Starnes&Shah follows bassist, Jerrick Haddad, to his home state of CT. Check out ‘Leave Sonny’ from our show at Cousin Larry’s.
August 16, 2009
TOUR VIDEO: Cousin Larry’s, Danbury CT
August 5, 2009
TOUR VIDEO: PA’s – Cambridge, MA
First time performing Estimate and Then. Dawn Warfield on cinematography, and yes, Dawn, we did get sea sick watching.
July 8, 2009
June 23, 2009
TOUR DIARY: Make Music Cambridge
Being on tour has been one hell of an educational experience for us. In addition to seeing some great cities and meeting some great people, we’ve learned a whole lot about being a musician is really about – well, we think we have.
Thus far the secret ingredients appear to be love and tenacity. The first one goes without saying and the second cannot exist without it. You have to love what you do. But love isn’t enough if you want to love what you do and do what you love. You gotta be tenacious.
If you don’t fuse yourself like a barnacle to to the oyster that is the world of music, the current will take that oyster and you’ll be left behind no matter how much love you night have. And yes, that current will go to good and bad places like – the best show you’ve ever played with an enthusiastic crowd – or – the worst show you’ve ever played with a crowd staring at you quiet, puzzled and the sound system playing tricks on your ears (which you know are better).
Yes, being an artist can go either way but those terms are disclosed from the get go. There is never a guarantee that things will turn out as expected. In fact, we’ll go out on a limb and guarantee that things are sure to play out contrary to what was expected!
But if you’re really in it, that won’t matter.
On tour, there are plenty of litmus tests to determine whether or not you’ve got the goods. For us, the tests came even before the tour. We’d like to think we passed.
We left a great organization and a comfortable Astoria apartment in search of a life where being broke musicians was more possible. That was a tough decision and despite the expected self-doubt we stuck with it. That was the beginning of our training in tenacity – all fueled by love of course. And we’re still here!
Make Music Cambridge is an outdoor festival that brings a diverse group of musicians to perform their work for free in lovely Harvard Square. The festival was a huge success last year and they decided to plan one for 2009.
Naturally, S&S were stoked when they were accepted to play at a spot with electricity because it meant the full band could perform to many passersby. So, we arrived from New York hot to play, but the rain had different plans.
The festival planners were besides themselves, but they were determined to make this event happen for the musicians that showed up and few listeners that came out in spite of the rain.
We were lucky to have those planners on our side when we realized that our designated spot was no covered and hence not suitable for our much anticipated full band set.
We tried to wait it out, but the rain persisted and the air was thick with moisture. It wasn’t looking good. The planners suggested two spots and after plenty of soggy jogging in the rain from spot to spot we settled on a spot in a teashop/cafe called Dado Tea (thank you Dado for letting us play inside even though that wasn’t part of the plan!).
Still, it had been a long five days for S&S. Between the deer incident and driving over 20 hours in four days, we were almost ready to throw in the towel and just go home especially when we saw that festival attendance was extremely low and that new spot in Dado tea could not accommodate Jerrick and Ariel’s gear.
Were we disappointed that things weren’t turning out as expected, sure? But, we decided to stick to our guns and play because the disappointment of not playing would have been greater than playing an altered acoustic set.
The truth is we love to sing: Anytime, anywhere, no matter what the circumstance – we are not picky and here’s a promise we’ll never become picky. So, we sang.
At first Dado’s patrons were a bit shocked as they weren’t expecting a live performance in the shop, but we’re happy to say that they came around and seemed happily entertained. We even stirred the interest of a few passersby! Ariel Bernstein joined us on his snare drum for a few songs and Jerrick Haddad and Dawn Warfield acted as camera man and band rep. A good time was had by all, and after we wrapped up our set we knew we would have felt foolish letting a chance to sing go.
So, DIY artists, our thinking is: if you’re lucky enough to love something as much we love singing, then don’t turn your back on any opportunity to do it no matter how unglamorous it may be. It was a great time! Even if we didn’t get our big outdoor full band show to large groups. We did get to look out and see Jerrick and Dawn’s smiling supportive faces. For us, that along with the chance to sing is plenty.
June 22, 2009
June 21, 2009
TOUR DIARY: NYC from eggs to Kenny’s Castaways
New York! New York!
Happy to be alive, Z and I decided to again err on the side of caution and drive to NY on Thursday night rather than rush down on Friday before our much anticipated :), rescheduled due to the flu, CD release show at Kenny’s Castaways.
This strange June rain persisted and we essentially swam from Boston to NY state. Once we arrived, we cozied up for a good night’s sleep and dreamed of the all the fun we’d have the next day with our friends in NY, many of whom we hadn’t seen since our move to Boston.
We woke up on Friday to a bright NY summer day – luck was on our side again as the rain gods decided to have mercy on us. We drove down beloved 9A towards New Rochelle to visit D’s cousin Maha and enjoy a delicious brunch at her restaurant Brickyard Bistro.
The eggs Benedict were a hit! If you’re in southern Westchester and need some good eats and comfy ambiance swing by Maha’s and she’ll take care of you with her warm Lebanese hospitality and entertaining stories and jokes.
Driving into the city was eventful as usual. We got cutoff, cutoff a few people ourselves, got the finger, and indulged the nostalgic pit-pat of our hearts as we drive over the TriBorough bridge (which is now called the RFK…weird…it’ll always be TriBorough to us).
In the West village, we snagged a parking right in front of Kenny’s Castaways and began setting up our gear. The guys arrived shortly and after soundcheck they went to Mamoun’s Falafel to grab some tasty Falafel Sandwiches. (A good meal before hand is essential for a good performance.)
Our 7pm start came quick and we pulled ourselves away from our friends, many of whom we had not seen in months, and we went on.
Our setlist was high energy and we were beaming with the joy, thankful to have survived the deer incident and happy to perform for our friends and Kenny’s friendly crowd.
Thank you to all who came out and made our homecoming show so special. And thanks to Kenny’s for hosting the event.
After the show, we all made our way down Sullivan Street to the Red Bench for drinks, a laugh, a great ham and cheese sandwich from a New York deli, more drinks and more laughter.
After a night of happy reunions and much encouragement from friends, S&S rested easy, and feeling good about taking the frightening leap into full fledged folk-rockhood.
For us, it’s all about good music, people, and places. We feel so blessed to have this band and these songs to make our life so fulfilling.
June 20, 2009
Dania’s Playlist: Colin Hay – Wayfaring Sons
This song brings me to my second year out of college. The relationship mentioned in the previous post had finally ended and like an old beloved car that’s just too damn dangerous to drive, there was undeniable relief when it gave out.
I moved to New York and began again the work of trying understand where I fit in all of it. Many nights I hobbled home sobbing for the pain of lost love and difficulty of starting over alone. I began watching the TV show Scrubs for comic relief and through the show’s soundtrack I discovered the recent work of Colin Hay. I do love the song “Down Under” by Men at Work, but I will admit that I was quite shocked when I found out that ‘that guy’ was producing such different work.
Hay has given up the cheesy beats and silly flash-in-the-pan kitch for a pensive acoustic repertoire of a man who’s seen, regretted, and learned a lot. As a scholar, artists like Hay are the wise men a little battered, a little worn, a little uncomfortable. They have a quiet lament about them that echo Blake’s songs of experience and even the most eager pupil has to take a moment to question the path of an artist when they glimpse those farther ahead, wizened in the distance.
Perhaps the discomfort lies in the fact that for artists the obviously perilous path – the one that most pragmatic types would turn down in a heart beat – is the only path. There is no choosing or turning down. Colin Hay’s voice aches with the pain of this reality and the certainty of loss.
In “Wayfaring Sons,” he sings of travel and loss under love’s big red umbrella. When I hear it, I am reminded of New York’s October and a soaked avenue that was my path to realizing that even though I was far away from my first, greatest love Lebanon and whatever failed relationships followed, the hope to living to tell would sustain me.
I sailed across the sea, my family and me, never knew if I’d return in my memory I yearn…I dream of lying in the sun with my friends and whiskey’s flowing.
Hay sings and my heart still skips a beat. In the rest, I know I have lost both places and people and I will lose more. I know not to covet the power to turn back the clock and to relish the gifts of dreaming and remembrance and the music which has been there all along.
June 19, 2009
Dania’s Playlist: Lucinda Williams – Sweet Side
With a few good lessons under my belt, I began another one of those years that I qualify as tough. I had graduated and begun working and found myself in a college relationship who’s expiration was long past. Having been somewhat traumatized by change and loss, my instinct was to cling to what I knew despite the clear signs that parting ways was what was best for both of us.
Our blind tenacity, although we thought it the most loyal act, was in fact the worst thing we could have done to each other. As in every ending relationship, some ugly stuff goes down and no one side can come out clean and innocent.
Still, amid the horror of certain failure there were moments where we chose to make temporary peace. Those were the moments we looked back because there was no looking ahead. Instead of communicating our mutual anger over the clearly empty future, we reminisced and laughed all while drinking heavily of course.
This song by Lucinda Williams always reminds me of those brief time outs where we cut one another a bit of slack. For me “Sweet Side” it’s a reminder that we each have a story and when shared with another, the two are bonded, if only for a limited space in time. It is also a reminder that apologies are not as valuable as understanding, forgiveness, and a sense of humor, caustic as it may be.
June 18, 2009
TOUR DIARY: Oh Deer – Folk/Rock gets Gruesome
It’s been a crazy week, and we’re not just talking about this wacky weather we’re having (two weeks of non-stop rain in June?!). Last weds, the band piled into the tour van de jour (this time a ford escape called Essex, thank you ZipCar) and we made our way to Montpelier, VT.
The air in VT is so clean and so fresh, it makes you wonder how all of us city dwellers can turn down locations like this in favor of gritty urban landscapes where the air comes heavily seasoned with stuff you won’t find on mama’s spice rack!
Jerrick’s friends and lovely S&S supporters, Claire and Amy, gave us a warm Montpelier welcome as did Robert at the Langdon Street Cafe who gave us grilled cheeses and BLT’s on the house. Yup, it’s good to be the entertainment.
We met
While we always have a good time playing, this show was a bit of a lesson to us DIY musicians. The Langdon Street Cafe had a pretty nice PA and some stage monitors. We jumped right in and did our best to get the levels right, but unfortunately, we were a a bit confused about the monitor levels which resulted in an exercise we like to call: playing without hearing … anything :)
We are happy to report that we didn’t miss a single break or stop. We hope it sounded good to the folks listening. We did check in with them every once in a while and they nodded their heads in approval of the mix.
So, the moral of the story is: better have the audience hear ya loud, clear and pretty than not :) Or maybe the moral is: if you’re playing at a venue with a sound tech, be nice to them and appreciate them! They do some awesome work to keep bands and audiences happy!
After the show, we settled in to listen to the “Like Bells” set, which was a beautiful collection of instrumental compositions that our bassist Jerrick described as a mix between
Once the evening was over, our DIY chariot was soon to become a pumpkin as we all had to go to our respective jobs in the morning in Boston – three hours away!
So, we packed up the van, said our goodbyes to Claire, Amy, and the Montpelier breeze and went on our merry way.
Since, it was midnight and we were in the woods, Zilpha advised me to drive behind a truck just in case anything, like a deer or moose, pops out.
Zilpha is by far the most cautious member of Starnes&Shah, and I love to roll my eyes at Z’s penchant for uber-safety and preparation. Still, all eye rolls and jokes aside, I recognized that Z’s advice was indeed good and took heed. And boy were we lucky.
At around 1 am, we were chatting jovially, recounting the show and discussing other topics when all of a sudden, I saw hooves moving fast before my eyes. I couldn’t believe it, could a deer be darting in between me and my protector truck?
It seemed to be rushing from right to left and for a split nano-second my brain thought it would clear our car, until what my eyes were seeing finally registered and sent the message to my brain.
The hooves moving furiously before my eyes were in fact not on the ground, and the movement was more of a rolling rather than running. I finally understood: this deer had been hit by our protector truck, come out from under it and was now tumbling towards us! My body must have produced enough adrenaline to fill an Olympic pool. My surroundings got very quiet, my eyes focused, and my hands pulled the wheel quickly and sharply to the left – as far as I could go without hitting the median. The deer stopped tumbling and we cleared it by less than a foot.
After our initial sighs of relief, the S&S tour car was silent as we all took a moment to consider how lucky we were, how unlucky that deer was, and how quickly everything happens – the good and the bad.
Dania’s Playlist: Tori Amos – Sugar
I won’t say I caught on to Tori Amos late, because I did hear her music in Lebanon when Crucify was released. I will say that at the time I was completely unable to grasp her work. I remained this way for quite sometime until a college love interest insisted that I reconsider. In addition to not understanding Tori, I had a curiously strong aversion to her approach to art. I felt she was out of control and had no grasp of her craft. According to me, she had given herself completely, dangerously to her art and that rendered her a spectacle that was tragic and irrelevant.
It’s hard to commit such misguided opinions to writing, but I have to own what I thought and remind myself that I was (and will always be) a student of music and art at the time. Boy did I have a lot to learn! After years of resistance, I accepted an invitation to see Tori Amos live on her “Scarlet’s Walk” tour. It was a solo show and the stage had nothing on it except Tori’s regular Bosendorfer piano. I crossed my arms and prepared to be “underwhelmed.” Of course, the opposite happened, and there I was, again, watching a performer and learning a lesson whose value to me as an artist is immeasurable.
Tori sang and I listened. I even reacted. I couldn’t understand all the words , but I understood the songs. For Tori, the words alone aren’t enough. Her voice and body share an equal role in delivering the music. This encourages the listener to venture into a world of greater, less judgmental understanding as daunting and weird as it may be. I was completely enamored and I’m sure my partner at the time took a great deal of pleasure in watching me eat my words.
The solo show was just the beginning of my Tori training. I received a Tori Primer that had full-band, solo, live, and studio recordings on it. As a scholar, my materials were rich and plenty. The lessons where the same. I began to see the folly of my initial opinions. I got to know Tori as a skilled craftswoman who had mastered the one task that determines the success of an artist: choice.
Everything for her is a choice that has been given plenty of thought to yield plenty of effect. From her seemingly unhinged on-stage antics, to diction and her selection of backing musicians, Tori runs the show with her eyes wide open. This is the hard work of being an artist and for those who cannot watch or entertain the very true possibility of their being great value to that art: there is only time to reconsider.
This live arrangement of “Sugar” is my favorite Tori song because she chooses to deviate from the studio arrangement and reinterpret the song’s power with Matt Chamberlain’s chilling drum beat and her fierce piano and vocal lines. It’s multi-dimensional, living, breathing, frightening, beautiful, hideous… and I am right there front row every time.
