Jenny's Kitchen

So this promoter walks into a bar…

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Kerr) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 01:53:00 +0000

…and he says, you only have about 400 Facebook fans, so we won’t consider you for our festival. We might let you come and play-- for free.

Hmmm, (along with some under-the-breath profanities which need not be duplicated here), sez I, my ego bristling.

But wait, I vowed to myself, my New Year’s Resolution, and lifetime resolution, as the new age-etarians are fond of saying, to

dissolve the ego.

Getting to that point of needing to dissolve my ego is a bit of a long story, maybe for another blog. Suffice it to say, it appears to me that we all could benefit by dissolving the ego, which comprises the brain, judgment, criticism all that fun stuff and rather work from the heart. Maybe that’s why we’re all walking around this planet in this lifetime. Maybe we just didn’t get it last time around…

So I decide to go ahead and ask folks to like the music page. First Phil and I sent out a wry little note to our paltry fan base “We Live to be Liked” which didn’t get too much response. So I look at all my friends on Facebook, about 1200, 1300. And I’m wondering, who are all these people? What real contact do I have with them. I don’t really know most of them at all. And so, I embarked on a project to write each and everyone and ask them if they wouldn’t do me a little favor, and ‘like’ the music page.

It’s been a fascinating process. I've been visiting their Facebook pages, seeing new babies that have been born, musicians struggling to stay afloat, French people who probably won't understand my post, Dutch people who probably will, folks with parents that had just passed away. I've been congratulating, consoling, and just being with.

But each time I got to anybody famous or semi-famous, I was stopped. I was sure they wouldn’t have time to answer such a puny little cry in the wind. But on I went anyway. And the surprising thing, they usually all answered, and sometimes I even had a conversation with them.

As it turns out the process of connecting with people in this way was far more fun and valuable to me than any festival I might have played.

I’m about halfway through. So on and on I go wading out in the waters of people, and the circle of friends that is making a small momentary ripple in this vast ocean where we are all the same…

More on Maui

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Kerr) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 07:00:00 +0000

Here's an article I recently wrote for Hermonicas.com, a website about women harp players, past and present.
It's got some other pix of the Maui tour. Hope you enjoy it. -JK

Maui Tour—or I left my Heart in Makawao

Philbillie (my partner, guitar slinger, road manager and engineer/producer) grew up on Maui playing, cutting his teeth in the clubs. His dad put in the first FM rock radio station on Maui. Philbillie's sister had recently moved back with her 2 boys, so I thought it was high time that we put together a tour and take the occasion to visit them.

Turns out everyone wants to go to Maui. We brought along bass player Dave Newman, and the fabulous Eric McFadden www.ericmcfadden.com who has played with P-Funk, Eric Burdon, and lots of famous folk too numerous to name here. Let's just say he's one hot guitar guy.

While there, we had the good fortune to hook up with a great drummer, Josh Greenbaum, who we wanted to steal away from the island and bring him back to SF. Might just steal him yet.

We got to stay in a beautiful place, Rainbow Acres, way up a windy road on a mountain in a eucalyptus forest. It’s a farm where they grow and sell all kinds of succulents and cacti. Wherever we went we were making fast new friends and fans.

Philbillie had some old radio contacts and we played a benefit for the community radio station there, Radio Mana'o, making fast friends with the DJs there, especially singer/songwriters Dorothy Betz and Les Adams www.betzandadam.com. Here's a shot of us all jammed into the tiny studio there.

Touring a new market for the first time can be worrisome. You just don’t know if anyone’s gonna show up to hear you, especially if they never heard of you. We had a number of club dates in the tourist part of the

island, Kihei, and as the word got out, (on the coconut wireless as they call it) more and more folks came to see us.

We got to play Charlie’s, Willy Nelson’s hangout, which was really fun, and by the time we did the Radio Mana’o benefit at Casanova, they had one of the best turnouts they ever had in something like 15 years of benefits.

One of the high points was a house concert that was put together by master guitar-builder Stephen Grimes www.grimesguitars.com. This guy has built guitars for George Benson (four of ‘em!), Leo Kottke, Willy Nelson, Larry Coryell and the list goes on. We got to hang in his studio and play with crazy-ass amazing guitars! Ukeleles, too. By the way, you better pronounce it right over there—that’s oo-koo-lay-lay. It’ll save you a few scowls if you say it right. Steve had put together a very cool house concert for us. It was the first one he did, and it pretty much sold out.

Here’s Dave Newman playing a Steve Grimes guitar:

If the Tiki gods are willing, we’ll be back in March for another tour, since we’ve had a festival offer. Another chance to go back to paradise. It is paradise, yes, but only for the people who are there who make it so. Aloha and mahalo.

The Kindness of Strangers

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Kerr) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 23:11:00 +0000

Olinda, Maui

“I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”—Blanche du Bois

(I think she said this after being violated by Stanley Kowalski.)

We are up a winding road in the cool reaches of a forest upcountry.

Driving up there are brown horses, white horses standing the green shade like a Gauguin painting, flocks of stumpy-tailed goats, huge lush overgrowth of vines and flowers, yellow and red hibiscus everywhere that long-haired women tuck behind their ears, white sweet plumeria blossoms fallen onto thick green lawns.

Little jangly suburban houses are scattered over the jungle towns of Makawao and Haiku. The words are lovely, rolling off the tongue—Kauhikoa, Kekaolike, Kula…

But further down to the coast the more the island smacks of Southern California beach cities, hotter and stickier, with sad condos, refrigerated big box stores, giant blue ice drinks, fancy desperate resorts, and poor people picking glumly along the shopping aisles looking at price tags.

They say there are ancient ghosts here. When the moon is full, warrior ghosts, the night marchers, haunt their old paths near ancient rock temples. They say if you hear their drums, take off all your clothing, lie face down on the ground, or they may tap your shoulder and you will join their eternal march.

I keep thinking about life here before Hollywood, before 50’s pin-up Hawaiian babes, before Amerika. Before Captain Cook.

A couple of millennia of taro pounding, vicious bloody fighting between brown anthill islands. Fighting each other. But not fighting nature.

The first thing the missionaries did was plant kiawe trees with sharp thorns that would drop on the ground, so the Hawaiians would have to wear shoes.

And they made the bare-breasted hula dancers wear shirts. The nakedness shocked their Victorian sensibilities.

In the rich tourist resorts, the grounds are swept immaculate, the green is clipped and natural world held briefly at bay. Brown men serve white women tall drinks with ice.

Beautiful fruits, both wild and cultivated: Surinam cherries, white pineapple, mandarin trees. And rats. Rats under the porch. Scuttling English rats from Captain Cook’s scuttled ships. Rats eating the fallen fruit.

The island has been violated by the kindness of strangers. Waves of it washing up its shores. Ghost warriors beat their drums and march down the night.

Head of Fire, Feet of Clay

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Kerr) — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 08:48:00 +0000

July 13 2011, San Francisco

Four months already and I haven’t come up with another blog. Swore I’d write one once a month, but I just didn’t get around to it.

I kept journals for years and years. Why oh why is it so hard for me to sit down and write the damn blog?

I figured it might interest you to hear the story of some of the songs coming out on the new release...

Head of Fire, Feet of Clay

Got no fear, and I got no hope

Rollin down the river in a tin can boat

Don’t throw me a line ‘cause it’s much too late

Head of fire, feet of clay

My true love taught me not to feel

Taught me when to run, taught me how to steal

So I stole his heart and I gave it away

Head of fire, feet of clay

I’m the last big chief in this one-cow town

Won’t crawl, won’t kneel and I won’t bow down

So they left me lying where I lay

Head of fire, feet of clay

Kick down the dead, climb the graveyard wall

When you get to the top, boy, you better not fall

You laugh when they say it’s gonna end this way

Head of fire, feet of clay

* * * * *

Well, at the risk of sounding self-congratulatory, I especially like this one. One of the best moments for me in my musical life, Bill Bottrell chose this one (and another one called “Say Goodbye.”) to produce out of all my material. He played drums on it. We went up north to his studio in Mendocino which has been closed off for a few months, and in the process it had gotten moldy. I was singing in an isolation booth, and started to get an asthma attack, but I didn’t say anything, because I didn’t want to whine, wanted to be brave!…you can hear it in my voice, but it adds an oddly cool quality.

I took inspiration on this song from a few places. The title was an ”Untouchables” episode from 1960 that came on in the wee hours www.imdb.com/title/tt0737756/ and I thought the title would make a great song. I didn’t know what to make of it at the time.

The line about the “tin can boat” seems to me like I might have heard something like it in a Dylan song, but I might have dreamed it, or just imagined I heard it and filled in the spaces. You can get some great lines like that. I never found the Dylan song with that line. Maybe you know it. Well, it’s belongs to this song now.

The last verse’s first couplet comes from a 2008 PBS special on the black Indians of New Orleans called the “Order of Myths.” There’s an old guy talking about the stuff he sings, nonsense stuff, but I thought it was very poetic:

Make fire, make thunder

Kick down tombstones

Midnight put the dead on the wall

Dude tell you I’ll make a tireless climber

Slip the wall

Get to the top

you better not jump or fall

Help Wanted

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Kerr) — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 23:18:00 +0000

Well, we’re got seven tunes in the can. They are sounding better than anything I’ve done before! And we think we might have a few songs that might have legs.

The question now is how to get them into the right hands.

As we all know, the music business is a tough biscuit to chew. It's a shark pool, so you really need a shark on your side if you don't want to be trampled in the dust. Heck, you’d need a landshark…

Is anybody out there up to the task? Are you willing to break a few legs, cut off a few thumbs, and maybe just be a little ruthless? Would you trade your grandmother to Somalian pirates for the chance to have your client make the big time? Lord knows that what it takes these days.

Back in 1966, in the time of the Summer of Love, The Beatles gave David Crosby an advance tape of the song, “A Day in the Life.” When Buffalo Springfield's manager found this out, he sent an attractive young girl over to Crosby's house to steal the tape.

He then took it to the biggest DJ in L.A. and offered it to him with the stipulation that he play his clients' new song, “For What It's Worth” every time he played the new Beatles’ song. A scoop like that wasn't to be passed up, and so the deal was made. By the end of that summer, everyone in L.A. knew “For What It's Worth” like it was the national anthem, and it made the charts.

I want a manager like that--someone willing to go the whole nine yards, someone who will bend every effort, and comes from a long line of effort-benders. I want someone who won't take no for an answer, even while being pepper-sprayed or menaced by attack dogs in front of a large record company's headquarters.

It takes a lot of wherewithal to front a successful band, and we want someone with large quantities of it.
Are you out there? We'll leave a light on for you.

Creating the Perfect World

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Kerr) — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 10:15:00 +0000

Philbillie says I should blog about Bill. Okay. Here’s what happened.

We decided to use as a part of the new record an older recording of one of our favorite songs “Head of Fire, Feet of Clay” that we tracked some years ago with super-producer Bill Bottrell (Michael Jackson, Sheryl Crow, Tom Petty, Shelby Lynne, the list goes on) at his studio in Mendocino.

We had high hopes of him recording the entire album, and we took home a CD of a rough mix, thinking we might finish it someday with Bill. But as it turned out, after the first sessions, Bill was lured back to the bright lights of Tinseltown.

We thought about re-recording it from scratch

but realized that his version had really become the definitive one for us. But we only had (what we thought) was a rough mix.

When we recently talked to Bill about doing a final mix for this song, for various reasons, it wasn’t feasible to remix, and in any case upon re-listening Bill thought it was excellent as it was and gave us his blessing to release it. However, we wrote that "in a perfect world 'Head of Fire' would have one more element, sustaining, like either steel or strings," but added that the mix sounded blankety-blank awesome.

So we gave a holler to our first-call pedal steel guy, Dave Zirbel who did a gorgeously executed track. Here’s a glimpse of Dave at work on the tune:

http://tinyurl.com/4pe53qn

And so I guess it’s done now, at last. But isn’t the perfect world always a work in progress?

Making Records is Like Making Sausages...

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Kerr) — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 10:19:00 +0000

Everybody enjoys the final product, but you don't want to know what goes into making it.
So Philbillie has a sinus infection, and I’ve had a cold for a week.

But even in the face of adversity we soldier on, and are nearing completion of the long-awaited (by us at least) CD. Today we tracked background vocals on a couple of tracks with the fabulous Lady Chi and Pamela Parker who sing with RonKat Spearman of P-Funk in Katdelic. We forgot to turn on the video when the girls were here. Too bad. They’re really cute, and sing great too.

Monday we go to the East Bay to re-record some more B3 with Harry O. See, we almost completed one of the main songs. But after tracking the lead vocals we realized that the key was far too low. So we scrapped the lot, saved the drums and proceeded to recut basses, guitars, banjos, vocals all in one day. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise since in the process we made it even bigger better fatter and groovier. You could even catch a glimpse of some the overdubs on the jennykerrband youtube channel or just look at the little video roll on the left. Stay tuned, we’ll have some sweet video up soon of Harry and his big organ (Hammond B3, that is), and also Eric McFadden as he tracks some mandolin.

Train to Salvation recorded at Okey Doke

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Kerr) — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 03:08:00 +0000

Philbillie is really proud of this record; he recorded and co-produced it with Eric and of course worked his hiney off on the mix . I got to play harmonica and banjo sing a little on it (I'm part of the 'Drunk and Dirty Angel Choir'). I think it's gorgeous. The title track is epic.

In the press:

WWW.BLUESMATTERS.COM
Eric McFadden is an American guitarist but this album – his first for French label Bad Reputation – has a decidedly French feel to it, albeit French on the Mexican border. If you are after ‘normal’ Blues this won’t float your boat but if your tastes are more to the seedy side of life and death and you enjoy polka and accordion then he has it all and in spades. McFadden’s guitar work is a delight and his voice is gruff and dense, world-worn and full of life’s experiences. The titles tell part of the story – ‘Last Day Of My Life’ or ‘Stealing From The Dead’ – but his songs are exquisitely painworn and felt

PARIS-MOVE.COM
Véritable ‘coup de cœur’, cet album de McFadden mérite la note maximale, ‘Indispensable’, car dès la première écoute cet opus vous deviendra indispensable tant il est géant. Monumental.

Chicken and ABCs

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Kerr) — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 02:52:00 +0000

Click over to Amazon and check out the rave reviews for our dear friend Marissa's album featuring the talents of Jenny Kerr and co.

What's It All About?Marisa Martinez is hoping to help kids learn while getting a big dose of musical inspiration with her newly-released compact disc, ABC And Chickens. Martinez, a National Board Certified teacher with a Masters in Elementary education, and a Bachelors Science in Special education, also performs regularly in several bands. This kindergarten teacher and longtime musical performer hopes to support music in the schools through the production and sale of an educational CD for children.
Music has helped so many children learn to read and become excited about learning and after completing her master's thesis on the crucial interaction between music and art in a young student's educational development, Martinez realized that ongoing cuts in music classes both in her school district and hundreds of schools across the country were robbing students of that important component of schooling. Aimed at the pre-K to 2nd grade set, the 18 songs on ABC And Chickens help kids learn counting, naming the days of the week, spelling, social skills and other important lessons.
Marisa has been a full-time Kindergarten teacher for almost 10 years, singing and playing these songs with her classes for years. These songs align with the teaching standards and have helped children learn all they need to know in preschool, kindergarten and beyond. She has three daughters, three cats, three dogs, and one husband.
Working with producer Phil "Philbillie" Milner, Martinez gathered a few friends who happen to be some of the most noteworthy players in San Francisco, all former or current band mates - guitarist Eric McFadden (George Clinton, Eric Burdon), drummer Paulo Baldi (Les Claypool, Cake), cellist Sam Bass (Les Claypool), bassist/tubist Ed Ivey (Faraway Brothers, Brass Monkey Brass Band) , multi-instrumentalist Jenny Kerr and Mike Anderson on the Bass. Martinez composed most of the songs and sang or played on every cut. The recording sessions were great fun for the musicians and more than a few admitted they learned something new just being involved.

New CD in the works at Okey Doke Studio

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Kerr) — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 02:39:00 +0000

Live in the studio at Okey Doke records with producer/engineer Philbillie Milner and drummer Anthony Vito as they set up to record tracks on the upcoming Jenny Kerr release tentatively titled "The Good Life" Here they demonstrate the "Glynn Johns" drum miking technique for that massive John Bonham sound.

Paper Girl in a Digital World

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Kerr) — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 19:30:00 +0000

Even though I swore to myself, and publicly, on this blog that I'd post once a month, I just can't seem to do it. Even though there's been all kinds of news to relate, like writing new songs, recording, playing with some new wonderful musicians (of late we're working with Kevin Hayes who played with Robert Cray for 20 years, and bassist Tim Eschliman who is playing with Commander Cody), I can't seem to get off my duff to blog about it. Maybe it's because Paper Doll Girl over here doesn't even seem to have a duff, or even a pelvis for that matter. Well, I guess that elimates the pesky problem of doll genitalia, or bloomers in this case. It looks like a strange immaculate conception; she is giving birth to herself and to her emotionless twin with no birth canal. Mystifying, her alternate blank face, presumably the back of her head. Well, if it's on paper, the back is already blank, so it would seem that this would be the face Doll Girl uses when she really wants to mask her emotion. Much easier cutting out this shape than tiny dark glasses, I suppose.
Bottom line, I think I've finally o.d.'ed on self-promotion, marketing and social networking. It seems everyone has a blog, and a Myspace and a website and at least one Facebook page, and a Sonicbids EPK and a Reverbnation site, and on and on ad nauseum. With all our "tips for musicians" and ruthless promotional tactics, it seems the only money being made in the music biz is by the folks providing these tips and how-to services. Just the artists are left screaming, whispering, or sincerely imploring, "Look at me, look at me, look at me."
Ambition is just a mask of the ego's sense of inferiority. I'm done, cooked, stick a fork in me. I'm making music for its own sake. Just give me a pair of scissors and let me run with it.

The Best Music You’ll Ever Make

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Kerr) — Thu, 06 May 2010 07:25:00 +0000

As a result of a personal growth seminar he is participating in, Philbillie is producing an event called "Twang for Tots," a benefit for a children's music in the schools. It all started with our dear friend and fiddler Marisa Martinez who teaches at one of the most financially impoverished schools in San Francisco. We kept hearing horror stories about funding cuts and teachers spending out of their own pockets for the most basic supplies like pencils and the books. All these years, Marisa has been quietly buying art supplies for her class and teaching them to sing and draw. Phil and I went there once or twice to sing for these little munchkins. Once was Halloween. They loved it, they all sang with us and we watched the parade in the playground. But there were some sad and troubled kids in that classroom to be sure.

It has been a long-standing dream of Marisa’s to create a children’s CD, and so she has finally done it with "ABC and Chickens," www.abcandchickens.com with our good buddies, Eric McFadden, Paolo Baldi and others. Philbillie produced and engineered it. Marisa did the artwork, sang on it, played on it, wrote all the songs except a couple. I was pleased that she covered an unreleased song of mine, “Schroedinger’s Cat,” whose subject matter I thought was pretty advanced for the kidlets, but Marisa assured me that the meowing cat on the track would work just fine for them. So bleary-eyed Phil went down to the school bright and early to record the kids singing on several of the tracks. As a treat Marisa bought a pizza. Some of these kids don't know where their next meal is coming from.

Phil and I have regularly played shows for Bread and Roses, an organization that provides music for people who live in institutions or are otherwise isolated from society. They are dedicated to promoting wellness through the healing power of music. We’ve played rehab centers, cheered up abused moms and kids in shelters over Christmas, played for mentally disabled adults who could barely talk, but sure could sway to the music. We always have an indescribable feeling when we do these shows. A light feeling in the soul. It’s why we do it. The best music you’ll ever make is for the ones who need it the most.

Twang for Tots Benefit for Friday, June 4^th,7 PM

Restoration Workshop

630 Treat Avenue

San Francisco, CA 94110-2016

415 671-5219

Philbillie@gmail.com

Broken Record

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Kerr) — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 08:17:00 +0000

Scarier and scarier, cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English); I wonder how we will ever make enough money for treacle and new shoes, now that we must give away all our beautiful music for free. No one wants records, or tapes or even CDs now. How will we ever manage? Poor dear little songs! What will we do with them? How will they ever find ears to appreciate them? And she began to cry. But slowly a plan began to take shape in Alice's mind. Why, we'll sell them outright to television shows and adverts and films...yes, we'll take them to market and sell them outright. No matter! she said bravely. And so she tucked her precious songs into a lovely basket with bright blue ribbons and started off for the covered market. But much to Alice's chagrin, as she approached the market, she saw a long line down the lane, full of other people carrying baskets with even brighter ribbons, even shinier songs. Poor Alice! It was as much as she could do, to gaze on the endless line meandering like a great snake; but to get through was more hopeless than ever: she sat down and began to cry again. And then she began to blog...

Blossom in the Dust

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Kerr) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 07:07:00 +0000

I promised myself I'd write once a month, and here it is, only 3 days late. Not like my new CD, which is, something like 2 years late. That's the blessing and the curse of the home studio.

Songs are like children. Early on, they must be nurtured. If neglected they eventually drift off like homeless waifs into the whorls of stars.

Odd that the saddest events in our lives can produce the most inspired songs. And what we hear out of the corners of our ears can become lines in those songs, and so I thought I heard my friend, Suz, say at the kitchen table one afternoon the phrase, "Blossom in the Dust." But she didn't say it. The song did get written, though. It was for my uncle, a wonderful man, a psychiatrist, naturopath and healer who decided inexplicably to end his life.

Around the same time I was contacted by a fan who lives in Belgium. He was grief-stricken. His son, Remy, had been killed by an automobile, did I want to write a song for him? As I listened to the grief of this man, while slung up in my own grief, I realized that this is a song for everyone who has had a loved one plucked too early from their heart.
http://jean-luc1952.skyrock.com/

It's been two years now that I've been trying to keep this child of a song alive, from floating off into the ethers. As the year comes to a close, I think I may too have finally finished it.

Ah, the moon
Is scarred with silver
And its face
Too far to touch
So pale
In the branches
Like a blossom
In the dust

Ah they told you
Life would hurt you
But they didn’t
Say how much
Cast your pearls
Back in the ocean
Cast your blossoms
In the dust

Take this flower
From your heart
Your tears have turned it
White with rust
Let the wind
Strip the petals
Scatter blossoms
In the dust

Love until
You are empty
Love until
You love too much
Love until
Love undoes you
Makes you blossom
In the dust

Halloween with Kelli and Metso

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Kerr) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 02:12:00 +0000

Why is it so hard for me to blog? I kept journals for years...Well, I guess there are paper people and techie types.
Oh well. Anyway, we've had our dear friends from the UK, Kelli Ali and Metso staying with us for few weeks. We met a few years back at Zihuatanejo Guitar Fest. A couple of weeks ago we did a beautiful show at Yoshi's, with Barry Melton, Stevie Coyle, and Caroline Aiken. Philbillie and I backed up Kelli, a refreshing change of pace for me. She has delicate haunting songs that really get under your skin. The organizer confessed aside to me, "I lost my virginity to a Kelli Ali song!" He told me was "Six Underground." Kelli laughs when she says she has heard that from a lot of fans. How many, I ask. Hundreds, she sighs...
Hallowe'en is our favorite time of year, and they have really got in the SF
Hallowe'en spirit. Metso, Kelli's beau, photographer extraordinaire, carved the most exalted pumpkin for our Hallowe'en this year. Also he took some magical photos, which you can view on Adrian Metso's facebook page (blogger not letting me post link, grrr!!) Like I said, there are paper people...

Rollin'!.....

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Kerr) — Thu, 14 May 2009 01:39:00 +0000

Here's a cool feature about a recent session here at Okey Doke Studio working on Eric McFadden's latest CD co-produced by our own Philbillie. This was produced by SPINearth.tv correspondent Narayana and you can check out the full story at:
http://spinearth.tv/city/san-francisco
and...
http://7x7.com/blogs/clamour/studio-local-singer-songwriter-eric-mcfadden

See full report...www.jennykerr.com

The Red Light Is On

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Kerr) — Fri, 08 May 2009 07:06:00 +0000

Here at Okey Doke Studios, at a secret location somewhere in San Francisco, we have been making the Jenny Kerr Band records for, lo, these many years. And although mainly a private project studio, our facility has been host to some very special outside projects as well. Most recently our man, Philbillie, has been engineering and co-producing the latest effort from our good buddy and local guitar legend Eric McFadden. This one is the long awaited follow-up to the deeply acoustic "Devil Moon" CD of 2003. Also mainly acoustic based, Eric and Philbillie have brought in some more orchestral textures to this one.

Carla Kihlstedt, of "Sleepytime Gorilla Musuem" who has recorded and toured with none
other than Tom Waits, lays down her trademark ghostly violin.

Sam Bass of "Loop Station" and "Les Claypool"on cello

The Ringleader.

Accordion Goddess (and Accordion Babe calendar girl)
Isabel Douglass. She also plays with "Rupa & The April Fishes".

A fine, handsome group of kids and talented, to boot. This new disk is slated to drop this spring, including wide European release on Bad Reputation records in France, and we here at Okey Doke Records couldn't be prouder.

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Kerr) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 05:11:00 +0000

Well, it is inexcusable, even my mother has noticed the absence of a new blog, and you know mom's ALWAYS right.

So here we are back for 2 weeks from Zihuatanejo where we played for the International Guitarfest. It's our fourth time there. And this I think was the best festival yet. Over the course of the four years, we've made some wonderful friends, Jeanne, Rick, Catherine, Kelli Ali (from previous years) and of course, Heidi Nygaard, who was our most gracious hostess. She has the most beautiful house. Eric McFadden came with us for his second time on the festival. We all got to stay in this fab house! The house became music central for the festival, and there was jamming many a balmy Mexican night into the wee hours.

www.tomatis.no/mexico/Zihuatanejo.html

Eric's friend and mentor, Stan Hirsch, and supercool wife Trish came too. They stayed in the bungalow which is also on the property.

Stan does blues yes, but also mixes in his own edgy thing...he had some hispanola trippy melange in there...and he's got this crazy thumb/tremolo fingers isolation technique that is humanly impossible, yet he does it. It's been driving me crazy for years. How, Stan? How do you do it? www.stanhirsch.com

Stan and Trish shared with Patrick Sweany, one of my fave new players on the festival this year www.patricksweany.com. He made a grand arrival, getting totally soaked by the cabbie who had driven Pat way out of his way, on purpose and was trying to charge him like $100 bucks for a $10 ride. So there was a big yelling match in the street.

Now Patrick has the most soulful voice, plays gutbucket guitar, blues, ragtime, R and B, great obscure tunes and great tunes of his own...and knows song after song after song after song. But GOOD ones. The last night of the festival he was one of the last guys standing, 5:30 AM, I think it was, and he was still singin' 'em, fresh as a daisy. Well, maybe not that fresh, but at least he sounded good...

Here's the bungalow where those guys stayed: Oh yeah, I almost forgot this totally crazy kid guitar player, Lenny or Jay Leonard, Juatco...a young sweet guy, pretty fresh outta Berklee, and played as fast as a jackrabbit. What the heck IS your name, Lenny? Anyway, a whole lotta talent, and hysterically funny guy. The kind who leaps flying fully dressed with a guitar into the pool, although he didn't actually do this, it would be easy to imagine him. Hope I get to see him again sometime...

A special hello to Marianne, who inspired me and taught me a couple of truly magical things, but they're secret!

So here we are back in cool San Francisco, with only a few mosquito bites that are fading along with the memory of this year's Guitarfest.

Desert Dream

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Kerr) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 02:06:00 +0000

As to the great length of time between my first entry and this, it can be attributed to a couple of reasons, the least not being sheer phlegm. No, not the kind you get in your nose and throat, but rather the kind of psycho-torpor that sets in from October to February. But aside from that, there was the issue of my biography that my trip to Phoenix begged me to reconsider.

If I do say so myself, I have had a pretty interesting life and never wanted to brag about such matters in the bio on my website, wanting to keep it professional and let the music speak for itself. So I’ve always felt a little cagey and withholding, and have left myself out of the mix. But isn't authenticity the singer/songwriter's stock in trade, raison d'etre, bird in the proverbial hand? And besides, it makes for a good read and back-story. And they always say to 'salt the story', so here goes.

Come here, little birdie, and show me your tale....

While in Phoenix, I visited the Kerr Cultural Center, which my grandmother, Louise Lincoln Kerr, bequeathed to ASU. This is her adobe house and music studio which was converted to a cultural center after her death in 1977. Normally they program a mix of classical and folkloric shows, but Chris Smithers had played there recently so they feature a pretty broad mix. The main adobe contains the green room, ticket office and gift shop. It made me just a bit uneasy seeing my grandmother's teacups and photos in a glass case near the cash register.

The house was built of all native materials, and she designed the "studio," a concert hall which apparently had extraordinary acoustics and were studied by many architects. There were also small adobe houses on the property called the 'shacks', which were used as guest houses for great musicians and artists such as Pablo Casals, Isaac Sterns, and the Juilliard String Quartet. I imagine there were some really swingin’ times out there what with party animals like that hanging out. The plans for the house's construction somehow fell into my hands, and I saw that she plotted every native plant and tree so the ecological balance would be undisturbed. And all this in the 1940's... Now the house and studio are surrounded and dwarfed by horribly chic designer malls and green lawns. It's so incongruous as to seem almost ridiculous.

You can read up on it here.
http://www.asukerr.com/more/aboutkerr.shtml

Regrettably, I was never especially close to my grandmother. I met her only a couple of times. But I did end up with several of her scores, papers, recipes and some furniture. I’ve heard some incredible stories about her, which my father told me: that she was friend to the Hopi, had organized caravans of food and medicine for them long before it was "PC." to do so. In fact, they called her “Mother”. Often in the house there was a cacophonous mix of chamber music, a Hopi chief drumming and children yelling. The house was full of Katchina dolls. In her scores, there are a number of songs based on Hopi texts, very lovely. Here's an excerpt:

Indian Serenade

Neither wind nor bird, that was my flute you heard last night by the river
When you came with your wicker jar where the river drags the willows,
oh that was my flute you heard, Wacoba, calling come to the willows
neither wind nor bird rustled the lupine blooms, that was my blood you heard
answer your garments hem, whispering whispering through the grasses

She was one of the first two women to win a seat with the Cleveland Symphony, performing as first violinist there. She also wrote symphonic works that were performed during the 1950's, a era not especially known for nurturing women composers.

More info on Louise Lincoln Kerr here:
http://www.iawm.org/articles_html/broe_kerr.html

So in short the Phoenix Folk Alliance trip turned up much more than ever expected...

All the best and a Happy New Year,

Jenny

Fair to Middlin'

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Kerr) — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 06:27:00 +0000

Yet another JKB road trip with Jenny and the band headed down to sun-splashed San Diego for the San Diego County Fair at the Del Mar fairgrounds. What was originally planned as a quick 4th of July weekend run out turned into a nice, week-long mini vacation when Vanholio (our '91 Ford Clubwagon XL) decided that NOW would be a good time for a new catalytic converter. Yes, NOW. On. the. 4th. of. July. weekend. As luck would have it, though, we are staying with some very dear, generous friends who pulled together to get us and all the gear to the show on time and a little extra time in sunny SD was most welcome.

Philbillie & Jenny.... Mike Anderson wailin' the bass while Dana and Marisa look on.

Harry O tickles the keys, while the band rips it up in the Del Mar sunset.

Our host Jeffie-Scott and our sound-gal Page are the only ones with the cajones enough to brave the ride-of-doom. The rest of us look on in terror.

Nothing, though, is more horrifying than this:

And finally, a thousand thanks and a million kisses to our Hostess wit' 'da mostess, the Baroness Jeanne-Renee' Pezzi for opening her home to a bunch of sun-burnt, road-weary musicians.

Just putting my toes in.

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Kerr) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 06:37:00 +0000

Uhhhh......Hi?

Well, this will be a first for me, this blog thing, but with a spankin' new website up soon, some great new band members and a new record in the works I reckon it's time to jump in, better late than whatever.

The new website that brought you here was designed by a really talented guy by the name of Steve Wilkison at Digital Vision Media who has done designs for many other great musicians including one of my faves Buddy and Julie Miller, and I'm thrilled with the spiffy new look he's helped me out with, web-wise.

I'll also use this forum soon to introduce some new players that I'm real happy to have on stage with me now and we may even post some bonus live recordings soon, if the stars line up right.
We've even got ourselves a full-time sound gal to help out Philbillie on the technical end.

We're headed down to San Diego for the county fair in Del Mar next week and I'll have some news for you all then, so come on back. In fact, you could even hit the subscribe button if you're so inclined.

Best,
Jenny