Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Voice Project - Home Recordings Vol. 1


I am so proud and honored to be a part of this project, album, charity.  Sharing the artist listing with Peter Gabriel, Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros, Joseph Arthur, Cary Brothers, Brett Dennen, Tom Freund... just to name a handful.  Everyone is doing a cover of a friend's song, and all of the performances are live and pretty intimate.  But I think the most moving song on the album, is Acello Miriam, singing "Come Home" to all the children who have been abducted and forced to commit murder.  These boys are too ashamed to come home to their mothers.  But this woman, along with all the other mothers, sing this song telling them to come home.

This video sort of says it all.



I Am Mother from The Voice Project on Vimeo.

This is a beautiful album, raising awareness for a beautiful mission.  Check it out Here.

You can watch Voice Project videos of artists singing cover songs Here.

If you believe in this project like I do, here is their facebook page.  You know what to do.  ;)

love,
priscilla

Monday, January 21, 2013

We Shall Overcome

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  This is one of my favorite songs from when I was a little girl.




love,
priscilla

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Stage It Recap

StageIt
photo by Scott Bennett

This is my first post of the year -- woah!!!  Where have I been?  Oh yea... working in a studio everyday.  Apologies for the silence until now.

Eating a sandwich in Tokyo
photo by Hiroshi Matsushima
It felt so great to get to play an online StageIt show this past Thursday night for so many of you!  Gosh.... it was so much fun.  I totally wore my comfy pj pants, with popcorn and "special tea" in hand (see recipe below).   Everyone couldn't have been sweeter.  Some of your comments were really funny.  I liked seeing what everyone was up to that night.  Some of you were cooking, others studying, some had popcorn, one person had a glass of Moscato (a personal fave of mine).  The only downside was how quickly time flew by!  I feel like I hardly got to play anything!  So many requests that I flubbed.  It was quite overwhelming at times when the requests came flooding in.  And I am the worst at quick decision making --argh!  But here are the songs I would really love to play for next time:

Find My Way Back Home
Nothing
Are We Different
Willow Weeping
Rain
{a cover}
{a new song}

And maybe I could do a short Q&A at the end, or in between?  Some of your questions and thoughts were really great!

Your donations were so generous all around!  One thing I made a HUGE mistake on.. is someone mentioned that they hoped stageit didn't take too much of a cut on the money that was donated that night.  And I quickly replied that they don't take anything, which is why I thought the site was so awesome, etc... But I completely got my facts wrong, and found out, quite shockingly the next day, that they do indeed take a cut of the donations.  I was a bit disheartened by this... especially since so many people were probably under the impression that all the money would be going toward the My Sandy Hook Family Fund and to the making of my record.  :(

But at the end of the day, after many deep breaths and a long walk, Stageit is still a wonderful online venue, and I was still able to come away with an overwhelming sum of money (!!!).  A lot of which will go directly to the Newtown, CT charity, and the rest towards the mixing of my album (which I have been making on my own).  I have to think, without StageIt, I wouldn't have been able to reach out to so many awesome people from all over the world in one night, from the comfort of my very own living room, to theirs.  And so I'm very thankful for that -- and I still had an amazing + memorable night! Anyway... I just wanted to apologize if I misled anyone.  That was completely my bad for not having my facts straight.  But in the end, it's all good, and I hope you'll feel that way too.  
Conan, watching the show.
Photo by Erika Crane Ricketts (+Conan)

I have to say, it was so weird to finish playing a show, and have this nervous after-show jittery feeling, that I usually have at a venue somewhere in the world, in my own home!  And then to put on my coat and shoes and leave my house after the show, instead of the other way around (I walked over to my neighbors' house where my husband and them were watching the show).   

Thank you all again for contributing to the show, for the charity and for my album (which is almost finished!).  Perhaps last night, together, we were able to change the world with our collective positive energy and generosity for healing and art.  I truly believe that, and love you all for it.

In the meantime, I have a few new fun projects under way.... I'm keeping it a secret for now, but hopefully you'll get to see it by next month!  

Until next blog/StageIt/album/tour....

G'nite!
photo by Paul Jun Lee
love,
priscilla

***

Umeshu Oyuwari
aka "Special Tea"

1 part plum wine
2 parts hot water

Put them together in your favorite mug and voila!
(not much of a recipe, huh?)