radio play

Just found out that our cover of Dylan's "Don't think twice, it's all right" will be featured on the KNTU radio show, "Infrequent Exposure," tonight (saturday). Check it out  between 7-9 on 88.1, KNTU. You can also listen live at the above link. More to come about our fun Half Price Books gig soon!

Show tonight in Humble, TX.

Hello, everyone! I'm sorry I've been a slacker lately on the blog; I've been spending my time reading for school until the days blur together. It's a good thing we have a gig this weekend or I might lose my sense of time altogether. Speaking of which, tonight, 2/3rds of the Christine Hand trio will appear at the Half Price Bookstore in Humble, TX (near Houston) for a truly acoustic set. (Yes, I know, we are already an acoustic band, but tonight, we will literally not be plugged into anything). We will be performing only originals with a few public domain folk-songs thrown in, so it will truly be a unique evening of music. If, like me, your idea of a good time on a Friday night is to browse the bountiful shelves of your local bookstore (and local for you means Humble, TX), then I encourage you to grab a friend, grab a mocha, and head to half-price books in Humble for a musical and literary treat!

Happy Friday, everyone!

Another "flashback:" American Idol Auditions

Since my life right now is dominated by stacks and stacks of thick books that I have to read, I decided to recycle a post from 2007 that originally appeared as a MySpace note. (remember MySpace?) The post recounts my experience auditioning for "American Idol," and it is sentimental for me because the setting is the old Cowboys' Stadium in Irving, which is now nothing more than a pile of rubble. Here it is, in all its former glory:



In fact, one of my fondest memories of that day is hearing the reverence in the voice of a stage-mom behind me as she scolded her son for being disrespectful in that hallowed home of America's team. (true story). This tale also bears repeating for the many well-meaning folks who have encouraged me to audition for the crazy reality-TV spectacle that is "American Idol." In addition to musical differences that I have with the style of the show, the audition process, which I've endured twice, is not really worth a third try. Anyway, without further ado, here is my "flashback" blog post:

In 2006 I made the time-consuming journey from Fort Worth, TX to San Antonio for the American Idol auditions. I did not make it onto network television, but I was happy to say that I had at least tried. However, when people asked if I would do it again, I insisted that I would only return if the auditions were held in my back yard.

This year [2007] the auditions were held at the Dallas Cowboys Texas Stadium in Irving, TX, which meant a short twenty minute drive from the apartment I share with my husband. Bound by my own promise I once again subjected myself to the ridiculous process that can only be described as "American Idle."

The day of the auditions I arrived at Texas Stadium at the officially recommended time of 5:00 in the morning. My experience from the previous year told me that I did not really need to be there until about 7:00; nevertheless, I showed up at 5 to be with a friend. Oh, would that I had followed my instinct!

Our position in line was toward the middle of the vast throng of Idol hopefuls that encircled the entire stadium. We did not move until about 7:00, at which point there were still newcomers taking their place at the end of the line. Then tragedy struck: the line we were in was split in two, allowing for entry at opposite ends of the stadium. This meant that we were now at the end of the line, and the late comers were getting to go in first.

We stood. We shuffled ahead at irregular and lengthy intervals. We waited. The sun rose above the unattractive skyline of Irving. Eight o'clock, the appointed time for the auditions to begin, came and went. The sun rose higher, and we waited. We were a motley assortment of humanity: rock stars and rappers; drag queens and divas; the poor and the privileged – all united in a grumbling, sweaty, stinky mass. Still the sun climbed higher into the sky.

The outrageous wait was due mostly to the need to search every bag for food and confiscate it. Most everyone had brought food, as the official American Idol rules indicated it would be all right to have it. However, the rules also stated that some stadiums would not allow food, forcing us to purchase five dollar nachos and three dollar bottles of water.

As the cause of our delay became clear people began to frantically remove all the food from their bags while still in line. But instead of walking a short distance to dispose of their food in trash cans, most left it on the ground. So as those of us in the back of line advanced, we found ourselves trudging through empty wrappers, boxes, and bags, as well as half-eaten food of every assortment. Some left entirely full containers of good food, now beginning to decay in the smoldering August sun.

The security guards were actually patting people down now and were splitting the line by gender. I joked (perhaps rather tastelessly) that they could tell us we were going to "the showers" to be gassed, and we would have willingly believed such a promise; the seething, perspiring throng that we were.

Around 10:00 we made it inside the stadium. There the waiting continued in the sweltering heat. Located at regular intervals across the football field were ten tables covered with tents at which were seated ten American Idol producers. Contestants were divided into groups of four and sent to sing their hearts out for fifteen to thirty seconds in front of one of the producers. My group waited in the August heat until 8:00 p.m. to finally take our 15 seconds of stage time in front of an American Idol producer.

The judge for my group of contestants was a beautiful British blonde. "British is good," I thought, for I had decided to sing a selection from The Beatles' classic, "Hey Jude." When my group advanced to the next in line to sing, I watched as our judge smilingly put a terrible singer through to the next round. It was with that same sweetness that, after we had each laid a bit of our hearts bare in song there on the green turf of the football field, she told my group that none of us would make it through. I breathed a heavy sigh – not of disappointment, but of relief. Then, sunburned, dehydrated, and half-delirious with heat, I trudged up the ramp out of the Cowboys end zone into the light of the westering sun to search for my car and go home.

Concert flashback: the Lost show

I've posted this video before. It's of Adam and me at one of our most frequented coffeehouses, White Rock Coffee in Dallas, playing my song, "Wonderland." It's also the only remaining record of one of my favorite shows ever: the "Lost" show.



It was May, 2010, and the TV show, Lost was in its final season.  We were the most faithful of fans, re-watching every season each year leading up to the new season, and then religiously attending the free screenings of the show at the Dallas Angelika movie theater every week. And now, it all came down to a two-hour finale.

So, the weekend before the finale, we created a concert made up almost entirely of songs featured on Lost. We reminisced about that heart-warming beach montage as we played Joe Purdy's "Wash Away;" we remembered the first time we met Desmond Hume as we joyfully sang Mama Cass's "Make Your Own Kind of Music;" we memorialized Charlie Pace in our "Charlie Pace medley," which included Oasis's "Wonderwall," the Beach Boys's "Good Vibrations," and, of course, Drive Shaft's "You all, everybody;" and we remembered the moment on the show when Hurley's MP3 player stopped working and we knew things were getting serious as we played Damien Rice's "Delicate." If you look very closely, in the video, you can see a tiny Dharma symbol on my right shoulder (my hair keeps getting in the way), and the picture on Adam's shirt is of the band, Geronimo Jackson. (We were really big nerds, um, fans).

 It was a glorious concert -- an evening filled with hope and joy and the idealism of people who believe that their favorite TV show will not leave them disappointed. We knew that in just a couple of days, all our questions from the previous years would be answered, and we would walk away satisfied. This concert was our tribute.

Alas, that did not happen. Adam and I were both bitterly disappointed with Lost's ending, which I won't give away here. And that concert stands in my memory as truly a time of a kind of innocence. Sounds silly, I know. The saddest part is, there weren't even any real Lost fans in attendance. It was only after the show was over that someone showed up and started geeking out over Adam's Geronimo Jackson shirt.

But we sure had a lot of fun making our own kind of music.

Bookstore Show!

I love Half Price Books. Even if I didn't need to spend all my extra money on books because I'm a grad student, I would still spend a good chunk of my income on creating the perfect old book and vinyl collection. Since I love Half Price Books so much, I'm especially excited about our upcoming show in February:

This concert will be an informal, unplugged event at the Half Price Books in Humble, TX. So, if you are in the Houston area, we would love for you to stop by any time between 7 and 9 pm on Friday, Feb. 24th, and allow us to enhance your book-purchasing experience with a little bit of original music. Maybe I can manage to leave the gig without spending all the tips/CD money on more books!

Voice lessons learned

Today I had my first formal voice lesson since college -- make that, since my junior year in college. That was eight years ago -- yikes! Last semester I had the exciting opportunity to perform in the graduate student ensemble of Robert Xavier Rodriguez, singing a series of Scottish and Irish folk songs set by Beethoven. This semester, among other things, I'm singing this:



I get to sing it in English, but language aside, this is still quite difficult, and in a style I haven't performed in consistently for the aforementioned 8 years since college voice lessons.

So, I'm excited to be beginning lessons again, and I'm always happy to see how I will apply what I learn to the kind of singing that I do on a more regular basis. As a teenager, I took a lot of pride in having never had lessons, but now I understand that there are things that I can't see or hear about the way I sing that take another person to point out and help with. I also understand now that a voice teacher can't really change your voice; he/she can only give you the toolbox. Also, you would never expect a professional athlete not to work with a trainer, so why shouldn't singers have trainers, too?

At any rate, with everything going on with school (including learning this music), there's just not as much time to play the normal gigs, but I wanted to let everyone know that I'm still performing music, just in a different way.

Happy Friday -- with cats!

Earlier this week, you saw a picture of Desmond, "helping" me study. Here he is again:

"I'm too sexy for this blog..."

Confession time: for those of you who don't know me that well, I am pretty much a crazy cat mom. I love my cats -- the way other people love their children. When some women see babies, their voices raise a couple of octaves and they turn into cooing, squealing creatures themselves. This happens to me when I see kittens. It also happens frequently when one of my cats does something cute. Molly is especially good at this, since she is the fuzziest, prettiest thing in the world. (Could you hear my voice getting higher and higher just then?)  I am not a visual artist, but the other day, I tried to draw Molly, so taken was I with her peaceful, sleeping face in the sunlight:

Here's what she really looks like, though neither my amateur sketches nor my amateur photography can do her justice:

I am Elizabeth Molly, your Queen. Bow to me as I usher in England's Golden Age. 

Thanks for humoring me as I talk about my cats. It probably won't be the last time.

And Happy Friday.