A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine brought an unfinished song to me so that I might help him get out of his “jail” as he called it. He’d had the song for awhile and had recorded it a couple of times in demos and just couldn’t get it moving. I suggested that he swing it, if for just hearing it in a different way…(sometimes changing your groove when its not working can help tremendously, in all things) Anyway, we worked with it, changed lyrics, shifted the form and by the end we thought we had something. He left, I went to bed. The next morning, I woke up with this feeling that I should keep pushing this song. I went to the piano, messed with some chords, started voicing it differently, and suddenly I’m in the middle of this creative rush where time doesn’t exist and I look and all of a sudden its 2am and I haven’t eaten or showered and I don’t care because I’m in heaven.
The song came out beautifully (and my songwriter friend liked it too) so hooray! However, after it was all over, and that creative rush had gone away, I felt completely lost, like for a brief moment I’d had it all and then it was gone. I was at the lowest I’d been in a long time. Then, that same week another songwriter friend posted a speech that he’d enjoyed online and wouldn’t you know it was EXACTLY about this. A wonderful speech by Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of “Eat Pray Love” I’m posting it here,

http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html

I loved this speech, but more so I loved that my friend (who is quite an accomplished musician himself) posted it. I was reminded in all of this that we are never alone, even in our darkest hours, when you think no one understands, there are more people than you could possibly imagine who do, and that is such a comfort.

The ongoing influence of Kate Bush seems to be increasing these days. We’ve heard several artists over the past few months whose music seems heavily influenced by Ms. Bush’s recordings from the 1970s and 1980s. Jenna Nicholls makes music that fits in this category…but she is by no means a copycat artist…she’s just a young lady whose music has many of the same warm endearing qualities that made so many of us fall in love with Kate. The Blooming Hour features nice smooth slick pop music with personalized lyrics and exceedingly genuine lead vocals. Although we did not hear Ms. Nicholls’ last album, apparently up to this point she has been making mainly folk music…so this is a bit of a departure for her. These highly stylized tunes feature nice dreamy moody sounds and haunting melodies. This is not the kind of processed pop you hear on cable television programs. And it’s a far cry from the generic techno churned out by so many fake modern musicians. Jenna’s music is the real deal. Cool flowing compositions include “The Getaway,” “Mayfair,” “Just How Much,” and “Long Goodbye.” Top pick.

So come one and all (preferably all) to Jenna Nicholls CD RELEASE May 23rd at the Rockwood Music Hall (Stage 1)
9pm…Its a Monday…followed by a lovely get together after at the Scratcher! (our local haunt and for me a 2nd home)

Last night after Mark Geary’s stellar performance at the Scratcher, we all sat around and sang some songs…some of us well into the morning! A great time was had by all and our good friend Patrick Glennon was able to get some impressive video clips from the evening. Here is one of them…Thanks Patrick!!

Images from The Sartorialist Blogspot

Oh couldn’t we all look this good? Anyway, CD release is on May 23rd!! Rockwood 1 9pm!!! Mark it in your calanders everyone and stay hip!! xo jenna

If you’d like to see more from The Satorialist, check out thesartorialist.blogspot.com