time.  Her writing is stunning, and it is clear from the outset that the words are crafted both technically and emotionally.  Her memory is amazing, and she recounts every detail of the rooms, faces and feelings.  It is a work of brave self-exposure and I admire that very much.  However, I didn't root for every character.  And I thought that I would root for every character.

I'm changing, it would seem.  Time was, I'd have read all about the desperate behaviors, seedy hotels and blurred lines and thought nothing of it.  I might even have glorified it all and chalked the collective brilliance up to the collective dysfunction.  But, not today.  Today it sounds awful and sad and damaging. Today it sounds like a whole lot of people wanted some unattainable thing and they all thought Warhol held the Golden Ticket.  Today it sounds like a bunch of people not unlike my own generation who were trying to help themselves to a serving of Life, but managed to hurt everyone in the process of doing so.  They weren't special.  They were people.  Yes, some of them made incredible art and music, but so do some of us.  They cheated on each other, lied to themselves, hurt their bodies, and broke their hearts... Just like we do.

We look at the past because those Polaroids are already developed.  The pictures and words exist, and we search for bits of ourselves in those faces and phrases.  We do.  Since I can remember, I've listened to music, read liner notes, gone to museums, opera houses, rock shows, lectures, classes and libraries.  I knew that I wanted to create, and set out to soak up all that I could of what had already been created.  I don't regret any of my education, whether it was in a scholastic setting or not.  I'm the better for learning, and I hope that I never stop.  But, how do I reconcile these expectations of mine that great art must come from greatness?  And more importantly, how will I let myself off of that hook?  I'm already not great.  I've already blown it.  I've lied, behaved dishonorably, made shitty work, given up on other people and myself, burnt cookies...  I've already blown it.  But, my heart sings songs to me.  I hear music when the room is silent and see dresses with clouds in their hems.  I imagine Hawaiian fantasies set to my brother's drumming, and colors more vibrant than those of tropical flowers.  I look into Sylvia Plath's dark eyes and know I owe her something in my lifetime.  Am I allowed those things if I've already blown it?  How many Hail Mary's do I have to say before I'm absolved of who I've been, so that I might go on to make great things?

You see, I didn't root for Robert Mappelthorpe because I don't root for myself.

I walk among greatness.  My loved ones are all making work, and some of it is mind-blowing.  And some of my outer community of peers are brilliant.  And some of them are assholes.  And some of them have drug problems and personality disorders.  And some of them are doing irreparable damage to their lives.  And some of them will be famous.  And some of them will be in books.  And some of them will die. 

Truth be told, I'd have been too afraid to go to the Factory and I know it.  I could never have hung at the Chelsea Hotel, nor bothered with Max's Kansas City.  If I were alive then, and living in New York, I'd have been sitting in my apartment with a guitar, contemplating cutting my hair, wanting no part of the party or the parade.  Because that's who I am.  God bless Edie Sedgwick and Nico, man.  They look lovely in all of that footage, but their lives were hard and short.  I don't want that ending.  My beginnings were already hard, and I don't want that to be my whole story.  If I make it into anyone's book, I want to be rooted for.  That's all.  I want to be someone to root for.  And maybe I'll stumble onto greatness along the way.

Thanks for listening,

buick audra