Woof woof! (Translation: Happy New Year!)

All right everybody, 2012 is here! As the ancient Mayans all used to say, “Lllllllet’s get ready to rummmmbbbbbllllle!” (Or was that Abraham Lincoln? I forget.)

Anyway, I for one am really excited for this year. It has started promisingly: my dog and I spent the holidays in Arizona with my parents, then I drove back to LA and wrote my first song in months.  It came pouring out. I sat on the floor and let it come. It’s called “Hold on My Dear”. Which basically sums it all up. I’ll try to get a recording of it up for you soon.

In the meantime, let’s all be healthy and serious and silly and deep and shallow. Let’s frolic and meditate. Let’s do this! (Translation: I know I haven’t performed or released a new album in a while. High hopes for 2012. I’m working on some other stuff too so my time is a bit split. But I’m planning on being more in touch. Etc.)

xoxox sarah

Polka dots!

Well THAT was a crazy year. Without going into too many details, suffice it to say that 2011 was a giant roller coaster ride. And in life, I’ve never been a fan of big roller coasters. Always made me sick. I have a really good friend who tells me that if I can go through the big life stuff roller coasters, then the amusement park coasters will be a piece of cake. Or something.

To which I want to yell, “Oh yeah? Well if she’s so smart what is she doing sitting in the NEIGHBOR’S CAR?!” (That’s a reference to Parenthood, one of the best movies ever. Just go rent it. Go.)

But anyway. Here we are at the tail end of the year, getting ready to ride into another…The year of the dragon, which is supposed to be all about good fortune, good transitions, good stuff. In the meantime I’m working on finishing out this year on a high note. I’ve got my Christmas presents wrapped in cute red and white polka dot wrapping paper, and I put a red and white polka dot collar on my dog to match. (Martha Stewart, eat your heart out.) 2012 promises to be exciting, but until then, I’ve got a wish for you lovely people:

May your love be strong, your judgment be light, your tears be temporary, and your stars be bright. Happy holidays, everyone. And a very VERY happy new year.

xoxox sarah

Well, it’s cold. This morning I woke up to snow on the hills above my parents’ house. Technically, Tucson is the high desert, which means it can get cold, but this was a surprise. When I came out here several weeks ago to work, I brought a load of shorts and t-shirts, my bathing suit, and one very lightweight sweatshirt. Which made walking my dog this morning in the 45 degree post-storm clear light a real adventure…

Brrr!

But that’s not the only thing that’s turned out differently than I thought. In general, this has been a strange year. I don’t think most folks would argue that. We’ve got Occupy Wall Street, the Greek and Eurozone crisis, strange multiples of GOP candidate debates that rival Saturday Night Live for entertainment value, the highest poverty population in the history of the U.S….And that’s just the beginning. There are earthquakes in Oklahoma, freak blizzards in New York in October…There are breakups and makeups and takeups and shakeups galore. And I’m no exception.

I came out here to think about my life and work on finishing up all the songs and demos for my new album. I made myself practice and write everyday. I stayed way longer than I thought I would (hence nothing but shorts), including spending my birthday alone for the first time in my life (it was nice).

The view from my birthday...

And then…I realized something. It wasn’t working. I threw it all out. I went upstairs and turned on the computer and started writing…something completely different.

I can’t define exactly what this project is yet…Can’t let you in on the secret till I know it for sure myself. But I’m losing myself in the work again, which is surely a good sign. Have patience with me, dear lovely blog visitors. I think it’s going to be cool. It just may take a little longer than I thought…xoxox sarah

This summer has been full of trips: emotional trips, family trips, vacation trips, but no drug trips. At least, not unless somebody’s been tampering with my coffee, which would actually explain a lot!

BUT, the biggest trip of all, the one that never ends, is the constant journey of the musician cycle. It goes like this: you write, you record, you go on the road and perform what you’ve recorded, you realize what you’ve missed from your last recording, you go back home and you start to write again. Something like that. That said, I’ve been on performance”sabbatical” in 2011–first time in 10 years. It’s been good. It’s given me a lot of time to write and get re-inspired and bake…

Lemon meringue with a lemon hibiscus!

And…Tackle learning Pro Tools.

The look of a new song!

For those of you who don’t use Pro Tools, my feelings about it can be summed up beautifully in a t-shirt my friend saw on a guy. On the front it said, ” I heart Pro Tools”; on the back it said, “F**K Pro Tools”!

So in other words, I’ve been keeping busy. I’m going to get back to work on figuring out my EZ Drummer plugin now (which I am convinced is an oxymoron). But I want to leave you with a couple things: one, I’m getting that performance itch. Lookout–I’m going to be touring again soon! Two, there’s going to be a new album in the next few months, and I think you’re going to like it. If I may be so bold. And I may.

Some pics from summer follow!

Me happy on a beach..

Kayaking in Kauai...

If you don't get inspired here, you're nuts!

The Grand Finale..

When I was a pup, just starting out on my own and in music, I owned a 1977 VW bus named Biku. My surfer Buddhist friend Craig, whom everyone called Buddha Craig (duh), named it for me when I brought it up to my parents’ house in Tucson after spending $800 on it and getting another friend to help me find an air cool valve for it in a salvage yard so it would start. The van was beautiful: kind of light brown, with a darker brown and saffron interior. Craig pronounced that it was just like the Tibetan monks’ robes and that this van would be my teacher, or Biku. (Actually I think the real term is Buku but what did we know.) Since I was fully in the throes of my most hippy times, I loved this. I plopped a statue of the Goddess Tara on the dashboard, hung a crystal from the rear view mirror (!), managed to get my guitar and clothes and music and motorcycle (!!!) inside, and set off to drive cross country.

My friend Buddha Craig and me at the beach...

I couldn't find any shots of Biku. This one isn't the right color, but the rest of it looks like my van...

Early one morning I chugged off East into the sunrise, passing through the rocky canyons and flatlands of Eastern Arizona and New Mexico, winding my way around the little highways and at some point down into the far upper left corner of Texas. Since my Biku was only 4 cylinders and about as aero-dynamic as a cinder block, it was critical to stay off the interstates. One semi passing me was like a death fight to keep the van on the road.

Anyway, I rolled into a little town and parked in front of a cafe for breakfast where the morning special read “Jesus loves you.”  Jesus sounded delicious but I had waffles. When I went outside to motor on towards Austin, Biku wouldn’t start. Nothin’. Not a turn, nothin’. Seeing my struggles, a handsome cowboy strode over and introduced himself as Wes Briscoe ( I kid you not–this guy had a handlebar mustache and everything)…He towed me to his friend’s shop, who pronounced the starter “challenged” and showed me how to crawl underneath and whack on the contacts with a crescent wrench to get the van to start.

I was thrilled. I loved rolling under Biku in the middle of a mall parking lot and going “Whack! Whack! Whack!” then promptly rolling out, brushing off my knees and hopping up into the bus again to putter on my way. (I told you I was very young.)

Biku and I drove all over our beautiful country. We drove across the South in the middle of summer with no air conditioning. We only had a radio, so we chugged up and down the Tennessee mountains with the fireflies twinkling ahead of us, old-timey music fading in and crackling away again and back in once more around the bend.

In the fall I moved to Austin, Texas. I had visited once before to see some friends I had made while hitch-hiking around the South Island of New Zealand and fallen in love with the town. In one week I think I had seen 5 live music shows, including Austin staples Asylum Street Spankers and Bob Schneider. This would be my town, and Biku got me there…I found an apartment and started my sheer vertical learning curve in the music world. I wrote and I played until and after my fingers blistered and bled. I fell in love, I got my heart broken, and Biku drove me home every night. I drove down to Big Bend National Park with friends and camped out under the stars and swam in natural hot springs and drove home at 30 miles an hour because a cylinder blew out and now I only had 3. (That was a really really long drive.)

One day my dad called and told me my mom couldn’t sleep at night, worrying about me driving around in that old bus with the engine in back, the bus with no power steering that had made my arms so strong, the bus with the hazard lights stuck on so I was forever waving to people wondering if I needed help and yelling out that it was just an old bus, the bus that I had driven up and down the Rocky Mountains on the shoulder of a two lane highway so that everyone could pass me, puffing away up the peaks at 20 miles an hour straight into the belly of an angry thunder storm and down away again…

So I sold it. I sold my Biku to a really nice guy who was going to live in it for 6 months and climb a bunch of mountains in Canada. I sold it and I watched him drive away and I went inside and cried. I got a Ford Expedition which was wonderful and reliable and incredibly safe and held lots of gear and took me on tour and was not Biku.

I grew up.

Now I live in Los Angeles. In Los Angeles people love their cars. I like to be a rebel even though I’m a grown up now, so I wash my 14 year old Expedition twice a year whether it needs it or not. People love their cars. But nobody loves their cars like I loved my Biku. Tonight we are on the cusp of summer, the jacaranda trees are finishing raining down their purple blossoms, Van Morrison is playing on the stereo. I’m happy. But I miss my Biku so much.

Or maybe it’s not Biku I miss. Maybe I’m just looking for a 4-cylinder memory that carried me away on my young dreams and reminds me that the road ahead is long, and it is lovely. It really is a lovely ride.