My Soul is Already Sold Tour 2014

Being on the road is a huge part of being a musician. It is when I put all the hard work behind the scenes out on the front lines for the world to see and hear. Hours and hours of writing, rehearsing and recording comes down to this moment, walking out on the stage. This is where I connect with all of my fans and hopefully meet and make new friends and build an even bigger fan base.

I kicked off this leg of the tour with Scott Neubert, musician extraordinaire, best producer any girl could ask for and an amazing friend. We performed in my living room through Stage It an online performance venue. It was a great turn out and I want to thank all of you who attended and donated  money to help fund my road expenses.

I then headed to Philly with Renee Wahl. Renee is from Philadelphia and had heaps of her friends

Renee Wahl and Rebecca Hosking at Milkboy in Philly

come out to the Milkboy and shared the evening with us. My good friend Andy What made the trip and I made a whole bunch of new friends there as well. It was a packed house and phenomenal fun.

My good friend Jennifer Logue is the host of the show Rock on Philly and had invited me to play their Tuesday night show. I'll forever be in debt to Jennifer for thinking of me and always supporting my music. We met through the magazine I write for, I was offered a column and she was my first story, and we have been friends ever since.

It is almost inevitable that a musician runs into a little bit of strife while on the road. My car started overheating and I was concerned. Renee contacted a friend Rob Branco aka (Cousin Rob) and he put me in touch with a gentleman named Donnie DiDonato, please forgive me if I got the last name wrong. He owns the Advance Auto on 1826 South 11th, Philadelphia, PA 19148, he took me in right away, fixed me up and even drove me around the city to make sure the problem was fixed before sending me on my way. I cannot thank him enough for his kindness and concern. A genuine soul and thank you seems too little of words. BUT, THANK YOU so very much! If anyone is ever in need of work done in Philly go see Donnie!

I'm headed to NYC today and playing at the Ella Lounge, 9 Avenue A. NY, NY at 9pm. I'm looking forward to see what this night will bring. I have been wanting to play Manhattan my whole life, for me, this is a milestone of my career. To be able to share it with the amazing Renee Wahl is an added bonus. I'm hoping for another packed house and looking forward to seeing some old friends and making some new ones.

The Importance of Self Evaluation

Have you ever been on that journey, trying to find yourself? 

Salvador Dali

I am pretty sure most of us have, especially us creative types. We do tend to dig a little deeper in order to delve into depths of emotions most people choose to bury. These emotions are the catalyst to our art. In other people's lives they go to work, come home and spend time with family on the weekends and have created a routine that works very well. To stray from the routine is usually cumbersome, we all are creatures of habit

Although regimen and structure can be very beneficial if you are like me, I get bored quickly and need to keep things interesting or else I tend to get myself into little messes. The details of those messes is for another post altogether.

The world around us is forever changing even if we continue on our same path, everyday is a new day. I think we should always redefine who we are and what is important to keep up with the changes. I believe you should be unapologetic for changing your mind. You may feel one moment one way and the next moment completely different, especially if you keep your mind open to new ideas and different opinions.

I can only speak for myself and I know that I play many different roles in any given day and I act accordingly. I work in the corporate world and I behave as such, when I'm on stage, I'm a different person. I can be a writer, a friend, a daughter, a sister, whatever role I am, each is deserving of its own reaction and personality.

Stagnated ruts can quickly kill our creativity. Force yourself outside of your comfort zone daily. It is a sure fire way to learn your flaws and improve and build strengths where you were weak. Not only does it spill into our work but it makes us more well rounded individuals.  

I have a plethora of personal flaws that hold me back if I succumb to them and give them strength. But, you cannot fix something until you know what is broken, you have to view yourself with an extremely crucial and judgmental eye. If you are honest with yourself, you will see the good and embrace it and feel compelled to fix the bad. Once the bad is revealed it is your responsibility to make the change. Try not to justify, simply accept that it needs to be addressed.

For most of us it is difficult to view ourselves objectively. I find a good rule of thumb is to pay close attention to the insults you put towards others, often times if you spot it, you got it. Keep it to yourself, you do not have to air your dirty laundry, I'm simply giving you a way to gauge honestly. If you think to yourself, I am fine, it’s the rest of the world that is crazy; there is some truth in that, but you are still a part of that crazy world. Trust me don't be embarrassed I have said that many times and genuinely believed the statement.  

To ask someone to define who they are, I think is an impossibility unless you ask, who are you at this moment? It is easy to say here I am, take it or leave it, and be okay when someone decides to leave it. But if we really evaluate why that person decided to leave, and in all honesty try to improve on that flaw then maybe next time you will make a better companion.

This works in every aspect of our lives, be it creative or not, be critical and decide to always change for the better. It is human nature to be mad and offensive, but try not to even waste a moment with all that nonsense. After all, think about how many times someone said something and it made you angry, then later when by yourself in a quiet room, you thought more rationally that maybe they did have a point.

You have to start by loving yourself, I believe when we reach a point of comfort in ourselves it is easier for us to be happy and put good back into the world. Viewing people and things negatively is a reflection of you and who you are, do you want to be that person, if not, the only solution is to stop.

I'm still learning how to love myself, I beg your pardon while I'm on my journey and thank you to all of those people, who have been a shining example of who I want to be.  

To Post or Not to Post?

To post or not to post, that is the question? I get several arguments from other musicians saying it drives them crazy when people post so often about shows and upcoming events. I have to ask why is it so bothersome? If it does not interest you simply do not follow the posts. I work it, because it works. 

I accept all friend requests and yes I have some family members and friends who are not interested in hearing every step I make in my endeavors and have blocked me; fair enough no hard feelings. But for all those wonderful new fans who eagerly visit my page every single day, this one is for you and thank you for your genuine interest in my career.

For the few people who block your page, you will gain so many more friends who start out as strangers and become loyal life time friends and fans from across the globe. I am speaking from real life experience. If you are working from ground zero this is the best time to start. There is nothing more exciting than following an upcoming artist from nothing into something really big. 

I have been working on building my fan base one fan at a time and the journey has been time consuming, but worth each individual who has reached out to me with wonderful accolades on how they feel about my art. People do not like helping strangers. Get to know the ones that can help you and when they learn who you are and that you are worthy of their time, they will help, because now you are friends.

I say post away all my unknown friends and thank you for following me and my posts about my music and my freelance work. I'm happy to help advertise for you as long as you keep coming back for more. I had the pleasure of shadowing a young woman who is an amazing classical performer, Rebecca Newman. She took me under her wing and showed me the ropes, I'll forever be grateful for the knowledge she shared.

We became friends and she introduced me to her fan club the Newmaneers. I got to know many of them through this exchange and eventually, I was made an honoree Newmaneer and can not be more proud. I have sold countless cd's, I have been added to countless radio shows and currently working on a tour in the UK and so many other benefits I have gained from simply making a friend. Thank you all so very much. I say thank you right here on my blog, as I can guarantee they are most likely reading this post right now.

I have to encourage all my other musician friends who think it is bothersome and do not post anything at all. Well, how does anyone know if you are any good if they do not know you exist? Take a chance and get it out there, no one should be above a shameless plug here and there, so let people know what you are up to, if they like what they hear or see they will support you in return. 

All you freelancers out there know as well as I do, sadly it’s a numbers game and it has always been, who you know, verses what you know; even before Facebook or MySpace existed. Popularity has always been the defining factor of success in most all cases. Even Taylor Swift and Mylie Cyrus would not be known names had it not been for their relentless networking. 

Build those numbers and thank your fans by showing them what you got and they will be very appreciative and continue to give their support. Do not be afraid to give things away for free to those loyal ones because those are the ones who put their money where their mouth is, time and time again.

Twitter is my media of choice as it is quick and to the point and designed to reach much larger numbers. Do not put all your eggs in one basket however, hit them all and try to give as much time as possible to each person who finds you and shares your link with more friends. 

I know we have become quite the narcissistic society with all these social media pages. But, can we at least examine the favorable benefits these networks do provide. Especially for us creative types whose livelihood solely depends on the attention of the unknown public.

I want to encourage everyone in the promotion realms get out there and network online as well as face to face. Life is a contact sport, start living and sharing with others and no matter what you do in life always treat each other with love and respect, no exceptions.

The next time you ask yourself to post or not to post???? No one sees it if you do not, and potential, countless, nameless faces soon become life long friends if you do. The beauty of meeting someone on a different continent and the things we can learn from each other is a valuable tool. Get out there and make some friends, if you get blocked once or twice, oh well, you can never reach them all, but the ones you do reach, makes it all worth it. Nothing gained, nothing lost what are you waiting for, if you chose to block me, well then you never saw this anyway. :o) 

 

Paz y amor por todo, siempre!

Back to the Basics

Ok, allow me to step back for a moment and get back to the basics. I set out to create this blog in the hopes to reach like minded individuals who find it sometimes difficult to live a creative life in a predominantly secular world. 

To reiterate my problem, my rants in recent weeks have been consistently about the negativity that has taken hold to our society. Living in this environment is next to impossible to be creative especially when you are over worked, stressed out and genuinely unhappy. 

A creative person or spiritual being if you will, needs time to refuel and step away from the chaos in order to give birth to artistic value. We are adventurous souls that get bored easily with the every day mundane. This boredom encourages us to branch out into unknown territories quite often.

We are deemed as flighty at times and never given credit for our general passion for knowledge. Rarely do people understand why something so trivial to them can mean so much to us. Countless hours of hard work goes into every meticulous stroke on our canvas; no matter what medium we choose to use. 

Us humans, we are not so different; we all live for the pursuit of happiness. We all want to love and be loved, even the darkest of evils hold some good deep down inside. I think these passions should be celebrated and embraced. Think of how colorful the world could be if everyone chose a path outside of their every day comfort zone. But be careful not to stray too far, we do have a tendency to get carried away.

You see, the beauty of art is it is limitless. Those who strive for greatness knows there is no end to knowledge and never stop learning how to improve their craft. The best part of creativity is the rewards are bountiful. It builds the person we are from the inside out. We have the ability to reach others on levels they may not have been aware even existed. Opening our hearts and minds to a realm that is more conducive to pleasantries. 

There is not one person on this entire planet that was not given a talent that is unique to themselves. I do not accept when someone says they are not creative, they simply need to be shown what their creativity might be. 

Today, I want to be grateful for my gifts and to show my gratitude, I am putting a piece of it out into the world. Sometimes we all need to step outside our comfort zone. This always leads to new and exciting discoveries. However, other times straying too far from what we know also can potentially make us lose sight of where we came from and that does not fair well for our art.  

Getting back to the basics is always a gentle reminder and refreshing homage to the gift our muse so carefully chose for each and every one of us.

 

Working from the Bottom, Up

We as a global community have become completely self centered and narcissistic.
We shut ourselves off to other views and close our minds to new discoveries. We have stopped learning and collecting data and I find more and more people accepting things at face value with little or no compulsion to even fact check what has been learned. 

Although we live in the age of technology having everything at our finger tips has made us lazy and therefore dumbing down our populations. If you read it, it does not make it true. Allow me to continue by saying, this is an opinion piece nothing I am writing is fact other than the rawest emotions that I'm spilling within its words. 

This trend has created a harsh reality; we have lost accountability and the results are proving to be catastrophic. Even though certain social medias have made it easier to connect to millions around the world it has also destroyed personalization in our actions towards each other. It has made it easier to speak our minds but we have used these tools to insult a few words on a page, verses having the courage to say something to someone's face. It has made it easier to forget the human reading the message has feelings that can easily be hurt beyond repair. Bullies do not only live in the school yards but are running a muck in all corners of the earth.You can easily scar another human across the map with a few simple keystrokes. It seems easier to debate deconstruction, than it is to build positive foundations. 

I have noticed that it has also created a misunderstanding between two words that should be self explanatory. The words "Fact" and "Opinion", are not synonyms. A fact is something that truly exist or has happened. An opinion is a belief or judgement about a particular thing. 

Now days it is rare to find even a news source that states strictly facts without engaging a small or even a rather large majority of opinions mixed in its contexts. When the news we are being fed as truth becomes unreliable, I feel we have reached a very sad time in history. We need to stop taking people's opinions as truth and we need to start holding our journalists and news broadcasters more accountable for the reports we are reading. 

The only way to do this is to double check the resources until they are forced to do their jobs with integrity. I realize it is their responsibility to fact check, but when they are not being held accountable for leaving that part of their job out, then we allow it to continue. When something does not look right or reads as an opinion, then I believe we have a civic duty to research and call them out on any misinformation that is found. There needs to be consequences for reporting anything other than a factual statement about something that has happened. Let the opinions be saved for blog's such as this one. When it comes to news it should be reports of actual facts about what took place, no opinions.

I believe we all need to start being held accountable for our own actions, stop pointing fingers and start looking in the mirror. Starting from this point we can then start by fixing ourselves instead of being so quick to judge others. I have found by experience it takes one to know one, so when we point out flaws in others we are really seeing our own. It is not easy to accept what we do not like about ourselves, however you cannot fix something until you know what is broken. We can change for the better if we have the strength to see what is at its worst.

We can look towards the new year and I think we should collectively as a concerned society make the resolution to start from the bottom and work our way back up to greatness. We have potential that lives beyond our own capacity of belief. We are highly intelligent people that seem to have lost our way. We can make a positive change, it took a course of bad habits that brought us to this state, it will take considerable effort but we can train our brains to think more positively and allow ourselves to pick each other up, instead of knocking each other down. 

Everything works better when we work together. Let's make 2014 be that year we change. Nothing less than the highest level of success, from this point forward, mediocrity is unacceptable.   

My Weapon of Choice is Love

Art by James Earl Fraser

I have been going out of my way to post positive messages in recent months, mainly due to the fact, 1. it is how I truly feel and 2. because our society is screaming for a change. The world is forever changing all around us and with that change comes a few bumps and growing pains along the way.

I have been extremely emotional watching the world around me. All of the ups and down and quite honestly it is a bit exasperating at times. Where have our scruples gone?

What better time to seek positive reinforcements than Thanksgiving. As an American this is my favorite holiday as it has no political or religious connotations but simply a day to celebrate ones blessings. It is a day of family and friendships to come together under one roof and say thank you for being in my life and for all the good each individual brings. I guess one can argue the politics behind Thanksgiving but I'm going to focus on the word THANKS.

Black Friday is an American day of indulgence and tradition that has been going on my entire lifetime. I'm all for great deals and saving money and the start of my most favorite time of the year. But when it is at the expense of our integrity then I have to say, don't you think it is about time we step back and evaluate our behavior? I cannot be the only person in America that finds a large majority of people's behavior totally unacceptable on this day.

Where has our camaraderie gone? We are a nation of brotherhood and I believe it is time we all start acting as such once again. We rise and fall as one and at the moment we seem to have been in a decline for quite some time. We need to band together and start picking ourselves up. We have been living in an obvious, "EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF" society and it is not getting us anywhere.


It is time for a change. Let's make this day our starting point, no more pointing fingers and no more looking back. No more hate slinging, typically created through lies and stereotypes. Please stop the madness. It is time to trudge forward ride out these growing pains and come out the other side better and stronger.

The only way this can be a reality is if we start building our communities again. It takes a village, let us build that influential village based on truth and positivity. This does not have to be as difficult as it has been. Our lives do not have to be a struggle. If we help each other, we all win, no one is left behind.

Living in poor economic times is affecting a large majority. But if we work together to rebuild then the sound economic changes that take place will benefit us as a whole, not only a select few. Imagine a world with no poverty and the benefits that would come from such a profound reality. Soon there would be a decline in crime because there would be no reason for people to perform such acts of desperation. This decline of compassion was a gradual thing and I realize rising up from our fall will take a gradual climb.

Today, as a nation, our time is now. As a citizen I feel it is my duty to begin and be the voice that starts by saying thank you to those in my life whom have influenced me for the good. I want to thank those I have wronged that saw it in their heart to forgive and I want to have the grace to truly forgive and forget any one who seeks my forgiveness. We are a country of opportunity let us also be one nation of peace, freedom and compassion.

I understand there were many who fought for those freedoms. This is my fight. Instead of fighting fire with fire my weapon of choice is love; I'm fighting for love with LOVE and I'm graciously asking you to join me in this battle.

Anything worth fighting for never comes easy, it is well past the time to roll our sleeves up and put in the work. I believe it will be worth the effort. This is a task that some may say is a failure and is a pointless waste of time. Do not allow our mistakes to taint our intentions, when we fail we must try again and not stop until the destination is reached.

Let the Revolution Begin

We're living in a pretty chaotic society at the moment. It feels like it is every man for themselves. I do believe we are starting to make a turn, after all it was a long time getting to this state, I imagine it will take some time to relearn simple basics of giving to our fellow man and loving everyone equally.

It is not a simple task to survive in the economic times we are facing at the moment. It is easy to get wrapped in your own woes that we lose sight of the bigger picture. Every day is a struggle to make ends meet and every one is pointing fingers instead of taking action for change. Most people are working 2 jobs to pay their bills, we are sleeping less, aging faster and becoming pretty damn grumpy in the process.

We need to step outside of ourselves and start reflecting on the good. Change a thought in order to make a change. It is understandably intimidating to look around and see so much poverty and turmoil become so prevalent. But one voice can make a difference. If you have reached only one person it is almost inevitable that person will feel compelled to return the favor for another.

The thing is we all have one life, one world and one ultimate love, happiness. This emotion is so easy to spread and share starting with a simple smile or gesture of kindness. It is not difficult and does not cost one penny. It starts the chain reaction that leads to bigger and even more fulfilling gestures.

When we are surrounded by bad news, irritability and greed you can feel it trickle down and create an intense feeling of anguish and pain. There is no reason why we cannot use the same technique but in the opposite direction.   

Isn't it about time we start a revolution of love and kindness and what better month to start than the month of Thanksgiving. Remember to count your blessings especially when it feels you have none. Remember to love one another especially the ones whom have wronged you. Remember to give when you have it to give because you never know when you may be the one who needs it in return. Do not turn your back on a stranger, for that stranger may soon become your best friend.

I want to love and be loved and I'm asking you to try it, let's all put ourselves second, stop living the motto, do it to others before they do it to you and start living the way it was meant to be by doing onto others as you would do onto yourself. We are all one big family and there are no borders, tolerance is key. Think before you proceed, the end reaction should result in a beautiful change.