Musings

Ends in the Beginnings.

2008-01-04T15:34:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

In accordance with the obligatory champagne, polar swims in the nude, and new years resolutions, we offer you these announcements:

As of today, there will be no further updates on CaseyDienel.com. Just to clear any confusion, all news & other pertinent info will now be featured here or (less frequently) here. The reason why there is no longer a caseydienel.com is mostly for utility, hence the birth of WhiteHinterland.com, which is, (you guessed it!) the home of White Hinterland.

What is White Hinterland? We can’t say, you’ll have to be the judge. For the present and foreseeable future, there won’t be any more Casey Dienel, unless you run into her while she’s ordering a coffee or seeing a friend’s show. If it’s that Casey that you glimpse out there on the street, feel free to say hi. The other Casey has gone somewhere else, has been gone for awhile now. But all this is quite boring newstuff, compared to what else is to come!

The big news is that White Hinterland has recently decided to shack up with the good people of Dead Oceans, who since their recent naissance this past summer have already brought so much good new music into the world. To say that we are excited about working with them wouldn’t nearly do it justice! We are very honored to be a part of their family tree, and that is why on March 4th of this year, we will issue our newest effort, entitled PHYLACTERY FACTORY.

The record was recorded in Portland, OR with Adam Selzer at Type Foundry Studios. Shawn Creeden created the wonderful artwork to accompany it. We like it very much, and can’t wait to share it with you when the time comes! To hear snippets of demos for the new record, head to White Hinterland’s myspace page. But caveat emptor! The quality's quite rough, but worth a listen anyhow.

To read a much more eloquent explanation of PHYLACTERY FACTORY (LP) than we could ever hope to proffer, please read Sean Michael’s take on the Dead Oceans website.

Stay tuned.
XOX.WH

Bleating Hearts

2007-09-24T09:21:00.000-07:00

hello to you all,

things have been kicking into gear in these parts. i have just completed a new record (!!!) and there's a lot that's going to drastically change over the course of a few months, so bear with me. i can't tell you all of the details on the record just yet, but i can say i think it is my best effort yet.

one thing that hasn't changed much is my schedule--i have two shows on the horizon--one in boston and one in montreal. some of you have inquired about the details of the PopMontreal show, as it is a festival. I have posted as much as I know on here...but lucky for you, there is an additional website from The Bleating Heart Shows. Here it is below:

http://www.bleatingheartshows.com/sunday.html

I'll be playing first, at 8PM. I am bringing a full boat of comrades to support me, and we'll be playing at McGill's own Birks Chapel. don't miss out on this show, my antennae tell me it will be a good one.

love,
casey

p.s. there is an additionally special show in Cambridge, MA on September 30 with my dear friend Cuddle Magic, who (insiders already know) feature members of my own band. they're wonderful!

The Banner Year

2007-08-15T09:06:00.000-07:00

Last night, my apartment erupted into a chocolate cake fight, thus I write you from the kitchen which is colorfully splotched here & there with chocolate ganache and buttermilk crumbs. Cake on my feet, and I wouldn't be surprised to find some in my hair.

This summer has been about a few things:

1. Learning to play both with and without a band--which may sound a little crazy to those of you who've seen me play solo so often in the past, but I do have a habit of nerves. Ask any of the boys onstage with me! I think I've just been searching, searching, searching for new sounds, to stretch out the ends of my ears and reacquaint myself with the unfamiliar. Very Freddy Krueger at the moment, but at one point the fear begins to settle down and then we're somewhere new? I would really hate to hear a string of records I've recorded ten years from now and come to find there was no growth between them. Sometimes I wish I could just sit down and be content with myself, but it's not so. Instead I often end up toying with the songs, twisting them around like little voodoo dolls. I wouldn't say I feel much power over them when I'm writing them, but once they're done I go through a touch-and-go period where all I want to do is turn them upside down on their heads. I change their keys, their melodies, their instrumentation. I sing them loudly or quietly, I subsitute out words. I play them more slowly or speed them up to a rakish pace that my fingers have difficulty keeping up with. At what point are they still the same song? I am not sure, only to say that I like thinking of songs as folklore, which is always being passed on and reincarnated, yet still more or less the same old thing underneath all of the embroidery. I like thinking that songs have a bigger life than the thing I intended for them--that they're not just a bunch of chords and words, waiting in a closet for me to summon them. I like thinking that all of the colors and textures and sounds are constantly moving through the air, and when I play them, all I'm doing is picking up on where they're shifting to at that very moment.

2. Brushing up on my amateur bartending skills, which are very very amateur. Right now I have this Hendrick's Gin, which is made with cucumber along with the standard juniper berries. I like to serve it with crushed mint & cucumber and soda water. Sometimes a little bit of lime. No sugar.

3. Ocean Kayaking. It has a perilous thrill, since you could be cast out to sea at any moment given a nice strong current--but the benefit is that you have plenty of time to sit back and observe how completely quiet it is out there. There's no cars or annoying people. Just water, fish, rocks, and kelp.

4. Paring down my i-pod. There was really a load of shit on it, from too many compilations I'd been picking up this year--too many things I don't listen to. Usually my gateway into newer music is personal and by word-of-mouth. The funny thing is that I get a lot of new music, and then end up playing Curtis Mayfield and Neil Young all summer long anyhow.

5. Ina Garten, who has provided me with plenty of good recipes this summer. Heirloom tomatoes with everything! A Dill & White Wine Potato Salad. Also, a crazy recipe for maple baked beans, which I think is something that the New England WASP in me craves at picnics all summer long. I'm not talking about Heinz baked beans in a can--these baked beans soak overnight before simmering the next day in ketchup, sambal, and maple syrup, and they cook in a dutch oven all day for 8 hours with a bunch of thick-cut bacon before you can dig in. The recipe is from the WASP-friendly Stonewall Kitchen--the purveyor of fancy jams & sauces that you find at Whole Foods, etc. But the the result is rich and incredible, and the whole house smells of maple syrup & bacon all day long, and I feel a little like I'm living on a cloud of pancakes. That brings us to...

6. Owning my inner New England WASP. Break out the croquet and the JCrew wardrobe. Sigh.

7. Deciphering my dreams. This isn't a new activity at all, I've been very prone to this sort of hobby since childhood. Throughout the year I go through cycles where I have vivid, lucid dreams. It is very unusual for me to have them in the summer, which is usually when I'm both the laziest and happiest I've been all year. I wake up certain that they occured--which was a real mess the other night when I dreamt I returned to my apartment in Brooklyn, where there were 8 people residing (previously the apt. was inhabited by only 2 persons). Behind my room there was a new room, an annex that could only be accessed by the closet. There were two people living in each room (including the newly found annex) and everyone was asleep when I came home. The house had three pianos, all fallen to ruin, several pedal organs that were in a similar state of disrepair, and cats everywhere, hissing at me. I woke up convinced I still lived in Brooklyn, and it took a good fifteen minutes and a cup of coffee to remember I was back at home on the coast. Silly.

Not much else to report--except a brief apology that I do not update this website very much. There are a few special shows coming up this fall, and of course the things beneath the surface that I am saving for later. How long have I been saying that now? Oh...well, patience, friends, have patience.

I'm playing this friday, 8/17 at the Lilypad in Cambridge's Inman Square. Nadav Carmel is hosting the show, and also playing will be Darren Hanlon & Don Lennon. The show starts at 8 PM sharp, and I'm first up to bat.

xox.casey

p.s. fall shows are rolling in--look out for a few midwestern dates in early september, and if you'd like me to play somewhere near you, you're only an e-mail away.

2007-06-25T11:00:00.000-07:00

It is now, without any doubt, summertime. While driving the mom-mobile this morning to the carwash, I could feel the backs of my legs sticking to the car seats, the canned heat of the car near singeing the skin clear off. I tend to spend my summers making things like this:

It is blueberry pie that I baked for my sister's graduation. I keep meaning to post the recipe. Suffice to say, it was pretty delicious, and has since spawned a strawberry-rhubarb pie, strawberries w/ ricotta and balsamic vinegar, etc. It just doesn't stop.

My dear friend Angel, however, is spending her summer doing things like this.
She is in a band called Dirty Projectors, which is made up of a lot of folks I know from Brooklyn and have played with myself in the past. They are so incredibly talented and creative, and there's no more need to describe any more of it other than for you to watch their amazing video. I don't much like comparing anyone to anything, but I can give you my whole-hearted espousal of its pleasures!

I am setting a crack in the darling ukelele today, using a technique suggested to me at my show the other night with the National by their violist, Padma. It works lik this: I loosen the strings, insert a single-blade razor, and ply the crack with wood epoxy, then use a gentle painter's tape to set the grain back, good as new. I've been a bit worried about the ukelele, and haven't really had the money to fix it.

Tour starts in the coming week. I've decided to post some demos of newer songs at myspace--they aren't very impressive quality and come from practices I've been having with the Flapjacks. A lot of folks have expressed surprise (some would say "dissatisfaction") with the newer sounds and versions of older songs. To those who are wary of change, I can only reassure you of its honesty & sincerity. I make things for you to pick up at will, and I will not foist them upon your ears, but rather set the down before your feet. I will keep things open & honest--and this is why when we come face-to-face with the panic of changes, we ought to keep calm and have faith. Hopefully this doesn't sound too much like a sermon! I am very excited about what is to come, and hopefully, all of you will be, too.

I begin my tour with Laura Gibson week, and I will be bringing the Flapjacks in tow. Come out and celebrate the summer solstice with us on our excursion! For all of the dates, move along over here.

Cheers!
xox.casey

Summer News & Shows

2007-06-14T11:30:00.001-07:00

hello all,

It's been a quiet couple of months here in New England, but I'm currently beginning to gear up for more activity this summer--while the rest of you, I hope, are winding down and drinking lemonades. To summarize this past spring in a neat & concise paragraph would be nearly impossible, but I have been doing a fair amount of traveling and learning, and hopefully this will all culminate into new sounds. I hope in the coming months to share more of these discoveries with you, but until then, the best I can do is begin to share them live.

I'm playing a slew of shows in the coming weeks on the upper half of the East Coast. All Shows except for the first (hence the *) will also be featuring the Flapjacks on my songs. I'll be touring most of the Northeast with one of my favorite songwriters and dearest friends Laura Gibson, who is coming all the way from Oregon. Please come out!

6/22- CAMBRIDGE, MA @ The Middle East Downstairs w/ The National *
6/29 - BALTIMORE, MD @ Charm City Art Space w/ Laura Gibson & These United States
6/30 - SILVER SPRING, MD @ The Rock N Romp (show for kids!) w/ Laura Gibson & These United States
6/30 - LANCASTER, PA @ The Sugar Tank w/ Laura Gibson & These United States
7/2 - BROOKLYN, NY @ Union Hall w/ Laura Gibson & These United States
7/5 - BURLINGTON, VT @ The Skinny Pancake w/ Laura Gibson
7/6 - STANNARD, VT @ The Stannard Hotel w/ Laura Gibson
7/8 - CAMBRIDGE, MA @ The Lilypad w/ Laura Gibson and Christians & Lions
7/9 - PORTSMOUTH, NH @ The Red Door w/ Laura Gibson and The Northern

*= I will be playing solo.

Recently I did a sweet little interview for Fragility Productions, and if you should like to hear what my favorite summertime beverage is or who in the world the Flapjacks really are, then go here:

http://fragilityproductions.googlepages.com/interviewwithcaseydienel.areprise.

Hope to see you in the coming weeks!

xox.casey

counting sheep.

2007-05-08T10:02:00.000-07:00

I moved again--it seems I'm always in between things when I sit down to write on this journal. Well, I moved accidentally, about a month ago to Jamaica Plain in Massachusetts. I say "accidentally" because I wasn't intending to settle in, but more just decided a few weeks stay in my home state would be nice for a little while. But quickly, all of the markings of a home began to materialize--kitchen supplies, coverlet, photos on the wall, yoga classes, a part-time job. Before I knew it, all I had to do was look around and see that I had unintentionally settled into a new (old) home. Funny how our subconscious can subtly lead us where we need to go. We run around like chickens with our heads cut off about what to do, but then all of sudden the dust sifts back down and we've made a decision without even having meant to. Silly, really.

So what does one do without the distractions of New York to entertain them? Sleep! And make new songs, and play music with old friends, and ride bicycles. And cook!!

But really, I'm writing to tell you about a show I have this week. I am in-between with music right now, and so I've enlisted the help of some friends to welcome the transition. I hope you'll come, because we're playing with some of my favorite musicians and I couldn't be more excited.

xox.casey

Friday, May 11 @ P.A.'s Lounge
345 Somerville Ave.
Somerville, MA

Ponies In The Surf
Casey Dienel (featuring the Flapjacks)
Michael Leviton
Scary Mansion

18+
Doors Open: 8:30PM
Ticket Price: $8for21+/$11for18-20

a brief last minute reminder!

2007-04-23T12:10:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, April 24, 8pm
CASEY DIENEL + MICHAEL LEVITON
@ Union Hall
$7

we will hold a ukelele duel on the patio afterwards (my bets are on michael). however, i will have a posse called the Flapjacks with me, and perhaps this will swing fortune in my favor.

Union hall is located at Union & Fifth Ave. in the Slope.

Please come!

xox.casey

Your Thins Is a Drag.

2007-04-01T10:19:00.000-07:00

On the record player right now is Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings. She has a 45 coming out next week that I can't wait to order, and it even comes with a solid-gold guarantee: "If this isn’t the toughest funk 45 of the year, we will send you your money back Inside a new pair of shoes. Then you’ll have something nice to wear to the audiologist when you go to have your hearing checked."

Fierce!

Things have called down a fair sum, but I'm keeping busy. The other night, I played in a very last-minute experimental trio, which involved yours truly running a drum stick up & down the length of a travel-size glockenspiel. I was giggling through my glass of prosecco afterwards, giddy with newness. It has been a long time since I'd improvised with other people, which got me thinking about how nice it would be to have a posse at my shows. To be onstage and look across the way and see other people playing with me. Ah...well, it's in the making. I've been practicing ukelele. I have calluses! All I know is that sometimes we build the wheel, only to end up running out from beneath it. I'm keeping all my wrenches close to my vest.

Not too much on the menu right now, although I do have a show coming up this month that I'm really excited about. I'll be playing Lindsay Vandemark's CD Release show in Cambridge this month, and she's a really lovely songwriter and friend. Her CD, Yo Comprendo, is coming out this month and she recorded parts of it with Djim Reynolds--co-captain of my first album. Here are the deets:

April 17th
@ TT the Bear's
10 Brookline Ave.
Cambridge, MA
8:30 PM

Lindsay Vandemark, Gregory & The Hawk (Brooklynite), Casey Dienel, & Jake Estner

18+, $10 cover

Happy spring!
xox.casey

SXSW cancellation news:

2007-03-16T14:33:00.000-07:00

dear friends and fellows,

I write you from a hotel in pennsylvania. Unfortunately I will not be appearing at the SXSW festival show scheduled tomorrow--for it appears that snow and ice have intervened. My flight to Austin was cancelled, and i'm sure those in the northeast are well aware of the blizzard going on over here. My apologies to those of you who were planning on coming, and I hope you enjoy the rest of the festival.

xox.casey

Favorite Things in February

2007-02-14T13:38:00.000-08:00

Amalia Rodrigues. the greatest fado singer I've ever heard. She has a song called "I don't confess it, even to the walls," and every time I hear it I have to stop whatever I'm doing. Her voice sounds like a weeping willow.
Salty Plum Vodka Drink. I have had many virgin salty-plum drinks, but these are sublime.
Finger-less gloves. Not the biker-kind that is trendy. The hand-knit variety, preferably with a mitten option. Warm and convenient.
Ferraby Lionheart's video. It made me feel very warm inside, as I have a certain soft-spot for grandmothers. See for yourself!

xox.casey

From Dreamer to Dreamer

2007-02-10T14:50:00.000-08:00

I itch to write you. I've been moving things around, both literally and metaphysically. I am on leave from Brooklyn and write you from an undisclosed location of unparalleled beauty. Imagine a great wide river, ravines slathered with inpenetrable pines as far as the eye can see, blue skies and hazy purple sunsets that seem to go on forever. It is not heaven, but on some days, it feels like it.

I've decided to do my housekeeping thoroughly. New songs are coming this year, and who knows when they'll be ready or finished, but I can assure you one thing: they are very different. I have decided that I can't waste any more time and must do things as fearlessly as possible and listen to my guts. To strip myself of edifice and get REAL. Grave as it sounds, it has been a lot of fun. I am crossing my list of "I will never" items one by one. It is my "new year's resolution" in addition to getting over an irrational fear of kareoke. I am dreaming crazy vivid dreams about letters and numbers, and it is so quiet where I am staying that the only sounds I can hear on my way to slumber are passing trains. Beautiful!

I made some changes at myspace, because I get antsy every so often and need to re-configure. Out with the old and in with the new! Some of you expressed dissatisfaction with my sudden disposal of certain songs, and so I guess I'm just writing to clear that up. I know that all of the new things are going to sound very different and strange at first, but hopefully you will open yourself to the changes and revel in them as much as I have. And we do have time, since it will be a while until the new sounds are ready for sharing, I think. Change is good. Let's change together. I've posted mostly just rough little bits of things I made with my friend Jim. Me playing little interludes or trying my hand at ukelele. I think mostly I am just putting them out there to give the catalogue some air, and perhaps welcome those curious into what I've been thinking lately. When I play them, I see pictures and colors and landscapes. What do you see when you hear them?

Look out for a few shows here or there. Also, I apologize for being so cryptic. I am hesitant to say things in the "definite" sense right now, but again, we have time for all of that and time will come.

xox.casey

Swoonworthy Things.

2007-01-18T06:36:00.000-08:00

Some things I've been drawn into like a glint of light on the ground:

Pan's Labyrinth--The first movie I've seen that truly delves into a child's imagination with such vigor and originality since Amelie, I think. But make no mistake! This is no lighthearted reverie--it's intensely imaginative, detailed, heartbreaking, and gory. Like, so gory that I actually, at one point (when one character must cauterize his own fleshwounds), stood up and ended up swooning briefly, to wake up on the floor outside the theater a few seconds later. I can't really handle lifelike violence very well, but in spite of this, I was so moved by this film. More than any in the past year, save Little Miss Sunshine. One of those movies where some of the humans in it are infinitely more terrifying than any imagined monster lurking in a closet or under a bed. ::shivers:: Go see it.

Middlemarch--What better way to settle into the 15 degree chill than curled up with some George Eliot? Having never really had the pleasure to read such a seemingly unending book of social intrigue since I was a teenager, this one seems to be filling any lingering cravings I'd put off for several years. Some parts of it are so ridiculous, its characters such flawed chickens running around with their heads cut off, that I can't help laughing. Eliot seems to have a skill for shedding some light on the little ticks of the human mind. Good stuff.

Alice Coltrane--May she rest in peace. lofty ideas and tropes in her music. I am without good words to describe it, except that listening to her feels a little to me like eating a long and hearty 6-course meal after a long fast. Satisfying.

John Southworth--Still. Have I ever written of his songs before? Well...they are just about the dandiest things around--each song a world within the sense of something larger. The chords as choosy as a Bach invention, so perfect and tempered, they seem kind of ancient. The uncanny feeling that we've been here before, though we are being introduced to something we've never seen before. So what is the catch? He normally sticks to Canada and overseas, I think. But the upside is he is playing a series of shows in New York this month and the next. Go and see and be spellbound! www.myspace.com/johnsouthworth

It is truly too cold to go outside right now. Hope you're all keeping well and warm.

xox.casey

a show, a show!

2007-01-05T14:02:00.000-08:00

a somewhat last minute show,

Friday, January 12th
@ The Middle East Downstairs
Cambridge, MA

8:00 PM Doors
9:00 PM Casey Dienel
10:00 PM Sleepshell
11:00 PM Corn Mo
12:00 AM HUMANWINE
$12
18+

p.s. Come and see the new songs I've been writing!

xox.casey

Canada, Cana-doo-dee-dah!

2006-12-23T10:54:00.000-08:00

If I was stranded on a desert isle this very evening, I would want to bring only Final Fantasy songs with me. Scout's Honor. I am slack-jawed with awe. Such joyful noises, I can't rememember feeling so inspired by songs like these in a long time. Both records. I sing them over and over again to myself while driving--even got pulled over the other night in Rhode Island while singing "all things shininggggg!" Owen Pallett, my hat goes off to you. Off, off, off!

Happy Holidays, everyone! I'm home now, wherever that may be. Today it's Massachusetts. A lot of change is going on...I've become a respectable member of the greater good--working a job servicing the whims and needs of Greenpoint residents with coffee and baked goods. I've also relieved myself of residency for the time being, stripped myself of a lot of my belongings and other edifices. Attempting an excersize in mobility and flexibility, though there's no guarantee how long this will last for me, since I am a creature of comfort and mild domesticity. Listening to pretty songs and cooking my comfort foods. I go into the New Year blindfolded and without fanfare. No Peeking. It can all look a little like a climb up Mt. Hood or something, so my hope is if I concentrate a bit more on the view than the hike, etc...Too homeric for you, dear readers? eh, yeah...I think so, too. I'll spare you the length.

Well, all I can say is that this year when we're all giving gifts and thinking of charity, you should consider this: TerraPass.com

My friend Jenn told me about it and it's super rad! Basically, it's a carbon offset for your driving--as someoe who averages quite the mileage yearly, I've bought an offset for my car, which will go towards all sorts of cool stuff like wind power and planting trees. Things that will counter all of the CO2 I've put in the air this year. Not all of us can lease a Prius, but as someone who lives on the coast and sees the daily result of erosion, global warming, and climate change--I think we can all do something to help. I'm really freaked out about the warm weather and the higher tides in the place where I grew up. For every TerraPass you buy, you get a cool little bumper sticker for your car, and it's not too much money at all! A standard vehicle offset is about $50 for the whole year--a small price for something that has the potential to help everybody.

Okay...I remove myself now from my soap box, and wish you all a wonderful New Year. I thank all of you for making 2006 such a wonderful, strange, whirling dervish of a year--you have turned my world on its end, given me the opportunity to see such beautiful things that I sometimes think I dreamed it all. Cannot put my gratitude into words, can't really say it without sounding like a big sentimental butthead. But whatever. I owe you all more than a blog entry...that's for sure.

Hoping you are all surrounded by people you love, eating ungodly amounts of food, and feeling happy and warm. See you in 2007, with whistles and bells on. I'm bringing my A game, promise! Get ready.

xox.casey

steam-heat

2006-12-09T07:49:00.000-08:00

Dear steam-heat radiator,

Why do you insist on throwing your temper tantrums at 3 in the morning? Is it possible we could negotiate a schedule for your tension-release excersizes? Say--when I am not home during the day. When you go off at 3 in the morning and continue to prattle on until sunrise, I feel exhausted, like I'm being run over by a train. I feel restless and sometimes, under the deluge of fatigue, have been led to believe I'm under a wartime seige whenever you boil over and mimic the riccochet of bullets. Is it really so necessary? I'm not too happy about the cold, either, and I sympathize with your poor, neglected creaky pipes. The building ops doesn't listen to me either when I tell him what's wrong with you--so must you continue to scream at me through the night, when you know I am on your side?

Sincerely,
your understanding friend Casey

my book report.

2006-11-29T08:58:00.001-08:00

On my second cup of coffee now, I feel finally awake enough to write you a proper entry. I'm scheduled to return to New York today. I've been on an extended holiday. I've made some trips to see old friends. The other night I got to see my friend Lindsay for gingerbread and tea the other night. (Her songs are wonderful: http://www.myspace.com/recognition).

The reason for this entry, though, is because I have a little article I wrote that I want to share. A few months ago, Largeheartedboy contacted me about writing about what I've been reading. David, the largeheartedboy in question, runs the only blog I really read. He is concise, covers not only music but the written word, and does it all in a way that isn't gossipy or hype-frenzied. It's a very classy blog! I procrastinated for ages, but finally it is ready and presentable here: http://blog.largeheartedboy.com/

I've had my head shoved in the books for several weeks now, attempting to finish a little EP for your ears that I'm calling Vessels. I can't talk too much about it, for you know how fickle I am when it comes to these things, but hopefully in the new year it will find its way to your hands with ribbons and brass, etc. I can tell you that some sounds are sprawling and some are still quite intimate, and it features a few of my favorite friends with me. I've been working madly on it with Djim Reynolds. Some of you may already know about him, because he is the maverick behind the wheel of Wind-Up Canary, as well as the records of Tiger Saw, Lindsay Vandemark, Nat Baldwin, Sam Rosen & The Members Only. You get the idea. He is awesome and wonderful! Stay tuned.

xox.casey

gobble gobble.

2006-11-23T13:00:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

On the menu: WIld Mushroom Pot Pie with Sour Cream Crust. I'm making some cranberry relish in a little bit, and though it's a rainy mess in New England, I'm happy to be home. I thought, in the spirit of the holiday and the long drive from New York to Massachusetts, to make a mix tape of some of my favorite new songs. I'm calling it OVER THE RIVER AND THROUGH THE WOODS '06. In particular, I've been obsessed with "Dirty Bird" by Graves of of his new album called Easy Not Easy, and "Pictures of Trees" by Inlets. They're a Brooklyn band featuring a few of the friends I've made here, and the songs are lacy intricacies that demand multiple listens (and you'll feel super good each time you reach for the repeat button, too!). What are all of you listening to? There's been too much good music this fall, and hard to resist the record-rush urge. In other news, I'm teaching myself how to knit and feel I'm a miserable failure at purling. I've googled tutorial videos and all of that, but really, is it always bound to be this complicated? All of these knots! Stockinette stitches, anyone?

Must get back to my relish!

xox.casey

Election Day!

2006-11-07T07:56:00.000-08:00

Dear friends!

Happy Election Day. I'm a twisted bundle of nerves, but that's enough on the subject.

I want to thank those of you who came to the Hush Showcase last week--I had a really truly special evening and was priveleged enough to play with 5 of the bands on the Hush roster. I know I say it all the time, but Hush really is a label of good and kind-hearted people. Looking around the room, it was hard to keep myself contained and I felt really truly heart-warmed. There was a shared toast and some new songs from each & everyone and plent

Anyhow, I have a show coming up on Wed. Nov. 8th in Brooklyn. Unfortunately, I have also had to cancel the show on the 27th of this month in Boston with Amanda Palmer. I'll try to reschedule something in ye ole hometown one of these days.

For now, I believe that the show this Wed. going to be my last show for the year, as I'm going into a winter hibernation of sorts to write and be a layman for a little while. I'm in the midst of a lot of work, so I promise that in the new year, I will come bearing good news. Of course, I'll still blog about all I've been up to soon, and I hope you're all well and in good spirits!

Here's the info on the show, and it's with the lovely Denison Witmer so please come!

Wednesday, November 8, 2006
8:00 PM

CASEY DIENEL + DENISON WITMER + DON PERIS (of The Innocence Mission)

Union Hall
702 Union Street @ 5th Ave.
Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York 11215

http://unionhallny.com/

xox.casey

Notes from the Moccasin Tour.

2006-10-17T10:14:00.000-07:00

I write you from a kitchen in Chicago, filled with pac-man lunch trays, ceramic tchotchkes, and a three-tiered copper basket full of garlic bulbs. The ever-present coffee cup sits to my left, and even though this city is not mine, somehow the tiniest of routines invoke the feeling of home. I'm back out on the road for some shows with Eef Barzelay, of Clem Snide fame & fortune. Each night he beats the shit out of a pink Barbie toy piano and plays songs about pedophiles, pre-millenialists (as he likes to call them), and everything else in between. We played at Schuba's last night, the first show I've had on tour yet where I felt entirely comfortable onstage and able to cut loose a little bit.

Yesterday we had the the whole day in Chicago to ourselves, and we've been staying with my friend Donna in Hamlin Park. There's a frosted backyard with brussel sprouts budding on thick frothy vines, dying habanero plants and the odd marigold demanding your attention with its bright petals along the brick footpath. It's so calm here you feel oblivious to the city, and the sky this afternoon's overcast. Jenn, who graciously agreed to come on board this tour last minute and keep me company on the long homeric drives from New York to Nashville. She and I have taken to eating ungodly quantities of food--spicy sour pho in toronto, hash browns and french toast in northampton, applewood smoked barbeque tofu just the other evening here in chicago, oh! so much food! We've taken to eating almost 4 meals a day--basil-laden margherita slices of pizza, spinach and tofu benedict, and also, so much good coffee.

There's been no real rhyme or reason to these days--we bought and smuggled maple syrup over the border, and best of all, yesterday were pampered with sangria and (oh...i'm embarassed to say....) an afternoon at the spa. I had first been enticed on tour with Damien, when he got a neck massage and came back to the van looking like a swaddled babe. I never treat myself to such luxuries, but we were seduced by the aromatherapy and clean white linens. Our faces and feet were massaged and we all gave in to the upgrades (oxygen blast, fruit acid wash...oh...shame!) There is something about when they're treating you to such unbridled, divine pleasure that I believe it's near impossible to disagree to any propositions. Would it be alright if we pulled out your toenails? If we put a hold on your credit card? We emerged only an hour later looking bright as newborns and calm as ever. We felt so happy and squealed over the complimentary tea, olives, and sweetcakes in the women's lounge. Really, I shouldn't tell you this story, because it might give way to the idea that as musicians we lead glamorous and indulgent lives. I'm sure some of us certainly do, but yesterday was a rare exception for me! Jenn & I have had a very girly tour, and I'm trying not to get too comfortable with it, because it's been just too wonderful to have her along. We make a lot of good detours and have met so many great people (and visited old friends, too). Last night after the show, Donna, Jenn & I messed around with a skeleton and a photo booth. Results soon to come, I'm sure!

Anyhow, I'm anxious to get back to New York again. This is my favorite time of year there, and I miss going to the greenmarkets and cooking and of course, my little white piano. I'll write you a more detailed acount of the food we've had on tour, too...which I think is almost as interesting as the shows themselves. Until next time, be warm, eat well, and sing your hearts out!

xox.casey

A series of One-Acts.

2006-10-02T09:19:00.000-07:00

So far on tour, these things are high on my list and conscience:

the benefits of vitamin c and mangosteen juice
hot pink leaves in the autumn foliage of minnesota
variations on 'bro' such as 'billbro baggins' (credit. damien)
sugar snap peas and peanut butter
vast unending blue skies, uninterrupted by the trees and hills of the Northeast, in the midwest they go on forever!
coffee, of course
untzen music (dance music in german according to a new friend)
the ukelele.

I've been teaching myself to play the ukelele--which is a beautiful little darling instrument, and perfectly sized for my fingers, and at each show i force myself to play at least one song with it. These venues have been on the larger side, and very frightening for me. I feel paralysis of the tongue before each show and stand in supplication to the sound systems, the cavernous halls, the unfamiliar faces, the terribly bright lights. Playing in them feels so new to me, it's like starting over in a video game after playing 20 levels. You know, back on the knees again. I was cut off last night by some kind of booty jam right before playing the La La Song, and the two nights before, I felt my songs were being sucked into a blackhole. Seriously, it's like this:

CASEY WALKS OUT ON STAGE. BEGINS TO PLAY. BLINKS. CAN'T SEE HER FINGERS. SHIT. THOSE LIGHTS ARE FUCKING BRIGHT. IMAGINES THE FAINT OUTLINES OF HUMANS IN FRONT OF HER. SHIT. CAN'T EVEN SEE IMAGINARY HUMAN CUTOUT FIGURES. SHIT! CASEY PLAYS A LIGHTLY ROUSING VERSION OF BABY JAMES ON UKELELE. SUDDENLY...THE HOUSE LIGHTS COME ON AND MARKY MARK BLARES OVER THE LOUDSPEAKERS. UNTZEN UNTZEN UNTZEN. END OF SHOW.

I think it is the lights and crystal quiet of these halls--while everyone is respectful and well-behaved, behind the lights it seems as though you're playing to a blindingly bright white wall. We played a few shows with Amy Millan, and her band is massive! Good Canadians, the whole bunch of them! I should have named this jaunt The Tour of Revolving Identities. Observe:

ANON: So, you're like Damien's merch girl, right?
CASEY: Nope. Just playing a show. Riding in his van. Playing tetris on his playstation.
ANON: In town?
CASEY: Yeah, just played actually an hour ago.
ANON: Oh, cool! Wait. I missed it?
CASEY: ...errr.....
ANON: Oh duuuude, well what's your band name? are you guys on myspace?
CASEY: We're called Casey Dienel.
ANON: Right. Cindy Daniels. Got it. I'm totally gonna find you guys on myspace.
CASEY: .....

END SCENE.

Don't interpret that dramatization as snittiness. It's journalism, not at all a complaint. Amy was apologizing profusely for calling me Celia onstage for two nights, (see, it's an honest mistake, afterall). She felt really bad, but she shouldn't have. It provided ample laughter in the van later on and Damien's band started calling me 'Candace,' 'Cory,' and all sorts of other C names. It doesn't matter, though. I think my life might be accurately categorized as one of observation and heavy-duty eavesdropping. Nothing this girl loves more than a good story. It's exciting to be out here, but I'd be lying if I said that the dressing rooms and soundmen and lights make me feel as though I'm playing dress-up as a songwriter. In some ways I wish for living rooms, I wish to see faces and play a real piano. I begin to feel a little homesick for Brooklyn and my white piano, for my friends and riding bicycles over the Williamsburgh bridge (at least the downhill part of it). I don't really fancy being one of those zombies who loads in, loads out, drinks up, and heads hotel-wards. Amy & Damien have been really lovely though! Not zombies at all!

But today I fly back to New York for a few days of R&R before meeting up with Damien again for a couple more shows. I feel like I wond the lottery every time I ride in their van! Like I won Publisher's Clearing House. Must return to my emergen-c packets and coffee cup.

CASEY SIGNS OFF HER COMPUTER, MOVES HER IV OF JET FUEL COFFEE TO THE SIDE IN ORDER TO ARRANGE HER THINGS. TAKES FLIGHT.

xox.casey

transfiguration of vincent

2006-09-14T22:22:00.000-07:00

I went to see m.ward play this evening--still humming the songs in my head. I hadn't gone out to a live show in awhile..."helicopter! helicopter, let your ladder down..."

I recently returned from a week or so in Massachusetts, where I was playing with my friend Djim Reynolds.I've been recording songs with him for a little EP slated for release early next year. Most are songs that few have heard, some of them are older ones that deserved a second chance. I've finally started to feel hungry to record again, so much so that now I've grown quite ravenous. The zeitgeist of recording haunts me a bit, but I think it will be a nice little wintertime collection for those of you who have been inquiring as to what's to come. There's be a bigger, meatier bunch later on next year for you to feast upon, but I am not yet at liberty to say more. Secrets, secrets! I will be sure to keep all of you updated as things crop up.

Stay tuned for tour dates on the myspace page. There will be a CMJ showcase for Hush Records in New York, so you should all come for that! I'll be there with Shelley Short, Toothfairy, and all sorts of other Hush favorites. Oh! & I'm playing a free show at the Pygmalion Festival in Indiana in a few weeks. Good good news abounds, too sweet to sit still!

Until next time, be well!
love,
Casey

vermin hotel.

2006-09-04T09:49:00.000-07:00

I've begun to take out my sweaters and sift through my soup recipes again. Fall has never seemed to come this soon, but at least today the sun's out instead those gloomy sheets of rain that fell in Brooklyn for the better part of last week. I think everyone falls in love with New York again in the autumn. The light shifts (it reminds me a bit of shining a flashlight through a sheet of tissue paper or something...a kind of a waning, foggy sort of light) and the trees start to bow and color (though they haven't begun to just yet) and things take on the vaguely bittersweet beauty of something in the midst of coming and going. Such fanfare!

We have the makings of a small colony of mice in our house, one of which was caught in a bathtowel by my roomate and valiantly returned to the great outdoors without injury! Not more than a few minutes later did I see a great fat mouse scurry across the kitchen floor and shrieked like a teenaged girl at a sleepover, according to my friend Jason. I am afraid of mice, but working on learning to live with our additional roomates, instead of hyperventilating and doing a creative little dance of terror every time I see their beady eyes or plump pink tails. The host of locations of these sightings sends chills down my spine: the coffeemaker, the stove, the electrical cord of our blue carnival glass lamp, my roomate's mattress, beneath the toilet plunger, on the fridge...we need a friendly inquisition! Bathtowel deportations! Every time you begin to feel romantic about New York, you need look no further than the sliver of space between your countertop and oven. Take a glimpse behind the couch. Between the midnight clog-dancing neighbors we've recently acquired overhead and our overfed, nocturnal tenants, it's been easy to look past the glossy sheen of Woody Allen movies that subconsciously seduced me here in the first place. How they tantalized us with their imagery: Mia Farrow making Thanksgiving dinner in a penthouse apartment, taking leisurely walks through central park with elegant Bouviers, trips to the opera or the Museum of Natural History while wearing Chanel trenchcoats and smoking long, painfully thin Dunhill cigarettes without even so much as flicking away the ash! This New York, while neurotic, subtly implanted a kind of romantic chip of sorts into my imagination.

It's simplistic to blame everything on poor Woody Allen. It's unrealistic. For my part, my fear of vermin was aroused when I was a little girl and found a mouse in our cellar beside one of the Conch shells my mother had eaten dinner out of in Mexico. She had saved them for book-ends and kept them up on the shelf beside her boxes of Quicken programs and thick, trashy murder mysteries. For a few weeks, whenever I went downstairs to play Nintendo or read, the mouse was always in the same place, crouched beside the conch shell. I didn't tell my parents or even my sister and kept the mouse as a secret. Sometimes, I think I might have spoken to it or invited it to play Duckhunt. One day, I went to pet the mouse and was astonished by how brave it was, how it didn't even flinch as I reached to touch it, and as soon as I had begun to pet the mouse I realized it was long dead. It was frozen stiff and its fur was coarse. I could feel its tiny skeleton like minature toothpicks just below its paperthin gray coat which had now lost its sheen and taken on the dull, matte texture of things that are no longer living. I screamed so hard I fell off the bookshelf! I've been a baby about mice ever since.

At night, I feel too terrified to get even a glass of water. I have delineated the hours of the day as "my time" (the morning hours until the early evening hours) and then "their time" (the witching hours until the sun rises up). At one point, I will have to face my fear. Perhaps cuddle with the mice. Give them cute names like "Stuart Little" or "the morbidly obese one." Make outfits for them with ties and bows and polka dots. Make a Hansel Und Gretel trail of bread crumbs for them leading to the front door, a subtle hint of the compromise I'm willing my make as a fellow tenant of this apartment. Until then, I will just have to do my best Babysitter's Club impersonation everytime one of my little roomates comes around in hopes it might frighten them just as much and send them scurrying back to the crevasses. I'm working on it.

Hm...well, I hadn't intended this to be such a short story piece or an essay on pest control. But, there you have it. There are new dates coming, and recordings, too. Keep your eyes peeled. It feels a shame to write about music news at the end of all of this, so I won't this once.

Sending you love (and recipes, soon)!
xox.casey

Nouveau Casey

2006-08-08T13:32:00.000-07:00

Well, here it is, folks: The new caseydienel.com!

We've been promising it for months and months, but here it is, in all of it's glory! Thanks to Scott McDowell for helping to launch it and Greta Merrick for taking my doodles and translating them into something cohesive! Please bear with us while we work out all of the little kinks and such.

I figured now might be an opportune time to announce that I'll be hitting the road for a little while with Damien Jurado at the end of September. Stay tuned as those dates begin to get confirmed. They will be posted in Shows and at Myspace. As autumn approaches I'll have more announcements to make, without a doubt.

Now, I've got fresh figs to pilfer and blackberries to pick. Hope you are all enjoying your summer!

xox.casey

P.S. To change the gallery, click on the pictures and electrical outlet!

Retreat, fair maidens, find cover!

2006-07-16T10:54:00.000-07:00

Summer in the city is just a pool of sweat and mingle and smells. Some of the scents lurking in the streets of Brooklyn I was unaware of until the heat wave moved in and picked it up out of the sewers and alleyways and garbage bags. I've retreated to the Massachusetts shore-- I'm afraid I'm still too much of a baby to sit through and entire Brooklyn summer, so I'm giving myself a vacation up by the sea, which is where I feel the most at home so the retreat is serving me well in more ways than one. I've been cooking, grilling, making sun lipton tea, and using spearmint in anyway possible. A friend recently pointed out that he hasn't seen me without spearmint in a cup or on a plate since summer started. This is the first true vacation I've had in months, and since I got back from tour I've been trying to ward myself from the idea of "time off." I'm doing something I love, so isn't that enough to make me work full-time all of the time? But the heat has cracked me, my friends, and I can't handle it. I'm sorry to all of you whose correspondance I've been a lacking participant in. Since this self-imposed vacation began I've had very little motivation to sit at the computer. All I can think about are deep-fried sea morsels and sand and jetties. If I don't smell sea salt I begin to feel lost. The city is where I confirm my place in the world, but the sea is is where I confirm myself.

But enough of the philosophy! I don't want to bore you. Tour was wonderful--I couldn't have asked for a better introduction to the western world. Angel and I became close companions, and through her I experienced everything from Hooters to Wayne's World to the 101 and the great redwoods. She is the Ambassador of California and a fine musician to boot. I don't know what I would have done without her co-captaining our excursion. It was interesting to play my songs every night for almost two months, overall I'd say the shows were dynamic and unpredictable. I began to write again, then felt all blocked up after returning home because how does one begin to process the scope of this country? How does one digest the deserts and the Pacific and the Northwest rainforest? The people, the countless doors and homes opened to us? I get so overwhelmed by touring, not because of the draining schedule or the drives or even the constant newness, but more the confirmation of how beautiful everything is and how generous people can be to complete strangers. I wish I could explain that kindness, but it's still sitting in my stomach while I mull it over and appreciate it. It's too big to take down all at once. Coming home from tour is like a big question mark. What now? What next?

So that's why I'm on retreat. I am attempting to ignore the next and now for a few weeks. I'm really lagging in terms of my updates, (the defunct website, the shows, the touring). But there's a horizon with things on it and I'm afraid I have to keep it all under top-secret wraps. I know, I know. I hate keeping things from you, but until I know for sure, I'm going to be witholding just this once. As for shows, I'm playing one this upcoming week in Brooklyn at Pete's Candy Store. It's free, too, so perhaps that will entice all of you to come out. I'm playing with Inlets (from My Brightest Diamond) and The Rosemont Family--both of whom songs I encourage you to come enjoy. Come say hello. I probably won't be playing out again much until the fall. You know how vacation is.

I'm back to the salty sea now. A bientot!

xox.casey

freeways, cars & trucks.

2006-05-24T12:03:00.000-07:00

man with a piano.

i am listening to tom waits--closing time. i'm in L.A. with all the neon & the stars, as Dylan would say. Today there is minimal smog & you can see the Hollywood sign on the hills. Palm trees line the streets. I'm about to go buy myself a croissant, but first I want to hear Mr. Waits singing a little. Better than coffee in the morning. we played last night at this hollowed-out space called the Smell, a graffiti-in-the-toilets kind of joint. Touring has been a bit hard on my confidence--I've felt so shy. I've been having too many "girl with piano" talks, I think. too many attempts to explain & pin myself down to the encyclopedia. I don't like to complain & I dislike even more the "women in music" discussion. I think it's a bit cliche & crass to dwell on it. but you know how pandora keeps herself, don't you? the more you pry, the more you find yourself eager to get to the bottom of that box. is it hard, they ask? is it difficult? is it different? it makes me sigh very expressively, these questions.

I wonder if Mr. Tom got these questions, too. sometimes it doesn't feel too great to be put inside of a filing cabinet--it feels very cramped & dark & claustrophobic. I'm not sour on it, but all of that gab makes me feel self-conscious. Almost guilty. To be going town to town with my Beast--sometimes on this tour I have wanted to apologize before playing, as if to say "I'm sorry I have a piano & I'm a girl & I'm going to sing!" I don't know what else to do. Tattoo 'cliche' to my forehead? Can't strip the zebra of the stripes, you know? Je suis comme je suis. i didn't mean to come out looking so pulpy, I didn't intend to tread all of this water. I just kind of woke up one day singing, & since then, how could I help myself to do otherwise?

it is hard to open my eyes at some of these shows...hard to look at the people. I get nervous & scared. My new friends that we've made in LA were there last night to ease the stomach nerves rattling underneath my ribs. I was blushing all evening. Come on courage!

we're off to san diego today. that's the city where my parents met & fell in love.

xox.casey

Greetings from Nebraska.

2006-05-03T11:26:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Nebraska. In an anonymous coffee-shop in Omaha. We’ve had an action packed week aboard the Mom-mobile (my Honda Odyssey), whipping through the blue hills of Kentucky, the fields in Ohio & Iowa & the greater Midwest.
We played this sweetly intimate house-show at my friend Shelley’s place in Chicago--& after a very valiant effort to eat Hare Krishna pancakes the next morning, our new friend Donna made us awesome waffles with mango sauce in the giant kitchen.
We’ve been staying with Bambi & Johnni in Davenport, IA for a few days. Iowa is everything I wasn’t expecting—lush, green, watery (there are flash rainstorms in the afternoons here). We played a show on the cusp of the Mississippi river the other night, & Angel & I took to watch the pelicans swoop down low, skimming the surface with their talons before ruthlessly scooping a fish from the water.
Bambi’s this beautiful buxom redhead & she’s ballsy & animated & gave me a hand-crocheted scarf to keep warm on the tour just because. We embroidered for awhile in the afternoon—I made a canary to put on this bright red sweatshirt I picked up at a goodwill for $2. I hadn’t been so crafty in awhile. Angel, Johnny, & I drew rock guitar gods in the kitchen from old Guitar mags (Angel made a smashing portrait of Bill Murray as a putrid green zombie, & I drew Mick Mars walking on water in front of an icy mountainous landscape—it read “DON’T SWEAT IT, SHRED IT!”). The shows in Iowa were intimate & friendly, we drank good beer & made solid meals. Angel & I both prefer cooking to truckstop diners, so we’ve been making pasta & burritos with fire-roasted poblanos. One morning Angel whipped up some garlicky tofu scramble with criminis & soy sausage. What a bunch of cruchy hippies we are. But, lord, it’s so nice to have another girly veggie on the tour with me! No more grilled cheese & French fries for Casey. It’s all healthy produce & organic yoghurt & delicious black beans & tofu. It’s good to feel healthy. I’m praying for it to last the whole trip—there’s nothing quite so miserable as sweating out a fever or cold on the road, & everyone else you travel with resents you for it because you’re threatening their well-being with your mutant musician germs. Angel’s got a bit of the cough in her & we’ve been trying to melt it off with LOTS of tea. She got a bloody nose during the set in Muscatine, IA—but so far no one else has showed symptoms of sickness. I’ve been on the antioxidant train: pomegranate, blueberries, strawberries, peaches, everything you can imagine. Like Linus Pauling said—always take your Vitamin C! We’re all looking forward to the West Coast for different reasons—Angel’s from there, Dylan’s second home is LA, & I want fresh, seasonal fruits & veggies.
Oh, but this must be boring to you, dear reader! Back to business, shall we?
The Omaha show was at an Ice Cream Shoppe called Ted & Wally’s. Dylan thought the show was at 7, but we didn’t end up even starting until 9:30, which afforded us plenty of time for sketching & writing letters & postcards. We didn’t eat, we just kind of sampled the ice cream (I had the ‘famous’ pistachio almond which was pretty tasty, because it’s made with the old rock-salt technique.) We played with a band on their very first show ever, & it was pretty sweet to hear them rocking out without abandon. I’ve felt so shy on this tour—all of my shows have been ones that make me feel too terrified to pry my eyes open, so I’ve been feeling a bit lackluster towards them. I think it may be that I’m playing a lot of new songs & they’re about stuff that’s a bit of strange territory for me. But usually the first week of tour is the hardest, because you have to shake out all of your fears & hang-ups. So I’m shaking the willow branches ‘till of the leaves shake off.
Ooh, this is a real coffee beanery—they’re roasting a bunch of beans & they’re crackling like popcorn in the background. It smells a little smoky & musty in here, like someone’s frying something in a skillet—the coffee here is good & dark. It’s a thick, seemingly bottomless cup I’ve picked up for myself which is probably murder on my stomach later on in the day. We haven’t eaten anything yet, today, we’re kind of determined to get back on the road. We’re due for Kansas City today—which is a bit of a backtrack but the people there seemed so friendly & eager to host us that we felt it would be worth it. We’re playing with Boo Hiss. Hopefully, like Angel’s cough, I’ll have beaten the tar out of my nerves & start to open my eyes & stop feeling so god damned nervous.

‘courage.

until next time,
Xox.casey

dog-walkers come out for spring.

2006-04-19T11:14:00.000-07:00

quiet before the storm, my friends.

tour starts in about a week. i have over a million things to do, but i've been romanced by spring in brooklyn--luckily it bloomed early enough for me to have a taste before embarquement. there's green fringed around all of the brownstones & the dogwalkers have come out to let their canines loose in fort green park. in fact, i think this delicious lethargy is positively contagious. everywhere i go, people stop to say hello, honk horns, yell 'mmm...i'm gonna sex you up...' yes...cat calls must mean springtime & short skirts. men licking their chops. everyone barks at one another & hopes to catch a good fish.

so instead of sending out show notices & e-mails & wrapping up booking (dylan & i did not really know how ambitious our tour was on the outset, i think--which is for the better, have you ever tried to organize a 3/4 statewide tour?) this morning started with my tartine & yogurt w/ honey. gratuitous time spent on the computer. i've been a nonstop bundle of jigsaw solvent, or at least, i was. until i went away on a "pre-tour" vacation of sorts. i flew across the country, to where i'll be visiting in no less than 4 weeks, played a vicious game of taboo with some friends, ate far too much, solicited strip clubs...

& now...it's just...not laziness, exactly...leisure, perhaps.

but there's cause for celebration. there's all the cliche markings of happiness (reviews, nice shows, meeting and making new friends), & i'm writing once more (iminent record-making to come). as the tour gets closer & closer to confirmation it sinks my leisure entitlement down into my stomach. i'm as hopeless as teenagers in heat when it comes to sprintime! so i'll be having iced mint tea on my fire escape & hypothetically cleaning out the van before tour begins.

before i leave you...these are the things that have been putting spring into my step:
metal hearts (wonderful counterpuntal band from baltimore, they're on tour now!)
super xx man (their new record is perfect for iced-tea-on-fire-escape days)
the new yorker (the latest issue...good read on the plane)
iced tea w/ mint (boil 2 qts. of water & mix with 5 bags of cheap-o lipton tea, then serve cold over crushed mint-leaves & ice. lemon also a nice touch)
wine by joe (the pinot noir from 2003 is cheap but really sweet & rich--tastes of oregon)

alright, my friends, hope to see you while i'm on the road.

xox.casey

Spring has sprung!

2006-04-05T11:29:00.000-07:00

So, the other day I went to the pond & all of the trees looked like this. All of the big old chestnut trunks had been marked by kids & couples alike, an over time the trees grew thicker with the tanlges of words & inciscions & scars so now they're just like towering sculptures that sit around the park. We watched all the ducks bathe for a little while & investigated an old haunted mansion that was falling apart inside & out. It was the first true spring day of the year & I didn't even wear a coat!

xox.casey

ch ch ch change.

2006-01-28T18:35:00.000-08:00

Back at home. Home. Capital H. Home right now means Brooklyn. It was funny to return to Boston, which is (home). And it still feels homey there. The show on Thursday was overwhelmingly wonderful. Despite the Beast's current state of malfunction, despite the patchy monitor, despite the nerves and nostalgia tying knots in my stomach. It was all too familiar. But people were dancing, waltzing, and singing with me. It didn't feel like puppetry, it felt very sincere and wonderful. I left the show feeling energized and crazy...exhausted with my feet aching from the high-heels. I played barefoot, nonetheless.

Now I'm back in my cafe. It's as home as it gets. This year is a test of home, faith, and change. I can tell. There is so much amazing hope and goodness on the horizon...I'm terrified. It feels like I am unready. I have been telling people that I feel like I'm about to go hang-gliding off a cliff into the most beautiful canyon I have ever seen. I've done my training, I've got the equipment. I couldn't be any more ready than I am. But I am still scared stiff. The only reason why I haven't jumped yet is me.

And it's sad to see the changes in my town...where it's slowly growing from a fishing village into a homogenized deck of condos. Where Dunkin Donuts has monopolized the Mom & Pop joints. Where the waterfront is being ravaged with new buildings with austentatious 3-door-garages and faux-Nantucket-trim. Slowly the character is being drained. My favorite place as a kid was to visit this church called the Whitcomb Chapel. It was a catholic church hidden in the woods on a tiny street. It was abandoned and spooky, mystical for a kid on her bike in search of a good ghost story. It seem that that, too, has met its end with the wrecking ball. Soon, the woods will go, and who knows what next?

So here I am in Brooklyn. Drinking some tea and settling into new mythologies, feeling the last couple of days stumble in my memory as if some bizarre dream.

xox.casey

Grunt Work.

2006-01-19T18:57:00.001-08:00

Well, friends, I want to tell you about my latest adventure.

But first: thank you everyone for the e-mails. Your words beget mine, encourage me to keep going when I’m covered in curogated cardboard, wondering what I’m doing here. Keep swimming, you say. I know, I reply. No—you really DON’T know, because you’re a human just like everyone else and have doubts and fears, you say. Ah! Now I know…you’ve alloyed me with confidence and maybe it’s narcissistic to believe the words other people give you really do put gas in the tank & food on the table, but I think it’s best for us to forget about all of the Right in our lives. Too many angles, squares, cubes. It’s important to think about the circles, and lately, I’ve been most grateful for the curves that connect every word spoken, the record that found it’s way from friend to friend, the minutiae that have brought me here. All of these cycles that come back to the present and change everything. I have always thought it was important to forge ahead, to renew yourself and embrace the change out in the world. But the most important part of any adventure is the return, the reprisal, the home you come back to. Without this, you’re basically just careening down a black hole. Out of control. When you come home, you have perspective. You have wrings on the trunk of the tree, you have growth. Every e-mail becomes another reason to return, and while I miss all of my friends dearly, I know that going away gives me another excuse to go back. Balance, friends. It is all about the balance.

But enough philosophy for today. Onto the adventure.

I am on a mission, a divine path. To what, you ask? Oh--it's not just any path. One of my hopes in coming to Brooklyn was to be 'normal.' Many people host their own definitions of normalcy, but for me, it means having a job.

I know, you are rolling your eyes at me. What a poser, you say. You already have a job as a weirdo songwriter! Well...just as in office work, sometimes a someone just wants something different. While others fantasize about going off on the road in a motorcycle, living in the Mojave in a lean-to, eating rice & beans for 6 mos., building their own pueblo in the petrified forest, playing to a sold-out stadium of cock-rock lovers shouting their name over & over and over againg--I dream of things like a fixed schedule, constancy & consistency, being or having posession of a 'regular,' and earning a stable income. Yes, what might be normal to you is not to me, and contrary to popular belief, there's not a lot of money in the field I am in. Which is why I do it--because it's not about money, it's about songs and people. But a girl's gotta eat, gotta sleep somewhere, and that also means she's gotta pay for it.

So I've been looking for jobs. Any kind of job open to a kid without a degree. I fantasize about working in a bookstore, where I get to read all day and stock and run the cashier. Push the same button 60 times a day, go home, then do it all again. Life on the road is fantastic, but sometimes i just want to slice wonderbread and be the one grunting behind the counter. What we desire usually is not what we have. So it goes.

But maybe I'm not cut out for a normal job...I've always been too slow, overattentive to details, not very punctual, pretty shy. If life was about interviews and first impressions I would flunk it. Seriously--I'm terrible at putting my neck out on the line when it comes to work, and whenever I've got an interview I'm so nervous and anxious that the employer can probably sniff it off of me, like a wolf sniffing out it's prey.

Employer: So...what kind of music do you like?
Casey: umm...errrr....well, some people say that I play indie-pop....so I guess...errrr....
Employer: Hmm....well, WE like to listen to Fela Kuti while we work here...
Casey: oh, that's, um, cooool. I like them. You know, 'power to the people' and stuff. Really positive message.
Employer: yeah...(glances down at legal pad and makes note of my hesitancy to state clearly my position on afro-beat as a genre). What's your favorite movie?
Casey: Hmmm...that's a tough question. I think it's probably Rushmore?
Employer: yeah...well, WE really like to get together during the week after early shifts and watch Spike Lee films. Would you be down with that?
Casey: Sure...Spike Lee, yeah--I love her stuff. Wasn't she on Degrassi, too? My heart really went out to her when she had to give birth to her baby while she was still in school. That's rough shit.

Needless to say, if you can't hang, you can't work. Other interviews can go on similarly...and in all fairness, if I was hiring, this is what it would look like.

Casey: So...we're looking for someone who isn't going to be a douche. Do you think you posess any qualities that might lead us to believe you have douchey inclinations?
Job-seeker: Hmm...sometimes when I'm staying over at my girlfriend's house, I leave the seat up.
Casey: That's not douchey at all. I’m talking world-class, Grade A certifiable with a capital D Douche. Don’t puss out on me—this is a serious question! Come on, I really want you to DIG for it.
Job-Seeker: Well...my biggest pet peeve is when someone talks at the table on their cell phone in a restaurant really loudly. Is that douchey enough?
Casey: No way!! That's my biggest pet peeve, too. You're totally hired!
Job-Seeker: Sweet, dude.
Casey: Yeah, you just got really lucky.
Job-Seeker: (wrinkes his nose, and dourly mutters under his breath) Yeah…lucky.

END SCENE.

xox.casey

joyeux.

2006-01-08T10:09:00.000-08:00

Where do I begin? Hmmm...no cliff notes version could contain the buzz of activity I've experienced in this past week. I'm a mess of nerves and caffeinated energy--I feel like there's java in my fingertips as I write to you. I'm simultaneously exhausted and wide awake, each morning my eyeballs feel like creeking door hinges, bleary from all of the new stimuli i'm absorping through them. I can feel the work from painting, driving, settling--all of these sensations have lodged themselves into my joints--my elbows, my knees, my ankles, my hips. I'm sore everywhere, there's paint lodged beneath my fingernails and I'm VERY unshowered right now. I'm also incredibly happy and anxious about the life that awaits me here.

I've moved to Brooklyn. Good-bye to Jamaica Plain, hello to Clinton Hill. My neighborhood is a very different landscape from the colorful townhouses that dotted my street in purple and teal and even the color of a cantaloupe. The street I'm living on now is speckled with Pentecostal churchs (and the requisite church biddies with walkers, wool coats, and pillbox hats), and stately brown and grey-stone buildings. There are trees that line the streets and it's not like Williamsburgh, if some of you have been there, where there are students and artists just about everywhere you go. This neighborhood is on the verge of Bed Stuy and it's the last frontier of Brooklyn, as some might call it. The place that hasn't been gentrified, where the housing hasn't been overinflated because of boutiques and cafes and studios. As a friend of mine said, as soon as the artists move in, the wealthy begin to seep in through the cracks. So here I am, I guess being a part of the artist contingent. It's interesting, being on the other side of things. In Boston, I've seen some crazy poverty, so it's nothing new. But to see who has and who doesn't really calls a lot of questions to my mind.

I write you from a cafe in the neighborhood, one of two. This one is run by a sweet pair of guys, Gary and Colin. Last night my friend and I tried to help Colin set up a projector to watch Gia. It's a special on Saturdays where there are $3 Tecates and a movie in house. It's nice because it's a pretty diverse bunch that comes in here, and it has started to feel like a home. I'm starting to recognize faces and make friends, all the nice signs of making a home. Nikole & I have been painting the apartment, cleaning it top to bottom. I haven't played music in a week, which feels weird.

Last night I was scheduled to have my first show here, but the Beast wouldn't comply. There was a short in my adapter that I need to get replaced, and thus, my set was cancelled. So I'll have another show here soon...I've been recording again. I just got the first mix of the songs and I'm excited. It's good to forge ahead, it's good to have new songs. I'm excited at how different they sound, excited by the growth and change that I was terrified by only a few months ago. There's so much else I want to write you about, but it will have to wait.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Yuletide Tour Diary III

2005-12-20T13:19:00.000-08:00

Tour closed last night with an unbelievably warm Channukah party at the Red Door in Portsmouth, NH. It was really great to go out on such a high note, the house was packed and we played with Oregon-based Testface, who knows Hush people. Nat's set was heavenly and really set the tone for the show, and by the end of my set everyone was singing the 'la la's' together, and I let one really sweet fellow take a solo. So fun! I was dancing on the amps and ottomans! It was so good to see everyone and have drinks and spend time with my wonderful friends. This whole tour has been enormously lifting on my heart--through the better and worse, I learn the most about myself when I'm pushed around a little. I left a lot of shows feeling vulnerable...as if I had scooped a hole in my chest for the whole wide world to see. For whatever reason, on this tour, I felt more chatty than usual. I spent a long time on stage trying to fit as much story into the set...I would sometimes leave the sets feeling more misunderstood than before I went onstage. But I have so much stuff I care about that I want to share. Maybe it's a better idea to just stick to the songs?

I'm so sorry that i left you all off in Michigan. Our time was swallowed soon after by trudges through slush-driven snow, christmas party after christmas party, and friends. I spent some more time with my grandparents and managed to smuggle a tub of my Pa Pa's homemade turtles over the Pennsylvania border. I spent time with my friends in Pittsburgh and Philly...and the shows were both sweet in their own way. I think I am seriously in love with Pittsburgh. I got to see my friends Christopher, Caroline and Anna. It was too much--I love how earnest the city seems. A real elbows-on-the-table kind of place. Then I got to hang out at this up-and-coming venue Daniel Ralston runs called Kensington South Forum.

It was cold both nights and I just barely escaped to Providence without a scratch of a cold on me. I'd started going on the greasy tour diet and my immune system was starting to show the proof. Belly aches and head aches. Nat & I were sad that it had gone by so fast, but relieved to return home. I'm looking forward to taking the next months off from touring, getting warm, learning how to knit, settling into my new apartment. I'm moving to Brooklyn in only a few weeks...it's just a kiss away although it feels eons from now. I guess the holidays just do that to a person. I've got boxes to consider, packing...but I'm excited to really LIVE somewhere. I've felt like I've been on tour since September and I'm glad to have a bit of a break. I will be doing some touring in the spring with Fancie (from Berlin, my sweet friend Elisabeth Wood) and hopefully a few dates with Shelley Short (from Chicago). The cast of characters, one can only hope, should keep expanding.

I'm wrapping christmas gifts this afternoon before running off to the studio to get in some demos of new songs I've been writing. I am relieved to have a new arsenal before the new year, if for no other reason than the fact that pos-canary, I was really starting to think the well had run dry. These songs are meatier, louder, bolder. Feisty. Sexy, even? Hah. I have so much to be grateful for in this past year and I'm bewildered to think of what might happen within the next 12 months. I've got so much on the plate (to unfold slowly before your eyes when January arrive), and I'm hoping all of you will continue to be patient with me. It's an amazing web I've been sewed to, not just in Boston but I feel everywhere. I can't wait to see all of you again soon. I have one last show in Boston as a local on New Year's Eve.

More soon.
xox.casey

Yuletide Tour Diary II

2005-12-13T15:00:00.000-08:00

December 10th, 2005

Greetings from Athens, Ohio! It’s really sunny here—apparently a rarity for this liberal oasis amidst all of the red counties…it feels like a Midwestern Northampton. We’re staying with Michael and Leo from Southeast Engine. So far, this tour has been wonderful just because we’ve played with musicians I would love to play/tour with over and over again. Leo’s got a rap project called Pinnacle where they have rhymes like “I speak Egyptian, bitch, eye bird eye!” We stayed up last night laughing until probably 3 in the morning, trading stories about touring and hopes and wishes and weird anecdotes. I learned that a bite from a kid with braces is almost as deadly as the bite of a Komodo Dragon. It felt like seeing a long lost friend. Now we’re listening to some Lennon, while Leo reclines in the sunlight, talking about Lennon and Kurt Cobain’s primal screaming. Oh, John. Working Class Hero is playing. Oh, John.
The show at the Donkey Coffeehouse was so much fun. I got to play another upright piano, this one had a nice kind of mahogany sound to it. Very roomy and old-timey. That’s two nights now that I’ve stood up my faithful beast in favor of a real set of ivories. Made me happy to play while folks drank coffee and played old school games like Connect Four. People were kind and attentive and I played a new song called “Asleep at the Wheel.” I found out Jonathan Richman played here not long ago, on the same stage, so I played Frankie & Annette. I felt it’s only fair to bring a little Massachusetts to the coffeehouse, seeing as how Jonathan Richman is about as Massachusetts as it gets, in my mind. I think in a good way, too.
But the real treat was seeing Southeast Engine play. They’re dirty rock n’ roll. Very good blue collar songs, and Rem (the lead singer) has a great sooty voice. Their songs are catchy and lively and man, I had no idea what I was in for. Very wonderful guys, too. Everyone has been very kind to us, and Leo and Michael in particular were keen on welcoming us. I had some Eggs Peabody this morning at Casa Nueva, a worker-owned co-op in town that has good vegan Mexican food and down-home country cooking. Nice coffee and everything’s organic. The town right now looks a little like Cumberland, MD where we stopped yesterday for lunch. It’s a ghost town because the students are all on break—but the town is full of old art deco relics, classic theatres and awnings with neon and filigree. There’s snow glazing the rooftops and Leo & Michael live on 15 acres of snow & grass in this cozy double-wide. I want to come back here again, every town we go through makes me feel as though I could never go home. I am always homesick while traveling, but seeing these small towns and incredible people makes it hard for me to want to stay put. The world is too big, too beautiful. I want to see it all! I want to hear everyone’s stories and write them all down, capture them in songs and spread them across everybody’s ears. It’s really too incredible to just sit down and keep my mouth shut. & I haven’t even begun to see it yet in its entirety.

Xox.casey

December 13th, 2005

I’m at the Ugly Mug, drinking a handsome coffee in a cloud of smoke. It’s freezing here in Ann Arbor and no one in this café knows nor cares about who I am. There is something in my purpose here, in my steps. & I don’t mind the anonymnity—it’s good to see that life continues outside of songs, even though their indifference can scrape you a bit as you walk past. How selfish to think these women studying for their final would take any notice of my songs—or that I might be a bit hurt when one asks me if my singing will disturb their cram-session. Oh well. Another day in the life of a musician—caffeinated, cold, unfamiliar. Hard to imagine that an hour from now I will get into the corner by the piles of unroasted coffee beans and start to hammer my poor piano into submission. It feels like I’m about to play into a vacuum. Sometimes I deliberate over my plan of attack in situations like this. Screech over everyone’s voices and poker games or sing softly to myself. Hold an open rehearsal. Which is the path least defeated, least pathetic? Which one is the compromise? I hope neither but until I start to play I am unsure. The café is so cramped there is nowhere to stand or sit. I am writing atop of the newspapers and flyers for shows. Hoping at least one of the folks will part from their nicotine to listen and not turn away, I play a very savage version of Travel Light. I feel sick to my stomach and terrified all at once.
The show happens, and it is so hard for me that I have to keep my eyes closed nearly the whole time. It is an uphill battle the whole way—no one is listening, save for two or three really sweet gentlemen in the front. I plead for people to sing with me, but they look unimpressed (if they’re looking at me at all) and I resist the urge to stick my tongue out at them for being such ice cubes. If only everyone in the world were encouraged to sing all the time! The room is a den of smoke, and the noise is so loud that my voice cracks trying to battle it. I play mostly new songs and by the time The La La Song comes it appears like an old friend from the distance, an assurance. I sing the la la’s extra loud tonight, if not for anyone else than just for myself. I end the set feeling rather defeated. Like shit, bad shows happen. It’s a fact of life. I feel really vulnerable and cold afterwards, and chat to a few kind University students. My throat is feeling the tar at this point and although Nat & I go to a diner to take the steam off, I still go to bed feeling weary and homesick.
I was feeling really sad until a little bit ago. I was walking down in Ann Arbor past the Firefly club and I saw a huge picture of my best friend, Rachael, on the board. Oh, every so often there are perks to this strange profession—one being that you can see gigantic sexy photos of your best friend at the venues they’re playing at even when you’re hundreds and hundreds of miles away from them. I got so happy I squealed and nearly slipped on the ice! How neat!
I have one more show in Ann Arbor. I’m crossing my fingers that it will fare better—I have faith in this town, yet. But it is certainly difficult sometimes to keep on in this snow and ice, especially when people are trying to hard not to melt in front of you. I feel like a big puddle most of the time. Sigh.

Sending you all marrow melting warmth!
Xox.Casey

Yuletide Tour Diary I

2005-12-09T07:53:00.000-08:00

December 8th, 2005

Welcome to Manhattan—where it is cold and there is little available parking. People have pulled out the goose down jackets, donned the rabbit fur trapper hats, and their faces are tense from the cold and stymied for love. Starving for warmth. My friend Nikole and I wandered around Brooklyn, our fast-arriving new homestead, for the first day there. It was cold and we were horrified by a Mediterranean Villa, and this haunting stayed with us until we found a sweet little 2 bedroom box apartment, with a nice Hasidic realtor named David. Not from King David Realty. Different David. Lovely apartment—inside of a red brownstone building, instantly I could see myself living there. I will miss Boston so very much…but this place is becoming more and more homey to me.

We stayed with Brett & Emily in Bed Stuy. Another wonderfully homey apartment. Nikole and I spend the first night couch-surfing there, eating a gigantic pizza. The Gotham Awards are on. The show at Pianos arrives the next evening, and passes by without too many hitches. Nat sounds angelic and by the end is howling the last notes of his final song. Sounds really fresh and exciting. A few friends come to say hello and make me feel less apprehensive about the whole song-and-dance that is a “club show.” I talk with them and catch up on news, locations, secrets, jokes. It feels good. A lot less lonely. I play, but the sound is patchy and my vocal chords feel dry. I am told I am not allowed to move the piano, which is an upright shoved up against the side wall. Very awkward place for a performance piano, and I spend the rest of the night dying to have 360 degree neck rotation. Playing with my torso turned to the audience, barely looking at the keys. I am sorry to neglect some of the prettier notes, but it’s just plain rude to invite a crowd and play with your back turned to them. I muddle through it and feel glad to watch Michael Leviton play his ukelele. He brings out—what is this?—a pair of strings and a full band! Leah, who used to be in Tiger Saw, makes a stunning appearance. Her voice is delicate and she sings so well I feel feeble. Michael’s songs are soaked in ephemera, patched together with charming self-deprecation and maybe a really expensive bottle of wine. Very seamless and charismatic. I love his sense of humor very much. One of his songs is called “I’m in love with the tip of your ice berg” which he claims onstage is his saddest song, but to me really sums his songs up. Very witty, clever, beautiful. Another band, Salt & Somovar play, corouse the stage with a Farfisa and a Band cover at the end. Afterwards, we meet up with Dave Longstreth and Meg’a (I do not know how to spell her name—but that is what it sounds like). We have pizza, I chat opera in pigeon Italian with a few guys from Florence waiting in line. We head home, a little wearing from whiskey sours and wine and pizza and playing. It is exhausting but nice, and makes moving seem all the more wise. This morning we said good-bye after some strong coffee and vegetarian breakfast burritos. I rushed to finish the housing paperwork—a dizzying mess of signatures and red tape, it is hard without being at a home to organize all of this.

Now I’m in the car with Nat, who is driving, listening to the new Dirty Projectors record. Entitled “New Attitude.” It’s all whistles and bells, and really freaking solid! Very good for the drive! It sounds huge and there are deep strings that make wells of sound in the minivan. They’re accompanying a dying sunset right now as we enter Pennsylvania, and I have grown to love the way the Pennsylvania mountains and industrial life kind of melt together under a sunset. The light’s pink and reflecting off of the snow on the hills, there are bare trees poking out like lichen on a kid’s 3D panorama project. Looks almost imaginary. Very CGI. Soon we’ll be in Kutztown—not much longer now.

xox.casey

December 9th, 2005

This morning we woke to 8 1/2 inches of snow. I had nestled to sleep on the couch with Benjamintron, a very handsome old cat that lives here at the Foxhole—a house in Kutztown that hosts shows every so often. It was truly a great show. The crowd were truly an inspired bunch, very attentive and inquisitive post-show, all people who looked very open-minded and caring of one another. It feels like there’s a really incredible community here, amongst all of the college kids and the “Thirsty Thursday” folk. I was really humbled last night. A very nice respite from the sleek professionalism of the night before. I’m glad I play both kinds of shows equally. Helps me get through these drives.
The Combovers & Me Here You There played with us. I think they really added to the warm Christmasy vibe hanging around the room. I played with the Combovers before in Indiana, PA & they’ve become one of my most favorite bands. They’re very nice and we chewed a lot of sour apple gum in the kitchen with them. I think this tour might be all about Bubble gum. But I had little success finding Bubbalicious Hawaiian Punch. When I was a wee little thing, that was my favorite gum in the whole wide world. That and Zebra gum.
We shoveled out the car and ate vegan pancakes. I put my long-johns on, and I feel ready for the highway. Ready for the 8 hour drive? An inch of snow for every inch?! Damn! I’ll write more soon. I have miles to go before I...

xox.casey

Whisky Sour Round.

2005-12-01T23:56:00.000-08:00

I'm home from New York City. Chelsea, this time. Big-city-blues have got me, and I'll admit to having a bit of a whiskey on ice once I came in from the cold & the bus. The past couple of days have been balmy in Boston and New York alike, but the chill returned for an indefinete stay this afternoon while I was visiting a friend for Huevos Mexicanos in West New York. At the end of the yellow brick lincoln tunnel road. My bones feel like dry ice.

While there, I had my first real taste of glamour. I won't bore you, fine reader, but they made me look like a tough-as-nails chica, dressed me up in khol and metals, stripes & all. I felt like such a glamour puss. I though back to my high school days, where I was gawky and unsure, with my distinctive nose and skinny legs. If I'd ever seen this for myself, perhaps I wouldn't have bothered with the hard feelings. I mostly would not have believed it, would have laughed to see the self I saw yesterday afternoon peering through the lens and mirror. I felt might fine and purty. It was a true surprise to be invited down there for the photography, but I think I pulled through alright. You folks can be the judge within the next few months. Perhaps January, February. I'll let you in on all the details, as you know I will. Wouldn't want anyone to feel left out.

It's all very exciting, this record business. I'm really excited for my Wind-Up Canary. Many many many cold nights spent there, in the woods, hoping to baptise the songs with a little magic. I can feel it pulsing in my palms--oh, hope! Faith, the lucid bird, circles round and round my head like a miniature whirling dervish. I am prayer-full. The world is a grimy but also beautiful place. I want so much to share these ideas and songs with everyone that sometimes I feel I might actually burst!

I met lots of wonderful people in New York. What a strange city of hope & grime, I feel intoxicated. I had a splendid whisky sour by Bleeker St. watching Andrea Pauta pound her heart out on the keys with some familiary faces from my not-so-long-ago Conservatory days. I miss the proscenium, the marble stairs. My tour starts next week with Nat Baldwin. The shows are mostly confirmed, and I hope any of you who can make it will come out, say hello. Perhaps split a whisky sour with me or engage in friendly (and enthusiastic) small talk.

xox.casey

back in the saddle again.

2005-11-28T10:14:00.000-08:00

Cold air, snow crunching under my feet, dark fog, coffee in hand. It feels all too familiar. I'm recording again,

I was terrified to at first, but my friend Bob has coaxed me out of my shell, allowing my pour slouch of a self play the Falcone piano in his school's fancy crystalline studio. There's a Big-Brother camera in the piano room, but if not for that, you feel entirely alone. Kind of chilly. It seems all recording spaces are semi-frozen.

We only did three songs. I felt like doing both the new and ancient. Ran through Indigo & Travel Light, two songs I have a fondness for since I put them on ProTools several years ago. Songs change so much in the time. They get denser, darker, more flavorful to my palette. Sometimes I wished records could be made after sitting with the songs for years and years. Waiting until the grapes are ripe, so to speak. But it reminded me how much I miss driving out to Jim's studio, the mystical lights anf nightbugs that enchanted the old cape house we called home for those months. I miss the infatutation of hard work, delving into something complex and impossible and coming out like a newborn phoenix. I can't wait to do an entire record again. Who knows what will come about then.

We began late at night and I drove home around 4 in the morning. I stumbled into the house, sore & tired, somewhat drained. I slept far too late today. Now I'm romancing Joni Mitchell's Court & Spark, which is a record that I've forgotten about. I must got, I'm having my hair cut for the first time in ages. So long, so long!

xox.casey

Love at first sight.

2005-11-20T14:51:00.000-08:00

Irritated with computers right now. It's being lethargic and thick-headed, my iBook. Oh, bother.

Last night I played at the Lizard Lounge--it was one of those Shows, capital S kind of joint, red velvet interior and dim lighting and cabaret seating. Slightly dingy, slightly plush. Places like this seem to be a petri dish of nerves, guys wearing blazers, people drowning their social anxieties in vodka, lots of drenched smiles. I am glad both to play bedrooms and nightclubs like this. Sometimes playing feels like treading water in the middle of the ocean. The attendance was humble, attentive, very gracious. Later on the room filled up with people, bustling around and making the familiar buzz of small talk and drinking. There were a a few familiar faces. Amanda sat in the back corner and later treated me to a whiskey sour, which made the room a little more inviting and fuzzy, as whiskey tends to do. Mostly in places like this, I like to be in the corner, observing and absorping everything. Funny how on stage I'm like a photo-sponge, soaking in all of the light, but offstage prefer nothing more than a little privacy. Quiet conversation. Clubs seem like lonely places to me, like a tunnel cars drive through. For a brief moment they ignite from the headlights of the cars, and then the lights fade and it's back to being just a hollow tube of cement, tiles, and tar.

The only thing that gets me through these shows are the people there and the songs. I have come to depend less and less on nightclubs (or anything else for that matter) to 'make' the show...which I mean without being cynical, and more that any show is a good show when you can focus on the music bit and strip away all of that bullshit. Where you can expose something new or true to someone else, be honest, be uplifting, whatever it is. A good show just has to come from you.

On another note, today I lost my favorite hat on the train. I held on to the door and my fingers got caught in them as it pulled away from the platform. I ran about 8 yards or so, pounding on the window, hoping to stop the train, but I only had enough time to pull my hand out from the door before my arm was yanked out of my socket. I have lost another beloved hat on the train before, and now I'll have to search for the new perfect hat. I get very attached to things of that nature, as if they're my steel armor or something. I become afraid to leave the house without them, I depend on them for good luck, for confidence. It's silly, really, but I am going to miss my nubby white & red hat. I bought it for fifty cents in Anacortes, WA at Shipwreck Days. It was lying on the road, smack dab on the yellow lines beside a large box of Christmas decorations at the Red Cross tent. It was love at first sight.

I'm sure I'll fall in love again. But, sigh, I don't really want to. I feel a little overwhelmed with the prospect of moving, packing, re-arranging. Trying not to leave things behind. I'm not moving to New York to escape Boston...I can't imagine where I'd be if I hadn't been raised here, if I hadn't learned how to play here. Part of me just wants to see if alchemy exists elsewhere. I want to see more of this world. But I worry about burning my bridges. My knees are shaking and I am frightened, but unbowed. Determined.

But this week, there is hope and Thanksgiving. I am going to be so sick of cranberries when all is said and done, and I cannot wait. My mother makes the most amazing Pecan Pie, and I like sharing recipes, so if you'd like to know the secrets of it I suggest you look on a bottle of Karo syrup. My most favorite recipes are often the most simple. It should be nice to break from playing shows, today I began to write some more songs. They are coming about quickly and already I'm worried as to how I'll be able to fit them into a set. One song about this girl we met in Panama City--who was kind of the Hester Pryne of the town and just capitvated me, although I never actually met her at all. Rumors are dangerous beasts.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Until next time,
xox.casey

briar patch.

2005-11-16T21:17:00.000-08:00

Oh my dears,

I feel positively lazy. Since Pennsylvania I've stuck to the house, but today crawled out to watch a sunset on the pond. It was early for a sunset--maybe four in the afternoon? How quickly the days have been swindled into early nightfall. The sunset seemed sad today--ghosts in the light, perhaps? Very bittersweet feeling, sitting on the bench, watching the runners, a few old men with deep valleys of wrinkles set into their faces, almost gargoyle-like. Everyone seemed like they were trying to crunch into the daylight before it vanished, and on the walk back the sky had sunk into the color of dusk. I really do love winter. Feels reflective.

Pennsylvania was lovely. Pittsburgh felt like an oasis--amongst the barren depressed towns crevassed into the Poconos, the many strangers I meet while traveling. I played with Christopher, and spent my hours there exploring the grimy beauty of the North Side, the local brew (Iron City Pounders), and felt as if I'd been granted a second wind. Each time I set out upon the road I feel both lonely and lucky, surrounded by things constantly new, often breathtaking. Christopher was a pleasant reprieve, a way of reminding myself how some things never do change. I met his beautiful girlfriend, Caroline, who sent us off with Polish gingerbread. It feels good to play these songs, new and old. It is hard work, sometimes feels as though I'm climbing up a steep cliff, and the limestone is chipping beneath my fingers, I am sometimes barely holding on. The songs all seem to reflect a 'take no prisoners' attitude I have, a strange violent tenacity that I find coursing through my body and voice. I want so badly to just keep going, to keep making songs and traveling town to town. It feels wonderful and productive--unorthodox, yes, but important. I never would have thought I would do this...and who knows what else I might do. But it feels very much divine to me, sometimes, when I am quiet at night, about to sleep.

Hawksley Workman often talks of this tenacity--a strange romantic desperation about his music, a need to do more and to continue. I think that it is better to keep trudging on through all of the hail and rain and snow than it is to actually get to the top of some mountain. Better to be in the thick of it, working and praying and hoping. Faith & hope. These things are hard to hold onto. A lot of strange things in the world that will try to tear them from your grip, but I think if you can get through it with those two things it says a lot about a person. Not to be ensnared by cynicism. Better to get through the briars, all bloodied and exhausted. It makes us more interesting.

xox. Casey

matryoshka dolls.

2005-11-04T06:49:00.000-08:00

I'm in Scituate, where I grew up, this morning. I've been kind of hiding out here for a few days and it feels almost like a spa. This house has hot showers and it's by the beach and there's a beautiful stove inside of the beautiful kitchen. I feel very pampered and strange after living sparsely for the past months. It's kind of incredible how much I've come to value mattresses, stovetops, cooking ware, food. It's also strange considering this is the house I grew up in, where I used to practice and write songs on scraps of printing paper, then bury them into the bench. Hilton Hotel it is not. But it sure feels like it.

Jason just sent me an e-mail this morning detailing all of the amazing vegetarian food he's been eating on his tour with Dylan and Kimya Dawson. Seriously orgasmic descriptions of vegan cranberry pancakes, clementines laced with cheddar, fresh farm food. I don't know if I was like this before tour. Maybe there were inklings planted along the way, but this sudden horror at seeing how much stuff I have that I didn't miss is what surprises me: my hair dryer, my clothes, my shoes. I missed my books, though. I feel like I take up a lot of human space that I don't need. Hmm.

I've been reading like crazy. I returned to my first love on while on the road, and read Steppenwolf. Oh, Hesse! I went through a year not too long ago where he was the only writer I could stand to read. I also read a few books by Slavenka Drakulic, who writes a lot about Croatia following the collapse of communism...but her books are actually pretty funny, full of good anecdotes and insight no the state of a society in shock. It never feels to heavy, in fact, it almost feels familiar. & Last night I watched a really good documentary on Henry Darger. Interesting to think about someone spending their whole life making art privately, in a total bubble, never showing it to anyone. I wonder at what point art becomes about the audience instead of the artist, and which one is better. Depends on the artist--but there is something so wonderful about untapped art. Songs made in total darkness, before they've been touched or tainted by the outside world with comparison and scrutiny. Comparison, I think, is like walking through a briar patch. Every move digs in under your skin and scratches you up, but it's unavoidable. Part of of the forest.

I'm writing new songs and it's been murder finishing them. I can feel myself trying to fight through something as I do it--but maybe when they come out all bloodied and finished it will make them stronger. I've stopped trying to control them as much. This set seems to want to muscle itself through the ropes, and I think I'm smart enough to know when a song just wants some space.

I have a show on Sunday. I'm nervous no one will come--but that might just be nerves at work. I get very nervous before some shows, and truth be told, can have terrible stage fright. Being exeptionally shy, I think I need to get wracked with nerves just to get the guts to go onstage and be honest. I think it's the only way I'm able to do it. I have this alter ego that appears sometimes when I'm playing. Her name is Heloise Majorette. I'm pretty much positive that in a past life I was her.

She's French and a complete drunk, wears tulle ballgowns while taking a bath, her hair swirled on top of her head in a high bouffant. She's sort of tragic--laments a lot and seems a little crazy, but I think in my dreams she is not so much crazy as much as she is honest. She is comfortable with her sadness, comfortable with the universe being infinitely bigger than her. I think it's brave to be comfortable with infinity. In some of my dreams Heloise is driving me around in a tiny red convertible, in others we are playing poker in a dingy bar, and sometimes we are in the bathroom and she is in the bathtub. She's very fearless. Sometimes, onstage when I first started playing shows, I would have spent the whole show channeling Heloise. Now I do that less and less, I guess I've become more comfortable being in front of people.

But I guess that's the amazing thing about us as people. We're like matryoshka nesting dolls, personalities stacked within one another. I wonder when I meet some people or watch a performer which personality they're unfolding, and if it's because they need something to bolster their courage, too. It's easy to take things at face value, but I can't help always feeling like there's more to the picture. More layers inside someone that you can't see. Very complex and beautiful.

Hmmm...I've worked up an appetite writing. Until next time,

xox.casey

Tour Diary Part IV (Welcome to the Midwest)

2005-10-17T09:53:00.000-07:00

October 15th, 2005

Jason, Juliet and I just pulled off the freeway to the Wilson Farm where we bought some homegrown Johnathan apples and apple cider. Juliet squealed when she found they had peach cider slush and cheese curds…We’re driving off to North Manchester, Indiana from Indianapolis, where we played last night. It’s nice to be amongst foliage and crisp fall weather once more.

It seems unbelievable that just two days ago we were in Nashville, playing underneath the glow of Christmas lights in this car port. The show was the first I’ve been able to play since Gainesville, and although my voice doesn’t sound quite like it should I’ve been able to bridge a set together and each show since feels stronger. I met lots of cool people there, and there was quite a set of folks assembled by the time Tiger Saw came. Prior to the show, we celebrated Porter’s return by grabbing heaping amounts of delicious Mexican food—enchiladas and chile rellenos, along with a few rounds of Margaritas. By the time we got to Ben’s house, we were really pumped to play. The morning after Jason turned the kitchen into a veritable smoke-out den, but somehow managed to whip up some of the best scrambled eggs I’ve eaten all tour.
It seems so strange now, because as I write this there are fields of honey-colored corn husks that go on for miles. The land here is flat, green, dotted with silos and dutch colonials and a few signs advertising everything from Best Westerns to Maccaws for sale by owner. The Midwest feels a little more familiar to me, and driving through these wisps of towns and sipping apple cider makes me feel like I’m back East. So much farmland! God, it’s breathtaking and reminds me of when I was recording at Jim’s in January, driving past fields on route 2—the kind of field that’s glazed by layer of frost so it looks like someone dusted the land with confectionary sugar. I assosciate those long drives with wearing fingerless gloves so I could touch the freezing cold wheel, with a cup of shitty highway coffee (black, no sugar, no coffeemate), usually listening to Bob Dylan. For whatever reason, these drives through Indiana really make me want to hear Tom Thumb’s Blues. Very badly. It’s so strange how our country shifts from the blue hills of Kentucky into the corn flats of the West, the grid-laden suburbs, the miles of strip malls and gas stations and mom&pop diners. I think the US is concocted of majestic natural landscapes and strip malls full of starchy food, reindeer sweatshirts, Waffle House ashtrays. Nic Nacs and rivers. Being American is as much about chain restaurants like TGIF’s as it is about the Grand Canyon, the great plains, the rockies. The same country that brought us McDonalds also hosts Mt. Ranier, Mt. Washington, the pines of the Ozarks. We just drove past a miniature children’s fair, complete with a pint-size ferris wheel and pony rides being run by a sturdy-looking man in Stetson. That perhaps just stresses the point, America means Hardee’s and Save-A-Lots and Jiffy Lube, and it also means the Glades of Florida, the dense woods of Maine and every kind of beach imaginable. It is kind of beautiful in a way. Sometimes the ‘strip mall’ America depresses me, but I guess I’m just as proud of Target as I am of the beaches I grew up on. Both of these things, the kitschy and terrible and the vast and unknowable…that’s all American to me.

Anyhow, meat and potatoes for you, dear reader. Sorry to tangent. We stayed last night in the company of Liz Janes and her husband Mike and their nearly 2-years-old son, Moses. Their house felt like an oasis away from the highways, very calm inside and Moses is so cute and rambunctious. He was playing drums at the center, pausing to cock his head and grin at his audience. He also found the shiny blinking buttons on the control pad of my keyboard, including the one that triggers the drum machine and the 80s demo track. We snagged so much amazing Indian food, and while we were waiting I looked out of the car and saw Ben Folds sitting outside of the restaurant. I have never felt so starstruck in all my life. I didn’t say anything, because who wants to interrupt a man at dinner? I guess he was playing in town that night, too. Oh my heart jumped 30 feet inside my chest, I just wanted to say thank you to him or something. It was weird. Celebrity looks very odd to me. I don’t know what point one gets to before you feel too nervous to speak to them, or you feel compelled to interrupt their dinner. Seems weird—because I’m sure Ben Folds is a very approachable guy. He takes a shit in the morning just like the rest of us, you know? But he also writes kickass songs probably every morning, which some of us don’t do quite as often as that. But still.

Mike & Liz made pancakes this morning and all of us caught up on things like sleep and e-mail. It’s nice having such a crew of us—feels very nice to travel in a pack. In the next few months, I might be doing some solo troubadour-work, but I think that I will sorely miss the feeling of unity that we have as Tiger Saw. There’s an unspoken confidence between all of us that I think makes the tought parts of traveling seem much more bearable. Like when I feel a bit homesick, or when there aren’t many people at a show, or when we feel too tired to get up in the morning. We all get it because we’re in it together, experiencing it all at once.

Last night was proof, as Jason says, that every show counts. I know I believe that, but sometimes shows really try on your nerves and patience, and even the sturdiest musician needs to re-affirm that for themselves every so often. We played a great show last night, even though there were only 3 people there. And at the end of the day it really doesn’t matter who saw it as long as you went through with it, as long as you kept singing. I am reading a book about a poet living above Leonard Cohen’s old flat on the Grecian Isle of Hydra. In it he quotes Rilke, “Gesang ist Dasein” or, very loosely translates to “Song is existence.” And I think that’s true—I think singing is living and I think shows with low attendance, or a shitty bartender, or when you lose your voice. Basically anything that might test you fortitude—those are the times to prove that song is existence, and that every show matters because without people present (even if it’s just you and your guitar), without playing right NOW, there’s nothing. No music yet. It’s like magic. I feel very tested on this tour, I find myself holding expectations that are not really all that important to me. I find times where I kind of want to throw my towel in, and those are the shows that require one to step it up and keep moving.

Such a serious diary-entry, I know. But it’s the god damned truth! I chose music because I NEED to do it. I need to play and to take the world I see externally and make sense of it inside, then spit it out into song or paint or weirdo interpretive dance. It’s the doing of music that matters, and when that stalls then I’m only letting down myself. Worse than if no one liked the songs, or no one was even there to hear them at all. Worse because I can do something about it. I can choose to have some perspective and to keep going. And that’s why, even though music is still fun, it really is work. It’s a job.

But touring is powerful in that sense, because I’ve never toured before and I’m still in the dark about how a lot of all of this machinery operates. How one organizes a tour, finances a tour. I want to keep touring and recording and making things. I’m worried that when tour ends, maybe I’ll never tour again. My mind kind of works that way. Seizes up with panic and hopes that it will all just kind of work itself out.

Xox. Casey

October 16th, 2005

Well, just after that last entry I closed my laptop shut and ran out into a cornfield. I ran through the dry husks that rattled as Jason, Juliet, and I performed the rites of Autumn by chanting scales and made Jason into the Corn Husk King, and we found a HUGE garden spider spinning her web between the stalks of dried corn. Jason also kind of dry humped the earth, and we all ran through an open field that had been rototilled earlier that week, and I got all of the Midwestern dirt inside of my sneakers. The wind was whipping my hair into my face and I laughed so hard as the wind stole all of our shouting and singing back into the atmosphere. Seriously—one of the most amazing moments on tour. Very memorable.

Now we’re on our way to Chicago, listening to R.E.M. and preparing to say good-bye to Juliet. It seems like she just got here and I’m going to miss sharing mattresses and futons with her, miss her fearlessness and the goofiness she adds to our group. Tour has been amazing since I have started feeling better, and really having all of Tiger Saw together is powerful and amazing. We are a clan.

I was reminded of this when we got to the Firehouse in North Manchester, IN yesterday afternoon. All of us were running around, cracking dirty jokes and eating lasagna and singing Kelly Clarkson songs. This tour has been as much about listening to music as it had been playing it—we’ve especially grown attached to Howie Day and Gavin DeGraw and Kelly Clarkson (although all of us were very drawn to her before tour’s outset).

The Firehouse is by far one of the most amazing venues we’ve played at during the course of this tour—it’s run by Jabin, a science teacher at the high school who seems to rally all of the local kids together to run the firehouse and host shows, take care of sound, etc. Jabin is also one of the most generous people I’ve ever met, he secured us a hotel room, fed us lasagna, let us watch boxing in his living room right before we turned the den into a discotheque. His energy is so positive and buoyant that one can’t help but feel immediately at home around him, and I think all of the Tigers had shared some story with me about their bond with Jabin. After five minutes with the guy, he had started brewing strong pot of coffee and opened up about the venue, his brother in Brooklyn, the bands that had passed through. Quite a disarming guy—obviously made it worth the trip all the way through the silos and fields to North Manchester.

We danced late into the evening and finally drove to the hotel, where Juliet, Dylan, Gregg and I slept. We had a strange breakfast at El Tapatio, and filled up on some starchy omelettes and French fries. Soon after that we left North Manchester for good, with a couple of polaroids for memories and our stomachs full of a good old Continental breakfast.

*******************

Well, it’s now 4 in the morning and we’re staying with Jason’s friend Dave who has a lovely band called Cains and Abels. David and I stayed up late talking about jazz and noise music and Mingus stories over some chamomile tea and bowl of Kashi wheat squares. Very good stuff. David has a black dog named Simon and a puppy named Henry. Henry chewed my shoes and peed on the floor when we came in the apartment, but he is really cute and it felt good to rough house with a dog again. I’ve seen a lot of different kinds of life on this trip—and watching the puppy try to playfully chew on Simon’s ears before Simon tackled him to the floor was cute and made me think of that. The spiders, the roaches in Charleston, the fields, the trees, the cats and dogs, and all of the people. Everywhere in the world something is living, dying, breathing, eating, humping, what have you. Oh no, Henry's chewing on a book of matchsticks!

We played at Schuba’s earlier this evening, and there was totally a couple sitting in the back corner of the room during my set and they were admist some seriously heavy petting. I dedicated the last song to them, since they were being so discreet I thought, hell, why not? It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. The set was nice and was recorded by this neat guy named Tim, so perhaps I’ll be able to share it with some of you back home. I think there’s distortion on the recording, but it felt very good while I was playing. The place sounded like a cathedral during some of the songs, and Chris from Q Not U performed a really pretty set mid-evening complete with pedals and loops and some sort of vocal distortion that made his one-man set sound like a universe of melodies, rhythms and noise. I have always liked Chicago and wish we had a little more time for me to walk around the Ukranian Village, but I think tomorrow morning David is going to drag us out of bed for some vegan brunch. Then it’s off to Grand Rapids—time is flying and before I know it I’ll be back in Massachusetts. I’m beginning to miss the trees and even the dreariness of the weather there, it’s cold and crisp probably in Jamaica Plain. The leaves in Arboretum have probably started to turn and that time of year you can walk outside in a nice thick sweater and feel like you’re surrounded by trees and all of the people have disappeared. Only you and the Oaks.

Xox. Casey

Tour Diary Part III (Florida and Louisiana)

2005-10-10T23:12:00.000-07:00

October 7th, 2005

I write you once again from the Café Eleven, chamomile tea in hand. I’m taking the night of from Tiger Saw in order to regain a little more authority over my immune system. I have never been sick like this before.
Last night we played in Gainesville, FL. When we got there it was miserably rainy, frogs out and about on the parking meters and everything. We played at the Wayward Council, a little haphazard record/zine shop of sorts…there had been a leak earlier that pooled into the center of the room, which one had to tiptoe around in order to look at the Little Wings Lps, etc…but no matter. We trudged through the floods over to a warehouse where we got to see Roger Beebe and Erin Tobey put on a fantastic audio/video show. Roger makes these wonderful films about architecture and they’re on super eight film, sometimes re-mixed and always orchestrated with neat music. Lots of beautiful colors! Afterwards, our show was kind of pushed back to accommodate the post-Roger-gala crowd, and we welcomed them into the mopped up Council, put on the chandelier made of bicycle spokes and after a lot of confusion and a little malt licquor started the rag tag set. There were something like six of us on the bill and I already felt like my voice was on the verge of destruction.
So what is a poor songstress to do? Belt her heart out, I guess!
It was the best set I’ve played in so long, a particularly triumphant set…although I had next to no voice, very little energy, I felt as though somehow I was possessed and each song it felt like I might not be able to go any further. I assembled a choir out of the people there and we sang “since I was a girl I’ve been good at embroidery!” as if we’d sung it our whole lives. We also had a gospel choir that in some moments rang as true as a Sunday service. It was really beautiful and inspiring.
Alas…since that set, I have utterly lost my voice. It’s gone. In its place is this husky Lauren Bacall growl that sounds somewhat sexy but can produce not an inkling of a singing timbre…so I don’t know whether it’s best to sound like Scarlett Johansson or sing like me. I’ve been drinking every kind of herbal tea known to man, desperate to revive it. Today I did nothing but eat lemongrass soup and saw The Constant Gardner at a theatre, which was so saturated with color I sometimes had to rub my eyes to believe it was true. I also watched my first collegiate homecoming parade, for the team called the Gators. Don’t laugh, but I didn’t really go to college…so things like that are like walking on the moon for me. People dressed as gators, Emmit Smith riding around in a vintage Ford, people eating bar-b-que and shouting “orange! Blue!” floats of gators on top of papier mache worlds, eating balloons, a whole pickup truck of frat boys and surfer dudes dressed up as pirates. Man, college sounds crazy to me…Jason left me a message from Purchase, NY—where college has completely different idiosyncracies. It made me want to ask Chris if kids there typically wrote things like “I hate fucking Purchase and I want to get out” on the windows in tempera paint. Maybe the same hippie vibe as Hampshire…
It’s been strange this past week without Jason, and we are a very different crew without him. Decidedly a more quiet one, although Ray makes ample good company and has a very calm presence I like having around. Also, his songs are so god damned catchy! I also learned that there were some fun skeletons in his closet: he used to be a serious surfer, or as he called it ‘a sponsor brat.’ So we’ve made it a priority to go swimming as much as possible. The tropical storm has kicked up the sea and the foam compounded with the warm water to makes it seem as if you were in a salty Jacuzzi. I’m used to the heartier beaches of the North, where you have pebbles and rocks and seaweed and water that turns your toes blue. In the town where I grew up we swam on New Year’s Day, which is like the shock of a newborn baby being thrust out into the world. The water feels warm in January compared to the violently cold winter air, sometimes there is wind. But I feel that it keeps our complexions ruddied and healthy to swim in water like that. It certainly isn’t for the faint of heart, swimming in New England. Just writing about the jagged beaches outside of Cape Cod makes me a little homesick and I start imagining the gales and the weird smell of low tide and cruising along Sandy Beach with my sister at recklessly at the wheel, hazarding sea grass and guard rails. Just kidding, mom.

October 10th, 2005

Shreveport, LA

Things have changed in just a few days! First of all—there’s an all-star new line-up. This morning we bid good-bye to Castanets, which was a bit sad. We sent him off with a hearty meal at Waffle House and I gave him a book to read on his 30-hour bus ride back to ye olde Big Apple. We will miss him.Jackson, Mississippi looks a bit like a ghost town. There was a gigantic fair perched on the skirts of town, hinting at a vibrant life of ferris wheels (I have always had a fascination with those contraptions, the whirling and gadgetry of it all). Our first day in Jackson we added Juliet into our crew, and she brought her cello and amazingly pragmatic packing skills to the Tiger Saw caravan, which we were probably in dire need of unbeknownst to most of us. It’s been really nice having some estrogen on this trip after spending two weeks with the boys. E-power! I was beginning to forget what girls looked like, how they stood, how they ate. I kept expecting to see a more masculine me after spending long car rides with the boys, although they’re not as macho as most men are, at the end of the day they still are wearing the same clothes they wore two days ago, still eat meat, still have beards and stuff that I don’t do. Pleasant anthropological study that it has been to be the only girl, it is nice to have the week off.
After sleeping in my van at the club parking lot, we set out on the road again to drop Ray off at the Greyhound station. Then we picked up Jason again, fresh off his week with Mt. Eerie, and it was as if he had never left. It is really empowering to have an almost full T-Saw crew. All we need now is to wrangle in Porter! It was fun to have Jason’s energy again, combined with Juliet—well, it feels fuller and so do the shows.
I still have no voice whatsoever, and I’ve had to pull out of some shows since St. Augustine because there’s not a scrap of a song left in these chords. I’m doing the best I can: tea, elder berry, throat coat, steam, hot water (interesting fact: southerners don’t really like hot water down here…any time you get a tea the water’s barely boiling), trying to keep the talking down to a minimum. Thank God for Nat because he’s been able to cover up all of the spots—but it’s been real hard to play these shows without really being able to play. I can’t even sing any notes that are lingering in my head, it’s so frustrating! The first date I didn’t play on was in Panama City and I wasn’t really there for that show—instead I took out a room in a LaQuinta out on the highway, watched HBO and drank tea all night long. It was bizarre, having this huge king size bed to myself…I mean, not only a mattress but a gigantic continent of one all to my self. It was so weird. I kept thinking someone would come in and tell me I was in the wrong room and then direct me promptly to the custodian’s closet or something. But, I spent the night there uninterrupted watching Rachel Weisz movies and SNL. It was a nice break. Kind of dreamlike. The next night we were in Jackson, and I was sleeping in my van again and things felt comfortingly normal. No delusions there.
I’m also very excited to be out of Florida. Florida sort of rubs me the wrong way…for whatever reason. It feels very faux—and while I met some very sweet people at the shows there, the whole place seemed to be kind of suspended in a land of 1994-circa neon and Daytona Beach, thong bikinis, everything laminated with a kind of grimy sheen from the surf culture to the tanned and overtoned bodies. It all felt processed and plastic, and kind of depressingly past its prime. Like MTV came in, conquered, and like a platoon of Roman soldiers, left the remnants behind to sit and bleach in the sun, until the pink stucco buildings turned to a pale and weathered coral color, the bizarre turquoise culture kind of drifting around aimlessly, growing out its blonde roots. People there seem to be very demanding and needy (based on the restaurants I went to…but definitely not the shows), impatient and obsessed with creature comforts. Very weird to me, and I miss sweaters and New England. But those are my creature comforts—big old oak trees over the palms, a trench coat as opposed to a thong bikini. I like feeling at home, and I guess Florida is just not a place where I would ever feel remotely homey. Maybe if you’re a blue hair, a land of eternal warmth and sun and golfing really is paradise—but I would much rather sit in a formica kitchen with a cup of tea and watch the snow fall.
So that leaves us with now—being Louisiana. It’s pretty chilly here. It seems that even the South can’t escape the autumn. I’m excited for the rest of the trip, but mostly anxious to get my voice back. It’s been torture watching everyone else sing for the past couple of days when I can’t even stretch a damn note out of my larynx. I have been imagining scenarios of how terrible it would be if I couldn’t sing—how terrible not to be able to sing along to the radio, to write songs while I’m driving, to not be able to mimic Sinatra anymore. God, it’s like losing a sense or something, being the mute of the group. I’m not good at ‘not talking.’ I forgot how I need my voice, and thus need to treat it better which means doing goofy-looking warm-ups before shows, drinking more tea. I have been very cruel to my poor pipes, so from here on in I’m going to try to be a bit more gentle.
I’ve got to remember that the next time Jason rounds us up for a dance party—that is probably the best part of having back on the road: it means more spontaneous dance parties from here on in, and for the rest of the trips.
Mantra worth repeating (on tour and elsewhere): PACE YOURSELF.

xox.casey

Tour Diary Part II

2005-10-06T10:08:00.000-07:00

St. Augustine, FL

I’ve been a most negligent diarist for the past few days. I was struck down with some sort of mutant cold & flu virus around the time we hit Charleston. The shows have been pretty good, as far as I can tell from my sleeping bag. Yesterday was the first day I felt coherent enough to meet new people. We stayed with a trio of sweet bandits, tea-lovers, the lot of them. Since feeling under the weather in Chapel Hill I’ve been abstaining from the coffee grounds…which I’m not missing as much as I thought I would. Don’t chastise me too much, dear readers. I am sure I’ll be back on the java soon enough. Right now I’m sitting in a nice little café by the beaches at St. Augustine, drinking a rooibos/chamomile blend. I forgot how much I loved tea until this trip. I’ve also been listening to a blend of: Auqualung’s US Release (it’s not nearly as good as his UK imported records…this one feels like a Matt Hales buffet. Sigh…I am sorry Matthew, even though I love you dearly this is the stuff of VH1 and you could surely do better), Dollar Brand (very nice for driving), Prince (thanks to Dylan’s iTrip), and Pavement (Ray from Castanets and I both agree that Terror Twilight is the best…which means we might not be the most diehard Pavement fans…but The Hexx is so pretty!)
Wilmington was a tad disheartening, though I believe a Monday night show anywhere would have been rough goings no matter which way the punches rolled. We played at the Soapbox, which is a club that’s part bar, part Laundromat. Seriously!! We didn’t do any laundry though, and now I’m really kicking myself for that. I’m traveling with a bunch of dirty bearded boys. Eeeep. We stayed in this overpriced motel with no A/C, and in the morning I woke up with what felt like a grapefruit lodged in my throat. We tried to rescue ourselves at a Waffle House on our way out of town. We had the best waitress…a painted lady (rouge and lips and bleach-blond hair!) named Donna. A man came in and said “how’s your comely daughter, Donna?” And she said “oh you know…the usual, she’s fine…went off to Hollywood to become an actress and ended up married and knocked up.” A very amusing little dialogue ensued about Donna’s (thankfully) approved divorce, omelettes and rib-eye steaks, coffee refunds, dance and voice lessons. She was a real beautiful gal, that Donna. Thank god to the South for creating the Waffle House.
By the time Charleston hit us, I was wiped out with the aforemention mutant sickness. I can only recall Charleston in snippets of confused conversation, moving my sleeping bag from the car to the floor of the museam where Castanets, Nat, & Tiger Saw had a ‘secret show.’ Flashes of light, heat, coughing, runny nose, subsequent doses of Motrin and Vitamin C. We stayed with a couple of nice folks who gave me Passion tea in the morning and a shower to clean out my sinuses. The architecture there was beautiful and while walking around downtown the Tigers got caught in a flash rainstorm. It actually felt kind of good, and there was an American Apparel opening downtown and the boys working there were wearing tiny tiny tiny little track shorts. Is that where fashion is headed nowadays, boys and girls? Not that I’m complaining…kind of nice to see some men in daisy dukes for a change.
Now we’re in Florida. We jumped in the water admist a lightning storm last night, which looked beautiful! The water here was so warm and all sand bar, and I tried my hand at body surfing until my head felt like it was filled with water. The salt made my lungs feel a lot better. Now the sickeness is lodged in my phlegm and throat and I’m making all of these gross grunting noises…perhaps you don’t want to hear about that. Girls here wear tiny daisy dukes and wellies, everyone’s muscular and blonde and pretty and all American. When we went to the beach there was a flood of really toned sun-bleached surfers filing out from the waves, it was like an Annette Funicello movie.
We stayed with a wonderful missionary couple, had homemade omelettes this morning and slept on mattresses. You’d be surprised how fast you get used to things on the road, like crashing on the floor or eating out every day…I miss cooking, though. It’s nice how accommodating everyone can be, when they find I don’t eat meat (I’m a pescetarian, really), and when I was sick the folks in Charlston made a nice little palett of blankets for me to rest on. It’s a real trip to see how generous these strangers are to us, how willing they are to make us feel welcome and comfortable. It is nothing short of inspiring. We have been very lucky on this trip—but also I think traveling like this, day-to-day without any real plan aside from which town you’re going to really is powerful, and I find that it’s an incredible window into the world. We’ve been North and South thus far (and I’ve been West a little tiny bit before this expedition), and although the landscape changes from pines to palmettos and the temperatures shift and the accents change, the generosity of people is the same everywhere and it all comes with the same sureness of heart. And that might sound a bit cliché, but it’s completely true. Touring is the best way I’ve seen so far to open yourself to the kindness of others, and although it is hard because where I come from, it is not a place where one takes favors without rendering one first—I have seen that it’s not quite so important to have the system of kindess worked out that way. Kindness is kindness is kindness, and so on. And no matter who it is, no matter how much they have, people have an amazing ability to change, to give, to help.
I have also started receiving some very kind e-mails while on the road, from listeners and friends alike. You letters really do remind me to keep going, when I feel low after a show in some smoky bar where no one wants to be bothered by my songs about gryphons or the Alps or nose-picking and what have you. It is incredible, so please keep writing and I promise to write as many of you back as possible.

Love, Casey

Tour Diary Part I.

2005-10-02T21:03:00.000-07:00

September 26th 2005

Poughkeepsie, NY
Well, we made it out of Hampshire College alive! It seems so long ago that I packed up my bags and hit the road for Amhearst, MA in my mom-mobile (aka Honda Odyssey with automated doors and captain seats—quite the cushy tour ride, let me tell you). For whatever reason, the gods just weren’t seeing eye to eye with us that evening (the deities I speak of wore security guard uniforms and talked a good bit with Jason about Hal Brown). It seems Hampshire officials don’t mind a little reefer, but putting on a rock show in a basement is simply pushing the boundaries. We kept our spirits up, however, and after tailgating in the parking lot decided to cut our losses and crash some campus dance parties. Jason and I, sitting on an abandoned couch outside of two Mods, witnessed a topless dance party and a bunch of kids doing trust falls. Kind of surreal. I never went to a true-blue college, so perhaps that is what it is like. I felt like I got a taste of something in my mouth while I was there…certainly don’t know if I was cut out for it, seeing as how this morning we woke up completely groggy. Too much beer and voyeurism. I took some Echinacea as it seems the band might be coming down with a collective cold of some kind, and I refuse to let my immunity system go down without a good fight. Downtown Amherst is very pretty…kind of surreal how suddenly it turned to autumn. The boys drank apple cider at the table when we caught some breakfast at Lone Wolf. I was so excited to have an omelette with soy sausage, I was barely able to contain myself in the booth.
Driving through the Berkshires to Poughkeepsie was like heaven with all of the evergreens and winding roads. We played a wonderful houseshow at Vassar—which honestly has one of the most picturesque campuses I think I’ve ever seen…cathedral windows and spires and wonderful twisted oaks scattered about…made me want to play rugby and have a snowball fight and then drink some cocoa while reading some Nabakov. I ‘ve been reading a lot lately…most notably is this great book by Paolo Freire called Pedagogy of the Oppressed. In autumn, the air becomes clear again and my lungs widen and my eyes seem to take everything in a little bit more patiently and slowly. It’s like coming into focus. All of the books have sort of helped me to restore my wide-eyed expression, I’m sure.
I have decided to sell home-made full-lengths of Wind-Up Canary. We ought to call them LTD Editions or something, non? One of these days I will probably stop burning all of my own CD-Rs, so I say we ought to enjoy it while it lasts! I spent most of the car ride today making cut outs for the full-lengths. They look might purty.
The folks that have put us up here are fantastic! They had dinner simmering by the time we got here, coffee, a few spare mattresses, great vibe overall. So friendly and fun-loving. And studious. Sophie, the girl whose room I have had the privelage to occupy, was studying Japanese earlier this evening. I’ve also taken so far to taking long walks afterhours, which is a nice change from all of the sitting that comes with touring. The weather is just too wonderful to take for granted. I want to soak it all in and make it last! The show was very nice, Tiger Saw played another pretty rendition of burning. We played with Landing and finally got to hear the full set. I feel very luck to be doing this right now, even though it’s perhaps not as cushy as it is for some musicians…Only on my second day out on the road and I have begun to be completely aware of the dependence of a musician on strangers. Strangers who can help them to eat, sleep, rest, play, have fun. Normally I hate being dependent, but I am learning a lot out here on how to get along and allow someone to help me. I am learning a lot about random acts of kindness, and how wonderful it is to be some entirely welcomed by someone I have never met before. I think it put me over the edge when they gave us pears, apples, and vegan pear torte after the show. I mean, I would have been content with a mat to sleep on, maybe a good tip towards a sandwich shop….but all of this has been so very kind and pleasant. It feels wonderful, and this is the thing about touring that I sense is magic—the connecting of the disconnected. Vassar, in short, rocks.

Xox. Casey

September 28th, 2005

I’m about to crash in Philadelphia tonight. The show was very nice—at the Kensington South Forum. It’s been a crazy couple of days. Very up and down…which is the nature of touring, non? Yesterday we played a bizarre show in Red Bank, NJ at Chubby’s. Props to the sound guy there who really rolled out the welcome mat, but shame on the club itself for treating its employees and guests like cattle (as if a mechanical bull wasn’t enough livestock for them!) It cost $2 for a cup of water. Really lame. The crowd there was small but gracious and let me get through a few scarier new songs that feel unfamiliar to me, but ever day become more and more comfortable.
The Knitting Factory was nice for T-Saw, and I even played this new song called “What are you waiting for?” in the middle of it. It felt so good to be back on a real piano again…god, I never want to go without it after all of that. The keys were so lithe underneath my fingers, and I got to catch up with some of my good friends—including Sean Creeden from Sparrows Swarmandsing, an outstanding rock band from New Hampshire that features everything from strings to audio clips and video. Sean is also an amazing artist who makes t-shirts with screen prints of animals, embroidered sweatshirts. He’s an amazing guy! So I got to hang with Sean who played some percussion with Tiger Saw, saw my friend Benjamin and met Jac, who is a good friend of both Nat and Jason. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that Au Revoir Simone were playing the mainstage at the KF, which meant that I got to see my favorite all-girl keyboard band in the world sing songs about teenage Mexican boys, and I got to see Annie who is a very friendly third of the band. We talked for a little while and saw a little bit of this band called Argentine’s set. At the end of the night I had to run out and after a failed attempt to get past the door at Pianos for karaoke (I forget that I am still not quite ‘legal’ every so often—even the doorman kept thinking that his ID scanner was screwed up…it must mean I’m super mature or something…) I crashed in Brooklyn for the night. In the morning, I got to run around Prospect Heights a little more, danced through the park and gave Ben one of my famous semi-lopsided haircuts. (I tried the best I could!) I met up with the crew at Bliss, a veggie place in Williamsburg. After having really good vegan scrambles, everyone hit the courts. Jac, Nat, and Jason played an intense game against some city kids, and after they crushingly defeated them we all hit the road for New Jersey. More later.

Xox. Casey

September 29th, 2005

Well, I’m sick. I’ve caught the band cold. I can feel it in my nose. Forget about all of that Echinacea and vitamin C I’ve been chanelling into my immune system—seems no one on this tour is immune to the sniffling and coughing and sneezing. I sound like a wheezy air mattress right now.
But we’re in Baltimore and it’s been lovely. Dylan and I stopped over in Delaware for breakfast and saw a matinee. Corpse Bride, to be precise. We also played an embarrassingly defeated game of air hockey—in which Dylan hopelessly beat me to a bloody pulp.
The shows have been so nice so far. Philly’s show was wonderfully intimate and everyone was quite kind to us, giving us coffee before the show and plenty of space for us to run through a haggard practice. I even got to work on some newer songs…trying to wrap them into real full-figured women before this dance is over! It’s exciting, trying to put these songs into their livelihood without knowing exactly how it would end, without knowing where they’re destined. They meander a lot more than the older songs, they seem a lot more grandiose and flexible. Like gymnasts!
Tonight T-Saw, Nat and Jason played in Baltimore. I like Baltimore a lot. We’re crashing at Lexie Mountain’s place, which feels like Heaven. She is the best!!! She ushered us in with genmai cha tea and her beautiful backyard with its hanging vines and dried up sunflowers. The show was at Charm City, a kind of basement with old mama’s wood paneling on the walls, a crazy bathroom with a relatively defunct sink. Nat got hosed down when he turned the faucet on and it blasted cold water all over his shirt. It looked like a Cancun wet t-shirt concert.
Anyhow…everyone was so nice and ended early enough for us to catch Phosphorescent’s set at The Talking Head, a really fantastic club where Lexie works. We all got to hang out and relax, where I met Matthew (from Phosphorescent) and people watched. There was foosball and billiards upstairs, and Ms. Pac Man, too. I got to look at all of the sleek and handsome hipster boys in their blazers that were hanging around the bar. It was smoky and atmospheric.
Now we’re back at Lexie’s, where I’m trying to kick this cold out of me like a bad habit.

Xox. Casey

October 1st

Greetings from Raleigh, NC. There’s been a noticeable shift in temperature since we crossed the border from Virginia, and now it’s been red dirt and pines abound. The show in Charlottesville was truly fun—the Twisted Tea Branch Bazaar was something else—part hookah den, part crazy tea house. The show itself was kind of disappointing—my set was sort of hampered by a table full of very loud thirty-somethings enjoying their rice & daal and red wine, paying little attention to what I was doing. Since coming on tour I’ve been reintroduced to the land of Unresponsive Audiences. It’s a hallowed place where people stare at you with hollow eyes, vague disinterest…they foster a breed that prefers chit chat over your music, would rather swing back some brewskies instead of hear funny songs about coffee and apocalypses and Switzerland…to each there own, I suppose…anyways, afterwards we decided to dance the night away at a house party. The music was an intense mix and the crowd there was DANCING like there was no tomorrow. There was some Prince, some Killers, some classics (Come on Eileen, for ince) and this kind of defeated-looking keg out in the backyard besides a broken hammock. We danced all night, then returned to the tea-house to raid the fridge for a bottle of white wine and three different kinds of cake. I crashed face down in the hookah den and woke up to the sound of something really chipper and folksy, featuring a rag tag mix of vocals and mandolin. Somehow I managed to get up without a hangover or anything too embarrassing…
Charlottesville is one of the most beautiful towns I’ve ever seen—land of DMB and hippies and reefer and dreadlocks, but it has a charming European feel about it. The Tea Bazaar is located in the middle of a pedestrian mall, with a cobblestone walkway and cafes situated all around the square. It’s very pretty and this morning I had a good breakfast sandwich (with spinach soy sausage, no less!) and took in the sights of families waltzing past our table. The whole town strikes me as very romantic, a strange oasis from all of the highways and traffic we’ve been having to plough through on the road. The cobblestones and the friendly people, like the manager Jason from the Tea Bazaar who was so kind and generous, shuttling us between bourbon and tea and dancing and food. In the morning we had a nice cup of rice & daal and said good-bye to the lovely eccentrics of Charlottesville.

Love,
Casey xox.

October 2nd, 2005

We’re in Chapel Hill, now. The dirt is still red and gorgeous, and we’re staying with Ned who runs a radio show here called No Love For Ned. Ray of Asthmatic Kitty’s Castanets joined up with us yesterday, and we’ve been enjoying his barefooted company ever since. Ned’s place is beautiful and nestled in the woods and equipped with every kind of DVD and CD and Bootleg you could imagine, all loaded onto the hard drive which runs through the tv. The boys are excited to watch the Simpsons and Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Last night we were in Durham playing at Duke University’s coffee house with Phosphorescent. It was nice to meet the guys in Phosphorescent and they played a fantastic set complete with a brass trio, and later all of us Tigers playing hand percussion on stage in a huge riot of cacophony.
Darlene Love’s playing on the radio, Ned’s put Christmas music onto the sound system. There was a little Jimmy Wakely earlier, and we listened to the Magic City’s interpretations of Sun Ra jams. Very good Sunday morning music. I had my first true-blue biscuit n’ grits this morning. Tonight Nat and I are going to ream through a radio set for Ned, and soon we’ll be on our way to the Sunshine State! More updates to come!

Love,
Casey xox.

updates.

2005-09-01T23:55:00.000-07:00

Hold on. I just need a second to catch my breath...too much activity. I have been splitting my time between retrieving old possessions & scheduling so hard I thought my head would seriously fall off of its shelf on my shoulders and thump onto the floor like Marie Antoinette's.

I am a person who has a lot of stuff...& not just your average mill of stuff but things that no one in their right mind besides me would think to keep: ticket stubs from 2003, earphones from international flights, clothes from 6th grade, magazines for collages, scores of paints & pens & pencils...I could go on. Lately I've felt like this cluttered pack rat side of me isn't necessarily something inherent, but a kind of comfort mechanism. So, when mold roomate, who was moving out, returned my Beethoven piano sonatas & coffee pot, my intitial reaction was: can't I just throw these out? I made some great coffee this morning with my old coffee pot, so perhaps this compulsion isn't a very good thing. But I have boxes of stuff I haven't used in years & I'm ready to have a very belated spring cleaning. Maybe I'll offer it up on this site--if some of you want an old pair of ice skates or Vogue Magazines or paintings or lamps, you can let me know. Maybe I'll make a giant list & you can sift through the debris and find stuff to add to your canon of stuff. You know what they say about one man's trash...

Now here it is, September already & I have an amazing fall planned ahead. No adventures in solitaire for me, I am hoping you'll join me. Next week, I will be going to Portland, OR to play at Music Fest NW as part of a HUSH recs show-case. Then, when I come back I will be touring with Jason Anderson (K), Tiger Saw (Kimchee), Nat Baldwin & Castanets (Asthmatic Kitty) amongst a few others.
Also, rumors have been going around that my face is stacked inside of nightclubs around the Northeast, so just to clear it up--those rumors pertain to a funny article written by Jeff Breeze. You can see it for yourself by going here: http://performermag.com/nep-cover-large.jpg Go to my myspace account for any dates you might be interested, it seems that it the more efficient way to catch me live right now since I am not good with this HTML coding beast.

I've been really busy all month trying to get things together before I leave--my room is such a mess right now, it's basically just clothes all over the floor & this tiny discombobulated suitcase gaping at me from my bed. I'm so excited for fall to come, to dress myself up in sweaters again & drink cider & make zucchini soup. I know some of you are so sad summer is over but I have a few good remedies in mind to celebrate the last rites of the season: find a crystal clear body of water to go skinny dipping in at midnight, drink iced teas with mint sprigs, run outside in the hot & sticky rainshower and scream for 15 seconds at the very top of your lungs.

Those are my rites, but perhaps you have your own. We all find ways to welcome change, however begrudgingly or anxiously we choose to do so. I am a huge proponent of shouting every so often to clear your system out--I like to do it in cars, admist big gusts of wind, when the sights in front of your eyes are just so huge and beautiful that you need your echo to verify it's real. One time I went to a huge beautiful waterfall in the middle of the night and it was so gorgeous and I was so awestruck that I screamed, without thinking at all. Then, my echo came back to me & I realized that it was very real--beautiful things are real, the world being both giant and lillipution, all of that is real. I am in the middle of preparing to live out of my suitcase for a little while, so perhaps that is why I like echoes so much. I think of the echo as a very grounding phenomenon that most people lose impression with after they're 8-years-old, but for whatever reason it still gets my blood pumping to hear "HAAALLLLLLOOOOOOOOOO!" drft back to me, you know? It's just too easy to get cynical about things and forget about how magic things can be when they're real. Ah, but that is certainly more than enough for now. I hope each one of you reading this is happy, healthy, and dreaming of pullovers. All of my love to you,

xox. Casey
***

Dash the Curry.

2005-08-07T11:57:00.000-07:00

Two summer vices: M.I.A. & iced tea. It's hard to believe it's already August, I've managed to get a little bit of color out on the beach where my parent's live. I should post some pictures of the house--it's very pretty & New England. I make iced tea with crushed mint & I swear to god, with a mason jar of tea in my hand nothing can go wrong.

This season just flew by, & it was very busy. I've spent a fair more amount of time in airports than usual which I could do without (I really hate flying & recycled air), although my trips this summer have been really memorable. Tigersaw was invited out to What The Heck Fest this year to play in the park of Anacortes, WA. The whole festival is really a dream of a week, for one, & seems suspended in this big twister of lakes, light rain, cookies from Adrift, Seattle coffee, marionberries & blueberries & raspberries. We got to play with Tender Forever, who is an incredible singer from Bordeaux who writes really sweet songs about making out & things of that nature. It was nice to meet more of the K recs folk, eat fresh donuts & walk 5 miles a day, camping out under the open sky. It was a real summer festival, & my first one, in fact. I was sad to leave after driving to the top of Mt. Eerie to look down at all of the lakes and Deception Pass & see the west coast & Mt. Rainier and St. Helen. The beauty there is so intense that it is hard to take in all at once & I spent a lot of the time on my own just taking mental pictures since I broke my camera moving into my new apartment.

Since then, I've been playing pretty much nonstop with Jason Anderson, so you might have seen us rocking out E Street style around New England. I will be touring this fall with Mr. Ando, as well as Tigersaw and Nat Baldwin. I looked at the schedule the other day & it seems I'll be playing all over the map, including Schuba's in Chicago, the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, NJ (that's where The Boss started sewing his oats), & a billion other places. The tour is almost 2 months long, & it will be my first real tour so I am nervous...but I think it's time. I'm sorry to those of you who've tried writing me lately & have had your mail returned since the website for whatever reason was down for a month or so. I will come out to see those of you far & away, and if there's a place I haven't made it out to, I hope you'll write me & tell me where to find you. I'm excited in these next coming months to really dive into touring, and pleased at the support I've been recieving.

Up on the plate for me, I will be on the September cover of the Northeast Performer. There will be some funny photographs I'm sure & a little interview. Hopefully I didn't say anything too douchey...one never knows. Jeff Breeze & I ate some Algerian food & talked about the new record & stuff like that...it was a great time & it's so nice of the Performer people to even consider writing about the songs at all seeing as how I'm still a real rookie when it comes down to the grit of it. Or, at least it feels that way.

The record is coming out in early 2006 on HUSH records. I'm working on all of the fine details but I am so ecstatic that I've found a home for Wind-Up Canary, since I hadn't sent it out at all or anything. It just ended up working out that Chad Crouch found a rough copy of the record through a friend, & the rest is history. HUSH feels like a great home for where I'm at right now...I think I worried about rushing myself into deep waters before I knew how to tread them--& I'll be joining the ranks with Kaitlyn Ni Donovan, the Decemberists, Bobby Birdman, Norforlk & Western, & many others. It's really kind of unbelievable & a big surprise for me, I guess. Seems that times are hard to predict, but it feels good after really pouring all of my work out to see it speak for itself. I think I'm learning a lot about how to simply do the work & allow the rest to work itself out, all of the little business details that sometimes make me feel like quitting. I get concerned almost routinely about developing a big ego or a huge head or, what I've deemed "that look in your eye" that some people have where everything they say has a double meaning & intention. I think HUSH is a good way for me to be able to do all of the business stuff for myself so that I don't let my head swell to the size of a Macy's Day Parade balloon. The point of all of this is that I'd like, say ten years down the road, to keep doing this. I'd like to still be writing, still making records for myself, still making new friends & hopefully nurturing old ones. I am in no rush to skyrocket into the atmosphere & watch myself incinerate like the big bang in a big shower of stardust. No hubble telescope photos scheduled for the near future. Phew.

& in the words of sonny bono, the beat goes on. I've started writing again. I took a good couple of months off from finishing any writing. It is really hard after finishing a "body of work" to be without the pressure to create another "body of work." I think trying to find congruency in anything before it's individually completed feels premature to me, like trying to figure out if the fetus has the father or mother's nose before the 1st trimester's finished. It's a lot of squinting over a magnoscope & saying "hmmm...I wonder where this goes?" But the songs are coming together. I'm working with my friend Matt who plays percussion, & together we're focusing more on the rhythmn in these songs. Normally, it takes me a long time to feel comfortable sharing stuff with people until its complete. So, to kind of keep myself on my toes, I broght Matt in to start working on them early enough in their infancy that their structures aren't fixed or anything.

The result is exciting for me, & different. Less of the "verse/chorus/verse/bridge" kind of stuff that I tend to write in. The songs are also a way of getting myself to write about different material--like a scientologist who squander's his wife's money & moves to Clearwater, Florida, or punch & judy on their way to the gallows at the end of their show. Comfort zones are really pleasant to me in music, so I am trying to strip them. These songs feel larger, while the songs on Wind-Up Canary are more excersizes in intimacy. The vocals on the record are upfront, next to your ears, right there in your living room. I guess these songs feel a little more surround-sound.

Ah, the iced tea's all done & a refill is in order. So now I will send out my thank yous: Thanks to Kyle out in Washington for being so hospitable to the tigers, Liam for befriending us & making the trek each night to & from the Donut House, Djim who deserves thanks every month of the year, & the guys from Sparrows swarmandsing who made July just as memorable.

Be well! until next time,

xox.casey

vacation's all i ever wanted.

2005-05-29T00:17:00.000-07:00

School is done, it is now iced tea season, today I wore shorts...enough about that.

I have been trying to update the website little by little. There is still so much to do--and with tour right around the bend I am trying to pull my act together before I become a dirty street tramp with an extensive bandana collection. Sam & I are still looking for the following dates for the first half of tour:

JUNE
9th- The Zeitgeist, Cambridge Ma
15th- the Weathervane, Brattleboro VT
16th- The Radiobean, Burlington VT
17th- Looking for a show anywhere in the NE area. Anywhere!
18th- MILL FIVE MADNESS FESTIVAL & The Tannery Mill No. Five, Newburyport Ma
19th- Pete's Candy Store, Brooklyn NY
20th- allentown or bethlehem PA with herbie
21st- Baltimore?
22nd- Pittsburg?
23rd- Columbus OH at 'Kyle's awesome house'
24th- ?
25th- ?
26th- indiana?
27th- ?
28th- ann arbor MI?
29th- Chicago?

Come to think of it, that's quite a few question marks...perhaps you can help us out? This is my first tour, ever. It is a modest one, but I think it will be awesome.

Also on Saturday, June 18th, I'm going to be a part of a really special benefit festival in Newburyport, (my other favorite seaside community), and hopefully you will be able to be a part of it. The music alone is enough of a draw, but there will be all sorts of things like free food to entice as well. You can even get there by commuter rail & wander around Plum Island for the day. Here's the itinerary:

Mill Five Madness Music Festival at Mill Five at the Tannery
4:00 - 4:30 Sam Rosen & the Look South
4:30 - 5:00 Meg Rayne
5:00 - 5:30 Greg & Jeff
5:30 - 6:00 Kate Redgate
6:00 - 6:30 Casey Dienel
6:30 - 7:00 Ponies in the Surf
7:15 - 7:45 Space Heaters
8:00 - 8:30 UV Protection
8:45 - 9:15 Exit Dance Theatre
9:15 - 9:45 Tiger Saw
10:00 - 10:30 Tony Moschetto

Love and madness for you all,
xox. Casey

in the can!

2005-04-03T22:09:00.000-07:00

it's been a nice little hiatus. i finished recording 'wind up canary' this afternoon. from now on, it's supplication at the altar that everything else goes swimmingly (or at least interestingly).

some people have asked about what the record sounds like. up until now, i wasn't sure. & it will change yet. however, i have written a good number of songs that encompass the following things: a coffee field exploding, switzerland, the leaves in autumn, the thawing in spring, a fat old man on morphine, the beach, convenience store robberies, a few murder mysteries, weather forecasts, a clawfoot tub, gin/assorted liquors, european ladies men, riding the TGV, hope & foregiveness, things like that. throw in a little beaujolais, a whiff of paris, maybe some ladies dancing the can can. that is what it sounds like. it sounds like a hand-cranked music box. opening up a time capsule hidden in your attic with photos of django reinhart stuck to the top with loving care, & inside, some lacy garters, a pamphlet on etiquette, maybe an old cole porter record. it sounds like the journal of someone who hangs out on huntington ave. just a hair too often. but we'll see what you thing of it.

& this may sound terrible but I have already started itching to write new things. for a (dare i say?) new record beyond this one. but one baby then another, right?

anyhow. this friday i'm playing/DJ-ing on Brown Student Radio. (88.1 FM) I'll play stuff off of wind up canary, as well as tote along some things i've been listening to lately. that's all i've got planned until may--but hopefully we'll see one another soon. keep sending me letters about what is going on in your life/the music you're into. art you're making. keep making things and spreading unadulterated joy.

love,
casey

blue dress missing.

2005-03-07T10:14:00.000-08:00

Three more Munch paintings are stolen in Norway. It seems someone has picked a funny vice. Sometimes I wonder this about art--is it good that we preserve these things. Seeing is believing, maybe. I lost my slouchy red had the other day, and I was so sad. Like 'i don't wanna get out of bed' sad. I was a bit bummed that A) I lost the hat, & B) I was so affected by losing 'just a stupid hat.' It was my sick hat, my safety hat. I could go three days without showering thanks to that hat (true story...eh). But now, I think maybe by attaching so much responsibility to this one inanimate object I wasn't really accomplishing much. Just kind of dipping it in formaldehyde and being generally avoidant. Not good for hygiene, among other things. Don't know if you, my good readers, ever find yourself so attached to things that losing them seems to signify the end of the world. Stupid as it is. Your roomate does spring cleaning and in the process throws out your lucky shoelace, your stuffed animal that's been mangled from drooling, yanking, loving--the beady little eyes are askew now and the 'fur' is matted down...and even though it wasn't much to look at, it was more like an investment than a belonging. it was stock. years of attention, confidence, security. Sometimes it takes a little exposure in order for us to let go. All it was was a painting, or my hat, or the velveteen rabbit. It's gone, but not really. I can still think about my hat. When I feel timid and awkward, I can pretend I'm wearing it or something. Like picturing people naked. It's best not to let things sit in resin for too long. They start to become artifacts, symbols, scrapbook material.

Learning to be self-suffiecient is a rough trade, you know? This week I'm a year older. Each year I take on more responsibility, and hope to god I won't become some sort of recluse. I record and re-record until everything's to my liking--which I think if you're really committed to anything, is something you've just got to do. But I notice a lot of doubts bubble to the surface, some new, some recurring. Speaking to a really wonderful musician (and friend) that I know, she mentioned her doubts. How she wishes she could do it all sometimes. It was funny because earlier that day I had been listening to her record and thought "god, I wish I could be this inventive! I wish I had thought of that!" I guess it's typical that we wish we were somewhere other than here, somewhere more exciting, more important, more fulfilling. We want that dress, or we want to sound like regina spektor, or we want to be sitting in Nimes drinking cafe cremes and flirting with painters, little hemmingways. We want snow when we're sweltering in August. It's March and cold, and all I want is to wear a pair of sandals. Gazpacho for dinner. It's hard to focus on now, and the want in now. It is hard to be happy with what you've got, and harder to still to realize you're not in this canoe alone. Everyone's rowing. Everyone wishes they had bigger hips, or a smaller waist, or pitch control, or abilities that they have but aren't aware of. Everyone. I sometimes wonder "what is it that I'm providing? what are my songs doing for me/other people/variable x & y?" I am not in the peace corps, I'm not working for oxfam. Generally doubting or calling into question what it is that I have to offer--what am I going to bring to the big potluck.

But that's got to be part of why we keep going. It's not enough to know--you have to want to know first, you have to explore. Hopefully, when all is said and done, we've said something. And we will still wonder.

mm, girl, i'm gonna get me a fly nacho bar.

2005-02-22T07:47:00.000-08:00

i've been living on this couch for two days...kind of gross? but pleasant. it's nice to have a little vacation. my hair's a hot mess! anyhow--i had a kamikaze gig on sunday night. assuming that the show was monday i went down to the beach, prepared for a night off...read the paper to relax and saw i had a show that evening! i got in the car, drove as fast as catch can to cambridge, played a renegade set of new songs from the album. i felt really bad, normally i'm much more responsible! ah, well. anyways...there seemed to be a good amount of people there to support the zeitgeist, so hopefully we raised enough for the P.A. I met Gil, who helped organize the event with my friend Sofia. There was a woman who sang Brazilian songs, a wild pidgeon loose during her set who chose to perch on the chanteuse mid-song, and a little champagne. Kind of surreal, but sweet, all of the same. More surreal however was the sunrise that I drove back to the beach for, with the beginning of snowfall and cold cold fingers. Despite what others may say, I really really love new england. come to think of it, I haven't been too lazy, afterall. I'm writing new songs about prizefighters, britney spears' husband ('cause he's gone all GQ on our asses), and among other things, a special birthday song for Kim Jong II. I started a song about bread pudding. Do you know how many kinds of bread pudding there are? It's kind of excessive. i recently have started making savory variations on my favorite dish--including one with jalapeno, black beans, and corn bread. but my favorite is still apple raisin bread pudding.

other happenings--i almost burned my childhood home down. forgot to open the floo in our fireplace and before i knew it, the whole home was filled with cedar smoke. i smell like mesquite. I put the fire out, opened all the windows, and went outside for a few snow angels. i've caught up on modern television--definetely fulfilled my quota for the next couple of months. first off, what is up with mtv? i watched this really fucked up show called "my super sweet sixteen" where kids my sister's age throw parties on the budgets that exceed most wedding bills. it was pretty dope--one girl threatened her parents with the silent treatment if she didn't get her white range rover on her birthday. she flew to paris for her versace gown, then started crying when her mom cancelled her cars, thus preventing her from buying arabian-night-themed party goods. damn. i really want to see the one that hasn't aired yet, where a pintsize jlo invites bowwow to her party which includes "a nacho bar, and a fashion show." pretty sweet. anytime i watch television i feel like i've entered this intense time warp...first it was the sweet sixteen parties, then ashlee simpson, and before you know it i was watching unsolved mysteries followed by a project runway marathon. quite a conundrum.

but the vacation's over. i'm back in boston as of this afternoon. i have a show coming up on the 28th. i haven't really scheduled any shows beyond march 1st in providence. i'm playing in tigersaw at P.A.'s lounge on the 26th! perhaps i'll see you. be well, friends.

xox. casey

unplugged.

2005-02-09T11:00:00.000-08:00

I am shamelessly avoiding work. So it goes, so it goes.

Thanks to those of you that came to the Grizzly Bear show last night. Ed, from Grizzly Bear, is one of the nicest people you will ever meet and to those of you outside of Boston--you still have many opportunities to catch them while they tour for the next two months. The set up is wonderful, lots of beautiful vocals, distorted clarinet, baby keyboards, heavy percussion (mallets!). They're playing Hampshire College this evening, out in Amhearst. So go see!

Not much else is going on. The record's shaping up. Perhaps it will be finished, someday! We're working on the title...There's much decision-making to be done. Keep your eyes peeled towards the end of the month, when I believe that I will be playing at all asia with Nat Baldwin, Jason Voss, and Lakestreet Dive (who you can't afford to miss!). I'm hoping to get the record out late in the spring--how does that sound? Hmmm...The Middle East was nice last night. Not bad for my first real "club" gig ever. I saw the folks from the Dresden Dolls in the pub just after my set--Amanda Palmer looking gorgeously undone, per usual. I thought about saying hello...something about the kinship of another pop pianist, but I was too shy. I felt strange about interrupting them.

WANTED: If you would like to help out by joining my "choir" for the last track of the album, please e-mail me and I'll try to figure out dates that would be best. Probably a weekend. Before the end of february. I would love to have as many as 10 people or so. You will sing "la la la la" and it will sound very pretty!

spring is on it's way, and aside from the snowstorm coming up, i think the albatross has sounded and winter's on it's way out. i can't wait for the beach, bare feet, ice cream cones. ah. please keep your heads up, friends. keep in touch.

xox. casey

all's fair. (a fair ramble)

2005-01-24T21:19:00.000-08:00

It might be nice to relieve this journal of its music-informant duties.

I can't believe it will be february soon. 2004 flew across the radar with unbelievable velocity...the last half was like a flash of light. Here we are, in 2005, and already it's begun its light-speed take-off. A little hard to believe.

I think these kinds of feelings are what are making up the record. I think it's all a big stew with slivers of each kind of strange feeling I've picked up in the last year or so. I'm throwing everything into the pot, so to speak. Realized today a few funny things while at a really nice dinner with talkative friends. Between the snow drifts and the mass quantities of winter food I've been eating (winter squash, fresh cookies, sweet potato bread pudding, and so on). I think all of the food and the conversation swam around the room and made me think. It was really something to be with such a wonderful group of people who I'd never really spent too much time with before...they're all the generous sort, you see. And I've had the pleasure of running into quite a few exceptional folks since moving here. It is hard in all of this snow not to feel a little bit like an ice cube. It is really hard to be a vessel. But this dinner was nice, i didn't really say much. Mostly sat back and listened. Noticed how much i missed just listening to people. How nice it was to take a break from the ta-da end of socializing. I also thought about a lot of relationships (parents, lovers, friends, roomates, bandmates, whatever suits you best) where really, all I needed to do was listen more.

I also thought about how 2004 was the year where I was cracked open like a fresh jigsaw puzzle. All my pieces got tossed around the table, and sometimes, instead of just trying to work patch by patch, I found myself feeling like I was splayed out all over the place. Not really doing much about it. Not really trying to piece it together. And, yet, still wanting to feel like at one point I would be the same picture I started out as. But--who really wants to be one of those pictures of the St. Bernard puppies drooling on a nice Swiss mountain top (alright...I might just go for that). When you could be a kind of neat re-configuration of all of those things. I'm painting again...making a portrait of a woman out of cutouts. They used to be other things in magazines i've collected--paris hilton reclined on a table with pearls, a matriarchal tribe in africa, gold jewelry found in mozambique, a mansion in newport, perfect limbs of various models who've been airbrushed over and over again. Now, they've been spliced and mixed around and ripped. They're being pieced together a little by little. I guess, all of this tangent just means that this past year wasn't a mess. It was just a re-configuration. I've got to check my old handwritten diaries to see if I say this about every year. But something about this past year was really important.

I've had a handful of conversations with people who seemed to think this past year was kind of a turning point for them. I don't know why we were all so magnetically drawn to this past year...why it will stick out more than others, kind of like how a joker does in a deck of cards. But I'd like to think that when things get like this...we should be able to give one another some kind of signal. Some kind of sign that we get it. I was talking to my roomate about how there were points during the past year where I wasn't myself. Where I just stepped into the costume and zipped it up nice an snug so it felt like a fit. Sometimes I'd feign overassertion--sometimes being 5'2 would really get to me, so I'd inflate myself to the size of a giant and stomp all over anything in my way, king-kong style. sometimes i'd feign unintelligence, or pretentiousness, or power (raaaarrrr!) and a lot of other really lame projections. She could tell. She said she didn't feel like she had much right to say anything because she'd been there, too...but that's exactly why it's okay to speak up. We should say "dude, who are you? who is this impostor? when is the real you coming back because i'd like to have dinner with that person when she checks in?" Over-simplified? Yes. But, now that I'm back in town, I've unpacked the bags--I'm noticing that there were a lot of people I'd like to sit down with, have some coffee, be real with. Not really talk to. Just listen.

At one point, maybe there'll be some kind of flashlight/morse code signal. If you see me walking around with that look in my eyes, you might not feel comfortable enough to tell me to snap out of it. I might not feel comfortable enough to tell you to snap out of it, but I hope that I'll get over that and just do it anyways. For the most part, we do not always know what is in our best interest. If anyone comes up with a signal--let me know. A double wink? A pattern of coughing? Until then, we'll just have to try to use our best judgement. We'll just have to try to keep awake.

goodnight,

casey

in the middle of everything!

2005-01-12T21:26:00.000-08:00

oh, friends! this record is underway! bandjo djim and i are getting to work...so many treats in store! i've completed a chunk of the piano parts and although it's not all up to scratch just yet, i am enjoying this process a great deal. it's very different from the process of writing and the process of playing live. sometimes i feel as though music-making is like the art of schizophrenia--you have to have at least three personalities to handle the tasks stretched before you. one side must be very open to repetition, one side must be very flexible to interruption, and one side must be very open to spontaneous inspiration. i guess the one yarn between all three is patience.

i'm recording out in the woods by an orchard, or more specifically, in a living room with heavy floral drapes that open up onto the land. there is a lot of snow there, big tall evergreens dripping with the stuff. today, while warming up, the snow slid off of the roof like a big accordian of ice! it made such a loud crunch, i was a bit frightened!

I'm recording several new songs, as well as a few older favorites. It's shaping up to be an unusual collection of songs. One or two songs are so new I don't think anyone else has heard them outside of my practice room--it'll be interesting to see what they sound like...like building some kind of full-fleshed opus from the skeletal work i've been doing lately.

if you're able, come out to 7 cherokee st. in mission hill on friday. The fesetivities start around 8. I'll be playing just before Jason Anderson premieres a bunch of his new songs. Another house party hosted by the specific heats.

Also, not too drag the cat out of the bag, but I have just done a little piano playing for the new Tigersaw record. It sounds wonderful! I hope when that is all said and done that you will get your mittens on it, for I was really impressed with the songs that Dylan has written since the last record. They're gorgeous and very energized...a lot of fun to play, to boot.

Other things on the menu: February 8th I'm playing for the first time ever at the middle east with Grizzly Bear and Valerie Allen. I'm nervous, it being my first real 'grown up venue' show (I'm accustomed to more intimate spaces), so it wouldn't hurt to have a few friendly faces there. Mark your calendars.

bonne annee.

2005-01-05T21:11:00.000-08:00

happy belated new year's!

2004 went out like a lion, but since Montreal, things have been pleasantly low-key. Montreal was so lovely--the dancing, the amazingly friendly quebecois, our funny hostel co-habitants. a few lovelies with confused hemlines. a great deal of good coffee, crepes at chez cora, a broken paraplouie. somehow, in all of that rain, it was still one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

but now i am back in boston, recording (or about to). i'm thinking of putting tacks in the piano hammers. i've amassed the weaponry; a toy piano, an italian accordian, a little navy melodica. we'll see what we can muster up. i'm going to try to make something masterful--i've been writing and writing and it will be so good to get all of this stuff out of my system, at last.

i'm playing a show next week, on the 14th, with the wonderful jason anderson. the show will be at the specific heats' basement (who will serenade us along with balloon fight). i can't wait. it will be a nice cap to this vacation--with some good friends of mine.

i'll post more details soon. thanks to those of you who came out the the show at the zeitgeist--it really was one of my most favorite shows. i hope all of you are enjoying the holidays. i'm updating a few things with some artwork via nicole from www.killmargot.com and i can't wait.

see you soon!

love,

casey

hello yearlings.

2004-12-21T20:39:00.000-08:00

dear friends,

keep faith in all of this snow. a lot of close friends are moving off and this has been one crazy and poignant month. i hope you got a chance to enjoy my christmass e-card, although i wish there were more ways for me to express how grateful i am to those of you who continue to come to my shows, mail me for demos, or just stalk these happenings on the web. so grateful.

anyways...i am playing next week with nat baldwin and sam rosen at the zeitgeist on Dec. 28th. a solo effort, since both Peter and Christopher are happily on a well-deserved hiatus. i've been working the boys pretty hard lately and it will be nice to tinker at the keys on my own. like "old times." Jones thinks I should call "the band" my alter ego's name, Heloise Majorette. What do you think? A band name? Jeez... for those of you who are around, this is probably the last show i will be playing for awhile. i am cutting down on shows in order to record this new album, however, there are rumors i will be playing at the middle east upstairs in february. i can't hide my excitement.

but enough about business.

let's see...things that have been exciting me lately:

ennui (www.ennuimusic.com)- A band from Pittsburgh, PA that features my own drummer (the lovely Christopher) and keys and wonderful music. Their melodies are so delightfully catchy and they just released a nifty EP entitled Inchoate. Check their site out, s'il te plait.

shadow and dust (www.shadowanddust.com)- From L.A.! They have this jangly sound...kind of like stumbling onto songs while walking down a dirt road. Synths and guitars amaze me...I come from a musical background that's all based on the here and now, the instruments with acoustic properties that are very fixed. Listening to bands like this gets me even more curious to experiment.

grizzly bear (www.grizzly-bear.net)- all good things point to brooklyn. these songs are other-worldly. all at once, they are etheral and a bit metallic and shiny. it's different from most acoustic/electronic music i've heard- i'll be tooling around and suddenly i've got one of their tunes stuck in my head all day!

happy christmas, everyone. what are all of you doing for new years? i'm going to montreal...have no idea what i'm going to do there. any ideas?

xox,

casey

last night's highlight.

2004-12-16T13:54:00.000-08:00

The Scene: The Zeitgeist Gallery.

Dan Blakeslee is in the middle of a smashing set. The gallery is swamped with creative modern art, an orange wall behind the grand piano, precariously opened. The crowd is small, intimate, and well-dressed.

Dan Blakeslee: I done gone and de-tuned my gee-tar again, dagnabbit! (curses under his breath.)
Harmonica Tom: EEEEEEEEeeeeeeeee! (the audience turns towards the back of the gallery to gape at the Cambridge fixture, who sports a puffy royal blue jacket and full white beard.)
Dan Blakeslee: Excuse me, sir?
Harmonica Tom: Tune to this! Eeeeeeee! (he flaps his wrist beside his neck, making a buzz.)
Dan Blakeslee: Let's try that again!
Harmonica Tom: Hold on a sec. You can tune to my harmonica if you like!
Dan Blakeslee: You've got a Harmonica on you?
Harmonica Tom: Sure thing. (Approaches Dan, then unzips his jacket. The audience waits with baited breath, is this some kind of trick?) Which one would ya like? (There, inside of his coat, are several different kinds of harmonicas hung on each side.)
Dan Blakeslee: Geez.
Hamronica Tom: How about an A? (Harmonica Tom takes the instrument from the swatch inside of his coat and plays an E. Dan begins to retune.)
Dan Blakeslee: Got it! Thanks so much--what's your name, sir?
Harmonica Tom: HARMONICA TOM!! (Harmonica Tom then proceeds to the back of the gallery once more, where he sits contentedly.)

Harriet Tubman broadcasted the whole thing on her pirate radio station, 88.5.

Curtain Call.

Das Zeitgeist.

2004-12-12T10:16:00.000-08:00

still in my dreaming...last night featured clementines again (i think i am certifiably obsesssed with the little oranges...) and my golden retriever giving grandiose speeches about flossing. sounds like the night visions of someone in need of a vacation. I heard a nat baldwin song playing towards the end of it--i need to get my hands on that record like it "ain't a thang" as rachael would say.

We're gathering into the tail end of this whirlwind Boston gigging season.

This Wed. I am playing at the Zeitgeist. I'm leaving the Beast behind; I've cooed at her quite a bit lately to reduce the jealous swelling. She's quite a tempermental piano. I figure it's about time she go on a break. Too much up and down this apartment's flights of stairs.

The gig will feature Laurel Brauns, a beautiful singer who's coming down by ways of new hampshire. Lovely lovely songs and an equally wonderful voice. Dan Blakeslee is also on the bill: such a fun performer! It should be a very lovely night.

Also, because I am not bringing the beast I will have a little more room in my car to bring those of you home from the gig if you are worried about transportation. I know inman square is somewhat of a hassle, but I will make it up to you! Yes, that is blatant bribery I am proposing: you heard it here first.

Ciao bella,

Casey

post mortem.

2004-12-05T09:55:00.000-08:00

thanks to everyone who made it out last night to mission hill. i was blown away--majesty's set had me dancing! unbelievable. it was also the first appearance of my songs with a full band, which is unusual and exciting.

a few other highlights included lindsay (re-cognition) who is always a delight to hear. this time around she had a few christmas themed songs, a song about ohio. her voice is so different from most i have heard, more whisper than clatter and bang.

i really enjoyed nat baldwin's songs--lovely sound-based compositions, with overtones and scratches, and his voice! it has this eerie quality to it...kind of noteless and melodic all at once, which i think is enhanced by the way he hunches over the bass as he plays, you have a sense that his whole entire body is in it. something i'm a real stickler for in my own music. sometimes a performer is able to make sounds that are beyond themselves--and particularly during a few of nat's songs i could hear a full orchestra in the back. please, if you are able, do check him out. i can't wait until the 28th, now.

i sang with sam, who played a mean "time the revelator" and rocked out on the ukelele. another wonderful wonderful voice. juliet's vocals were a lovely complement. i'm really looking forward to joining sam and nat once more later on this month at the Zeitgeist.

at any rate...I got to pet dogs and a cat last night for awhile (following some rip-roarin' lesbian kareoke), with peter, my friends liz and elias, and amelia from Cat Show Snapshots last evening. It reminded me of how great the shows on mon. and wed. are going to be. she plays viola and (as one might have guessed) has a particular soft spot for felines--if you check out their new record Self-Portraits, amelia also did the artwork featuring her own kitty.

If you're free, come down to All Asia on Monday around 9:30, you know the drill. Drinks, music, banter: rinse, repeat.

love,

casey

the week ahead with Dan Rather.

2004-12-03T06:59:00.000-08:00

i hope, provided you aren't too busy, i will be able to see some of you at one of my shows this week. I'll give you the line-up:

THIS SATURDAY: At the Specific Heats' Basement in Mission Hill.
I will be providing rides home to anyone worried about missing the T. I've got a reasonably sized vehicle, and I think it is worth the night-owl shift. The activities start around 7:30, I'll probably be on around 9:30 or so. But...you ought to make it for the whole she-bang, because the line up includes Sam Rosen (pompoudour madness! ukelele! gospel songs!), Re-Cognition (berries and forests! whispering!), along with Nat Baldwin and Greg Moss. Also... I will be playing with a full band this evening, drums and everything! I've even got a disco-beat surprise for you (I won't tell you which song...can't spoil the whole thing now).

MONDAY, 12/6: @ ALL ASIA. 9:00 PM
The Misfit Orchestra is playing with me this evening as well. I'm opening for Cat Show Snapshots, which is this wonderful ensemble of my friend Adam Schneit that features saxaphones, guitar, a viola. They have these beautiful songs that really dig in and make a lot of the people there feel like weeping joyfully--no joke! You know how the All Asia gigs go...

WEDNESDAY, 12/8: @ O'BRIENS. 9:00 PM 21+
This gig is part of a series hosted by my friend Sarah Blacker. I'm kicking it off at 9:00 sharp. The theme of the evening is coffee-house, and it will be a nice and mellow evening. My dad e-mailed me because he found it listed in the Boston Globe and was pretty pumped about it...I suppose that means that next Wed is the place to be! There will be comfy chairs and baked goods and art on display. It's also kind of a nice show to attend for those of you sick of seeing me at All Asia--something different. From one dive bar to the next dive bar, and so on...

There are a few more things coming up, including a wonderful show at the Zeitgeist where I'll be playing a big ol' grand piano...so much to look forward to!

Everything.

2004-11-30T07:07:00.000-08:00

December comes in as a procession; a little punctured, a little heartbroken. not forever, not for long. it is half a marching band, save for the buckles and brass. there is an english horn that keeps squeaking, a fold of paper that rustles on the floor. the drop of a tin thimble is so delicate it hardly falls at all. kids, bundled up with balls of cotton, are laughing in the neighborhood's hills. except for these things, it is usually a quiet month. they tell the townspeople to hold on to the rails, where they will get the clearest view. the horizon is wider than the eye's reach, so far we only know there is more because of hearsay. the children clamber to the front, holding the bottom rung, and declare they will see the very ends of earth. sometimes the water looks grey. the adults remember buying schooners that sunk, tankers that fouled up ashore, lobster pots that were cut loose, nets that were shredded, back in the days when they were conquerors. a few of them have come to this december parade because they still want to be magellans and vespuccis and cartiers. they tend to walk 'right-left-right' which throws off the rest of the parade, and the mayor who is serving as the leader gets upset enough so his cheeks turn red. 'one thread gone bad in the loom spoils the knit' he puffs. the girls who were twirling ribbon batons start twirling again, and the parade continues on. there is an old woman who watches from her porch, swathed in a handknit afghan where she has sat for centuries. her eyes are still grey and watery, the entire horizon contained in her pupils. she remembers the past as a string of tiny pearls: a picnic for a beached whale, a ripped pair of clamdiggers that barely hugged her hips, her first few strands of salt and pepper, children grabbing her calves with fleshy peanut-butter hands, the feeling of a cat's sandpaper tongue in her palm, the day she came to appreciate being a speck of dust. the parade squeaks past her house, and by this time, the children are out of tune with the fat bass drum, but still they keep on laughing.

Show @ La Casa De Los Calores Especificos!

2004-11-18T07:22:00.000-08:00

I can't believe how wonderful December is going to be. Goodness gracious.

I am playing on December 6th, around 8 o'clock, with my friends Sam Rosen and Re-Cognition (Lindsay Clark). Sam plays ukelele and sings and sports a pompoudour! Je l'aime! He's just been hooked onto Asthmatic Kitty, and no surprise, because afterall--if you heard his deep baritone and dreamy dubbing--you'd want him on your label too. He recently put out this home-made demo (with personalized artwork by Nicole Beckwith...his rap-partner in crime from the Rabbits) and the songs are all gospel folksongs. Very lovely--he does "motherless child" with some Soul (capital S!).

Also, I mentioned Lindsay will be playing. I've played once with Lindsay at one of my All Asia gigs and I really like her songs. They remind me of a scrapbook diary that you might find in the woods--lots of fun songs about blackberries (my favorite!) and giant trees. Her voice is otherworldly and sometimes she whispers in her songs which is really exciting. She just moved here a few months ago from Santa Cruz and stands to prove that there is a lot in Boston to be excited about. She plays piano and sometimes guitar, she's super rad and like me, started all of this songwriting by messing around in her living room.

Three kindred spirits in one evening!

In other words, this is going to be just a great show...and it's going to be my very first Saturday show EVER. It's also very close to my house. If you haven't been to the Specific Heats household, check out http://www.caseydienel.com/Shows.html for directions. It's a really neat old basement with christmas lights and strange graffitti and sometimes laundry hanging on the plumbing. A wonderful night of music.

But first: This coming Tuesday, November 23rd, right before Thanksgiving, I am playing a show with Nick Jones at All Asia. This show will be really fun--I'm preparing to play a few newer songs with Peter and perhaps a trumpet...sshhhhhh.....It's at 9:00 and i'll be sure to disclose further details soon. It will be a real blast, let me tell you!

I'll talk to you rebels soon.

love letter from the Beast.

2004-11-16T06:53:00.000-08:00

A quick thank you to those of you who made it out last night, so last minute! Heather was really sweet to invite me to play and both she and Sean sounded heavenly. I had quite a good time toying around onstage with Peter. I demo'd a few new songs about things like Switzerland, apricots, demonstrations against deli-meat and kids with braces who get stuck together while playing 7 minutes in heaven. Good times.

I've been wielding the Beast (AKA le piano electronique) down my three flights of stairs more than usual--so thanks again to all of you who have made that possible. I'm at the brink of making something really special for you: a full length. At first I was going to make it into another EP but I don't think my conscience will allow it--I've been simmering long enough. It is tea time.

It's my cabin fever project. I'm going to try my hardest to capture all of the beautiful oddities that I admire in music, shoveling in some bass, drums, piano (of course), voices (!), trumpet, clarinet, and a few more sneaky surprises that I can't divulge here on this log. I'm very excited to show you what I've been up to for all of these months and to transfer any magic into analog. There's so much more I want to tell you, but at the risk of sharing all of my secrets...the tricks up my sleeve...

Instead, let me add that next week I will be playing the All Asia again. I'll probably hound your mailboxes with notices, or you'll see sassy fliers at your local coffee shop, or you'll hear about it from yours truly...I'll be brief. this show will be great. Nick has some new songs he'll be sharing, as will I, and it's on a Tuesday night right before Thanksgiving so we can all relax. Peter will be joining me, and if you haven't seen him play yet, I suggest you find yourself with a cocktail at All Asia next tuesday starting at 9:00.

So, hold in there, friends. It's been a long month for everyone. I know it's early for snow, but there is plenty to be hopeful about.

New Live Dates!!

2004-11-14T15:02:00.000-08:00

Hello friends,

It was nice to see some of you at the Tigersaw/Little Wing show. I missed the tsaw set, but the Heats boys certainly know how to throw a delightful party. I didn't really make it out to the Blow show afterall, though I stopped in and saw a bit of Dear Nora's set. rather long story, but again, congrats to the Heats for keeping the mission hill join a-jumpin.'

I have a last minute announcement. Tomorrow night I am playing at ALL ASIA with two wonderful musicians: Heather Masse & Sean Wood. It will be a night of diverse music, featuring Heather (complete with winds and all of that decadence--she does a mean cover of a Gillian Welch tune called "Elvis Presley Blues" and it sends shivers down my spine just thinking of it) and Sean has this voice that will just blow you away--all at once it has grit and sheen and onstage he allows himself to be completely vulnerable and open to his songs, a real rarity to find that kind of courage amongst musicians in any town. So, if you're able, you should try to come down to Central Square and see my friends (and yours truly) in action. Things will kick off at 6 PM, I'll probably hit the boards around 7. Peter will be accompanying me on his upright. I think even my Dad will be there. So you know this is the place to be!

Other dates:

TOMORROW!
11/15 ALL ASIA CAFE (on Mass Ave. in Central Square)
w/ Heather Masse and Sean Wood
6-9PM

11/23 ALL ASIA CAFE
w/ Nick Jones
9-12PM

12/6 ALL ASIA CAFE
w/ Cat Show Snapshots
9-12 PM

12/8 O'BRIENS (in Allston, 3 Harvard Ave.)
w/ Sarah Blacker, Acousica, and Jeff Ritchie
@ 9PM-1AM
Coffee House Gig: local art will be on display, baked goods will be served!

12/15 ZEITGEIST GALLERY (in Cambridge's Inman Square on Cambridge St.)
w/ Laurel Brauns and Dan Blakeslee
9PM-12AM
Come see me play on a real, living, breathing, purring piano!

I don't know about you, but I'm really excited about the month ahead.

apple cider and el capitain.

2004-11-09T14:16:00.000-08:00

I hope in all of this cold weather that you are enjoying the music in Boston. This week alone, there are so many good reasons to put on a parka! On Thursday, you can catch my friend Dylan's band Tigersaw playing with Little Wings at The Specific Heats household (conveniently located near my own apartment). At the same place, The Blow and Dear Nora (along with Balloon Fight and DJ'ing from the old HOSS's Dan Shea) will be rocking out on Friday night. Then there's Sufjan Sunday (double set!). I think I am beginning to swoon.

Last night I caught a wonderful set in Jordan Hall, featuring my friend Jed Wilson and my teacher Dominique Eade. Her songs are so beautiful! She has this one song called "Go Gently To The Water" and every time she sings it I think about being a kid listening to all of my mom's records, like Laura Nyro and Carole King and the Judds. Yeah, seriously, the Judds. Wynnonna has pipes. All of the music that goes well with cold weather and apple cider and butternut squash soup.

In other news, as you might be able to tell, I have joined the web. I have sold my surname to the domain devil. If you'd told me my name would be a dot com a year ago, I would have been chuckling. I hope the web-site is functional. It's not much to look at, I'll admit, but I hope that in time it will be way more eye-catching and cool for those of you that continue to stop by and listen to whatever silly musings I'm playing onstage.

Speaking of which, I'll be play on November 23rd at All Asia Cafe (my house of residence) with Nick Jones, once more. It will be a nice little Thanksgiving show. 9:30. I hope you will come and relax before your respective holidays and vacations.