Did I mention we are having another girl? The thought of loving another kid as much as we love Norah is mind-blowing but apparently it happens. I guess your heart grows another chamber or something (to be just about as sappy as possible). I’ve been trying to amp up my productivity level on the music front but i realize I’ve given myself an impossible ideal. Mr. Sonny Votolato. Sonny plays guitar with me sometimes and he is in Blue Checkered Record Player and Slender Means and he works 2 or 3 jobs and he has 4 (count them, 4!) children. I keep telling myself that if Sonny can do it so can I. Well, I don’t think Sonny sleeps, God love him.
I guess I’ll just keep taking baby steps with my giant swollen feet.
Step One: Play a show with Jon Auer March 29 (he is a true guitar hero and he might deign to play a couple of tunes with me, bless him)
Step Two: Write Write Write (while not running after 2 year old or napping)
Step Three: Cover a Pavement song @ A California themed show in April (more to come.....)

Oh hello there
It is March and it is gray but I am not low for my sunshine reserves are full up. You see, we've had about two weeks of mostly sunny, crisp days and I have a trip to San Diego planned for next month. I will be padding down there on swollen feet with my growing family. My feet, apparently, have been replaced by Fred Flintstone's boats. These are the kinds of indignities we must endure when pregnant. I am trying, really people I am, to make forward motion on the music front but Fred's Feet are impeding me. I think there is a reason we are built to have babies in our teens. Not that I'm advocating teen pregnancy, oh no no no. It just that a woman like me in her late thirties has lost a certain amount of resilience and all I can seem to do is to take care of my two year old and nap nap nap. Here is the good news. I have a show March 29 @ The Fremont Abbey here in Seattle with Jon Auer (The Posies, Big Star...very fancy). Velocity Girl toured with the Posies back in the day (the 90's y'all, that was a long time ago) and let me tell you they were rock stars in the best way. Fred's feet and I will be waddling on stage in all of our swollen glory..........

Well dear friends, my plan of blogging at least once a week has proven itself to be laughable. I believe it has been 6 months, silly. Oh well, I'm only human and I'll try harder. Speaking of humans, I have one in the oven as they say. I am fourteen weeks pregnant so it is safe to say that it is viable. I am excited and more than a little frightened. Two kids sounds like a wild ride. My grandmother had 12. Can you imagine 12? My hope is to keep my career chugging along at a decent pace even though i know that my life will be changing irretrievably . Speaking of my brilliant career, i had to take a little break there during my first trimester as I constantly felt i was going to hurl. I canceled a show @ my dream venue The Triple Door here in Seattle. I was loath to do it but I didn't want to sully their beautiful stage w/ vomit. As my nausea has wanes and my belly waxes my hope is to play a few shows and do some serious writing. My outstanding label (holla Minty Fresh y'all) suggested doing a kids record. A truly inspired idea and I'm really looking forward to getting started. That's it. I love everyone.
S.

How silly is it that I am just getting around to jotting down a few notes about tour about a month and a half after the fact? Well, it's very silly I know, but better late than never. We played 7 shows in 8 days (maybe a little more than my aging voice can take) going from DC to Chicago. It was quite an undertaking seeing as I shipped my entire band from Seattle. I would like to take a few sentences to tell you how much I adore these people (Adam Fream, Mike Elliott, Sonny Votolato, Rebecca Tapia and Sarah Nelson). Not only are they hard working, stellar musicians but they are good people to boot. Touring with them reminded me that although I would love to play to screaming throngs, make myself and my label loads of money, the real joy comes in the process of connecting with people, musicians and fans alike.
Many people thought I was mad because I took my 15 month old daughter Norah along for 1/2 the tour. I won't tell you it was easy. My husband Pat took over most of the parenting duties (bless him) but I my already elevated anxiety levels reached new heights dealing with touring logistics and a little human. We kicked off the tour with a live appearance on Voice of America (broadcasts to 115 million people in 65 countries, no pressure or anything) after only one day of practice in sweltering DC. I was so unbelievably nervous but, by God, we pulled it off! That night we played The Black Cat in DC, a good show, turn out was not half bad for a Tuesday night.
The next night we played The Khyber Pass in Philly. It was really the only dud of the tour, about 10 people showed up.
Not to be disheartened we powered through to New York were we had an amazing show at Joe's Pub. Joe's Pub is a very cool venue attached to The Public Theater (they put on Shakespeare in the Park among many other things) and boy do they run a tight ship. 30 people pre-paid! I realize such numbers would send Mariah Carey hurling out her penthouse window but it was quite a success for me.
Next we wooed the bridge and tunnel set in Hoboken with The Stills. Velocity Girl played Maxwell's many times and it hasn't changed a bit, I felt like I was in a time warp back to 1994.
We communed with the hipsters in Brooklyn the following night with a show @ Union Hall.
They lined up on a Monday night (Monday people!) for our best show yet in Pittsburgh.
That leaves Chicago, our final show @ Schuba's and the home of my label Minty Fresh. We were a rag tag bunch by that time. Sonny had a damaged uvula, Rebecca went to the hospital for a freakishly high fever and the top register of my voice seemed to just vanish in the wind, but we played our little hearts out.
What is it about travel, rock shows and too many beers that makes for a very adhesive bond? I do not know, but I find myself very attached to my band. I love each of them and I am so grateful that they are on my side.

undefined Ive had dreams like this...



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This is what my pal George wrote in his blog, such a sweetheart:


Sarah Shannon Rocks Joe's Pub/NYC
Category: Music

Last nite I went to see one of my favorite singers in the past 10 years - Sarah Shannon - former front babe of Velocity Girl - who has a brand new CD - CITY MORNING SONG - and delivered a wonderful, tight 1 hour set @ Joe's Pub in NYC. I was lucky enough to get an up close and personal table at the lip of the cramped stage (fyi: my first time ever @ a 'supper club' which led me to wolf down my food so I would feel more comfortable in 'paying attention' where attention was due!)
There were a few feedback and tech problems but overall it was excellent. Sarah is a truly underrated songstress with a melodic, haunting instrument - her voice is undefineable- sexily sublime - truly unique with echoes of Karen Carpenter (the gold standard my friends!) and she also included many of her songs from her solo eponymous CD debut but sadly did not sing her torch song, "When You Live Life Alone" - my personal fave (for the record, I saw Sarah about 8 or 9 yrs. ago while visiting an amigo in LA @ a Silver Lake gig and was so awe-struck I immdiately purchased her CD and luckily got to say a quick hello as coincidentally we were both leaving the joint; and the song has grown to be very significant for me since I relate it to my dear friendship and loss of my friend Jill Maurer who was lost to us on 9/11; it always gets to me and in fact on the way home listening to the CD on my Discman I did in fact feel it again, silent tears).
Anyway I digress.
I was pleasantly surprised - and a bit red-faced but no worries - when Sarah, between tunes, signaled me out of the audience to express consideration for my aid in posting flies throught Manhattan for her gig.
Her band was also excellent (I didn't get there names but I'm sure they are the same folks on her liner notes in her new CD, and for the record the keyboardist is a hottie; Sarah if she's single maybe ...you could put in a word for me?)
At the close of the gig I was able to meet & greet w/Sarah - who by the way is very, very beautiful and I was again a little dumbstruck/starstruck at first - who was wearing an eclectic outfit of a form-fitting, accentuating halter-top that had a black & white design that looked like one of those hypnotic spinning wheel graphics - it did the job - LOL - and blue bell-bottoms. She was very sweet and accessible as I noticed she spoke w/whoever stopped by to purchase a CD, get an autograph or snap a photo (which of course I had and did) and I was able to chat for a few moments. She's a sweetie and I met her very accomadating husband who took the snapshot. (I hope it came out ; damn disposable cameras - it was the last shot in the role! Sarah I promise I will so send you a copy; sorry no digital camera :( )
For those uninitated please check out her website:

sarahshannon.com & her myspace.com page as well & buy her CDS!!!

Love ya Sarah; hope to see you again and we will keep in touch as we both promised.
The concert made my week (and night)

dating elf…..
I got hacked by a dating elf. Many people wrote to tell me so. I apologize, who needs the extra noise in this age of over-saturation? Not me and not you, unless you find dating elf's sexy. So, why an elf? What about a pointy eared little man in sparkly green shoes coveys the potential of a hot date (or is it "an" hot date)?
On to Miss Streisand. I did an interview on NPR a number of years back and the interviewer made reference to the fact that I had been compared to Barbra Streisand a couple of times. I said something like, "I'm not too keen on that comparison…." Oy ve, what a thing to say. It's like a devout Christian saying, "me, I don't want to be compared to Christ, not so much" She is the supreme singer of all time , the diva of the ages (Papa, can you hear me?)…..it's just, at the time, when her name came up, an image of me in an amorous embrace with a hairy chested Barry Gibb (or was it Kris Kristofferson) popped into my head and I instinctively rejected it.
The day after the interview aired I got my very first hate mail (fun!) A woman wrote to tell me that I was a sniveling little twit and I didn't deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Barbra Streisand (I imagine Mike Myers in drag doing Coffee Talk)
So, Babs, my sincerest apologies.

ahmet, excuse me
my husband thinks I need to change my bio. particularly the "pretty noises with my throught part" he thinks it sounds vaguely or not so vaguely pornographic. i'll work on it. also he thinks that most people won't get the ahmet/jagger reference. ok, so here is the deal. ahmet ertegun was the founder of atlantic records. ground breaking, seminal, some say a genius. he was looking to sign the stones and fell asleep @ a meeting w/ mick jagger. mick, in his infinite wisdom, said this is our guy.
i owe barbra streisand an apology….more later
i have this problem, i'll be channel surfing in the evenings and somehow i find myself, slack jawed, brows furrowed, watching celtic woman on pbs (i can almost feel my brain cells dying off one by one). i'm just trying to wrap my mind around it. who are these people? what is the appeal? well, my questions were answered in the form of a new york times article last sunday. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/arts/television/13dede.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
hilarious

hi all
this is me.....blogging. i am endeavoring step outside of my default self-conscious setting and just have out with it. i think this takes practice. i don't want to use myspace solely as a vehicle to peddle my wares. it seems cheap. i'd like to connect with people in some other way then the standard "hey, check out my new......."
i can't spell and i might blather on inanely. my apologies ahead of time.
i met with jim, co-owner of minty fresh (my label y'all) last summer and he said something that really stuck with me. he talked about building communities and "eking" out a living as a musician. i believe it means to barely scrape by. i know this seems a stark assessment, but i appreciated the honesty. maybe not as portentous as ahmet ertegun falling asleep @ a meeting with mick jagger but if eek i must, eek i will. it's better than having making music be just an expensive hobby.
all right, i lied, maybe i will do a little ware peddling. i am embarking on an east coast tour late june and i'm looking for ideas to promote this little jaunt. any ideas or help would be greatly appreciated.
you are the best,
sarah