I've become addicted to Google Reader.  For those of you who don't know, it's a thing on google that organizes all the blogs you're subscribed to, and makes them all available on this neat little page, so you don't have go to like, 20 different blog sites to see if they (hopefully) added a new blog. 

In the beginning, I was only subscribed to 2 blogs.  I didn't even really get what blogs were until I one day was searching for photographers online, and I stumbled upon some really pretty fashion photos that were on this girl's blog.  I became fascinated with all the things she posted because they were so beautiful!  The other blog is my friend Wendy's.  She's hilarious, and tells good stories filled with her awesome dry humor.

So, I started out with these 2, and then from them, I started checking out more blogs via links they would post.  Now I'm subscribed to 10 blogs, and "following" 3 people.  Every morning, I have a cup of coffee, and sit down at my computer, and before I even look at emails, I open up Google Reader, and look at all the new posts.  It's like my own new edition of a magazine every day.  I find them all really inspiring!*  I'm subscribed to ones on art, Paris, flowers, Japan, street fashion, and some in between.  One has inspired what I want my wedding to look like.  Another gives me confidence in how I dress**.  So now....I've been reading tons of blogs, and writing none. 

Until now.

As I've typed this blog (made just for myspace and my website), I've just created my own Blog!  So holy poop--here we go! 

www.girlinatree.blogspot.com/

xo
p. ahn

*as I'm writing this, I'm wondering if this is boring people to tears.  Are blogs so 3 years ago or something?  I have no idea!  I apologize if I'm behind the times and this is old news and/or you don't care about how much I'm into blogs these days. There always seems to be some lag time between popular things and me embracing them....I didn't start watching Sex & The City until last year! 

**is it weird that I'm not telling you what blogs I belong to?  the answer is probably "yes".  I can't help it that I'm weirdly protective of them!  :-o

Watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYZJkaD28-I

So, one of the cover song suggestions came from a guy somewhere in cyberspace who recommended Louis Armstrong's "What A Wonderful World".  As I was looking thru some of Louis' songs, I came across his version of "La Vie En Rose," which is a pretty kick ass version.  I love Edith Piaf, and so...this song seemed to suit me even better!  Jake Blanton is on guitar.  I hope you like it.  It's a very humble recording.  ;)

p. ahn

Priscilla Ahn's collaboration with Tiesto for his upcoming record, Kaleidoscope is being released today via iTunes. Check it out HERE!

well, it has been done.  despite the numerous reactions to my twitter (announcing that I was going to cut my hair) being mostly, "NOOOO, don't do it!!!!!" from the guys, and "it's gonna look adorable" from the girls, well.....i did it! 

it was time.  i've had long hair for a while, and my locks grow back fast, so i'm not too worried.  i discovered that i would chop off enough hair to actually donate and people could use something out of it.  so i decided to give it to Locks Of Love, which is a non-profit that makes hair pieces for financially disadvantaged kids.  Who wouldn't want to give to that??  So, knowing that my hair of many, many years was going to a really good cause made me feel even more excited about the cut.  But i have to say, as i packed my hair away in a baggie and an addressed envelope, I felt sort of sad to say goodbye.  But also really thankful. 

Anyway, you can watch the video here:  http://bit.ly/b2SQE

I hope hair that's been cut off doesn't gross you out.  It definitely gives me a little bit of the heebies--and it's my own hair!  It almost looks like a body part.  It looks so dead when it's not connected to your head, and when it's in a big mass like that. 

i'm still getting used to the new 'do.  it's SO different.  i'm this girl now.  the girl with short hair.  i do find myself staring at photos of women with beautiful long hair and wonder if i made a mistake, or ponder how long it's gonna take for me to grow it all back again.  But then, I really like the change.  The fact that I just jumped in and did it, and can look back and say, "oh yea....remember when I was 25 and i chopped off all my hair?  what the F was i thinking?"  I feel like my new hair and I are still settling in together.  I'm excited to see where it goes. 

And sorry to talk to so much about my hair--but it's a BIG DEAL!!!  my poor fiance has heard me talk about it for the past week now.  "should i get it cut?", "should i just keep my long hair?", "i can't believe i'm cutting my hair!", to "do you really like my hair cut?".  His answers are:  "yes", "no", "shit man", and "for the 89th time, yes."  

p. ahn

I'm looking for cover song suggestions for me to demo and post.  Got any??

I'm going to choose 1 (or 2) today.

Thanks!

xo priscilla


www.twitter.com/PriscillaAhn
www.flikr.com/priscillaahn
www.priscillaahn.com

This one's sort of long, so I divided it into segments so you don't have to read it all at once.  :0)

Well, what a year of travels this has been...

I've gone from never having stepped foot in Europe before this year, to spending a good 3 months there, traveling by bus, tram, metro, tube, foot, and many many airplanes.  One might even say, too many airplanes. 

On my last European tour, it felt like we only traveled by airplane.  Seriously.....Need to go to the hotel?  Take a plane...... Go to the loo?  Take a plane!  In 33 days, we were on 30 aircrafts.  Lots of little flights.  Lugging baggage and gear around at an airport first thing in the morning, at say around.....7am, everyday, turned out to be a great workout--and a true test disproving my theory that I need 10 hours of sleep to be fully functional.  But I hit my wall at the Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris.  We were about almost 4 weeks into our journey, when sitting in another gross airport terminal that didn't even have bathrooms (you had to exit the gate to pee and then stand in line and go through security again) and a flight status that no one heard any word from 3 hours after we should have departed--pushed me over the cliff.  I was so tired....I was so sick of airports, I was so sick of waiting, I was so sick of only getting 5 hours of sleep.  I cried.  But this story ends well!

When we finally found our plane and were on our way, I listened to a De La Soul mix which made me happy, and I felt like I could finally breathe again.  When we arrived at our destination, Pori, Finland, a small town holding a huge Jazz Festival, I discovered that De La Soul was playing the same night I was, a couple hours later, meaning I could see them play!!!!!  I walked into their show when the sun was finally setting around 1am, and left their show feeling rejuvenated and glowing as the sun was rising, around 2:30am.

But gosh, I know that I never would have seen half these places, were it not for music.  Poland, Norway, Sweden, Finland...to name a few.  I had to keep pinching myself to believe that I was really in all these beautiful places.  In the end, it was an incredible whirlwind experience of a tour, with great friends by my side. 

A pain in the neck...

The U.S. tour was a lot of fun.  It started off with a really fun show at the Troubadour in L.A. and a few days later, laryngitis.  No talking, and steroids got me through it in the end, and I was back to normal a week and a half later.  Although, I found I kept getting these killer headaches!  I wondered if maybe I was grinding my teeth (I have to wear a nightgaurd at night)?  When I would laugh, which is something I really like to do, I'd have sharp, shooting pains in my head.  Luckily, my tour manager Katie, is an amazing massage therapist.  She did a lot of relaxation work on me.  Turns out, I was holding tons of stress and tension in my neck and shoulders.  I'd never done that before.  It was a new thing for me to become aware of.  I realized that on most of my other tours, I was opening for somebody else.  I'd play 30 minute sets, and afterwards, chill out for the rest of the night.  It was a breeze!  And now, here I am headlining a tour, or on tour, just for me atleast.  There's a sense of increased responsibility for sure, and I guess it was really stressing me out without even knowing it.  It can be a nerve-wracking thing.  To wonder if people are gonna show up to a concert, or if the tour will be a success.  I had to consciously remind myself to relax my mind and my muscles and take deep breaths.  Soon after, my headaches went away and I was finally feeling like my old self again.

Ice, ice, baby...

That is until my dry ice incident in Montreal.  It was my last "day off" and I was to fly to Montreal to shoot a music video for the song I wrote for Tiesto.  This is something he will play behind him while he's DJ-ing at his shows.  For half the day, they had me lying in a pool of dry ice.  I didn't really mind it, until it started to become difficult for me to breathe.  When I got back to my hotel that night, my chest hurt a lot, and something definitely didn't feel right.  If I'm correct, I think I had the thought, "I wonder if I'll wake up in the morning?"  It still hurt the next day as I flew to New York.  I had a show that night, and thought it best to just get checked out by a Doctor.  Turns out, my lungs had collapsed!  Yes, in order to protect themselves from freezing from inhaling the freezing cold vapors coming off the ice, they collapsed themselves, making it difficult and painful for me to breathe.  I picked up an inhaler, and took the F train down to the Bowery, and made it just in time for soundcheck.  My chest and voice were back to normal by the next day luckily....but it had been an interesting couple of days there.  And for anyone who thinks dry ice is safe to breathe in.....it's not.   Don't do it, unless you're into asphyxiation, and even if you are into that....why risk something going wrong and you being discovered like that without even getting to defend yourself and say, "It's not what it looks like!" ? But back to the video....despite my physical sacrifice on set, it's gonna look great!  hehe....I can't wait to see it when he goes on tour this Fall.

What next?

And now I'm back home.  What's next?  I'm supposed to start recording the NEW record sometime at the end of the year.  So, for now....I'm going to stay at home as much as I can, and get creative again.  I'm going to demo all the new songs I have on Garageband to prepare for the studio and to get new ideas. 

And as far as keeping in touch while I'm locked away at home, I'm gonna try to devote more time to all the social networking sites:  Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, MySpace, my website, and now even YouTube.  I'm starting to put together some video blogs (oh my gosh!!!!).  I'll let you know when the first one is posted.  :)

Stay cool,

p. ahn

Well, the steroids are working.  My voice has definitely improved.  I can sing high notes now.  I have 2 more days of dosages though.  No signs of "roid rage" as of yet...although, I have found myself spontaneously working out in my spare time.  By the end of this tour, I'm gonna be HUGE!!!  And I mean that in a physical way.  My arms are gonna be RIPPED.  But yea....after the Portland show which was canceled, none have been canceled since then.  I'm so sorry Portland!!!  I already know what I'll do for those of you who come to the next show to make up for it....but it's a surprise of course!  And I apologize also to people coming to the shows that I haven't made much of an appearance after the show to sign cds and take pictures.  Because of this laryngitis thing, it's actually harder for me to talk than to sing....and so to avoid talking, I sort of have been spending time alone.  It's so hard for me to not talk, or respond when I'm with other people.  I seem like such a downer, because I'm the only one at the table that doesn't say anything.  Even laughing sort of hurts!  But yea, I just wanted to let you know I haven't gone "snobbish" on you.  I just want to get better as soon as possible! 

The Pacific Northwest run of the tour is over now.  We've gone from mountains, to plains.  We have lots of long drives ahead of us on this tour.  But it's been really fun!  It's been 5 of us in a van.  Today we were listening to Dolly Parton, watched Robot Chicken, I slept for like 6 hours and would wake up every now and then and eat a handful of pizza flavored Combos.

Going to sleep in Boise tonight. 

xo

p. ahn

p.s. thank you for all your sweet and understanding comments to my last blog.  that made me feel a lot better.  :) 

I have laringitis and I have cancel the Portland show!  I hate canceling shows.  The only other time I canceled a show was when I got food poisoning in Scotland....not so long ago.  This time it's not my stomach that's giving me problems....but my VOICE!  I don't know what happened.  By some freak of nature, I suddenly lost my voice!  It started a couple days ago in Santa Barbara, and has hit it's peak now.  The doctor just left with the bad news.  I need rest and steroids. 

I guess canceling a show is supposed to feel relieving somehow, but I have to say, the thought of it just makes me feel bad.  I'm so sorry to all of you in Portland who have bought tickets already, and made plans to come out.  I promise to make it up to you all next time I come back.  For real....I'll think of something special just for Portland. 

I'm still waiting to hear back about what's going to happen tonight at the Doug Fir.  I would check their website  or call them for more info to see if Robert Francis is still playing, or playing a longer set:  www.dougfirlounge.com or 503-793-8126

Once again, I am so sorry.  I hope to come back to Portland soon to make it all up! 

with love and laringitis,

p. ahn

yowza....what a night.  after our show in ireland, we made our way 3 hours to a port and jumped on a ferry to scotland.  by the time we got off the ferry and started our way for another 2 hour journey to glasgow, i was hit with some grade A.....or grade C, food poisoning.  i knew some repercussions were to payed after i ate the slimy noodles that tasted like they'd been sprayed with 409 kitchen cleaner at catering earlier that day.  I just didn't think it'd be this bad! 

I was lucky to get a bathroom for our first stop.  The bathroom, or the WC, was in the middle of nowhere, and had no electricity.  It was midnight, so....i navigated my way to a toilet in pitch black darkness.  Things felt much better, until we got on the road again.  20 minutes later, i made us pull over and i ran as fast as i could over the shoulder of the road, down some rocks, to the ocean.....behind a big rock.  i think i woke up a sea lion who was sleeping nearby, with my whimpers. 

30 minutes later down the road.....i ran up a hill and went behind a tree. 

I was able to make the rest of the trip to the hotel.  Once I got to the hotel, well, more of the same and then some.  I had to cancel my show today at the T In The Park Festival.  I'm so bummed.  But i'm finally feeling better, and slowly gaining some strength back.  Watched some Family Guy, Harry Potter, slept, drank gatorade, and now I'm gonna read.  oh my, oh my.....life on the road. 

Lesson learned:  Don't eat food that tastes like chemicals.  And, on long journeys, it never hurts to bring a nice fresh roll of toilet paper (which luckily, we had).

yours truly,
p. ahn

Sinatra fan?  itunes has put together a Sinatra covers compilation (being released tomorrow).  I decided to go old school with mine.  I'd been listening to a lot of the early Sinatra/Tommy Dorsey recordings, and I just loved this song, "I'll Never Smile Again".  It was written by Ruth Lowe in 1939, after her husband had passed away.  Frank did a couple different versions of it.  If you wanna know which one I based mine off of, check out the one on itunes off of "The Essential Frank Sinatra with The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra" album.  it's pretty classic. 

It was an honor to cover one of Sinatra's songs, and in particular, this one written by Ruth.  I hope they'll approve of my interpretation of this beautiful song.

love,
p. ahn

Download I'll Never Smile Again