Hello All and Happy New Year!
I have been blessed with an awesome year in 08' and I have you and my family and amazing musicians in the Twin Cities to thank for it. 2009 will be interesting to hold up against this year, although there are some cool things brewing up.. I will be playing the SXSW festival in February, doing some shows in NY next week, working on a couple of projects here and there... but mostly I'm just excited to hunker down and get some writing done.
2008 was full of excitement for me upon the release of my record Big Star in June. I played some of the best shows yet, and had a LOT of fun doing it!
So, before I post the links to various local rags and such, I'd like to shout out to some people who participated in making this year great:
*Andrea Troolin and Ekonomisk mgmt. team*!
*Paul Gillis* at Ripple Entertainment
*Afternoon Records* for enabling Big Star to happen
*Chris Morrissey* for his amazing bass skills on Big Star, live, and on the Only Xmas EP
*Bill Mike* for awesome guitar on the record, live, and in his own RAD band (who, in my opinion, put out the best rock record in the cities this year)
*David King* for his ever-incredible drumming on Big Star and otherwise
*Luke Anderson* also for great drumming on Big Star, and on his 3rd year playing with me live. He also helped out IMMENSELY with the artwork on the record and on my website.
*Torey Bonar*, my super sweet sister for her beautiful artwork on Big Star and who is now in the beginning of a great artistic journey of her own. She currently has a show up at Kopplins Coffee right now, and will be displaying her work at other galleries this spring.
*Cameron Wittig* for the beautiful press photos and album cover.
*Jake Hanson*, who just started playing with me live this summer, for popping his tour cherry with my band and providing some of the sickest guitar skills around.
*Jason Orris, Dustin Miller, Chad Weis, Paul Marino*- all of these engineers helped make the record possible, and were wonderful to work with. Chad also recorded the Only Xmas EP very last minute and is the reason for the benefit concert at First Avenue in a couple of weeks... (more info on my website!)
*Kopplins Coffee*. without it, we musicians simply don't exist.
*Erik Selz* at Red Ryder booking
*Alan Church and Jason Toth*- both did some awesome drumming for tours that I didn't have a drummer. Both of you were a pleasure to work with and I am grateful for your stand-in!
I have to stop somewhere as I will start listing all of the friends, bands, venues, papers, blogs, whatevers that I love and appreciate... so thank you guys too.
love, haley b.
VitaMN Top Local Releases of 08'MPR's The Current top 89 of '08Minneapolis Star TribuneTwinCities.comCity Pages