Nessie Notes - Tour Diary and Travel Tales

europe tour, 2010

2010-05-03T19:46:00.004-05:00

Another long tour has come to a close.

I’m sitting in the Texas sun, grateful to be on solid ground and not stranded overseas due to more volcanic activity. I’m grateful to be home with my friends and family, and I’m already missing my friends and family that I just left behind. I suppose it is my fate (initially, it was my choice) to live my life straddling the Atlantic Ocean, a part of me always missing the side that I am not on.

This was a fabulous tour in so many ways. The Italian shows were some of the best we’ve ever had. We were lucky to be graced with the presence of cellist and pianist Guglielmo Gagliano for a week of the shows, and it was awesome. Just when we got super comfortable on stage with each other… the tour ended. That’s what always happens. When your band lineup is constantly changing, you only get a few shows to settle into the groove, and once you’ve settled in, you spring out again and onto another country and another lineup. I’m glad for the few shows we did get to do with Ghando – here’s the link to one of them, live on Radio Popolare in Milano. There are 4 live tracks interspersed with chatter (take a listen and laugh at my TexItalian accent if you like).

We closed out the tour, as always, with an absolutely stellar show at the Velvet. Our lineup has changed considerably over the years – on stage that night, Manuel and I were the only original members of ICOM – but we are so blessed to count so many talented musicians among our friends, and we were so glad to have our long-time stand-in bassist, Gabriele Galimberti, on stage with us, and our new drummer, Dodi Wiemuth, plus Guglielmo on cello & piano. The Velvet stage is tiny but we crammed on there and did ourselves proud. Thanks, guys, for sharing your talent with me over the years. You are all amazing. Of course, enormous and special thanks goes to Manuel Schicchi, who has made all of these years of touring possible with his patience and hard work and dedication – and killer guitar licks, of course.

After the Italian tour, I flew up to Denmark to do a tour with my good friend MC Hansen and the Danish band The Sentimentals. MC & I did some wonderful house concerts, and The Sentimentals & I had three fantastic concerts together – again, just enough time to let loose, and then it was time to pack up again. We made some great friends along the way, and one amazing fan, Jesper, who created a Danish fan page for us, which you can check out here!

We also did the last show with my friend Sarah MacDougall, a Swedish-Canadian songstress who will knock your songs off when she comes to Texas to tour with me in August. Yeehaw!
A big thank you to Mads & Carina for taking such good care of me in Sweden & Denmark, and to The Sentimentals for learning my songs so quickly and playing so well. I can’t wait to get back to Scandinavia.

By a stroke of good luck, I boarded a plane from Copenhagen to Amsterdam on April 14 – one day before the entire European airspace was closed for a week due to the Icelandic volcano eruption. That would have been an unbelievable disaster if I had been stranded in Denmark, because we had a 12-day tour in Holland, Belgium, and Germany that started on the 15th.

We picked up where we left off with our good friend Alex Akela on violin, mandolin, and bass guitar. Alex is wonderful and always steps back on stage with grace and aplomb and never misses a beat or a note. It’s like he’s been on tour with us all year long. We had some wonderful shows in Holland, thanks to our booking agent Hans Jacobs at Stars’n’Strings, who always finds us great venues to play. The theater in Zwolle was especially wonderful, and our great friend (and host – thank you!) Klaas took some lovely photos of that show and you can see them here!

When we left Holland, we headed to Belgium for a few days, and spent an absolutely marvelous time at our hostel in Gent. This wasn’t just any hostel – it was EcoHostel Andromeda, and it was on a boat! Liselot and her architect husband Maarten designed and and restored the whole thing from an old rusty boat that they bought a few years ago. Everything is super-insulated and energy-efficient, and they recycle and compost everything. They use rain water for the toilets, and serve a delicious vegetarian / fair-trade breakfast. AND they are the nicest people ever. Wonderful and hospitable. I have never been so sad to leave a hostel. Check them out if you are traveling through Belgium.

Our shows in Belgium were awesome too – especially the one at Den Heksenketel, where we almost sold out of all our merch! Thank you, Evergem! Unfortunately I got sick the next day and basically lost my voice, which made our show at De Blauwe Plek pretty damn hard, but the audience was very kind and quiet and patient with my whispery thin vocals. :)

After Belgium we headed to Germany for two more shows. We played a private birthday party for our friends Peter & Katrin (who also took us out to a stupendous lunch on Sunday – thank you!!), and we returned to the lovely Bonni Haus in Gelsenkirchen. Both shows were great, made all the better by the presence of the Leibecke family, who always rolls out the red carpet when we come into town. It’s so nice to have a home on the road, and we are really lucky to have found them. They are always so kind to us, and it was such a lovely way to end the tour.

There are plenty of tour photos – here’s the public link to the Facebook albums (viewable even if you don’t have a Facebook account):

April shows
Italian tour

I’m back in Texas… have a few shows coming up, as well as the Texas Music Awards ceremony in a few weeks (eek! What to wear??) and then I’m going to take a bit of a break for a while. I’ve been burning the candle at both ends and straight through the middle so I’m finally going to listen to my grandmother, my mother, and everyone else who has said – hey, get some rest! Rest assured, rest is on the schedule. :)

with love and gratitude,
vanessa

vanessa peters goes outlet on you guys

2010-01-27T17:47:00.007-06:00

hey everyone!
i won't even apologize for not writing in this blog lately... i throw my hands up in despair. :) the fall of 2009 was so ridiculously busy, with shows all across the country in september & october, and shows in 5 countries in november, that i got to december completely winded, completely out of breath. i promptly got sick, got better, got sick again, got really sick, lost my voice (in the middle of tour!) and am now well again, thank goodness.

but i've learned that my insane tour schedule + booking + facebook + myspace + breathing just takes up more than the 24 hours allotted to me every day. so some things are going to have to fall by the wayside... and whether i like it or not, this blog seems to keep falling that way. hopefully i'll pick it back up and be a regular blogger like i once was, because i miss it. it was a great way to talk to all of you, and to record my travels... without it, they become kind of blurry in the rearview. but that's how it is.

BUT! that's not why i'm writing. :)
i recently re-ordered some copies of "sweetheart" (hooray!) and the printer did a less than stellar job (bummer). the audio cds are completely perfect but the artwork printed a little darker than i would have liked. so now i've got all of these cds that i want to unload quickly so i can order new ones.

SO! if you've been wanting to order "sweetheart" but just hadn't gotten around to it, here's your chance! i'm selling these copies for only $7 dollars + FREE shipping! That's cheaper than iTunes, cheaper than anywhere on the internet. These are brand-new copies, and I'll gladly autograph them if you like. Here's the link to buy the "outlet" version of "Sweetheart":

I'm also running a big sale on tees. I'm trying to clean out my inventory before the next album comes around... I have a pretty limited stock left but the tees that I have are now on sale for $8 and SHIPPING IS FREE! Here's the button for you to order the tees... just click on it to see which sizes and colors are still available.

Thank you so much for these orders - it will be very helpful since I'm headed out on another 3 month tour shortly....

big love from a little boat,
vanessa

fish'n'chips, the cords that tie us to modern life, meet me in montana

2009-11-09T17:30:00.014-06:00

We’re driving up to Cambridge and London for a few days of free time before the tour picks up steam again. The end is finally in sight – it’s been a long year of many many miles and many stages and though it’s been fun, I’m beginning to get the shakes just thinking about sleeping in my own bed.

After wrapping up the US tour, we flew over to Italy and had a few days to gather our wits (and gear) about us before we headed up to England for this tour. We drove in our own car because it was cheaper than flying and honestly, we had far too much gear to fly – we’re out on the road for a month, and between clothes and CDs and guitars and cables and everything else, we would have been laughed out of the airport if we’d decided to go that route. So we drove.

While we were packing, we began to realize exactly how much STUFF we have to (choose to) bring on tour…between ipods and the GPS and blackberries and regular phones and scotch tape and duct tape and masking tape and different adaptors for every cell and computer charger… to think it used to be a guitar and a microphone….

box full of maps and books

box full of cords and electronics

food box!

success! the best part is that i don't remember how i did it... so i can keep playing!

Anyhow, we decided to pass through Paris on our way to Calais – I have an old friend living there and we needed a good place to break up the drive. Google Maps had suggested that we pass through Germany but we paid no heed…and paid dearly for it. I think the suggestion arises largely from the fact that the roads in Germany are free… and the roads in France aren’t. From Manuel’s house to the Italian border, we paid 45 euro in Italian tolls; we then paid 35 euro simply to drive through the Mont Blanc tunnel. By the time we got to Calais to catch our ferry, we’d paid another 60 euro in tolls to cross France. On top of that, we made a very distressing discovery the first time we filled our tank in France.

Manuel’s car is dual-fuel powered; it runs on regular gasoline/petrol and on LPG – liquid petroleum gas, which is significantly cheaper than gasoline (about 55p per liter instead of 1.05 per liter). Apparently every country in Europe uses a different nozzle for pumping LPG and you have to have an adaptor for each one. This was a total shock to us; electrical outlets, yes. Monetary units, okay. Driving on different sides of the road, no problem. But adapters for putting fuel in your car?? Really?? Needless to say we were in a bit of a panic at that point, having just spent 80 euro on tolls in the span of 10 minutes and knowing that we had all of France to cross…and knowing that now we’d be paying 1.40 euro instead of .60 euro per liter. Panic set in.

But at the same time – what could we do? Neither of us speaks French. So we filled the car and drove on in the pouring rain, desperate to get to Paris and friendly faces. We arrived at long last, nearly 14 hours after we left Castiglion, and had our first real stroke of good luck all day – a parking spot directly outside of their apartment! Zoe and Pascal welcomed us into their lovely little flat, located in the Sacre Coeur district of the city. After a late dinner we climbed up to the cathedral, as much to stretch our legs as to see the church.

The next morning we hurried out the door to get to Calais, where we were to catch our ferry to Dover. We got there with plenty of time to spare, but we were held up at the border crossing while they investigated my work papers. Computers were down and it took forever, so we missed our ferry, but luckily there was another in just half an hour so we were able to catch that one. I was excited by the crossing in a very childlike way – it had been forever since I’d been on a boat (strange, as my friend Marybeth pointed out, since most of the songs on our new record are nautical in theme). We threw our budget to the wind, said to hell with our sandwiches in the car, and ordered two big plates of fish and chips and ate by the window, watching the cliffs of Dover come into view.

"coffee" and "soup" from a machine...

Our first show was that same night, at a lovely little pub called The Beehive in the town of Swindon. The audience was warm and friendly, and it was a nice, gentle way to start the tour – no high-pressure theatre stage, no stressful drunken crowd to sing over. Just really kind people in a lovely atmosphere.

Getting ready for bed that night, I encountered my old nemesis – the English faucet. Can someone please explain this to me? Why on earth is there a tap for the hot water (always very very hot) and a separate tap for the cold (always very very cold)? There is no way to wash your face without burning the everlovin’ skin off your hands and face. I usually cup my hands under the cold water, fill them a third of the way, then add the boiling hot water to the mix and achieve something reasonable…but goodness, it’s a lot of work.

The next morning we woke and drove to get our LPG adaptor – for a mere 35 pounds. Gaaaaaahhhh. We had found it online for 5 euro but couldn’t figure out the logistics of ordering and shipping it. In any case, we finally filled up the car (for 20 pounds instead of 45, which was nice) and headed to Bedford. We made a quick detour in Oxford, where we had lunch with my friend Sarah, who got her masters there. Just walking around the buildings and the library made me itch to be back in school. The rain had abated, if only briefly, we had a really pleasant couple of hours there.

the market in Oxford

Our show that night was at Harpur in Bedford was organized by Jez Brown, who puts on the Bedford Live shows. It was great fun – the venue was lovely, the food was stellar, and we really enjoyed ourselves. A local band called Tinker Jack opened for us and they were fantastic – very talented folks.

The next morning we took a detour to Cambridge to see our friend Franco, a guy from Manuel’s hometown who is waiting tables in Cambridge. The world is so tiny – he has been working for two years at the venue where I played in Cambridge in August 2007. We went there for lunch and when we pulled up I just busted out laughing – I couldn’t believe it was the same one. We had an awesome three hour lunch – the place is run by a guy from Castiglion Fiorentino, actually, so we had a typical lunch of antipasti, cheeses, olives, salami, bread, followed by pasta and all accompanied by lots of red wine… it was a miracle that we were able to stop eating long enough to get in the car and head to our show in Bristol.

Our show in Bristol was nice as well – we played a venue called The Prom, and we played on Guy Fawkes Day, so I was a bit worried. GF Day is Fireworks Day in the UK and I was expected a pub full of loud and drunken revelry, but instead we had a nearly listening room environment and even sold a good number of CDs. A nice surprise.

The next day we slept in, took a walk across the Clifton Bridge (an early Victorian engineering wonder – one of the world’s first suspension bridges, hanging gracefully over the Avon Gorge), and had a quick lunch at Pieminster (absolutely fantastic pies…. Free-range meat, everything locally sourced, hand-made pastry crust… just delicious). We then headed back east to East Grinstead, south of London. If you’ve been following on the map, you’ll see that we’ve crossed the country at least four times by now – Dover to Swindon to Bedford to Cambridge to Bristol to EG….only to head back west the next day (and today we’re headed east again…good thing the distances here are so much more manageable).

Clifton Bridge in Bristol

Our venue in EG was another little gem called Grub Café. One of our fans, Terry, helped get us booked here, and he and his lovely wife Vicki put us up for the night at their cozy little house in Seven Oaks. One of my favorite things about England so far, dueling faucets aside, is the trend towards local everything. Every café we’ve eaten at has locally-sourced produce, meat, grain…everything is fresh and handmade and there’s a real attention to the taste of the food. The dinner we had at Grub was simple – chicken breast for me, a burger for Manuel – but it was outstanding. The owner, Steven, is really passionate about good food and good music, and I hope they continue providing a home for both for a long time to come.

That night, as we drove to Terry and Vicki’s house, we were searching in vain for a radio station. Something is weird with our radio (another European stumbling block?) and we can’t seem to pick up any British stations – maybe one or two on the whole dial. We managed to get a BBC radio station tuned in (with a great deal of static) and we listened to the program for a while. They were trying to get people to call in songs with all 50 state names. We caught the number so I called in for the heck of it – I had already though of songs for Iowa, Mississippi, Louisiana, New York, and Montana by the time someone finally picked up. We ended up being patched through to the DJ, who had me sing part of my song (I suggested “Meet Me in Montana” by Dan Seals) and it was pretty hilarious, because I sang it rather terribly (I wasn’t expecting to perform via cell phone that evening) and then the DJ asked me what I was doing in the UK, if I was on holiday, etc., and I had to admit that I was a musician on tour, which was pretty hilarious after my less-than-convincing debut on his program. But he got my name and wished us the best of luck on the tour and we got some free publicity out of a random late-night trivia phone call.

The next morning we had to get up very early and drive to Southampton – we were scheduled to play on the “Sally on Saturday” program on BBC Radio Solent, hosted by local TV and radio celebrity Sally Taylor. It was great fun – we played for a small studio audience, and Sally was super kind, as was Geoff, the producer of the program who had arranged for us to perform at the last minute. At some point I ended up telling the story of the previous night’s radio call-in, and I mentioned that I had no idea which radio program it was. Some listeners called into the studio to tell us we’d been on Paul Miller’s program on the very same BBC station – so the engineers were even able to copy the program from the archives for us, and now I have a CD of myself singing “Meet Me in Montana,” badly, on national radio. :)

From Southampton we headed across the southern coast of England, stopping for another round of fish and chips (natch) for lunch, as well as some locally produced Dorset ice cream (delish). We were lucky to be treated to a really gorgeous day, full sunshine, and thank goodness, because the Dorset and Devon countryside is some of the prettiest I’ve seen anywhere in the world. So green it seems impossible, the pastures full of sheep and cattle (no corn-fed cows here), manor homes that probably belonged to the Duke of Wessex himself, steep hills and sweeping valleys that lead out to steep Jurassic and Triassic cliffs that plunge down the cold waters of the English Channel below. Absolutely incredible.

English countryside

After winding through numerous country back lanes, we arrived at the home of Bob and Claire, our English booking agents and all-around marvelous people. We chatted with them about the previous nights’ gigs and then got ready for the night’s show at The Windjammer in Dartmouth. Another night of good food and good people, and then we both fell asleep in the car on the way home, so grateful to have someone else driving for a change.

We slept very late the next morning and then Bob & Claire took us on a walk along the cliffs near their home. There’s a lovely public footpath above the town of Sidmouth that apparently covers the entire coast of England, and we walked a bit of it and met some friendly cows along the way. It was bitterly cold and windy out, but there was a fragile, buttery sunshine that took the edge off a bit, and I must say that it was one of the prettiest places I’ve ever seen – and this in November. I can only imagine in spring or summer.

The English cow that I befriended

On a walk with Bob & Claire

After our cliffside walk, we went down into the town of Sidmouth for a pint of English ale and then headed back to Bob & Claire’s home to get ready for the night’s show. Our venue this time was in the seaside town of Lyme Regis (famous as being the setting for the French Lieutenant’s Woman) and we played the gorgeous Marine Theatre. Sadly the crowd was rather small (everywhere, there’s talk of the crisis) but they were absolutely wonderful and warm (in Italian they say “pochi ma buoni” – few but good). We sold a lot of CDs and really enjoyed talking to everyone after the show.

This morning we wanted to get up early and drive to Cambridge but it was foggy and cold out so we all slept in a bit and had a long breakfast with Bob & Claire before heading out. They used to run a place called Otterton Mill, which was a bakery/restaurant/music venue (my dream job) until they just couldn’t do it any longer – it just wore them out. Apparently it was a magical place – every single thing sourced locally – it was an old water mill, so they even ground their own spelt flour with grain from a farmer in nearby Lyme Regis – and live music every week of the year, every single show a sellout. They believe passionately in music and local food and are just wonderful people. We’ve already had many a conversation with them about the state of the world, and we all end up kind of vaguely depressed at the end of the conversation – but their dry British humor lightens the mood just in time.

It IS a state we’re in though. All the wildlife that’s disappearing, all of the people who are spend, spend, spending on things that will just be thrown away instead of investing in the world and its citizens, how we’re all made of 80% corn thanks to sodas and twinkies and hamburgers from corn-fed cattle, how the whole thing is so overwhelming that most people just want to sweep the disaster under the rug and go on with their earbuds in their ear and pop-candy playing on their iPods….it’s exhausting if you start to think about it. I, for one, have been thinking about it more and more in the last few years, and it’s very probable that these will be my last tours for a while. I can no longer justify the traveling (I shudder to think of the damage we’ve done with our flights and fast food and miles and miles of driving) and I really feel like we all need to get our hands dirty and pitch in and DO something before it’s too late. It may not be the apocalypse, but the world is changing, and we need to make sure it’s changing for the better. I am not sure what 2010 will bring us, but I hope to say that I’m somewhere making a difference. I do believe that music makes a difference, but I also believe that something a bit less abstract is needed, and though I’m just one person … each of us is just one person, and as a group of ones, we have gotten into this mess... and I do believe (I have to believe) that as a group of ones, we can get ourselves out. I certainly hope so.

Off to bed.... rest is needed around these parts. :)
Sweet dreams to you all.
v

acoustic remixes, ringtones, and lots of time on the road...

2009-05-24T13:50:00.003-05:00

Hey everyone!
Sorry it’s been so very long since I’ve written… my best excuse really is a good one. We spent the whole spring, from Jan 29 until April 28, on the road. We played … I’m not sure… 70 shows maybe? in 5 different countries and since we got home, I’ve been avoiding the computer as much as possible. :) Now I’ve jumped back in though, because I’m busy booking shows for our fall tour. We’re going to be:

* all over America (joined by our great friend Alex Akela!!)
* in the UK and Ireland (as an acoustic duo)
* in Holland, Germany, and Belgium (as an acoustic trio and sometimes as the band)

and possibly a few other European countries as well. If you want us to come to your town, play at your university, or do a house concert for you and your friends, just send me an email! You’ll find all the contacts under, well, contacts. :)

Other great stuff:
We are working on some acoustic versions of the songs from “Sweetheart” and if we have time/money, we’re hoping to release an acoustic EP this fall with some of the remixes. It will likely just be a digital release but we’ll see.

We already contributed one track (a guitar+cello+vanessa remix of “Coming to Meet Me”) to the “Save Paste” campaign. You can read more about that here and see the download vault full of songs (including ours!) here.

Also, we’ve jumped on the ringtone bandwagon! We decided “Okay From Now On” and “Little Films” were great places to start. I think OFNO makes the happiest ringtone ever. :)

This summer we’re playing a few festivals in the Netherlands and Italy before we head back to the States this fall for our big tour there. I guess that’s all…. I’ll try to be a better communicator, so check back for updates soon!

Big hugs,
Vanessa

big sale on tees!

2009-04-27T17:46:00.011-05:00

i'm trying to get my inventory back under control... so right now we're doing a special on these sizes and colors.... unless noted, these are unisex american apparel, 100% cotton tees...

right now they are only $10 with FREE domestic shipping!! (please add $3 for international shipping costs).

just send an email with your order to info@vanessapeters.com or place your order directly by using paypal. your paypal payment (which can be done with your bank or credit card) should go to acousticgirl01@hotmail.com.

CRANBERRY in small, medium, and large

FOREST in large only

BROWN in medium & large

ROYAL BLUE in small, medium, and large

GOLD in medium & large

BABY BLUE in small & medium

We also have our NEW PEGASUS TEES on sale in certain sizes and colors. These are only $12 with free S&H (again, please add $3 for international shipping). Please ignore the colors that aren't specifically listed below. :)

RED OR BROWN UNISEX in medium, large, and xl

BABY DOLL TEES - AQUA, BROWN, RED, or ASPHALT GRAY in small, medium, large, xl, and 2xl. Please be aware that these are more fitted than the unisex tees and run small!!!

Any questions, just shoot me an email. As an additional bonus - you can add a copy of our new album, "Sweetheart, Keep Your Chin Up," and we'll round the whole thing off to $22. BAM! Insta-summer-fun. :)

xoxo
vanessa

alpacas, graceland, and the full band (but not in that order)

2009-04-22T16:32:00.009-05:00

It’s late, and Skid Row is (regrettably) playing on my radio, probably for the first time ever. But it’s okay, because Manuel is driving and it’s keeping him awake. It’s 9:30 at night and we’re not even to Texarkana, which means that even if we grow wings, we probably won’t be home before 1 am. We actually started this journey at 8 pm yesterday evening, but a 5 hour detour through Graceland has kept us from getting home at a reasonable hour.

We began this tour what seems like months ago… and I guess if you count the Europe portion, it was months ago. The US tour began exactly a month and 7000 miles ago. We’ll wrap it up this weekend and by then we’ll easily be at 8000, maybe more.

We kicked everything off with some incredible full-band shows in Texas. It had been years since we’d played in Texas with the whole band, and I am so glad we finally got to do it again to celebrate the release of the new record. A big thank you goes out to Gabriele Galimberti and Aneil Naik for filling in on bass during that leg of the tour. We had some great shows with Salim Nourallah and Buttercup and Monco Pancho and just generally enjoyed those few weeks, hectic though they were.

Here are Gumo and Gabriele, pretending to be very rock'n'roll in our rehearsal space in Austin:

And here we are at my favorite rest stop on I-10. These guys would make great spokesmen for Dr. Pepper.

We played our show in Austin on April 4th; on April 5th, the Nessie Brown Trio (me, Manuel, and Gumo) loaded up the car and began our trek into the great (and still frozen) expanse of the Midwest. We had many a car argument as to why it’s called the Midwest – and looking at the map, it’s true, as the boys point out, that it’s more Mideast than west. I tried to explain the whole going-west thing but I am not sure they bought it. It’s amazing the things you can discuss (argue) when you have 10-12 hours to spend in the car (as siblings the world over know very well).

We drove north in a ferocious wind that even brought us a bit of snow somewhere near St. Louis (where we did jumping jacks in the parking lot of a rest area in some sort of mad effort to fend off sleepiness). We stayed the night with our new couch-surfing friends, Emma and Kyle, and then drove the next day to Chicago, where we stayed with the wonderful McDonough family. Manuel & Gumo made dinner and we all sat around talking until late into the evening, even though all of us had to get up very early the next morning.

The NBT had its first show in Waukesha, Wisconsin, at Waukesha County Technical College. Perhaps a strange way to start the tour, but it was a great one, not the least of which was due to the hospitality and kindness of Paul B. Wisconsinites (?) are some of the friendliest people I’ve encountered on the road. Chris in Lake Geneva, Kate in Sheboygan, and Brian & Nikki in Marshfield all did their best to make us feel loved and cuddled.

In the midst of all of this madness, we found out that Alberto would have to return to Austin for his INS interview, so we had to cancel our Minneapolis show (sorry, guys!) in order to take him to Chicago. We had to put the poor sucker on a Greyhoud for a 24-hour bus ride back to Austin….

After a few days off, Manuel and I did 5 shows as the acoustic duo. Thanks to the folks in Cincinnati (Donna Frank and the whole Top Cats gang) for the show on Friday, and thanks as well to the McDonough family and Cary Neeley for organizing two amazing house concerts in Chicago and Indianapolis. Those two shows were the perfect way to wrap up our northern tour.

We hung out for a day at Heather's house and made friends with the fluffiest alpacas I have ever seen:

Our Indy house concert wins the award for most creative venue so far...we played in a hair salon run by Cary Neeley. It was actually awesome - they did a great job organizing everything and getting people out on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Thanks to Heather and Cary and Lamar and Ernest and Kevin and everyone else who helped!

After the Indy house concert, we made one last stop at Roscoe’s Tacos (yay!!!)….it’s one of my favorite taco shacks, in Greenwood, Indiana, of all places. Their Texas Brushfire sauce is AMAZING.

Then Manuel and I started the drive back to Texas, stopping for the night at a rest area. I always feel most like a gypsy when I sleep at a rest area. I don’t do it too often but when I do, I always have bizarre dreams and I’m always a bit afraid to open my eyes when I awake, afraid I’ll see some random face peering back at me through the car window glass. Eek.

We woke to gorgeous, spring-time weather, and at Manuel’s behest, we made a small detour through Memphis so he could finally visit Graceland. He read an Elvis bio last year and he was dying to see it. First we stopped at Neely’s BBQ, a Memphis BBQ hotspot that has been featured on the Food Channel. It was pretty darn good, though maybe Peggy Sue’s is better.

As for Graceland….I have to say… it just made me sad. It was fun and kitschy and all the things you would expect, but just the thought of Elvis made me sad. For one, he was known for being a very generous man, always giving away money to strangers, cars to his secretaries, donations to charity… and it made me mad that our tickets were $35 each (plus $10 parking, natch), and I doubt much of it goes to anything other than the giant Elvis bank account. I remember reading that, even today, the Elvis empire makes millions and millions of dollars a year on trademarked items. Who knows where the money goes… but I hope some of it goes to a good cause.

Anyhow, it was sad for other reasons. This poor man made so many people mad with happiness, positively crazed with joy when they saw him perform…. but like so many people in his position, he was lonely. He was strung out on painkillers and didn’t have a lot of inner peace. He kept crazy hours because he couldn’t go out during the day without being beseiged by fans. I guess it’s the curse and the blessing of celebrity but it reminded me that I am quite happy doing my small house concerts and driving myself around in my own car. I am not sure I’d ever want the tour bus life.

After our afternoon at Graceland, we loaded up the car and finished the long drive to Dallas…. And I must say we arrived at the house, at 1 am, with completely fried brains. We’ve spent the last few days unloading the car, doing CD and tee inventory, doing laundry, entering receipts in Excel…all the exciting post-tour madness. And now we’ve got a few more shows this weekend before we head back across the seas.

Check us out on Twitter and check out the new videos posted on YouTube. (I've just linked one, there are several). And here's the photo album from the whole tour.

Thanks for reading, we'll see you there one day soon...
vp & icom.

piglet, the five lands, oatmeal and beer

2009-03-19T09:26:00.014-05:00

It's a sunny day in Texas and I'm trying to catch up on everything. My stomach is full (peach scone and fancy-schmancy breakfast burrito from Brasil) and I'm happy to be back home. But I just finished uploading all the pictures from the tour so I thought I would recap those 6 weeks of madness....

I think I left off somewhere in Italy. That was the busiest tour we've ever done in Italy - 24 shows in 28 days. Lots and lots and lots of driving up and down the A1 autostrada. We had a great time though. We got to play some shows with our new drummer, Dodi (who was the drummer from our old drummer Alberto's band The Gumo...confused yet?), and that was a blast. We so rarely get to play as the full band, and I love hanging out with these guys....they are so freaking funny, and fun to play with. I'm very lucky to be surrounded by such talented musicians.

We had a great show in Udine as part of a tribute series to Fabrizio de Andre, considered one of Italy's greatest songwriters. We stayed in this unbelievably deluxe agriturismo, ate like champs, and made a new friend, Nicolas from Slovenia (Udine is right on the Slovenia/Austria/Italy border area). We are not entirely sure why, but he kind of fell in love with me... and gave me a gift at the show: an oversized stuffed Piglet doll. You'll be seeing more of Piglet in blogs to come.

The drive back home from Udine was a typically epic adventure for us... should have been 4 hours, ended up being 9... it involved various forced detours (due to highway accidents) and the car window motor dying as we reach the Apennines (the cold mountains that we had to drive through on the way home). Manuel rolled down the window to pay yet another exorbitant toll and the window remained stuck ... so we had to bust out the duct tape and a handy piece of plastic:

While Manuel and Dodi taped the heck out of the window, I stayed in the back, shivering and hoping for the best, taking comfort in my new friend:

We finally did make it home, though we feared Dodi would never return to play with us after such an epic drive.... but happily we were wrong and we made it up to him the following weekend.

In the meantime, we had a trio show with Juri at the magnificent Folk Club in Torino... which remains one of the best venues I have ever played at. Incredible sound, incredible audience, the nicest people.... if there were more venues like the FC, there would be no need for unhappiness in the world. It's just the greatest place ever. From there we went to Savona, where it was warm enough to take a walk on the beach before our show... and from there to Cuneo, where everything was still covered in snow.

But the greatest part of our Italian tour was the half day we had free towards the end.... we were between Piacenza and La Spezia and that can only mean one thing.... free day at the Cinque Terre! Amazingly, none of the guys had ever been (I've been 5 or 6 times... it's one of my favorite places in Italy) so I played tour guide and took them around Riomaggiore and Manarola (all we really had time for). This is us hanging out on the rocks of Riomaggiore... what a goofy band I have:

We had another great show that night at Pegaso (!) near La Spezia, and then we drove all night (translation: Manuel drove all night, Dodi talked to him and kept him awake, I slept soundly in the backseat with Piglet). We used the next day to do laundry, pack, say hello and goodbye to everyone in Italy, and the next day we were on a plane to Holland. Sheesh.

We had an awesome tour this time in Holland, Germany, and Belgium. We always do but these shows were for the most part exceptional. A great show at Radboud University in Nijmegen... a simply incredible show at Thalia in Baarlo.... a super fun show at Crossroads Radio with the Shiner Twins... 'Toogenblik in Brussels.... the royal treatment at 't Ey in Belsele, and a screamer of a show in Gelsenkirchen, Germany to close the tour. We have our incredible friends (Hans & Dietmar) to thank for their help in booking, as well as our friends (H&D again, plus Anja, Femke, Ronald, Dagmar, Arianna, Eveline, Bert, Eva, Erlinde, and Pieterjan) to thank for hosting us, feeding us, letting us do laundry, and generally making us feel loved and wanted. And of course ENORMOUS thanks goes to Alex Akela, for coming with us to all the shows and generally kicking ass on every instrument he touches.

Some highlights from the trip:

Giant bowling balls in Eindhoven

Amsterdam at sunset, from the Amsterdam Central Library

Rocking our LaraBar stickers, live on TV in Amsterdam

Tongenworst. Could you eat this?

Me being SUPER rock'n'roll... I'm eating flax seed oatmeal after our gig at 'toogenblik. The guys tried to make me seem cooler by putting a Belgian beer nearby but I was having none of it.

By the way, this is a good review of our gig at 'toogenblik:
http://www.last.fm/event/883150/reviews

All in all, it was such a great tour. We finished our last show in Germany, got a tad bit lost I think on the way back to Holland, dropped off Alex at midnight (but not before eating fries and kroket together one last time, hooray!), and then drove towards Amsterdam, stopping at gas station and sleeping for a few hours in the car. I flew out early that morning to America, and Manuel flew to Italy... and now he's arriving in a few hours. I'll go pick him up in Houston, we'll drive to Shreveport, play a show, see my dad, drive to Austin, practice with the guys, and then load up the car one more time for BAND SHOWS IN TEXAS!!! YEE-HAW!!! I'm pretty freaking excited about that. :)

Keep an eye on YouTube, I think some videos of our tour will be appearing soon...

little peachy kisses to you all,
vanessa

the postal service, larabars, country princess, all-night drives

2009-02-11T09:19:00.011-06:00

eek! so much going on. many, many things.... all happening at once.

the new cd arrived to my house on jan 19. the tees came jan 20. i was leaving (did leave) for the european tour on jan 21. this meant that i was up until the wee-est hours of the morning, preparing pre-order packages. this is what that looked like, egads.

if you pre-ordered, you should have received your package by now... if you haven't, please email me right away!

the following day, very bleary-eyed, i hopped a plane. i wrote a blog about hopping planes and crossing oceans but now it seems like forever ago so i won't post it.

oh, one very exciting thing before i forget.
as some of you may know, i was diagnosed last year with a bizarre food allergy. as food allergies go, it could be worse (celiac would be very hard for me) but it's pretty freaking annoying. i'm allergic to balsam of peru (google it) and it's a food & fragrance thing. basically it means that when i'm on tour, it's a pain in the ass to eat food on-the-go because, um, about 89% of all things pre-packaged are no longer kosher for me to eat.

enter my snack saviors, the good folks at LARABAR. LARABARS are all-natural fruit and nut (and chocolate!) bars that have zero-added-anything, which is what i need (because i can't eat even natural additives like vanilla, lemon juice, cinnamon.... it's a real pain). basically I wrote them an email, explaining my food allergy and i told them how we were going to be tour this whole year, promoting the new album, and i asked if they would be interested in sponsoring me... and they did! so now i am armed with a truckload of LB's to keep my well-fed while i am on the road. you should check them out, they are amazing.

here's our tour car, sporting the only two stickers necessary to our lives:

and here i am, happily eating my LB's on the road....while manuel keeps his eyes on the road (and rightfully so):

and here i am again, happily refusing mcdonald's in favor of my larabar!

let's see, what else....
we have been on tour in italy about a week and the shows have been amazing. despite the frigid weather and the constant rain, we've had a really great turnout at all the shows, and our album has been "record of the week" on both Contraradio (Firenze) and Radio Onda d'Urto (Brescia), plus it was featured on Radio Sherwood of Padova AND it was featured on Radio RAI 3 (Italy's NPR). Not bad for one week!
Plus we played at some of our favorite venues, including Gruppo Tetris of Trieste, where I am happy to say they consider me folk royalty:

last night we drove home from milano at 2 am... as in we left milano at 2 am... and rolled into the driveway at 7:30 am. that was pretty nuts. but the show was amazing and so was manuel, who clearly has a career as a truck driver if music does not work out for us.

lastly, thanks to mr. olney over at heartache with hardwork, who gave us our first review... and it's a FANTASTIC ONE!!

okay, i gotta run.. 14 minutes until the next departure and i can't find my warm boots... and it's snowing outside... this is italy, folks?? mah.

xoxoxo and thanks for reading.
love
vanessa

"Sweetheart" now available!

2009-01-19T16:54:00.003-06:00

Hey everyone!
Our new record, "Sweetheart, Keep Your Chin Up," has arrived!
Until the website is back up and running, you can order the new album here:

Order "Sweetheart, Keep Your Chin Up" today!!

It's only $15, which includes shipping & handling.

The above link will take you to Paypal, which allows you to pay with a credit card OR with your bank.
The record will be on iTunes and CD Baby as well in the not-too-distant future.

THANK YOU!!!
XOXOXOXOXO
vanessa

Track Listing:
1. Good News
2. The War
3. The Next Big Bang
4. Austin, I Made a Mess
5. Drowning in Amsterdam
6. Medals
7. Keep Your Chin Up
8. The Grammar of a Sinking Ship
9. First Lesson
10. Coming to Meet Me
11. Saint Anthony
12. Just Down
13. A Million Little Rocks
14. Okay From Now On

new song uploaded!

2009-01-04T20:04:00.000-06:00

We've posted a track from our upcoming album, "Sweetheart, Keep Your Chin Up," on our MySpace page. Take a listen and let us know what you think!
http://www.myspace.com/vanessapeters

The song is called "The War."

If you like what you hear, there's still time to pre-order the record!
You can do so here:
http://vanessapeters.blogspot.com/2008/11/we-just-need-300-more-pre-orders.html

Happy New Year!

we just need 300 more pre-orders!

2008-11-24T05:33:00.004-06:00

We are so close to reaching our goal!!
We just need 300 more pre-orders (at level one) and we'll be able to pay for the whole record UP FRONT, which would be amazing.....

We are about to start the mixing and the mastering, which is a huge expense (well over $2000 for the two combined) and then we have to print the album ($3000+) so we're not out of the danger zone yet. We've had an amazing response so far... and if we can just get these last few pre-orders, it would be wonderful.

So here's the information again about how to pre-order - if we can get 300 people to order at level one, we'll be SET.

EVERYONE who participates as a sponsor, will also have access to the "rough cuts" of songs as they progress. You will be given a super secret web address that will change from time to time where you can go listen and see how the album is coming along (a few songs have already been posted).

Here are the levels of sponsorship:

Good Witch - $15
A signed, personalized copy of Sweetheart magic-wanded to your door BEFORE the public release of the album...and you can sleep well tonight, knowing you've helped make this album possible. :)

Lightning Bug - $35
Two signed copies of Sweetheart sent lightning-fast to your doorstep, plus you'll get the newly designed Sweetheart button and sticker to fancy up your backpack, bumper, sports coat, cowboy boots - you name it.

St. Anthony - $50
Two signed copies of Sweetheart, buttons and stickers included, PLUS the brand-new VP/ICOM tee (designed for the album's release!) on which you can proudly pin your button or stick that sticker....

The Siren - $100
Four (4!) signed copies of Sweetheart sent to you, hot off the presses, plus the button, the sticker, two (2!) VP/ICOM tees, and best of all, you'll be listed in the liner notes as an artistic contributor to the album. Not everyday you can put that on the ol' resume.

Pegasus - $500+
You can swoop down and save us! You get everything that everyone else gets....the CDs, the accessories, the tees, the liner-note-acclaim...plus a private concert for you and your friends at your home. This offer applies to anyone in the USA or in Europe, and will have to be worked into Vanessa's tour schedule. The show would most likely be acoustic (due to band travel expenses) but if it can be worked out, then an acoustic duo or full-band show could be arranged.

Ready to order?
Simply do one of two things...
Click on the level of sponsorship above and you'll be taken to Paypal, where you can pay in the currency of your choice, using either your bank or your credit card. You can also send a check or money order - just send me an email to info@vanessapeters.com and I'll get you the mailing address!

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, DANK U WEL, DANKE SCHÖN!, MILLE GRAZIE. We can't make this record without you, and we sincerely appreciate your support.
With love and gratitude,
Vanessa

http://www.vanessapeters.com
http://www.myspace.com/vanessapeters

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

Be our Fan on Facebook!
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Vanessa-Peters/10869170046

additional info on the album:

"Sweetheart, Keep Your Chin Up" will be my fourth full-length album and third with the fabulous guys from Ice Cream on Mondays. What's it about? Well, it's about floating when you want to sink, and about trying to smile when you want to cry. It's about wicked witches, boys with stolen wings, towers that crash and burn, and praying to saints to find the things we've lost. It's about playing music to closed doors, about war, the sea, coming to terms with the past, and about sirens that fall hopelessly in love with sailors that are just passing through.

We're working again with Salim Nourallah, who produced Little Films and Blackout, and aside from me and the ICOM guys, this record will feature voices and instruments from all over the world – our friend Alex Akela (from the Netherlands) is going to play violin on some tracks, and some of my friends from Italy, Norway, Denmark, Holland, England, and the US will add their vocals for a few songs. It's going to be lovely!

We hope to finish the album by the end of the year and we are shooting for a public release date of March 2009. By pre-ordering, you'll have the album in-hand by the end of January and you will have helped us tremendously. THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

winding down this very strange year...

2008-11-10T11:04:00.002-06:00

it's cold outside, and way too dark for 5 pm.
i never really minded daylight savings time until i moved farther north...and now it's really just too dark, too soon. it's been foggy lately so when i wake up, it's gray and blurry, and it lasts until 1 or 2 pm... and by 5 pm it's dark again. it's enough to make you make a sad record. oh wait...

i've been at home a bit lately, working on the new record, planning tours, planning the artwork, planning all the planning that goes into it all. i try not to read the paper too much - all this talk of the financial crisis makes me worried that people will stop buying music. yes, i know there are a lot more pertinent things to worry about, but people not buying music is equivalent to me losing my job... so i hope things turn around sooner rather than later.

the album is coming along really well. for those of you that pre-ordered, we posted an unmixed version of "st anthony." thanks to all of you who wrote us and told us you liked it. :) we'll post something else again soon. manuel has been hard at work in his underground studio, playing twangy instruments like the dobro and the banjo. i sang a few harmony vocals and now we're just waiting on the cello to come rolling in and we'll pretty much be ready to hand it over to salim and rip for the mixing.

this week we're headed to places we've never been for shows we've never played - in rimini, trani, and teramo. i hope it's a little sunnier (and warmer) on the coast and down south! it's cold here in the valley. but at least it's olive picking time and that means.... olio nuovo! there are few things yummier on this planet than garlic-rubbed bruschetta, drizzled with new olive oil and dusted with sea salt. my mouth is watering...

we're hoping next year to tour everywhere - the usa, europe, and maybe even canada this time. again, i guess a lot of it will depend on gas prices, and on whether or not venues can afford to pay us, and if people can afford to pay cover to come see us. i guess i started this music thing about five years too late. we'll see if we can weather the storm. if not it'll just make for more good sad songs. :)

i'm off to cuddle up next to the fireplace with a book. i feel like i've earned it.
love to you all and to all a good night,
v

America, check. Holland, check. New album, in progress....

2008-10-27T12:13:00.002-05:00

An update! It’s incredible, but true.
I can’t believe I used to blog weekly, even daily…. either my life has increased in craziness by two-thousand fold, or I’ve become overwhelmed by the myspace-facebook-blogger-website update-time-suck that has become my life. :)

When I last wrote, we were headed to America to work on the new album, and so much has happened since then that I hardly know where to start. Just before leaving Italy, we locked ourselves in the studio for three long, late nights of recording the drums with Alberto. We were there most nights until 2 am (including my birthday!) but in the end it was worth it, because we got drum tracks that we are really proud of.

So we flew to America and did a few shows right off the bat in Shreveport and in Dallas (which was a super-fun house concert with our friends Wise Turtle – thank you to Sam and fam for organizing it all!). Then, still very jet-lagged and sleepy, we woke up on Monday morning and headed to Salim’s for our first recording session.

This was our first time to work in the studio since it had been remodeled and it’s so great. It was wonderful even before but now it’s even more comfortable – Salim and Rip really did a tremendous job with the redesign. We transferred the drum tracks over, Salim gave them the seal of approval, and we got right to work with the acoustic guitar. In a day or two we had finished all of my acoustic guitar tracks, plus a few songs where Manuel plays acoustic, and then we started laying bass (Salim plays bass on many of the songs) and we began working on Manuel’s electric guitar parts as well. We saved the vocals for last because I prefer to sing over as much “stuff” as possible, because it gives me more the feeling of performing with the whole band, and I feel like I put a lot more intensity into the songs if I have the band behind me. This is a different approach than we’ve taken on any other album (the previous times we weren’t able to record in that order due to continent restraints, aka, the band was in Italy and I was in America, so we did voice and acoustic first and added bass and electric and everything else later), and I feel like you can hear the difference in the vocal performance.

In between all of the recordings, we had some amazing shows, thanks to our fantastic friends and fans in Texas. We’d like to thank all of our fans in Dallas, Austin, Houston, San Antonio, and B/CS for absolutely packing the house at those shows – those were some of the best we’ve ever had back home, and it was a really nice way to finish the tour. Thanks also to everyone who played with us – Ken and Wayne and Jenny in Houston, and Salim in Austin and Dallas.

So we left America after a scant month that was jam-packed with shows, recording, a day at Barton Springs, a day at the State Fair of Texas (complete with fried green tomatoes, natch), and much driving along I-35 and I-45 and I-20 and other I’s in between. We had a new toy to play with, our Flip camcorder, and it allowed us to take some footage of said adventures, and we’re currently posting them to YouTube – they should all be up soon. Thanks also to our roadie in Texas, Ms. Lacey Rae, who did a fantastic job of taking cover, stringing Christmas lights, and generally bringing joy to all during her short tenure as Tejas Road Manager.

After America we headed straight to Holland for a week’s worth of shows and more recording with our friends Alex Akela (Holland) and MC Hansen (Denmark). We had a great show at JC De Bunker in Gemert, a small club in the countryside of Holland with a very attentive audience and kickass sound. The next day we were off to Germany for a house concert with D. and his family. It was probably the highlight of our tour. The hosts were magnificent – so kind, so organized, so wonderful, and the audience was wonderful – they even sang along with us on an Elvis cover! We sold enough CDs to cover our Monday recording session, so that was a huge relief. The next day we had two shows – one in Alkmaar with our friend MC, and another that night in Enkhuizen, and then the next day we headed to Almelo with the lovely and very talented Merel Hutten. She’s amazing – her voice really takes you…somewhere ethereal. I have no idea. She’s great.

Monday morning we woke up early (after very little sleep) and picked up Alex and MC, who were totally good sports about the early hour. We all drove to Zolder, Belgium, just across the border for our recording session with Willemien, who is a friend of Alex’s and is in a band called Hazy Jane (check ‘em out, they are great too). We worked all day – well, Alex and Willemien and MC worked all day while Manuel and I did a bunch of filming of MC’s sandwich crafting and Alex’s fiddlin’. :) It was great, actually. I’m going to post a video from the time in the studio as soon as I can edit it down a bit – you probably don’t need to see us drinking tea or MC slicing cucumbers for his sandwich supreme.

After the studio day, we dropped off the guys in Nijmegen and then went to Rotterdam so that we’d be there already for our one “real” day off. Best laid plans went slightly awry and we ended up driving around downtown Rotterdam, very lost, for about an hour at 1 o’clock in the morning. But we finally made it to our StayOkay hostel where we did just that. The next morning we got up to find – RAIN – but it passed and we took Heather around the city. I like Rotterdam – it’s very city-ish, but it’s fun anyhow. We went to a fantastic museum – the Koolhaas-designed Kunsthal, which had an amazing photography exhibit by Jan Banning and a huge exhibit of Giacometti’s work. The photo exhibit was great – it was called “Bureaucracies,” and it featured various paper-pushers from countries all over the world. The photos were truly exceptional – especially in juxtaposition with one another, where on the one hand you had a photo of a Texas Ranger (the elite sheriff corps in Texas), whose desk was bursting with paper, photos, a deer’s head on the wall, coffee mugs, shiny brass plaques everywhere, and next to it, the media manager for a library in Monrovia, Liberia, who had one broken chair in his completely bare office and 2 DVDs on his desk alongside one sheet of paper and a pencil. The captions were in Dutch but I understood enough to know their positions and monthly salaries – almost $6,000 a month vs $17 a month. It was pretty incredible. There were photos from Russia, Bolivia, Liberia, France, Texas, Holland, and parts of China and India. You might be able to find out more here if you are interested:
http://www.kunsthal.nl/en-22-377-Bureaucratics.html

So after our fun day in Rotterdam, we headed over to the LON radio studio in Nieuwekirk aan den Ijssel, where we met up with Marco, Dennis, Erik, and the LON radio studio guys for a great evening session. We had an interview and did 6 songs live, as did our friend MC – it was great to hear him live in a non-crowded, non-smoky place - he’s really a wonderful entertainer. We have a recording of the radio show and we’ll try to post a song soon.

Wednesday we got Heather packed off to the States, much to our sadness – we love having our friends on the road with us. :) It keeps us sane, really. After our sad goodbye, we headed to pretty little Amersfoort, where we walked around and ate appeltaart until our show that night at Borra. We love Borra – great stage, great sound, and Willem and crew are always so nice. It was a good evening. The next day was our last show with our dear friend Eva, and I am SO excited about her new CD – it’s going to be incredible. She played a bunch of new songs during her set (that I already know) and I really think it’s going to kick ass. The venue, Café Paard von Troje, was really amazing – too bad it was practically empty, because the sound was good and the stage atmosphere was really special. C’est la vie, maybe we’ll have a crowd next time.

So now we’re back in Italy – got in a few days ago – and we’ve hit the ground running. We have a few shows this month but mostly we’re just going to be working on the new record – we have quite a bit to finish during the month of November, because the goal is to get it all off to the mastering guys by early December. Eek! Let’s hope we can get it done. There is a lot left to finish – the cello, the banjo, the harmony vocals, the percussion, plus all of the artwork… but I think we can do it (says the little engine that could).

So soon we’ll be posting teaser-tracks from the new CD and if you’ve pre-ordered, you’ll have a secret web link to listen to songs within the next month…. so please help us meet our goal! We’re 30% of the way there – not bad at all!!!
Here’s where you can find out about pre-ordering:
http://vanessapeters.blogspot.com/2008/09/pre-order-sweetheart-and-help-us-make.html

And here's a new video we just posted to YouTube of Alex playing the violin on one of the songs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ist3mf1BZ8

And that’s all for now! Thanks for listening!
Vanessa

pre-order SWEETHEART and help us make our album!

2008-09-02T17:24:00.002-05:00

The new record is underway!!

"Sweetheart, Keep Your Chin Up" will be my fourth full-length album and third with the fabulous guys from Ice Cream on Mondays. What's it about? Well, it's about floating when you want to sink, and about trying to smile when you want to cry. It's about wicked witches, boys with stolen wings, towers that crash and burn, and praying to saints to find the things we've lost. It's about playing music to closed doors, about war, the sea, coming to terms with the past, and about sirens that fall hopelessly in love with sailors that are just passing through.

We're working again with Salim Nourallah, who produced Little Films and Blackout, and aside from me and the ICOM guys, this record will feature voices and instruments from all over the world – our friend Alex Akela (from the Netherlands) is going to play violin on some tracks, and some of my friends from Italy, Norway, Denmark, Holland, England, and the US will add their vocals for a few songs. It's going to be lovely!

We hope to finish the album by the end of the year and we are shooting for a public release date of March 2009. I am writing to ask an enormous favor, because we can't make this record without YOU. Our catch-22 is this: we sell records when we tour. If we don't tour, we sell many fewer records...but with the price of gasoline constantly on the rise, we barely make ends meet while we're on the road.

Which brings us to this - making an album and making it well is not cheap. To put it in perspective, we've been touring constantly since we released “Little Films,” and we've sold over 1000 copies. We are projected to finally break even this fall…two years after the record's release. You do the math at $15/cd.

What we would really love is kind of crazy…but here it is. We are looking for someone to fully sponsor the studio costs of the album, and thereby be credited as the executive producer of the album. A cap of $5,000 will be set on the production costs before we go into the studio.

But since it might be hard to find our dream sponsor, we are asking for something just as helpful – PRE-ORDERS! If everyone on our mailing list pre-ordered just ONE copy at the lowest level, we'd be able to pay all of our studio costs UP FRONT. That would be incredible.

EVERYONE who participates as a sponsor, will also have access to the "rough cuts" of songs as they progress. You will be given a super secret web address that will change from time to time where you can go listen and see how the album is coming along.

Here are the levels of sponsorship:

Good Witch - $15
A signed, personalized copy of Sweetheart magic-wanded to your door BEFORE the public release of the album...and you can sleep well tonight, knowing you've helped make this album possible. :)

Lightning Bug - $35
Two signed copies of Sweetheart sent lightning-fast to your doorstep, plus you'll get the newly designed Sweetheart button and sticker to fancy up your backpack, bumper, sports coat, cowboy boots - you name it.

St. Anthony - $50
Two signed copies of Sweetheart, buttons and stickers included, PLUS the brand-new VP/ICOM tee (designed for the album's release!) on which you can proudly pin your button or stick that sticker....

The Siren - $100
Four (4!) signed copies of Sweetheart sent to you, hot off the presses, plus the button, the sticker, two (2!) VP/ICOM tees, and best of all, you'll be listed in the liner notes as an artistic contributor to the album. Not everyday you can put that on the ol' resume.

Pegasus - $500+
You can swoop down and save us! You get everything that everyone else gets....the CDs, the accessories, the tees, the liner-note-acclaim...plus a private concert for you and your friends at your home. This offer applies to anyone in the USA or in Europe, and will have to be worked into Vanessa's tour schedule. The show would most likely be acoustic (due to band travel expenses) but if it can be worked out, then an acoustic duo or full-band show could be arranged.

Ready to order?
Simply do one of two things...
Click on the level of sponsorship above and you'll be taken to Paypal, where you can pay in the currency of your choice, using either your bank or your credit card. You can also send a check or money order - just send me an email to info@vanessapeters.com and I'll get you the mailing address!

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, DANK U WEL, DANKE SCHÖN!, MILLE GRAZIE. We can't make this record without you, and we sincerely appreciate your support.
With love and gratitude,
Vanessa

http://www.vanessapeters.com
http://www.myspace.com/vanessapeters

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time for an update?

2008-05-04T11:05:00.001-05:00

Jan 1, 2008 - May 1, 2008 - 55 shows in 4 countries
Aug 1, 2007 - May 1, 2008 - 110 shows in 8 countries

I've been very busy.

I've been meaning to write a blog for months now. It's not that no interesting things have happened - quite the contrary. But in the last 9 months, I've been in England, Ireland, America, Holland, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Italy, America, Italy, Norway, Italy, America, Italy, Holland, and Italy again (in that order) and I am just worn out.

I have come to love airports in some sick way - they feel kind of like home. I know airports very well. Some of them (Schipol) I love dearly. Some of them (Charles de Gaulle) should never have been built. Some of them (Heathrow), I'm terrified of having to visit one day. Some airlines - Continental and KLM and British - have earned my undying affection. Some - RyanAir - have earned something very close to contempt.

I have come to like wandering around airport in a half-dazed, sleep-craving state. I kind of like setting up my computer and catching up on my expense reports while watching families struggle by with three kids and a trolley. It's kind of like having an office with a window on the world. I like to guess the stories behind the rumpled clothes, the bleary eyes, the 14 suitcases piled one on top of the other.

But I am getting off topic. I think I haven't blogged much in this last year because I was fortunate enough to not be touring solo so much. My friend Katie was an absolute gem and she accompanied me on what would have otherwise been a very soggy and solitary tour of the UK and Ireland in August. And from September on, I had Manuel with me for most of the tours. We were joined by Alex later. Then in Denmark (which I did write about), I had MC. In Norway, I had Terje. So I found that blogging suddenly became less necessary when I was in the company of others. I guess that when you are with someone else, you already have someone to laugh/cry/wonder about things with. When you are traveling solo, the blog becomes your travel companion, the person with whom you share all your crazy/funny/scary stories.

I'm little sad that I don't have a record of this last year. 110 shows in 9 months is a lot when you consider that I have a full-time job as well. I am actually a little surprised they still want me. But maybe one lazy day this summer I can sit down and try to reconstruct the twists and turns between Dublin and Amsterdam and Dallas and Oslo and Castiglion Fiorentino.

One thing that will be happening on these lazy summer days - songwriting! Because I'm in the process of finishing up the songs for our next album. Don't ask me what it will be called, because I haven't the foggiest. I keep turning things over in my mouth but nothing tastes right yet. I will say that I am very happy so far with how the songs are progressing, and especially with how the arrangements are coming.

We will be back in the States in September to start work on the record with Salim. I'm so glad that we'll be working with him again. I love everything that we did on Little Films with him, and I can't wait to start a new project.

So I guess that's all for now. As we record some rough demos this summer, I'll post a few tracks for you all to sample. In the meanwhile, I'm taking myself a mini-vacation (showing my mom around Italy for the next two weeks!) and then I promise I'll get right back to running all over the world again.

Thanks for listening to our songs. We love you.
a presto!
vanessa

Pandora

2007-12-22T12:44:00.001-06:00

Hey! We've got two albums on Pandora - Little Films and Blackout! You should join - it's an amazing (and free) internet-based "radio station," where-in you create your own radio stations and Pandora suggests songs to you based on your musical preferences. Give it a try - it's fun and free! www.pandora.com - and don't forget to add our albums to your playlist! :)
Happy listening,
vanessa

the last tour of the year

2007-12-22T12:39:00.000-06:00

I'm riding on a train headed south to Bologna. Sunlight is pouring through the window on my right and for the first time in my life I'm on a train that actually smells pleasant…kind of lemony-fresh.

I am headed to Bologna for my last show of 2007. I have played 115 shows this year (while working full-time), and done about 20 radio appearances, one of which was in the RAI 3 Studios in Italy - their equivalent to our NPR. I've played in America, Italy, England, Ireland, Holland, Denmark, and Sweden - all in all, not too shabby. I still don't know how I'm going to buy Christmas presents for everyone, but that's another matter.

So I just got back from Denmark, where I did a short but lovely tour with MC Hansen. Mads (that's MC) and his wife Carina took such good care of me and I am so grateful to them for their hospitality, and to MC for organizing the shows. He's a great folk&roots songwriter and guitar player, and he and his band, The Sentimentals, backed me up on this tour.

I flew into Denmark last Wednesday on 3 hours sleep and 12 hours of traveling. I overslept and missed my train out of Castiglion but luckily Manuel drove me to the station in Arezzo and I just caught the train to Rome, where I caught a flight to Berlin where I caught a flight to Copenhagen where I tried to catch my breath. Whew. MC met me at the airport and we took a train to the rehearsal studios where he and the guys practice because we had a show together on Friday night and we'd never actually played together – they had just learned my songs from my CDs. We did a 3 hour practice and then called it a night, heading back to MC and Carina's place in Malmo, Sweden. It's just across the Oresund Sound from Copenhagen, just a short 40 minute train ride (part of which includes a 25 km bridge across cold, dark, Scandinavian waters…brrrr).

I slept the next morning until very late – something that would become a trend on this tour. Since this was a comparatively easy tour (I only played 4 times in 8 days), I was able to finally get some much-needed rest. I hadn't even realized how tired I was until I found myself sleeping until 9, 10, 11 am most days…quite a change from my usual wake-up call of 6 am. Actually (and I'm only slightly embarrassed to admit this), there was a 48-hour period where I didn't even put on shoes or leave the house. That may be the first time in my life that I have ever done that, except for maybe when I had the flu or something. It was on my three-day-off stretch, and Monday we spent inside practicing new songs, and Tuesday we spent inside recording one of them, and I didn't even realize until Tuesday night when I was packing and looking for my shoes that I didn't know where my shoes were because I hadn't worn them in 2 days. What bliss!!!

What else do you need to know? Well, Denmark (and Sweden, and I guess all of Scandinavia) is mega-expensive – and it seems even more so because they don't use the euro, but the kroner. And of course they don't all use a Scandinavian kroner – there's the Danish one, the Swedish one, etc. 1 euro is 7 DKK, so a train ticket can cost 70 DKK, which sounds like a lot – and compared to Italy, it is a lot. The difference is, of course, that everything in Denmark is very well-run and well taken care of, so since the trains always run on time and are spotlessly clean, you don't mind paying 10 euro for a 30 minute train ride (well, not much, anyhow). Actually, on our way to our first show together, MC and I were riding a train that looked just fine to me. It was clean and on time – more than I've come to expect from Italian trains. At some point the conductor came by to punch our tickets, and he gave us a little coupon along with the ticket. I asked MC what it was for and he said that train company was apologizing that the train wasn't one of the newer ones so it was a coupon for a free drink or snack at the train station, valid for 90 days. Are you kidding?? I nearly fell out of my chair laughing….and I was only to grow more amazed shortly at all that Denmark had to offer.

Over the course of our 4-5 days playing shows together, MC let me in on all of the amazing perks that Denmark offers its musicians. You get paid for every song you play live – only about 2 euro, but if you've played 20-30 song sets and have played 100+ shows a year like I have…well, that adds up fast. And that 2 euro (15 kroner) per song is a minimum – if you play, for example, in a big theatre in front of tons of people, you get paid more. In America you get paid if you are one of the 200 top-grossing tours of the year….so the people already making bucket loads of cash from touring get paid, while the rest of us, well, don't. You become a member of the Danish Musicians Union, which costs 500 kroner a month to join (about 70 euro)….but membership gives you life insurance, and you can apply for grants to help you cover recording costs and to help cover your travel expenses if you tour abroad. I met people who got more than 30000 kroner (more than 4000 euro) towards their recording costs. And oh yeah – there is a (are you ready?!) minimum wage for musicians of approximately 1500 kroner per show (about 200 euro). Denmark is the first country I've visited where you can actually make a living doing music if you bust your butt touring. I bust my butt (and then some) and still come out in the negative at the end of the year – travel costs are just so high, and break-even only comes after all of the CDs and merchandise have been paid for.

In any case…the shows in Denmark were loads of fun. We played one night with the whole band (called the Sentimentals) and I played other shows with just MC. The band show was at a venue in which some people were having a little bit too much Christmas cheer with their snaps (pronounced schnapps) – we actually saw one guy fall down with a resounding thud right at my feet, and another guy who drunkenly tried to pass between a table and the microphone stand and ended up straddling it for a while, leaving his bum in my face while I tried to keep singing and keep the microphone stand from falling over. It was all pretty hilarious – some of the Danish good ol' boys even got into a fight in the middle of our second set, having a good ol' fashioned knock-down, drag-out in the parking lot. The crowd seemed to love the show though – we got them dancing at the end, and we even did a rousing version of "I'll Fly Away" as the encore, which got one very drunk lady in a Santa hat doing the do-si-do with a businessman dressed in a suit for his Christmas party. Good times.

On my days off, Mads and Carina took me around Malmo's Christmas market, and then I made them an Italian dinner and we watched My Cousin Vinny, thanks to some nutjob who actually put the whole movie on YouTube in 15 installments of 8-9 minutes. He recorded it (seemingly) off of his VCR. The modern world never ceases to amaze me. We spent the other days off recording a new song and doing more cooking – I made another Italian meal, and Mads made a Danish-Mexican fusion dish of sorts…like burritos, but made with Danish pancakes.

I played my last show as part of a night called The Write House along with three other young Danish musicians, all of whom were totally different from one another and totally great. I'll put their links below – you should find all of them on MySpace. They were completely kind and all of them were amazing performers, and Rene even lent me his lovely Gibson acoustic guitar for the evening. Sara and Jacob and I drove back to Copenhagen late that night and we ended up singing Christmas carols for an hour – a cappella. It was fairly hilarious. Thank you Sara and Jacob and Rene and Roar for such a great wrap-up to the tour!

And that's pretty much Denmark & Sweden. I headed down to Bologna (via long layovers in Berlin and Bergamo) for my last show of the year, a simple acoustic set with Manuel at the TPO in Bologna. We had an amazing audience in a really cozy setting – it was very house-concert-ish – and we met the very kind Joe Lally (formerly of Fugazi) who now tours solo and who played the big stage after us. We drove home and got there around 4:30 am – and woke to find everything covered in snow! Yes, winter came to town to see me off – I woke three mornings in a row to find everything lightly dusted in white. It was so pretty – all the more so because it melted and let the sun come out, unlike in the south of Italy, where all the roads and schools were shut down and people were buried under meters of snow. Eek!

And now, days from when I started writing this blog, I'm sitting in the Newark airport…waiting…again. My flight to Dallas is delayed but I don't care – I'm just happy to have made it this far. The weather was pretty crummy for my first two flights today and I spent about 12 hours with all of my muscles clinched as we bounced through the skies and across the ocean…so I'm very glad to be on land for a bit. Here's hoping that my last flight of 2007 will go smoothly. I hate flying, as many of you know, and this year I've flown … maybe thirty times? No joke. Probably closer to fifty, actually. Another funny side note – I flew into Paris on October 3rd. That was my first point of entry into the EU, and no one stamped my passport (they barely even glanced at it). I then proceeded, over 3 months, to fly Paris – Pisa then Pisa – Eindhoven then Eindhoven – Pisa then Rome – Berlin – Copenhagen then Copenhagen – Berlin – Bergamo and then this morning I flew from Pisa to Milano and then, and ONLY then, did someone finally stamp my passport – and that's as I was leaving. So I really never entered the EU, only left. I guess that's the Schengen Visa thing for you. And then I went back and looked and I never got a stamp saying that I entered America back on September 10…so I never really came home either. It's all very confusing. All I know now is that my flight to Dallas is now 4 hours delayed and I'm going to find food. It will be crappy over-priced airport food, but at least I don't have to eat it on a fold-out tray from the seat in front of me.

Happy trails to you all and I'm sure you'll be hearing from me again soon!

Love
vanessa

Links to check out:

Eva - my friend is releasing her next CD and it's great:
http://www.myspace.com/evamusic

My Danish friends from this latest tour:
www.myspace.com/mchansenband
www.myspace.com/saragrabow
www.myspace.com/jacobspeake
www.myspace.com/reneschmidt

A dash of sfiga here, a sprinkle of fortune there!

2007-12-03T12:40:00.000-06:00

Unbelievably, the tour della sfiga e anche della fortuna has finally come to a close. Or nearly, anyway. I’m writing this from the autostrada A13, somewhere between Venice and Bologna. Just 3 or 4 more hours and I’ll be at my second home…for two days, anyhow. :) Then it’s off to Denmark!

When I last left you all, dear readers, we were struggling through the ups and downs of life on the road while driving super-old vehicles. Those adventures continue with a human twist – not all of our sfiga was directly related to a leaky exhaust pipe or non-existent brake fluid. Sometimes it was just our fault.

Last weekend we had shows in Bolzano and Brescia. We took the bug again and had a relatively adventure-less trip. It was a hell of a long drive to make at 55 mph, but at least the air we were breathing was clean. We made some great friends in Brescia – the indie band Comaneci (check them out on MySpace) and the mitico Aldino, who runs Morya, the club where we played in Brescia. Both of them do it on their own – Comaneci does all their own recording, booking, etc. like we do, and Aldino busts his butt at a factory job all week and runs an indie music club on Friday nights. Bravi, bravi. Aldino also wins extra points because on Saturday, as we were driving through the cold rain up to Bolzano, a chill passed over me. I reached for my jacket and found only cold, empty air….oops. Jacket was hanging up in Aldino’s apartment where we had crashed the night before. Luckily he’s a super-kind guy and managed to get it back to me via Jean-Luc, the radio DJ in Brescia who had us on air during Friday afternoon’s show. Sfiga averted!

The good luck seemed to be rolling. Manuel found that damn missing envelope – the one mentioned in the previous blog – and it was in a place I had already looked at least seventy-nine times. That was good, because my guitar, my beloved Mabel the maple, was cracking again. If you have been reading this blog since June 2004 (whoa), you’ll remember how I arrived in Italy to find my Mabel’s head snapped off (violent postal workers?) and you’ll remember how Carlos, the luthaio in Gubbio, saved the day with his masterful repair job. Well, the crack was starting to open up again, and so Manuel took Mabel to see Carlos for a check-up. Not sure yet what the cost will be but it will almost certainly be more than the 50 euro that were in that envelope, so I’m glad he found them.

So we took off on Friday for Lido di Jesolo, a small beach town outside of Venice. There was a total transportation strike in Italy that day – planes, trains, buses, etc. So we expected the motorways to be pretty crowded – but surprisingly, the road was pretty clear until we got to the end of the autostrada at Venice. There was a pretty long line at the tollbooth, and it was moving pretty slowly, though we couldn’t figure out why.

When we finally got to the tollbooth window, after about ten minutes (to go 200 meters), we understood. A delightful little sign reading Sciopero (strike) was posted over the window, meaning that the tollbooth workers were part of the general transportation strike. Hooray!! We had saved at least 35 euro, which was lovely – we spend as much on the autostrada as we do in gas (and neither is a small amount). On this tour we’ve averaged 80 euro a day between the tolls, the gas, and a crappy panino every now and then at the Autogrill. It’s hard to break even that way.

In any case, the sciopero was a double-edged sword. Lovely, because there was no toll to pay. But it also created a disaster of the magnitude that I’ve only seen in Napoli, because prior to the toll booths, there are three lanes that split into about ten lanes with booths. When everyone has to stop and pay, it obviously slows the passage and regulates everyone’s re-entry on the other side. When instead there is no toll to pay, these ten lanes all pass at the same time and have to merge into three on the other side, and Italians are NOT known for their merging skills, nor for their patience, nor for their generosity when it comes to “no, no, after you.” So all of the delay was because this mass of vehicles (half of them 18-wheelers) were all trying to merge and had created basically a standstill. It was kind of hilarious, except that we were stopped for about 45 minutes – completely stopped. In fact, I never did figure out exactly how all of a sudden the tangle just magically unraveled, but Italy is like that – often you find yourself confronted with something completely ridiculous or incomprehensible that just as suddenly straightens itself out with no obvious push from a greater hand or even an authority figure. The chaos seems to rule itself.

As a side note, while stopped in the jam, we counted license plates from over twenty countries – Spain, France, Germany, Austria, Holland, Croatia, Slovenia, Slovakia, The Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Lithuania, Estonia, and I can’t even remember where else. That area near Venice is a central port for all of those countries and even if there hadn’t been a sciopero, I am told there would have been major traffic at that tollbooth.

Anyhow, we made to our show and all went well. The next morning we woke and headed towards Trieste, lovely Trieste. We like Trieste a lot. For one, it’s just plain pretty – perched right on the Adriatic Sea, it’s kind of gray and crumbly when the weather is bad, but when the sun shines, it has a kind of grave majesty, a kind of queenly bearing. It’s quite nice, but apart from its physical beauty, we’ve never found anyone in Trieste who wasn’t super kind. The saying generally goes that the people in the north of Italy are less-friendly (or a bit more reserved) than the people in the south, but at least in Trieste, this does not seem to apply. It’s funny, by the way, but in every country I’ve ever visited, that same idea exists – that the south of the country is friendlier than the north, and on a grander scale, the idea seems to exist about Europe as a whole. But I digress.

We arrived in Trieste a few hours before our show and decided to park and have a walk through town. The parking lot that we knew from the previous trip was closed for a parade so we drove around town a bit and finally found a decent spot not too far from the center. We went through the ritual of covering up the guitars (so they weren’t visible to outsiders) and found change for the parking meter. Since we were going to be walking through town, I took a few things out of my purse so that it wouldn’t weigh me down – my book, and my notebook. Manuel looked at the mess that was still in my purse and suggested that I take almost all of it out. “What do you need all that stuff for?” he asked. “Just leave it here – your keys, your makeup, that brush – just leave it all in the car.” I shrugged and said okay, leaving said objects in the backseat. Then I closed and locked my door and went to pay the parking meter. When I arrived back at the car Manuel had finished covering all of the guitars and was getting out. He locked the door and held the handle while he closed it, ensuring it would stay locked (I am sure you can see where this is headed), and as the door clicked shut, a look of pure panic passed across his face.

“No. No. No. Did you already lock your door? No. No. Your keys? Cazzo. Porca puttana. I just told you to take them out of your purse. No. No. Maiala puttana. Accidenti alla mamma del maiale.. Che sfiga.”

I stood there, dumbfounded. Frantic jiggling of door handles ensued, as did a quick check of all the windows – rolled up all the way, and the doors weren’t budging. We both began to push as hard as we could on the little side ventilation windows (for those of you that have ridden in the bug, those are the “air-conditioning” units in the summer) but the latches were holding tight. Good to know no one could break into the bug – but neither could we.

This was a problem. It was 4 pm on Saturday, and on Saturday afternoon in Italy the mechanics are closed. I suggested that we go find a policeman but we really didn’t even know where to head. Manuel just keep muttering cazzo under his breath – he said that in the 15 years he has had the bug (which is amazing, by the way), he has never once closed the keys inside of it – in fact, he always closes the door with the key (instead of pushing down on the lock and holding the handle) to avoid that possibility. Who knows what possessed him in that instant but there we were, locked outside of our car and all our equipment two hours before sound-check. This, my friends, is the meaning of sfiga.

But this, my dears, is the mearning of fortuna. We struck off in a random direction and found almost immediately an auto parts store. He didn’t have anything to help us but he did give us a directions to a key guy (what do we call them in English? Locksmith?) that was only about 100 m away. The locksmith wasn’t in but he was returning in an hour, so we went and had a coffee and walked around a bit, trying to laugh it off. When the locksmith met us at our car an hour later, we had resigned ourselves to the loss of whatever amount of money it was going to cost. It took all of about 2, maybe 3, minutes for Gianni to break into the car and open it for us – and then rob us of 50 euro. :) No, not really – it’s probably a fair price. Manuel says that if you do something that stupid, you deserve to have to pay for it. :) This is a very Italian thing to say.

Okay. Whew. Key in hand, we climbed in and drove to the venue, a tiny club called Tetris. We also played there in February, and we loved it. The guys and gals who run it – Andrea, Gianpaolo, Marco, Ilaria, Corinna, Lorenzo, and who knows who else – are all amazingly friendly, huge music supporters, and just all-around nice people. We did the show with a guy named Alessandro, aka Abba Zabba (check him out on MySpace as well), and we had a fantastic close to our Italian tour. The audience was wonderful – very quiet and appreciative, and we sold a ton of cds and t-shirts (that will go towards paying off the locksmith, so thanks!). This morning we hit the road and found just one more small thing – the day before, with our frantic pushing against the ventilation windows, we seemed to have pushed the driver side window a bit out of whack, and there was a terrible, high-pitched whine of the wind (and cold) disturbing our early morning sojourn. So we pulled over at a gas station and Manuel, armed with a roll of black duct tape, did a darn fine job sealing up the window that no longer closes properly. We started Carolina up, and off we went, thus far we’ve made it all the way to Bologna with nary a hitch in our giddy-up. Let’s hope the remaining 200km to home go this smoothly. I just realized this tour was much like my May tour in Holland – full of the famous Dutch ups and Dutch downs. This one was full (I mean full) of good old fashioned Italian sfiga but tempered nicely with dashes and sprinkles of fortuna here and there. Grazie tanto tanto tanto to Leonardo of SoleBlu for the work he did in organizing the tour with us, and to all of the amazing people who run the few venues that actually support the type of music we do. Thanks to all the other musicians we played with, and all of the people who came to see us at the shows. We’ll be back in February for another tour in Italy – until then, arrivederci! :)

bundled up against the cold and exhaust.jpg

2007-11-21T03:53:00.001-06:00

bundled up against the cold and exhaust.jpg
Originally uploaded by acousticgirl01.

through it all, we're smiling!

november 07 003.jpg

2007-11-21T03:51:00.001-06:00

november 07 003.jpg
Originally uploaded by acousticgirl01.

the true meaning of the italian word "sfiga."

the meaning of sfiga, and 6 months of silence broken at last.

2007-11-18T05:11:00.000-06:00

hello!!!

oh my goodness. a wave of shame washed over me when i logged on to write this blog this morning. it's been 6 whole months since i last wrote anything here. this is not an indication of laziness, mind you. it's an indication of how busy i have been...so busy that i have officially reached my breaking point. luckily, i found out that i bend and don't break. what a relief.

i don't even know where to begin. entire tours have come and gone and i never wrote about them. if a tour goes unblogged-upon, did it happen at all? i spent august in ireland and england, and september in america, and october in the netherlands, and now we're in italy, wrapping a tour at the end of this month. after this i'll head on to denmark and sweden for a handful of wintry cold shows, and then at long last i will get on a plane (again), cross the atlantic (for the sixth, count 'em sixth time this year), and stumble wearily across the threshold of my home. i'm already salivating at the thought and i still have a month to go. perhaps i'm a bit road-weary? :)

let's see if i can re-cap any of the touring madness of this year. right now manuel and i are doing a tour in italy, mostly alone. we have had a few band shows but it's too hard to make ends meet when the band gets paid the same thing as the duo...so for now, we are duo-ing it. we started last weekend with a show in torino. we headed out on a chilly but sparkling sunny day, headed north in the VW van. then van has a slight (read: huge) problem with the exhaust - somehow, lots (read: nearly all) of the exhaust gets channeled back into the van. no mechanic has yet to figure this out. the van was actually at the mechanic's for a week, and he told us it was fixed, but about 2 km away from the house it became painfully apparent that it wasn't. so we rolled down the windows - well, i did, because manuel's driver side window is broken and doesn't roll down - and we went on our merry, pollution-filled way. the only problem is that it was fairly cold outside, so having the window down while going 100 km/hr on the autostrada got old fast. i went to the back of the van (which is a bed) and laid down to take a nap. i was jolted awake after maybe an hour by the sound of the van sputtering and dying. i rubbed my eyes and looked around - we were one car from the toll booth, and the van wouldn't restart. manuel had to roll the car through the toll booth and park just on the other side. we had jumper cables but no cars that passed stopped. we were already running late for our show and just starting to panic when, after about half an hour, manuel tried the van again and it started. crossing our fingers, we took off.

for the rest of the journey, we left the car running whenever we had to stop and get food or what not. one of us went inside and the other stayed in the van, keeping it in neutral and keeping gas flowing to the engine. i'll fast-forward through this journey, cold and miserable as it was. the sfiga continued when juri called to tell us that he was going to have to work the following week and wouldn't be able to make the band show we had scheduled for the Velvet Underground. sigh. but never mind that - at long last, we pulled up to the Magazzino Gilgamesh, sputtering into a parking spot, whereupon the van died (again). No matter, we had made it. We unloaded, ate a fabulous meal on the fly, played a great show to a wonderful audience, and re-loaded the van, prepared to head to the hotel. It was 1 am and bitterly cold out. And the van wouldn't start. This time it wasn't the battery, as before - absolutely nothing happened at all when Manu turned the key. Oh, panic.

We got a ride to our hotel and stayed up for an hour, trying to figure out what we should do, since we needed to get to Firenze the next day for a show. Charmingly enough, there was a train and public transport strike the next day, so we couldn't take a train to the show even if we wanted to (and with all our equipment, it would have been nearly impossible anyhow). We could rent a car, but we couldn't afford it, a nd besides, we'd have to come all the way back to Torino (5 hours north) to reclaim the van eventually. The next morning we had a piece of luck - across the street from where the van died was a mecchanic who took a look. Bad news - it was a lot of things, and nothing that could be fixed quickly. Good news - with a push start, the van would take off and keep going, as long as we kept it running. So Claudio d'Amico, Pino Spallone, and I pushed the van while Manu popped the clutch and got her started. I climbed in and we waved goodbye to our friends, and off we went.

Little Miss Sunshine ensued. Every time we had to stop for gas, we obviously had to turn off the van. And every time, I had to push it while Manuel tried to start it. And every time, fellow drivers and gas station employees stood by, watching, as this little girl from Texas pushed the van towards the highway. Unbelievable, the lack of human compassion these days. But we always managaed to get her going and back on the road. I was wrapped head-to-toe in jackets and scarves because through all this, the window is still down (because of the exhaust fumes) and winter is rapidly approaching.

But we're making good time. We're actually going to get to Firenze about two hours early. And then, in the middle of the Apennine mountains, we run out of brake fluid! No joke. Manuel finds himself unable to brake, so we slow as best we can and drive on the shoulder to the nearest service station. I keep the van running (natch) while he buys brake fluid and then tries to find where it actually goes. On these old VW vans, nothing is where you think it would be, and on this one, the brake fluid container is under the driver seat (of course). By the time we are back on the road, a major, major traffic jam has arisen, and it takes us 2 hours to drive about 35 miles. But amazingly, we make it to the show, play it, rock it, get back in the van (which magically starts w/o a push), and drive home. We get home at 3 am and pass out.

The next morning we load up the car (Manuel's dad's van this time) and drive all the way north to Milano (another 5 hours) and play a show with Juri. We get home with little drama, thank God.

The next morning we get back in the van and head north for our big show with Dolores O'Riordan, the lead singer of the Cranberries. She was doing an Italina tour and we were the opening act! All very exciting - except that we got all the way to Bologna (3 hours north) and our booking agent called to tell us that Dolores had gotten some intestinal infection and canceled her Italian tour. Che sfiga!!!! Have you caught on yet to the meaning of the word sfiga? If not, let me continue.

We sighed. We went home. We had band practice with our substitute bassist, Stefano, who - thank the Lord - is a musical genius and who learned all the songs in two days. We had a show the following day at the Velvet, and it went beautifully - thanks to all the students who came, and to all the Italians who were there as well - we did not expect to see the Velvet packed to the gills on a Tuesday night but we're so glad we did. :) Tuesday night was our break from sfiga.

So I keep the books on the road. I have separate envelopes for CD sales, for show money, for receipts, for money owed to the booking agent, etc. Somewhere, somehow, the expenses envelope vanished, taking with it 50 euro. Not a huge deal, but given our car troubles and all the driving we did on Thursday-Monday, those 50 euro were all the money we had made for the 4 shows we did that weekend. And now they were gone. Grrr. Plus the van would not be ready in time for this weekend's shows. What to do???? Load up the VW bug, of course!

Carolina to the rescue! I never thought we'd fit myself, Manuel, two guitars, a suitcase, the pedals and cables, the CDs, the t-shirts, and the pretzels and gummy bears in the VW bug but damned if that little car isn't full of unexpected nooks and crannies! We puttered off to Cuneo (nearly in France) and got there without any problems at all - good little Carolina! We had a great show in Cuneo, thanks to the lovely audience and the hospitality of Carlos, and the same can be said of Friday's show at Pegaso, a live music club in Arcola. Andrea and his crew took unbelievable care of us AND they made me tacos, complete with guacamole!! Perhaps the sfiga is lifting? We'll see. We got home yesterday again with no problems, and now we're headed to Napoli for a show tonight. I'll post pictures soon - I actually have some great ones from the Dutch tour and from the Italian tour - sadly, I have no pictures of me pushing the VW van.

I'll return later to write more about the Dutch tour - suffice to say it was fantastic, and sfiga-free, and full of good audiences, kind friends, yummy food, decent weather, and lots of friendly cows and sheep. I actually have plenty of good stories to tell from that tour, but we've got to hit the road (again).

thanks for reading this far, i promise not to let another 6 months pass between updates. now head over to the merchandise page and get your holiday shopping done, please. :)
ciao!
v

exactly 36 minutes...will it be enough??

2007-05-23T11:26:00.000-05:00

ciao!

I am back in italy in one piece and gearing up for band shows in May and June...but first, I would be remiss if I didn't give a proper wrap-up to the end of the Dutch tour...and I know you were all sitting here with bated breath (what exactly is bated breath, by the way? I have always thought it sounded kind of gross.) and so I will launch in...now! Ah, lax punctuation. :)

Okay, so Friday night was the smashing-success house concert with Hugo and Margriet. Saturday dawned sunny (again??!) and I headed to Rotterdam to meet up with Marco, who I think has the distinct of being my first Dutch fan. He bought "Sparkler" way back when and has even seen me play twice in Austin. He's the one that started asking me to come to the Netherlands and so at the root of all this I have Marco to thank.

He picked me up at the station and we headed to Velvet Music in the center of town, where I played an in-store and sold a few CDs (as well as purchased a few that I haven't even had time to unwrap yet - very sad story). Then we headed to the radio station to do a show that he co-hosts on Mondays and Saturdays - www.lonradio.nl - and I did 6 songs on-air. And THEN he took me out for dinner at this amazing Greek restaurant and THEN (it just gets better) I got to do another incredible house concert (thank you Dennis!!), this time totally unplugged. I did the show with Eva, and she started off with a spine-chilling set - really lovely. I actually loved the songs in Dutch, though I had naught idea of what she was saying. Bonus: my Italian friends (from the last blog) came to the show and brought two of the German friends...so we had two Italians, two Germans, an American, a Japanese-Dutch guy, and a handful of true Dutchies....and we had a smashing good time speaking my language, thank you very much. :) Whew. I'm really pretty spoiled. All of us English-speakers are. It's quite lucky that my cards fell that way. I think about that often - if I had been born a speaker of another language, would I have wanted to write songs? Or poems and short stories? Is that a stupid question?

Anyhow, I woke up Sunday and bid farewell to my kind kind friend Marco, and then I headed to Amsterdam for my last day in the Netherlands. I dropped my stuff with Anne-Marie and went for a walk around the canals (while, predictably, the sky began to swirl with dark muddy grayness). I stopped in at the FOAM, a photography museum that was alternately lovely and horrifying. There was an exhibit called Sacrifce by James Nachtwey, an American photographer from New York, and it included photos from Somalia, Bosnia, Iraq, 9/11, Romania, Sudan, Indonesia....you get the picture. I loved it, and I wanted to sob for every second that I was looking at those photos. In my opinion, that's the most powerful medium - there's nothing fake about the man in that photo, the man who is just shy of being a skeleton crawling for food. There's no pretense there, no fancy words spinning metaphors - there's just a man who is entirely bones with a touch of skin, trying to make it to the next day.

Perhaps appropriately, it began raining almost as soon as I walked out of the FOAM, so I headed for a cafe, finished off a few postcards, and then went to the KHL, the koffiehuis where we were playing our last show. And really, it was a humdinger, if I may say so myself. First of all, the venue is amazing - great stage, great sound, just all around lovely. The food was great (I had the tilapia!) and Marijn, who did sound, and Richard, who seemed to be the co-host for the night, and Sido who ran the door...they were all so nice. Alex and I played a fun set (so nice to finish the tour playing one more show with Alex) and Sera Jane Smolen and Tom Mank, two musicians from NY, joined us on stage for "Love Story." Sera played cello and Tom sang harmony with me - it was so great. Then we got to watch their set, as well as Mike Alviano's (from Canada) and it was wonderful to actually be audience members for a change. :)

More greatness from KHL - Anja, a new Dutch friend of mine, came and she brought me a HOMEMADE APPELTART (yes, you read that right), and I ate half of it that night - the other half got me through staying up all night at the Schiphol airport. (Ugh). I got to meet a lot of my Myspace friends (Anja, Joost, Anita, Edwin, Inge, Sido, Marijn, and countless others) and it was such a perfect way to end the tour. So thank you a million times over to everyone who loved me and fed me and traveled with me and biked me around and played songs with me and who generally made me feel at home so far away from home. I have nothing but happy memories (and some funny ones as well) from this tour. THANK YOU!

And now I have to go unpack and unwrap those new CDs, among other things...get caught up on email...and practice, because we have a band show on Friday in Bologna! Hooray!

love and noodles,
vanessa

bet your bottom dollar there'll be SUN!

2007-05-18T18:28:00.000-05:00

I should be in bed. It's late - 1:30 am - and I have just finished a concert (well, a few hours ago). I am very sleepy. Therefore it's possible this will make even less sense than my previous posts. Prepare thyself.

So Thursday was a lovely, lovely day. When I left you all, I was marching out into a dreary Den Haag day, fairly certain I would be rained upon. It was Ascension Day, and most of the town was closed, and I was having trouble finding even a cafe open to feed me. When I got closer to the center of town, I saw a pleasant looking Greek cafe, so I popped in for a gyro. Next to me in line were two Italian guys and I couldn't resist striking up a conversation with them. They invited me to sit at their table and we began the usual "so how do you speak Italian so well if you are a musician from Texas, currently on tour in the Netherlands?" Never fails. Anyhow, Emanuele and Daniele were super kind and took me out for coffee after our gyros, and piano piano, the day brightened. Literally. Where before there had been only gray gray skies, I began to see the hint of sunshine.

So after coffee I hopped on a tram to the Gemeentemuseum (Municipal Museum), where I saw an incredible exhibit of the works of one Helene Schjerfbeck, a deceased Finnish painter. She was amazing. Really. I am shocked she is just now getting recognition, 60 years after her death. Go hunt her down online - it'll be worth your time. Anyhow, I wandered around this very good museum for at least an hour, and then I went to the cafe, which is in a courtyard - and there I saw liquid gold. Pure, unadulterated sunshine, cascading in through the tall glass windows. Giddy with glee, I ordered a hot tea and some sort of cranberry cake and headed outside to bask like a lizard in the sun. I had no idea that I was really that tired of the clouds but I felt better than I have in days.

Happily rejuvenated, I headed towards Haarlem, where I had a gig with Eva. I got there a few hours early and I wandered around the charming town center - one of the prettiest I've seen so far. I plopped down on the steps of the town hall and started sketching bicyclists, no doubt inspired by the works of Ms. Schjerfbeck. It's funny how seeing amazing art makes me kind of think I could do that too, much like hearing a great songwriter made me think that I too could write songs. You'd think it would be the opposite, that it would be intimidating, but there's something about the approachable-ness of artists who have a touch of the down-to-earth about them, be it Van Gogh or Aimee Mann, that encourages me to pick up a pen or a guitar. Whatever the inspiration, I sketched my childish drawings quite happily until the shadows grew long, and then I headed to my dinner - at an Italian restaurant, natch. I had stopped by there a few hours before to reserve a table and got to chatting with the owners, who asked the same question from earlier in the day, and we got around to my music, and I left a CD with them to listen to. When I returned for dinner, "Little Films" was playing over the system and it was to my own album that I ate my pizza that evening. Very odd indeed.

The show that night at Cafe Briljant was a lot of fun - Rob, the owner, is a fantastically nice guy, and it was so lovely to finally hear Eva play - you really must check her out, www.myspace.com/evamusic I think. We'll play again tomorrow at a house concert in Rotterdam and I am so looking forward to it.

As has been the theme of this trip, we scurried out as soon as the last 5 strings rang out on my guitar (I busted the E string while tuning for "Love Story") because we had to catch the last train back to Den Haag. The last train we made no problem, but the last tram to Eva's place was a different matter. She lives at least a km from the station, if not more - I'd say 2 km - and she pedaled us home at 1 in the morning, God bless her, with me on the back of the bike. I'm getting pretty good at Holland from the back of a bike.

Which brings us to today (I swear I'm almost done). This morning I headed to Utrecht to meet up with Hugo and Margriet, the organizers of tonight's house concert. They have been marvelous hosts - incredibly kind. Margriet lent me her bike (for once I was actually doing the pedaling!) and Hugo took me on a bike tour around the old center of Utrecht. It was so lovely - a bit like Amsterdam (because of the canals), but different too - it's a lot smaller, has a medieval feel to it. We spent the afternoon in town and then headed back to get ready for the house concert. This was their first concert to host but you would never have known it - they were pros. Likewise for the audience - easily the most attentive crowd I have had in a long time. They set a new standard for my house concert audiences. Really an amazing, lovely evening. Thank you so much to everyone who came.

Two days are left on the Dutch tour - I'll be sad to see it end (though I'll be happy to get back to my own bed and get the backpack off my back and unpacked for good). Stay tuned for Rotterdam part one and Amsterdam part two.

Love and goodnight,
Vanessa

from the back of a bicycle, from the window of a train

2007-05-17T04:34:00.000-05:00

Just a short note today, folks - no marathon-length blog for me. I have a few more things to do today in Den Haag (The Hague) before I head to Haarlem for tonight's show with Eva.

Where to pick up? Much has happened since we parted ways after the Arnhem Fire Alarm Extravaganza 2007. I headed the next day to Groningen, a lovely town in the far north-east of the Netherlands. I had two shows there - Cafe Roezemoes and Cafe Marleen - and each was fun in their own way. Cafe Marleen was, at least on that night, a true listening room - Alex and I played for a very captive audience that even included two songwriters from Baltimore who I know from Indiegrrl. Can the world shrink any further? I met some great people - Klaas, who mentioned in the last blog, took some excellent photos at our first gig. We met Curtis, a guy from Wisconsin who has been living in the Netherlands for about 25 years and who has hitchhiked his way across most of North America and parts of Europe. Very interesting fellow who was also kind enough to give us a lift back to the hotel after the show. I met some of my MySpace friends in person, which is always entertaining - actually, I've met a lot of my Dutch Myspace friends. They are very good at actually coming to the show when they say they will - major Dutch up, that one.

After Saturday & Sunday in Groningen, Alex and I were going to head to Heerlen (in the far south of Nederland) for our show Monday night. We were supposed to meet at the train station but I missed the train due to the line outside of the shower that morning. Walking to the station I struck up a conversation with a guy from the Congo (well, he struck it up with me) and I yet again found myself talking to a foreigner who loved living in the Netherlands. His English was rudimentary at best but the main thing I understood was his extreme joy at being here, even after 8 years. He just kept saying what a great country it was - how free.

Anyhow, Alex and I played train tag all day long, trying to find each other at the Zwolle and Nijmegen stations and finally succeeding in Venlo, where we hopped back on the train for the last leg to Heerlen (it really is in the very far south). The whole journey took about 6 hours, but we were rewarded that night with a fantastic and unexpected show. We played at an Italian restaurant called Il Paradiso di Angelo. Angelo is a Dutch-Italian who plays accordion and guitar and many other things, and he has a son, Gino, who was there that night. He had brought his cahon, which is a wooden percussion instrument, and about halfway through the show, he asked if he could join us on stage. It was fantastically fun - Alex on violin, mandolin, and bass, and Gino on percussion, and wham, I had myself a Dutch band (Vanessa Peters and the Appeltaarts?). I think I'm actually going to start a new band in every country I visit, just collecting musicians here and there. It's more fun that way.

The crowd was small that night but amazingly appreciative (thanks to Elsbeth and Bianca for cleaning out my CD inventory for the night!!) and we invited Gino to come play with us the next night in Tilburg, and then we ran out of the venue and caught the last train to Venlo, where we were staying for the night. I stayed with Hans Peeters (!) and his girlfriend Mariet, and their three lovely cats. They were great hosts, as seems to be the trend here. The next day dawned sunny (I know, I could hardly believe it), and Alex took me on a tour of Venlo, his home-town. For the first time ever, I was actually a bike passenger, and once I got used to it, it was really fun - I actually took some hilarious pictures from the back of the bike that I will post as soon as I can.

On Tuesday night we were in Tilburg at a place called Little Devil that is normally a hard-rock/metal venue but that once a month does a singer/songwriter night, organized by a very nice songwriter named Gerton:
http://www.myspace.com/giveusthelightbrigade
Gino joined us on stage again and I really, really wish we had had a way to record the show - Gerton was able to catch a bit of one song before my memory card was full on my camera, but it would have been nice if we could have captured the moment. Sigh. So many lovely moments often go uncaptured. In any case, I have a feeling we will all play together again - our Holland Reunion tour can't be far away...

Wednesday I met up with Eva at long last - I feel like I know Eva very well, because we've been emailing for 6 months. She's the one that helped me get this tour started, along with Alex and Marco and Hugo (thank you thank you to everyone). I kind of feel like she's my Dutch twin, actually. She's great fun to talk to and she has a lovely dog, Pika, who sings quite nicely. We all hung out yesterday and I made pasta and it was wonderful to have a day off. I got caugth up a bit on some sleep and now I am ready to head out again into the great big world....and so here I go... I am headed to a couple of museums in Den Haag, and then on to Haarlem, which I have heard is quite lovely. Right now my only requirement for lovely is a clear blue sky. What do you think the odds are?

love and vlaamse frites,
vanessa

ps - i did it! i broke through the barrier and wrote a few new songs - maybe i'll try them out this week with my remaining Dutch shows? very exciting.

The art of balancing Dutch downs with Dutch ups.

2007-05-12T08:53:00.000-05:00

So this trip has been comprised of Dutch ups and Dutch downs. Usually there are 5 or 6 of each in any given day, so it's kept things interesting. Dutch up - my show went really well last night. Dutch down - lost 50€ on the way back to my hotel. Hmmm. Dutch up - delicious appeltaart again. Dutch down - everything seems to be closed on Sundays. Dutch down - most of the delicious cafes I have found are lunch cafes, meaning they close at 6 pm, leaving the falafel option or an expensive restaurant. Dutch up - the cafes, when open, have had freaking great food. This country knows how to snack healthily and affordably. I can always find fruit smoothies and salads, as long as I am looking before 6 pm.

So I spent a day wandering around Arnhem, trying to familiarize myself with the town and its unpredictable rain showers. It's a lovely little town - apparently most of it was destroyed in WWII, during Operation Market Garden (a failed British attempt to liberate the town from the Nazis) - but the rebuilding went quite nicely. I contemplated stopping at a Swoopy Snacks for lunch (hamburgers in vending machines) but opted instead for a sausage broodje (bread roll thingie). The day clouded up again so I headed back to the hotel to change and nap before the show. I napped and woke to sunshine - the first in days - but by the time I dressed and headed out, it was raining again (big Dutch down). I wandered the old town, looking for an affordable meal and found all the little cafes closed (this is when I caught on to this phenomenon) but, quite by accident, I found this amazing vegetarian cafe (huge Dutch up) and ate a Thai curry with mango. Quite delicious.

I then headed to the Oranje Koffiehuis for my Friday night show. It is a tiny little place on Noah's Ark Street ... at least I think that's the translation... Arke Noachstraat.... anyhow, it was a blast. I met a real cast of characters, none of whom I am inventing... Ro, a Spanish guy living in Holland...he told me not to be afraid of the Dutch, that they are the least judgmental people on the planet and I can share my opinions freely. Right on. Then I met Gerard, who from what I can tell makes his living as a troubadour, traveling around to castles in Europe and playing a lute...he was a Marine and fought in Africa, where he lost most of his mates and has lost two wives to cancer, plus he's a recovering alcohlic...I learned all of this over the course of about half an hour. Interesting fellow, plus he sang along to my Elvis cover in a deep baritone - gotta love that. My three roommates from the hostel even came to the show - they are three girls from Germany, Switzerland, and Israel who were in Arnhem for a dance school tryout. Only 5 girls out of hundreds were selected, and they weren't part of the five, so they took me up on my invitation to the show to ease their pain a bit. I think after the appeltaart they were feeling better.

Annet and Margriet, the two owners, were so lovely and took good care of us. After the show I was hungry (what's new?), so I tried the bitterballen, these strange gooey Dutch meatballs that were good but a bit unsettling...what else.... oh, Alex played the violin as well for the first time, and it sounds so lovely on Fireworks and Never Been Good. I hope we manage to get a recording of those before the tour is up. Folks - bring your digital cameras to the shows!!!

So the show at the OK was more than okay. And I walked home afterwards, reveling in my Dutch up. And here's where the story gets wacky. I swear I don't make these things up. Also because these stories stress my dad out, so why would I invent them?

When I was a child, I used to have a fear of fire - of our house catching on fire, more specifically. I think it was fueled (ha) by all those firemen that used to come to the school and give talks about smoke alarm safety, changing your batteries, blah blah blah. It was supposed to be educational and inspirational but instead it terrified me. After one of those presentations I couldn't sleep for days.

So when I arrived at Hotel Parkzicht, I laughed to myself when I was placed in the topmost room - practically the attic. The building, like many Dutch buildings, was tall and very narrow (apparently properties used to be taxed on the width of the facade, so everyone built up instead of out), and made mostly out of wood. My old childhood fear came back a bit, and after getting settled in the room, I checked for the fire escape route. I don't know why.

Well that night, after falling asleep about 2 am, I was awakened at 4 am by an incredibly loud, shrill, deafening, terrible noise - the fire alarm. For a minute I lay there paralyzed, still half asleep. I heard no commotion in the hall so I didn't rush to get up, but after it didn't shut off, I decided I had better go check it out. So I dressed and went out into the hall - nothing. I went downstairs and found all of rooms 1-10 wandering around in their undies (major Dutch down, as some of the men were old and scantily clad), but no one seemed panicked in any way - actually, they kind of seemed to be enjoying themselves. So fingers plugged in ears, I made my way back upstairs. After a bit it stopped, and I tried to settle back into sleep, though my heart was quite literally pounding in a way I had never felt before. True fear. Just as I started to nod off, though, I was re-awakened by the siren of a fire truck, just outside my window. I went to the window and looked out. There was a firefighter on the sidewalk, looking up into the windows. He started flashing me signs - an okay sign, a thumbs sign, and then some strange morse code with his flashlight - but everytime I yelled, "Is everything okay???" I got no response, just more flashing. For all I know he was wishing me a good stay at Hotel Parkzicht. But to be on the safe side, I dressed again and went downstairs, only to find the same folks frolicking in their undies. So I went back upstairs and waited for the fire alarm party to die down. It finally did, around 5 am. By that point, the daily trains had started running again - about 500 feet from my window, one every 15 minutes or so. Awesome.

So let's recap - some Dutch ups include: yogurt, appeltaart, fruit smoothies, super friendly people, wide command of the English language, Alex Akela, the StayOkay hostel in Arnhem, the people at the OK, Klaas and his great photos which shall be up shortly on my site, cute Dutch couples on bicycles, Anja who loves Little Films, and oh yes, Vlaamse frites (the real deal Flemish (not French) fry).

some Dutch downs - the damned eternal never-ceasing rain, slightly wonky bus schedules, running to catch trains in that damned eternal rain, smoking in bars, the closing of shops at 6 pm, when I have usually just arrived to my next town, wild fire alarm parties meant to confuse the American guests.

Very good. As I suspected, the ups currently outweigh the downs. Let's keep it that way.

Met vriendelijke groeten,
Vanessa

it was the best of days, it was the worst of days....

2007-05-10T03:12:00.000-05:00

hallo!

i am writing to you from cold, rainy Arnhem, where I am warm and happy to be in one piece. i have a little story to tell, so settle back in your chairs and i shall commence explaining how yesterday was one of the longest days of my young (but now much older) life.

so my dutch tour began on tuesday...i left castiglion, hopped a train to rome, hopped another train to the airport, loitered there for three hours, spent too much money on books, hopped on a plane, and at long last i arrived in amsterdam. I got my bags (no small feat, as collectively they weigh what I do - seriously) and I headed to the trains (electric green upholstery, very entertaining). arrived at the train station and walked out into a brightly lit evening (daylight here is over around 10 pm). after waiting for a while under a sign that i thought was for Tram 4, I realized I was in the wrong place. I asked directions and crossed the plaza to the other set of tracks. I found a nice looking gentleman in a suit and asked him if this was where Tram 4 stopped. He smiled and pointed at the 5 tracks in the nearby area and said that it could stop at any one of those - you just had to keep an eye out. I laughed and said, "well, that's rather exciting, isn't it?" He smiled that wry smile again and said, ït would be more exciting if"the tram actually came." I liked the Dutch already.

After successfully taking on the strippenkaart (the Dutch bus/tram ticket), I made my way to the Keizersgracht canal and to the apartment of one lovely Anne-Marie, who I met on couchsurfing.com. For those of you unfamiliar with that service, it's pretty freaking cool - a community of travelers, independently verified by other members (as to their normalness), who travel from place to place availing themselves of free couches (and offering up their own in exchange). It's kind of the coolest thing ever. During the course of our conversations, I discovered that AM had been an exchange student in Nacogdoches, TX, about half an hour from where my grandma lives in East Texas. It's a crazy small world we live in, folks. She even had Kinky Friedman books on her shelves.

I woke Wednesday morning in AM's sun-filled apartment on the canal and thus began the best of days. I found a scrumdiddlyumptious pastry shop and a fine cappuccino for breakfast, along with a strawberry muffin thingie, and I was on my way. First stop - the remarkable Van Gogh museum. Next - the Rikjsmuseum (The Masterpieces), home of many fine works by Rembrandt and Vermeer. Next - the Nieuwekerk (New Church). Stop for yummy salami/brie sandwich. Next - OudeKerk (the Old Church), built in 1306 and currently housing an amazing photography exhibit called World Press Photo. It's an annual photo-journalism competition and I passed an hour with some of the most striking (lovely and horrible) photos I have ever seen. It was so captivating that I nearly forgot to notice my surroundings (the 700-yr old church was no slouch itself). So after a morning of museums and lots of walking, I hurried back to AM's apartment, stopping for a cinnamon sugar croissant and a cranberry basil juice (whoa), and I grabbed my bags and headed for the train. I had a show yesterday evening in Amersfoort and I wanted to get there early so I wouldn't be stressed. Mwa ha ha ha ha....

And this is where it became the worst of days. I made it to Amersfoort more or less without difficulty, although schlepping that damn backpack and guitar around is not easy. I cursed my wimpy little frame on numerous occasions. My plan was this - because I was sleeping in Arnhem (not Amersfoort) after the show, I wanted to check my backpack and head to the show with only gig bag and guitar in tow, picking up in the backpack again as I headed out of town. But after much searching, I found the luggage lockers, only to discover that they only accepted Dutch credit cards. That is all. No cash, change, or begging. Sighly heavily, I resigned myself to my load and went to the bus stop outside of the train station, where I was completely baffled by the schedule. After asking around, I managed to get on the right bus, but I missed my stop - it was the very first one, and the only one "in town" - all the others were in suburban Amersfoort, and I spent half an hour looking at bleak little Dutch homes and watching the sky grow black.

Arriving back at the train/bus station (argh), I got off the bus, waited again, and got on the right one. Got off the bus, found the venue, started to feel a bit better. I explained to the owner that I had to catch the last train out of Amersfoort in order to make it to my hostel in Arnhem and he agreed to let me play first, though I was supposed to be the "headliner." Went in search of food. Everything quick had closed at 7 pm, and blast if it wasn't 7:05 pm. Finally I found a nice man serving falafel, and we chatted in extremely broken English while he lamented about how hard life must be for me, always traveling in strange cities. It was kind of funny because that morning I would have told him he was crazy, but around 6 pm I would have agreed with him whole-heartedly. At that moment, I was on the fence.

Fast-forward to the show. I played with Alex Akela, a Dutch bassist/violinist who was kind enough to find me many shows and offered to accompany me on some of them. We had never played a note together until we got on stage (a bit stressful in and of itself) but it went really well. The audience was extremely kind and attentive and they even laughed at my stupid jokes. The only bummer was that I had to haul ass out of there as soon as the show was finished so that I could catch my train. I didn't get a chance to chat with the many people who came up to me - sorry!!!

So I packed up like lightning, listening to the other band - www.myspace.com/sabinemusic - they are very good - and I headed for the door - and found it was raining. ARGH. I was told a taxi was out of the question (pricey) and OF COURSE I didn't have an umbrella, so I draped my parka over myself and my big backpack, and Alex did the same with my smaller gig bag, and we hoofed it to the station in the rain. I didn't even change my clothes, and my leather mary janes are not shoes made for hoofing-it. We arrived and saw that the train was 15 minutes late, so I thought I would change back into my Converse for the rest of the journey - only to find I had LEFT THEM AT THE VENUE. ARGH. DOUBLE ARGH. Luckily Alex was heading back there later that evening and said he would grab them for me - we play together tomorrow. But in the meantime, I am in wet shoes that have given me two large blisters, and I'm pretty cold and wet, AND my train is late, which is endangering my connection in Utrecht that I have to make to get to Arnhem. And did I mention that I was hungry? I had some peanut M&Ms from the vending machine.

Alex got me on the train - God bless Alex - and I got myself off it, just making my connection to Arnhem (which was luckily late itself). In Arnhem at long last - at 1 am in the morning, mind you - I caught a taxi, having just missed the last bus to the hostel. That 3 kilometer ride cost me 17 euro but at that point I would have paid 50 just to be out of the rain and in a horizontal position with the damn backpack off my aching back.

I stumbled 100% weary into the hostel, where I found a very kind lass behind the counter who informed me that I had my own room (hallelujah) but that they had no reservation for me for the following day. This was very very bad news. But she assured me that they would work it out, and she sent me off to bed, where I promptly collapsed. And they did work it out, and I have my same bed this evening, and I think I will head to it very, very early tonight.

And that is more or less the story of the longest day, my first in the Netherlands. I am happy to report that all is well that ends well, and I slept very soundly and dryly.
happy weekend to you, i will report soon on shows in Arnhem and Groningen.
little dutch kisses,
vanessa

and we're back in europe!

2007-04-21T09:53:00.002-05:00

and....
like that! bam - america! bam - italy! bam - holland! i'm in a contest with myself to see if i can ever outrun myself, hopping continents hither and thither. i am sure i will win. or one of me will, in any case.

so we wrapped up our american tour with a week in texas and louisiana, and as usual we had a great time. i just love playing shows in my home state. i know i can always count on people to come out and sing along with us, and that makes me very happy. plus i played in fields of flowers, and i ate fajitas, and i took the dogs for a walk, and i saw nearly everyone on my list. all in all, a success. thanks to dustin and kim for another house concert well done, and to all the folks who always come see me at opening bell coffee...that's my favorite way to end a tour. thanks to suzanna for coming up and playing with us. thanks to the pilot who took me safely across the ocean yet again.

and here i am, across the ocean. we landed, unpacked, and got in the car two days later for a show in mantova (where romeo went to buy his poison). i was sick as a dog (the consequence of too many days without rest, i am sure) but i managed to warble my way through the concert without causing permanent damage to anyone's ears. we had another show in frosinone last night, and next week we'll do one of my favorites - a show in the courtyard of santa chiara. and then i will pack up again and fly across the alps (at least it's not an ocean) and i will land in The Netherlands, where I will promptly buy wooden clogs and commence frolicking among the tulips. Then all the locals will flog me for resurrecting old cliches, and I will be forgiven immediately, because from the Dutch interaction I've had thus far, I can safely say the Dutch people are just too nice.

I'm playing all over (thanks in large part to Alex Akela, Eva, and Marco), and should you happen to live in Amersfoort, Arnhem, Groningen, Tilburg, Heerlen, Haarlem, Utrecht, Rotterdam, or Amsterdam, I ask you to come say hi, so I will not feel that my clogging faux pas caused any long-term ill will between us.

I am starting to think about writing for the new album. It's hard. I love Little Films and I'm a little paralyzed (like always) but I am sure that with enough gelato, I could overcome my paralysis. Maybe I'll start right now. Nocciola is calling.....

Hugs and more hugs,
Vanessa

speaking of those bluebonnets....

2007-04-21T09:53:00.001-05:00

speaking of those bluebonnets....
Originally uploaded by acousticgirl01.

can you tell that i really truly love bluebonnets??? i don't know what it

is...they really just fill me with happiness from head to toe. it's cheesy,

i know. but so am i.

at the end of an 8000-mile road

2007-04-05T12:06:00.000-05:00

we're back in texas!

and with weather like this, i'm so very glad to be here. sunshine abounds and the bluebonnets are in bloom. there is nothing like a field of bluebonnets. is someone working on weed control for those nasty yellow things that are encroaching on the bluebonnets? you know what i'm talking about...that stalky weedy looking thing? it's very worrisome (in so far as wildflowers and weeds can be worrisome).

so another midwest/northeast tour comes to close. we had a great time, despite two or three 12 hours drives and one stellar 18 hour drive from wisconsin to texas. i have never been so happy to pull into the suburban driveway of my parents' home as i was on monday morning at 4 am.

we met some amazing people. near the top of the list - dan from univ of WI in eau claire, who came to all of our shows at the university and spent his weekend handing out flyers and trying to drum up a crowd for us. super mille grazie to dan. thanks also to amy and greg for housing us, to brian sauer for organizing a great concert in marshfield, WI and for being super-hospitable, to heather and kohl for being the best ever, to vicki and chris and stella for letting us crash their wonderful home for days on end (probably days that seem without end for them). to corbet for being our photographer, to dustin and kim for hosting tonight's house concert. to kate for opening a super cool coffeehouse in sheboygan. we are so lucky to have so many friends all over the country.

random things:
it's always fun to be driving around with manuel, because he notices things that i don't ... like how everyone passes on the right here (which is super-illegal in italy). yesterday we were driving down the highway and RIGHT in the middle of my lane was a desk. like one you would sit at to work on. i swerved and missed it, luckily, but right in front of us was a truck laden with the possessions of an entire family, and not a cord in sight to tie it all down. these sorts of things don't faze me at all (especially here in texas) but they totally freak him out. and he's right - that's how the desk ended up in the road, i imagine.

we saw some "cool" kids out at dinner last night and got to talking about the concept of being cool....in Italy, the whole idea of popularity just flat out doesn't exist. there might be the cool kids and the weird kids and a bit of everyone in between, but the groups just kind of peacefully co-exist; until recently there wasn't even bullying - in fact, it's all over the papers as of late because it's this new terrifying thing. how amazing it would be to grow up in a place without the pressure of trying to fit in - where everyone just does their own thing.

one more thing - election campaign finance. i'm so immune to that sort of thing, so reading yesterday's headlines of $26M for Senator Clinton, $25 for Senator Obama, etc... it barely registered for me. but manuel shook his head and made a pretty damn good point - why aren't we embarrassed by this? not just americans - humanity in general. we spend ungodly sums of money to elect our candidates .... the $100M raised so far by various candidates would go a loooong way towards feeding a whole lot of people. towards cancer research. towards green energy research. towards healthcare. and yet millions and millions more will be raised in the coming 18 months before the next election. to what end?

i, for one, am without answers. i will stop passing on the right, always secure my valuables in the bed of a truck, will work to eradicate the entire notion of popularity...but election campaign money just seems beyond me right now. i am without ideas.

hugs to all of our listeners - thanks for keeping us on the road with your contributions to OUR campaign.
lots of love
vanessa

in love with the windy city

2007-04-05T11:57:00.001-05:00

in love with the windy city
Originally uploaded by acousticgirl01.

a lovely spring day in downtown Chicago.

day off in downtown Chicago

2007-04-05T11:56:00.001-05:00

day off in downtown Chicago
Originally uploaded by acousticgirl01.

Just doing a little stretching after the long-ass drive from Baltimore to

Chicago....

cowabunga, dude!

2007-04-05T11:54:00.001-05:00

cowabunga, dude!
Originally uploaded by acousticgirl01.

I think this means we shouldn't cross the street? Should we hang ten

instead?

ah, le marche!

2007-03-04T23:35:00.001-06:00

ah, le marche!
Originally uploaded by acousticgirl01.

ah, to be stranded in a field of grain in the beautiful rolling hills of le

marche....a nice way to wrap up the tour.

the red devil

2007-03-04T23:32:00.001-06:00

the red devil
Originally uploaded by acousticgirl01.

The inside of the ex-chiesa San Michele, now known as The Diavolo Rosso.

povero piermino...

2007-03-04T23:28:00.001-06:00

tour 2007 february italy 065.jpg
Originally uploaded by acousticgirl01.

time to clean the house. this is what the inside of piermino looks like

after just 3 days on the road....

castoro and the nun-mouse

2007-03-04T23:27:00.001-06:00

tour 2007 february italy 061.jpg
Originally uploaded by acousticgirl01.

the castoro and the nun-mouse - our faithful traveling companions.

2/3 of a folk-rock trio

2007-03-04T23:23:00.003-06:00

2/3 of a folk-rock trio
Originally uploaded by acousticgirl01.

these guys are cooler than i am. they look like the band - i look like the crazy kid-sister roadie.

home on the road

2007-03-04T23:23:00.001-06:00

home on the road
Originally uploaded by acousticgirl01.

The wild party continues inside the hippie van....

Guardrail = Way too much fun!

2007-03-04T23:19:00.001-06:00

Guardrail = Way too much fun!
Originally uploaded by acousticgirl01.

Going stir-crazy while waiting for traffic to clear on the autostrada.

Piermino and Anna and the Red Devil

2007-03-04T21:18:00.000-06:00

ce l’abbiamo fatto!

The Italian tour is done! Or almost. We’re in the car, headed to Barbara, near the eastern coast of Italy - my first time to be in the region of Le Marche. We’re having our usual difficulties with Italian road signs – Madonnina! Here road signs are amazingly optional and even more last-second. Yesterday in Perugia we were going solely on our sense of intuition – not a road sign or labeled-exit in sight.

I think I left off after our tour in the far north-east of Italy when we were up in Trieste and Udine. We did the long-ass drive home (the autostrada will be the death of me) and played some band shows that weekend close to home. Then began the heavy-duty touring. I took a train down to Rome to be on RAI 3, the national public radio of Italy. It was actually fun – if it hadn’t been so surreal I might have been intimidated, but everyone treated me so much like Vanessa-Peters-the-American-superstar that all I could do was laugh – it was impossible to be nervous with so much attention being lavished on you. We did an interview and I played 4 songs live and that was that. Even interviews in a foreign language become easy after awhile.

Two days later we took off for the Milano-Torino-Cuneo-Asti leg of the tour, up in Lombardia and Piemonte, near the French and Swiss borders of Italy. The drive was l-o-n-g, due in large part to Piermino, our VW van. Usually we take a different car but for varoius reasons we couldn’t this time, so we loaded up Piermino and hit the road – slowly. Piermino is nearly 40 years old and not as spry as he once was (it’s also possible he was never really spry). At least our friend Anna Mascorella (of the band Matson Jones) came along for the ride and made the whole thing a lot more enjoyable.

As I was saying, Piermino is a bit on the slow side, especially going up hills (of which there are plenty between Firenze and Bologna, which is the road we take to Milano). Our max speed on a good-sized hill is 80 km – about 50 mph. We were so excited to have reached the peak of the Apennine foothills – and then we hit a line of traffic, completely stopped. There had been a 5-car accident in one of the tunnels, effectively shutting down the autostrada for about an hour. We decided we might as well get out of the car and be idiots (see attached photos) for lack of something better to do. One of the things that drives me bonkers about the autostrada is the fact that you can’t exit but every 20 km or so. If there’s an accident, too darn bad. Bring a book (which thankfully I had - Margherita Dolce Vita by Stefano Benni, available in English and highly recommended).

In any case – a couple of massive hills, one blocked tunnel, and at least 4 Autogrill stops later, we rolled into Milano, again counting on the hands of God and common sense to guide us to the venue (since the road signs refused to help). We played that night at Casa139 with Terje Nordgarden, a Norwegian songwriter who is amazing live. I’ve seen him play twice now and he has a really incredible stage presence.

Day 2 – Torino. Oh, how I wish we’d had more time in Torino. I was so impressed by this city and everyone in it. We were staying at place called Maison Musique (House of Music in French) in Rivoli, just outside of the cit.y. It is (don’t be alarmed) an old slaughterhouse-complex that has been turned into this lovely music hall/hotel/restaurant. Basically the slaughterhouse itself is now a circular auditorium with an amazing stage and sound system; the old mess hall is now a restaurant; the living quarters for the transient workers is now a 4-room “hotel” for traveling musicians (and we're still transient workers); the casa di custodia (where the foreman lived) is now the office. It was amazing. This is one of the things I love most about Italy – generally (not always, but often) old things are made new again (instead of being razed to the ground).

We took a short walk up to the Castello di Rivoli, a former Savoy residence now transformed into an beautifully well-done modern art/sculpture museum, then we headed into the center of Torino to set up for our show at FolkClub, one of Italy’s most respected acoustic venues. Just looking at the photos on the wall made my knees knock a little – we were playing on a stage that had been graced by Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, just for starters.

And FolkClub lived up to its reputation. The sound was remarkable (bravo Franco), everyone that worked there (all volunteers, from what I could tell) was kind beyond belief, and the audience was really one of the best to whom I’ve ever played. Franco, the sound-guy, brought me a rose on stage when the audience called for an encore. Ridiculously nice people.

From FolkClub to Condorito Club…we wanted to wake up early on Saturday and see Torino before leaving town, but (as happens often in Italy), we were at dinner until at least 2 am and didn’t get to sleep until 3 am, so it was pretty late by the time we dragged ourselves out of bed. Lateness coupled with an anti-fascism demonstration in the heart of Torino that shut down the metro line meant we had about two hours to see the city. We managed to hoof it over to the gallery of modern art and take in a few Picassos and a Renoir, some de Chiricos and a sprinkling of other amazing artists before running out the door and back to the metro stop. We heard a termite eating inside one of the frames of a painting. Is that normal?

To Cuneo. Our new friend Jacopo was our host – www.myspace.com/ezrapage - and he got us settled in at the hotel and at the venue. We played at Condorito Club and met tons of new people – thanks to Lorena, who wrote a really nice review of the concert.

To Asti! Our show was at the Diavolo Rosso, the former church of San Michele. It’s a sconsecrata church…I can’t remember the word in English..a church that is no longer a church. In any case, as you might imagine, the acoustics were amazing. The whole operation is run by about 20 volunteers and they do everything from live music to theatre to wine tastings. It was just one of the many pockets of culture that we found on this tour. It’s strange, because the live music scene in Italy is hard. Everyone wants cover bands – or at least that’s what the venues think everyone wants. But nearly everywhere we went, we found small venues run by volunteers or people who had two day jobs, just so they could afford to do their passion, and we found people who wanted to listen (to music in a foreign language, nonetheless) and we found people who were so glad to have us there that I was nearly speechless. This tour was just so much more positive that I was expecting it to be. From the radio shows and interviews to the concerts in intimate venues, it was really kind of a dream.

A long-winded one at that (sorry). I’ll wrap it up with our last few shows. Sintetika in Firenze – Loop Café in Perugia – and Insomnia in Barbara (which is where we were headed in the car when I started this blog entry a few days ago). At Sintetika we had people lined up outside the venue before the concert – definitely a first for me. Plus we had Anna with us again, this time singing harmonies and playing her cello! Loads of fun. I'm trying to talk her into joining us on an American tour next fall.

In Perugia we drove through the narrowest streets in Italy and Piermino only suffered one minor injury when the turn was just too tight for a VW van. And in Barbara we found one of the loveliest areas of Italy I’d never seen – Le Marche. Much like Tuscany, but with even more hills and more farms. We were housed at La Cantina del Bacco agriturismo - if you are looking for a vacation off the beaten path in Italy, I couldn't more highly recommend this place.

And that's about it. We got home late on Saturday because there is no short road between Le Marche and Tuscany...it's kind of a region cut off from the rest of the country, not well-serviced by trains or highways. The road is very mountainous and winding (not for the faint-of-stomach) but it's lovely. We stopped for lunch in a teeny town called Isola Fossara and chatted with the old man behind the bar....he said that a few years ago a longer (in mileage) but straighter road was built parallel to the one we were on, and since then, the town has dried up. There are only 120 people that live there now, and the number is falling. But he laughed about it. In fact, while we were eating, two people walked by and Manuel nudged me and gestured towards them. I started laughing and the old man chimed in, saying in Italian, "What? Did a real person walk by?" Italians know how to laugh at themselves.
I started this post in the car three days ago and now I'm at the Bologna airport, killing time before my 7 am flight this morning..it's 4:30 am...will our heroine survive? Perhaps with a cappuccino and a pastry, she'll be able to make it...

Love from the road and soon from the air,
vanessa

claudio, tetris, and fabrizio

2007-02-15T07:21:00.000-06:00

quick note from the mediterranean front to say hi!

we've been having a right jolly ol' time on this italian tour... we started off with a HOUSE CONCERT (in Italy! I know! Crazy, right?) at the house of my friends Paola and Claudio. I met Claudio on a train about a year or two ago...he helped me get my guitar on board, we struck up a conversation, and we kept in touch via email, as happens in this crazy world. Long story short, Claudio and Paola organized a marvelous house concert (along with their fantastic cat, Gypsy) and in doing so kicked off our string of good fortune. Ever since then, our concerts have been going smashingly, well-attended by people who actually listen and even buy CDs! :)

After the house concert, I had a few radio interviews to do this week....nothing scarier than a live interview over the phone in another language. Next week we're going to be on Rai Radio 3, which is the Italian version of NPR... Manuel and I will be in the studio, doing an interview and a live set. Should be fun and terrifying all at once.

This weekend we went up to Trieste and Udine...far-east Italy. Trieste is practically in Slovenia...it used to be Slovenia, actually, and Austria and Germany too, I think. We played at the Tetris Palace, a very small club run by some ragazzi veramente in gamba. Translation: run by some folks who were really darn cool. They treated us so well and the audience applauded so much after every song that it seemed like a continual standing ovation. The only bummer was the weather - Trieste is right on the coast, and a bit of sunshine for the shutterbug in me would have been nice, but I'll survive.

Then on to Udine...we were playing at Faber Days, a songwriter festival in honor of Fabrizio de Andre, one of Italy's greatest songwriters (he's their Bob Dylan). We played at Teatro San Giorgio to an incredibly quiet and appreciative audience and had a magnificent time. I even (gulp) gathered up the courage to sing a de Andre song in Italian. Major terror. So many thanks to Marco Miconi for being a great host, and to Leonardo Ronzi for continuing to deliver us to great venues!

So this week: Montepulciano, Foiano, Roma, Roma on the radio, Milano, Torino, Cuneo, Asti....aaaahhhhh.....then Firenze, Perugia, Ancona, and the USA! Wow.
Lots and lots and lots of pasta-flavored love,
vanessa

2007 and the snow is coming down

2007-01-17T12:40:00.000-06:00

Excuse me, where am I? Texas? Or Colorado?

I woke up this morning to snow and sleet and another "winter storm warning." It's the only thing on the news this week, which I find terribly alarming and amusing. This wintry mix has already canceled one show in Austin yesterday...will tomorrow's Houston show be next? Let's hope not - I have songs to play!

2007 is shaping up to be an interesting year. We finally at long last have a right good tour planned for Italy - usually it is scattered shows here and there but this one is a downpour in the best way possible. I think we'll have about 15 shows plus a few radio interviews and articles once all is said and done - many thanks to Leonardo Ronzi of Soleblu, who worked his tail off to get us all booked up.

And then there's March/April...I'm working on another tour for Manuel and I and whomever else wants to come...as always the invite is open to the whole band, but as always, it is really hard to coordinate everyone's schedule. Alberto is playing a lot with his band (The Gumo - http://www.myspace.com/thegumo) and Juri is still taking beautiful photographs up in Milan, so it's hard to get everyone on a plane and across the sea. But we are still hoping that we'll be able to do a few shows as a band in America.

And then there's May...in which I am hoping to find myself playing shows in the Netherlands and Germany. That's all still very much in the planning stages, but I hope it works out - I have a lot of fans up there to whom I owe a visit!

What else? We've re-ordered t-shirts, so if you were looking for a size that we were out of, let me know! I think we have everything back in stock.

I'm trying to work on writing for the new EP but it is hard...it's always hard for me, after I've finished one album, to jump into the next one. It is such an exhausting process to write, record, design, release, promote, and tour behind an album that when it's done, I usually just want to, well, REST a bit...but since we have these tours coming up (which is good!) I don't see much rest on the horizon...so I'll either have to just get over it, or push back the idea of the EP a bit farther. I hope it's letter A, because I'd love to get this EP started this spring, while I have Anna Mascorella around to do cello and harmony vocals. She is fantastic and we really want to do this project with her.

So....tours in four countries in four months and a new album lurking under the surface...seems like that will pretty much keep me moving for the first half of 2006, right?

Come out the Houston and Dallas shows if you can do so without slipping and sliding all over the place... :)
Lots of love and thanks as always for listening.
Vanessa

generosity and 12,000 miles

2006-11-05T16:04:00.000-06:00

generosity is people buying you baby food because they know it's one of your weird snack habits.
generosity is when someone you don't know at all offers you their couch.
how about when random strangers buy all four of your CDs plus a few t-shirts.
or when random strangers offer to organize a show for you and then actually come through in a big way?

couches, meals, just plain being taken care of....these are the things for which i am very, very grateful. throughout this entire VERY LONG tour, we've found nothing but kindness, some from people we've come to expect it from (like old friends and family) and some from people that we met on stage or in the audience. i never ceased to be amazed at how much good there is in the world.

our 2 month tour is nearly done. we've driven nearly 12,000 miles and i bet we'll make it to 13,000 - which is about 3,000 less than i had estimated (a bit far off the mark but that's okay). we've had tremendous fun nearly everywhere but especially at:
the purple fiddle in west virginia
folks cafe in wilmington, nc
little kings in athens, ga
java monkey in decatur, ga

those are just the places that we've loved since our last update (you can see the last blog entry for more places that rocked). we single these out especially because these are 4 towns where we didn't know a soul and didn't know what to expect - but we were totally and pleasantly surprised. thanks to those 4 audiences.

i'm going to post some pictures shortly. please keep spreading around the word about who we are and what we do. we've got 4 BIG shows coming up....details on the tour page. http://www.vanessapeters.com/ontheroad.html.
Thanks for your support in kepeing us going!!!
lots of love
vanessa

2006-10-17T10:06:00.000-05:00

How much fun can you really have in the car? Depends on how many hours you've been trapped there...

2006-10-17T10:03:00.000-05:00

Why is this mouse holding a sausage?

2006-10-17T10:02:00.000-05:00

live at University of Wisconsin.

2006-10-17T10:01:00.000-05:00

The first and only picture ever taken where it looks like I am totally rocking out on the guitar.

2006-10-17T09:55:00.000-05:00

The lovely Wisconsin landscape...ah, cows.

indy superman, alt-street-parking, and uncle bill

2006-10-10T23:10:00.000-05:00

hello dear readers of the sometimes-in-session-blog,

this week finds us in new york city where, much to my amazement, double-parking is sometimes perfectly legal. on street cleaning days there is apparently alternate-side-of-the-street-parking (it has a much shorter name in real life, i just can't remember it right now) in which you are completely and totally allowed to box in your friendly neighbors so that street cleaners can make the city shine. you just park and leave your cell phone number (if you want) on the dashboard. this totally amazed me and completely confounded manuel, who says that in italy he has read about people who got shot for doing such a thing. forgot to leave a cell # on the dash, apparently.

last week at my show in indy, a car accident happened on the street *right* outside the window of the cafe where we were playing. our friend darren went to go check on the situation and after an hour still hadn't come back. when we went outside, he was nowhere to be seen. about 90 minutes later he returned, rubbing his wrists. apparently the guy who started the 4-car chain collision took off running from the cops, who pursued. darren saw that they would never catch him, so he took off down a side street to cut him off. meanwhile, the police reinforcements were called and, seeing darren close in on our ne'er-do-well, mistook him for an accomplice who was also running. the officer pointed his taser at both of them and told them to get down, which of course they both did. it took almost an hour to get sorted out who was who, and darren spent that hour cuffed on the curb. actually, he spent part of it on his face with a foot in his back - the second half was spent on said curb.

then ohio, where we had good listeners, and pennsylvania, where we had good food and good, if very very few, listeners. a rough patch, ohio and penn. but onto the glories of nyc/brooklyn, where my friend vicki stuffs us with food and takes us to all the cool places, where pete's candy store rocked as a venue, and where we encountered uncle bill. my brother took us to a bagel shop/deli today for lunch and this adorable old man who literally shuffled when he walked made my sandwich...he cut my pickle into the shape of a heart and said, "ah, will you look at what happens to me when a pretty girl asks for a pickle!" he had this great older-guy-new-yawk accent that i loved. he was probably 80.

so we made a lap of town, so to speak, and a few hours later we were waiting on the corner of the street right outside the deli when uncle bill (that's what his nametag said) came out. i waved at him and he came over to say hi and see where we were headed. he ended up walking us to a nearby park, very very slowly, telling us about his great-great grandma, who was italian, and who apparently learned only enough english to curse. he then invited us to come to the deli for breakfast tomorrow and said the house specialty would be on him - a bagel with lox, eggs, and onions. when i translated those ingredients for manuel he turned a little green, so we may not be taking uncle bill up on the offer after all.

does anyone need a semi-permanent house-sitter? this is a career i am very very interested in, especially if you live in NY or Minneapolis, MN. :)
show in Brooklyn on Thursday, come on out and say hi.
love
vanessa

toll booth guy

2006-10-02T16:50:00.000-05:00

I remembered what was funny.
I was trying to drive and eat a gyro at the same time (bad idea) and when we stopped at one of many tollbooths outside of Chicago (SO many tolls in Illinois), I had a napkin tucked into my shirt and my gyro in my lap so that I would have my hands free to pay.
I gave the guy my $2 and asked for a receipt (because I'm a good little bookkeeper) and the guy gave me a 2000-watt smile and said, "I ALWAYS give receipts to pretty girls with gyros in their laps! There ain't no need to even ask!"
Now THAT'S good customer service.

32,855 and counting - Indianapolis, IN

2006-10-02T16:35:00.000-05:00

hello!

all week long i have been wanting to write in my blog...finally, i have exciting stories to tell! but the stories had all week to ferment in my muddled brain and now most of them have vanished or lost their original luster (what was funny about that guy at the toll booth anyhow?). but i will press onward and regale you all with many a tall tale of one girl's trip through the midwest...

1. Little Films is out! But you may have already known that.
2. Colette and I parted ways. It was a terrible, sad, painful separation, but she just couldn't handle my needs. I needed SPACE and all she could give me was love, which sometimes isn't enough.
3. So now I have Charlotte. I'll post pictures of her later. She is a Honda CR-V and holds ALL of our equipment, 3 guitars, 200 t-shirts, 300+ CDs, 3-4 suitcases, one guitar amp, and 3 people...plus gets great gas mileage to boot. Hard to beat that. She and I are getting along well (though of course this is still the honeymoon phase - we'll see).
4. New website! It'll be up by the end of the week and is too damn cool for its own goood.

This week we have been to Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and back to Illinois. It was brutal but fun. Fun only because Heather and Manuel are with me and we spent most of that week cracking each other up, doing stupid stuff like playing the alphabet game (which apparently I have too many rules for - doesn't the word have to START with the letter and not just contain it?) and generally being nutty. When we got really really tired we started talking to inanimate objects in the car and on the 12-hour drive to Chicago we even taped a strand of my hair to the air-conditioning vent in my car, just to watch her blow in the wind. She's actually still there and we pet her like a dog or cat but she hasn't yet been named. I've always wanted a tour pet and now I think I have one. Yes, I realize we are insane.

The shows have all gone really well too. Thanks to everyone who came out to see us, especially in Manhattan, KS (and thanks to Jake Fisher at Wildcat 91.9 for having us on air and promoting the heck out of our show). Amy Lotsberg in Minneapolis is the absolute bomb and we love her for letting us stay at her beautiful Victorian home - same goes for the Koenig family in KS, who had no problems with us arriving at 2 am one night and leaving 2 days later at 6 am. The McDonough family also wins a major prize for putting together an amazing house concert, providing excellent wine, and putting us in the car with homemade dessert.

Minneapolis is, as it turns out, a way cool city. Aside from being the home of Target and the The Jayhawks, it is entirely lovely, full of beautiful parks, lakes, trails, museums, and darn good food. May I most highly recommend Butter (a bakery and coffeeshop) the next time you are there? Really, we were all so impressed with that city.... if it weren't for the unGodly cold I bet I could even see myself living there (if I can see myself living anywhere).

Shows this week are in Indianapolis and Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Easy cheesy. Oh yeah, we bought cheese curds in Wisconsin (why do they squeak?) and took pictures next to a giant mouse holding a sausage. Good times.

Check out Chris Trapper. He is a great musician and super kind - we opened for him on Friday night and I really enjoyed his set. I got one of his CDs, "Songs from the Drive-in," and it is beautiful. www.myspace.com/christrapper

I'm out, folks. Thanks again to everyone who has come to the shows and made us feel like this is what we are supposed to be doing. More news from further on down the road.
lots of 28 mpg love,
vanessa

Little Films sponsorship

2006-08-12T06:34:00.000-05:00

LITTLE FILMS!

LITTLE FILMS will be my fifth album and the second with the fabulous guys from Ice Cream on Mondays. Little Films is currently at the printers and should be in-hand in early September. We recorded everything with the wonderful Salim Nourallah at Pleasantry Lane Studio in Dallas and it sounds fantastic. You can check out the title track on MySpace:

http://www.myspace.com/vanessapeters

I am writing, as in the past, to ask an enormous favor of you all, my lovable and loyal listeners. As you know, I am working my tail end off to try and make this music dream a concrete reality. We have had tons of friends donate their time and talents to help us with recording, art, publicity and everything else, but still this album is going to cost us almost $9,000. It is an expensive operation, usually paid for by the record label. We have footed some of the costs with money saved from Thin Thread, but not all of it. And this is where I come in to ask for help.

Everyone who participates as a sponsor, regardless of which level, will be given a super secret web address where you can go and download *now* all of the songs from the album, in case you are so impatient that you just can't wait to have it in hand. :)

Here are the levels of sponsorship:

Best Ensemble Cast - $15
A signed copy of Little Films rushed to your door months before the public release of the album...you'll get it before the radio stations do!

Superstar Supporting Actor - $35
Two signed copies of Little Films sent lickety-split to your doorstep, long before the public catches wind that it is off the presses...and you'll get the attire to go with it - a Little Films button and sticker to adorn your backpack, windshield, sports coat, cowboy boots - you name it.

Best Director - $50
Two signed copies of LF laser-beamed to your home or office, buttons and stickers included, as well as a VP/ICOM tee (new design!) on which you can proudly pin your button or stick that sticker....

Hollywood Big Wig - $100
Four (4!) signed copies of LF tele-transported to your location, anywhere on the globe (okay, now I am getting carried away). You'll also get the button, the sticker, two (2!) VP/ICOM tees, and best of all, you'll be listed a PRODUCER on the album. Not everyday you can put that on the ol' resume. You'll also get one of the limited-edition Blackout EPs if you order before they are all sold out.... ***NOTE***The album is already in production, so the listing of "producer" is already closed....you still get all the other goodies, and your name will be listed on our site as an exec producer.

Deal-Making, Martini-Shaking, Heart-Breaking Hot Shot - $500+
This one is the real gravy. You get everything that everyone else gets....the CDs, the accessories, the tees, the liner-note-acclaim...plus a private concert for you and your friends at your home. This offer applies to anyone in the USA or in Europe, and will have to be worked into Vanessa's tour schedule. The show would most likely be acoustic (due to band travel expenses) but if it can be worked out, then an acoustic duo or full-band show could be arranged. After all, you're the hot shot, and you're calling 'em!

Ready to order?
Simply do one of two things...
Send $$$ (or € or £) via Paypal to acousticgirl01@hotmail.com, specifying your level of sponsorship and all relevant details, such as email contact and mailing address. You can also send a check or money order - email me at the above address and I will give you my address.

As always, thanks a million times over for all of your support. Indie musicians can't do it alone, and those of us that are smart know that darn good and well. I'm a smarty pants when it comes to this one. With love and gratitude,

Vanessa

http://www.vanessapeters.com
http://www.icecreamonmondays.com

http://www.myspace.com/vanessapeters

featured on NPR!!

2006-08-09T15:54:00.000-05:00

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5624019

Look!

Afford to Pretend (from "Blackout") was featured on NPR yesterday!

I would have told you sooner if I had known myself...but of course I was out of town when they emailed me....blast it...that's why I don't go on vacation...

Go take a listen and don't make fun of my recorded phone intro. :)
love
v

calm the hell down

2006-08-04T18:18:00.000-05:00

that is the name of the playlist i have created on iTunes.

i am trying to calm the hell down, to remind myself it is all going to come together. this has been a relatively peaceful week. i am on vacation from one of my jobs, but i have so many. still, i have been reading - i am on my 4th book this week - and monday should be a day at the beach (literally). but the fact that i find myself in a state of semi-rest is evidence of exactly how badly i needed to STOP. between working like a mad woman at my day job, waiting tables at night, booking this insane tour for the fall, and getting the art, etc finished in order to get Little Films to the printers in order to get it back by September... no wonder everyone holds my bony wrists and rattles them about threateningly, telling me that if i don't gain a kilo or two i am going to be in big big trouble.

i love google. i am reading a book called "three junes" by julia glass, and there was a quote i wanted to share with you guys, but i don't have it handy and couldn't remember it, so i went to google and typed in "three junes" "julia glass" "fate" "yarn" and ECCOLA...here it is. truly amazing.

Anyhow, one of the characters is saying how she doesn't really believe in whims of fate. She says, "When it comes to life, we spin our own yarn, and where we end up is really, in fact, where we always intended to be."

And the opening to the book:

"Assuming that our energies are sufficient, love is interminable." - Jim Harrison

How trustworthy is energy? I have found myself without it lately. Yet days on the couch with good books and the possibility that one day very soon this album will be in the mail is the only thing that keeps me thinking that love might last. I have thought that before and been wrong - but then again , where we end up is really where we always intended to be.

love and sweet dreams,

vanessa

__________

music stuff:

tour this fall! 35 shows in 60 days in over 20 states...see the full calendar online if you dare! if you pre-ordered little films, i will soon have a way for you to listen to the whole darn thing, mastered and all. sounds fantastic.

okay, now, really, good night. :)

the unexpected expertly!

2006-07-14T15:15:00.000-05:00

Check it out - I'm express the unexpected expertly! :)

Vanessa Peters
Blackout EP
[Little Sandwich Music, 2006]
You know the formula—Vanessa Peters sings and plays acoustic guitar—but that doesn't mean you know the record. You don't know why a seemingly inside-joke reference to her absent band, Ice Cream on Mondays, turns out to be a lyrical meme on simple joy in darkness, or how band-as-food reverses the life-as-performance meme that matches it, or that sort of removal of emotional meaning itself gets upended when it turns out the hero and the heroine laugh because they can, or whether that laughter is itself only a performance limited to the acting a couple does to get by. Vanessa Peters sounds exactly like you'd expect, except she expresses the unexpected expertly.
[Justin Cober-Lake]

http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/the_rubber_room/expertly-unexpected.htm

and in case, like me, you didn't know what the heck a "meme" is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme
super-interesting, actually.

There's another great review of Blackout that I'll post as soon as I get it translated from French.....
merci and bonsoir,
vanessa

the importance of validation

2006-07-08T17:10:00.000-05:00

hello, remember me?
i hardly do. life should not be so busy, i tell myself. it is not good for the soul. it is not good for the wrinkles between my eyes. it is not good for that damn sciatic nerve that will not let me walk/sleep/rest/do anything in peace. but i digress. there are things to do and dreams to be dreamt as soon as i fire this off.

i'm booking like a mad woman. want me to come see you in your town this fall? speak now because, well, now's the best time. so far we are playing in wisconsin, minnesota, illinois, indiana, ohio, tennessee, west virginia, texas, south carolina, georgia, maryland, and kansas and quite probably in missouri, virginia, north carolina, alabama, louisiana, new york, and kentucky. maybe also connecticut rhode island and massachusetts. i think that will about do us in. oh yeah - michigan. the cold and snow of michigan. (see: antihero).

so my sisters are here and EFT (Everyone's Favorite Tourist (see march 2005)) is back in full effect. something about being a tour guide to them makes me want to be a tour guide for everyone (except when it makes me want to kill them, please see paragraph below). I feel compelled to help elderly americans count their change, help lost venezuelans read a train schedule, and of course recycle recycle recycle. i walked around rome all day friday with empty bottles in my purse because seeing 2000 years of dirt upon dirt was just too much - i just couldn't throw away those bottles. they HAD to be recycled.

so we were in line to see the sistine chapel. this is a line that extends for ... 2 kilometers maybe? it had been hotter than sin for weeks but due to a somewhat destructive storm that passed through friday morning, rome was actually more than bearable. it was even lovely. we waited in line and had the good fortune to be in front of two people that i just wanted to strangle. i say good fortune because it made the hour wait fly by. they were the kind of travelers i truly and sincerely want to lock in a train bathroom. i am sure they exist in every nationality - it's not just americans that are like this - but americans are the only ones i can understand when they babble on incessantly, apart for the italians, and they are rarely in line with me at the vatican museum.

so these two girls were behind us during our hour wait, reading out loud from their rick steve's travel book. i have rarely heard "like" used so many times in a row. "like" was used to prop up other "likes." it was a filler. it was the very air they were breathing. it colored conversations like:

"yeah, so, like, it only took michaelangelo like 4 years to do the sistine chapel. weird. i like thought it took much longer than that."
"yeah, like what was that guy's name? brunelleschi? (pronounced way wrong here) didn't he do those doors that took like 30 years?" (no, that was ghiberti, but i didn't say anything).
"yeah, like 30 years! what is up with that? can you imagine doing a project for 30 years. i'd quit after, like, a week." [oh really? because you struck me as the type to, you know, stick it out.]
"it must be like so painstaking to do those doors. it's like when you go to the dentist and they take a really long time cleaning your teeth. i love going to the dentist."
"really? i hate it. i'm always like oh god i have to go again."
"yeah, i asked my dental hygienist and she was like, yeah, you are one of the only people who loves coming here. i really really like it."

at this point she resumed her reading out loud of rick steves. after a few minutes of this irritation, she says to her friend,
"if this is like bothering you, just tell me. i'm like so bored that i just don't know what else to do. so if you want to just tell me to shut up just tell me." [does this invitation extend to the people around her, or just her dumb friend?]

somehow they got on states. you know, like visiting other states. one was from california and one was from ohio and apparently those were the only two places worth visiting in the world...
"yeah, like alabama? i mean, who goes to alabama?"
"yeah, or like any of those states down there. i really have no desire to go to texas. all of those republicans would kill me."
"yeah, all those f-in' conservatives."
"what does it cost to get in here?" [the museum]
"i don't know. probably an ass rapage." [direct quote]
"oh, look, there's mary. jesus christ." [outside the vatican walls]
"this building is like so ugly. if i were just like driving by i wouldn't even like want to stop and see what was inside. i would just keep going."
"yeah, what's up with all those conservative states anyhow?"
"i took this class on, like, the electoral college. it's there because, you know, there are those small states that need to be represented."
"yeah, like arkansas. but aren't they democrats?"
"i don't know, but it's scary cause they can just, you know, vote for whoever they want. i think it happened once that like, someone got the popular vote and someone got the electoral college."
"didn't that happen with bush and gore?"
"i don't know. maybe. i can't remember."

jessica turns to me and says, "really, it's the range of their conversation that is so amazing."

we're about halfway through the line and we're starting to sweat. people of all nationalities are line jumping, causing more cursing and banality from the two girls who are, like, not happy about it at all. i managed to hold my tongue through the mispronounciations and the ass rapage and the "yeah, i can't believe all of these people are here to see all this art. we're just gonna run in and see the chapel and be out. we got things to do." i kept my mouth shut, but when the blonder one started in on train tickets i couldn't help it.

"yeah, i just gotta write it on my hand. validate validate validate. why can't i f'in remember to do that?"
"yeah, it's so hard. i never remember."
"i mean, why do they have to make it so hard with their damn two-part system? why do i have to buy it and validate it? and then i've heard there are these f'ers who will totally like give you a giant fine if you forget and i never remember. i've got to write it on my hand."

i turned and pointed out that if you don't validate the ticket and a conductor never comes by to check out your ticket, you basically have a free ticket to use again. it works that way in EVERY train or subway or bus system in the world. you are on the honor system to validate your ticket in case the conductor doesn't come by. they paused and thought about it for a fraction of a second before hi-fiving and saying,
"yes! we've got, like, a free ticket back to cinque terre!"

The rest of our day was, mercifully, free of the kind of morons that give Americans a bad name in the world. It was, however, full of lovely churches, a kickass coffee at Bar Peru in Via Giulia (go!!!!), and about 10 fountains full of ice-cold water that kept us alive as we sprinted through Rome, covering St. Peter's, the Vatican, the Forum, the Colosseum, Piazza Navona, the Pantheon, and I don't even remember what else, all in about 8 hours. We even remembered to validate on the metro. It's amazing what you can get done, even coming from one of those damned conservative states that no one wants to visit. yee haw.

Off to bed now. Enjoy your weekend and FORZA ITALIA!
love
vanessa

11 june, 45 degrees outside.

2006-06-11T15:26:00.000-05:00

oh bonsoir!
is that how you spell that?
che disperazione....i just keep getting worse about this blog. should i feel bad about that? i mean, i love writing in my blog, but only when i have interesting things to tell you. otherwise shouldn't i just stay electronically silent?

"everything is illuminated" is an excellent book, and maybe one of the few that i have finished and then re-started again immediately. there is a lot i didn't catch the first time around. can someone tell me who augustine really is?? lista p??

the first reviews of blackout are coming in and they are very complimentary, thank you very much. :) here's one for you to nibble on:
http://www.collectedsounds.com/cdreviews/blackoutep.html

world cup fever is at high-pitch, as italy's first game is tomorrow. OF COURSE italy and america are in the same bracket, and of course i'm the only american waitress at the restaurant where i work on saturdays and OF COURSE the italy/america game is on a saturday....and of course i will be ridiculed mercilessly, whether we win or not.

also, it's very cold. how worried should we be about a world in which the much-proclaimed "land of sun" has temperatures half as hot as normal in the middle of june? if it drops to 40 degrees F, is that okay? does this signal the beginning of the end, or only that i should not yet pack away my winter clothes??

we had a show on friday night in Firenze, in piazza Ghiberti. thanks to Claudio for taking us out for Mexican food afterwards and to Biagio who came all the way from Bologna (and Juri, who came from Milano to play with us). Claudio has pictures and nice things to say (in Italian) on his blog:

http://ciclosporina.splinder.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ciclosporina/

ummm....soon I'll have new songs on the website from our show in Bologna in May, which we did as an acoustic trio....the Nessie Brown trio.....and of course for the pre-orderers of this world, I will soon have new sneak previews from Little Films, which is in the final stages of mixing....now there is just the artwork to crank out and we'll be done! 5 albums into this I feel as though I'm finally (barely) starting to get the hang of things.

First person to find me this shirt in size M at a Target near you will be the absolute love of my life. Ready, go:

dear sweet blog!!!

2006-05-15T11:08:00.000-05:00

My apologies to anyone who actually reads this thing....I have fallen off the face of the earth and am slowly clawing my way back onto the surface, gasping for oxygen all the while....

Maybe it's not quite that dramatic....but close. I have never been so busy (is that a good thing?). I flew home on Wednesday, which bled into Thursday, due to a night stranded in Detroit (made tolerable by a super-kind NWA employee who shall remain unnamed in order to protect her job - she hooked me up with a free hotel room as I lay dying of exhaustion at her feet). Really - the trip was Bologna/Paris/Boston/Detroit/Dallas (and I HATE flying)...my bags went Bologna/Amsterdam/Minneapolis/Dallas and just made it here yesterday. Whew.

Since I've been home, I've had 2 CD release shows and put in a 7 hour day in the studio (for Little Films) and tomorrow I leave for California, where I have 3 shows, including my first-ever in Los Angeles! Then I come back to Texas long enough to unpack from CA and repack for Italy, and I leave the next morning. Call me crazy. Sounds like fun, no?

But the good news here abounds. Little Films is sounding so darn good. Really. Salim says that the harmony choir we recorded for one track, Antihero, is one of the coolest things he has ever recorded, bar none. Now THAT makes me happy.
And Blackout was waiting for me as I stumbled wearily into the house on Thursday afternoon....so pick up your copy before they are all gone! Details are below.
Tell your friends in California that I am coming their way - I really want (need?) to have a good turnout at the show in L.A. ....
baci (which are kisses) and grazie (which of course means THANKS).
vanessa

BLACKOUT
This limited edition 5-song EP features 2 acoustic versions of songs that will be released on Little Films this fall (as band recordings) and 3 songs that were recorded exclusively for this album! All copies are hand-numbered and signed, and only 350 were printed - after those are gone, the disc will be available only as a download from iTunes, etc.

To order, go to http://www.vanessapeters.com/blackout.htm
Track listing:
1. never been good
2. afford to pretend
3. such good actors
4. blackout
5. the hero and the heroine

The EP is $10, which includes S&H costs.

2006-04-07T16:46:00.000-05:00

Blackout is at the printers!!
It will be officially released on May 11th. Order yours today!
http://www.vanessapeters.com/blackout.htm

I have a few shows in Texas in May to celebrate the release of the album....and one in Los freaking Angeles, of all places! Bring your Californian friends out to see me....make me feel at home all the way out there....

more to come, for now it is time for bed.
v

oodles and oodles of tidbits and PLASTIC BAGS

2006-03-23T10:28:00.000-06:00

i am sorry my blog has become a graveyard, a wasteland, a terrible impersonal checklist of things i've seen or things i think you should see. it was already impersonal - it's a blog - but i like to think it once had a bit of spunk. :) here's to getting that back. but probably not today, because i have to embark on yet another drive to houston.

if you plan on attending the ACL festival this year in Austin, consider going here:
http://www.austincitylimits.com/festival/booking.asp
and suggesting to those good folks that they book Vanessa Peters & Ice Cream on Mondays. Just a thought.

Randy Hill debuted a track from Blackout on 90.1 KPFT this morning! He played "The Hero and the Heroine" and will be the guest DJ for the next two weeks, so it's likely he'll play it again next week. Drop a line to the folks at KPFT and tell them how much you just love that song!

I had a fantastic show last night - the first one of this tour. Other shows have ranged from so-so to good to terrible, but this one was just plain fun. Suzanna Choffel is lovely - such a cool smoky voice - and Standard and Pours has got to be one of my all-time favorite venues. A coffeeshop where the audience listens? Get out of town! And with cookies that taste like theirs...well, you just can't go wrong.

Try to save a plastic bag. I've been trying since I got home but damned if anyone will let me. In Europe you have to pay for your plastic bags at the grocery store. Here they put a half-gallon of milk in its own bag - and then double bag it. STOP THE MADNESS! I asked this lady at Wal-mart (my first mistake, but I was in Shreveport, where there are no other options) to put everything (all 7 items) in one bag and she looked at me like I had an exploding glass eye and informed me that it ain't all gunna fit in thayre. I assured her it would, she scowled and did it and then, obviously missing the WHOLE POINT, proceeded to double-bag my groceries. I had to peel off the 2nd outer bag and give it back to her, trying patiently again to explain that I only wanted one bag. I would have just brought an empty backpack like I do in Italy but I was afraid that would have caused cardiac arrest. At Best Buy, the nice young man behind the counter put my CD in a bag. "No thanks," I said. "I'm opening the CD in the car, I don't really need the bag." "Okay, cool," he said, and then proceeded to THROW THE BAG AWAY! Here's a novel idea - USE IT FOR THE NEXT PERSON!!!! Stress level on the rise. Why do I care? It's just a bag, right? Don't get me started.

How do I pre-order the new CDs, you ask? Well here you go!
http://www.vanessapeters.com/blackout.htm
http://www.icecreamonmondays.com (just read the latest news item)

Thanks again to the great crowd at S&P last night. 1000000s of kisses to you all.
love
vanessa

2006-03-03T04:03:00.000-06:00

me too! I want a pet dragon for transportation...

2006-03-03T04:00:00.000-06:00

the little man inside the float, peeking out to make sure that he doesn't drive over any small or old people...

2006-03-03T03:59:00.000-06:00

these were on a float passing by during Carnevale...if I were a little kid, I am not sure if these would be pretty or scary...

2006-03-03T03:55:00.000-06:00

this picture was taken through a reflective window, creating this spooky rainy effect (though it was, in fact, raining a bit).

2006-03-03T03:53:00.000-06:00

here I am, defying all Italian health regulations which state explicitly that shoes and socks must remain attached to feet in cold weather (or even cool weather).

time to throw the tea in the harbor?

2006-03-01T15:52:00.000-06:00

as i am here in italy, suffering through another election year, i would like to draw attention to taxes. yes - taxes. super exciting, i know.

sales tax in texas - 8.25%
sales tax in italy - 20% (on everything - every little thing).

tax bracket i found myself in last year - 15%
tax bracket of most of my acquaintances here in italy - 38%

that means most of the people i know paid nearly 60% of their earnings into taxes last year. berlusconi, italy's little mussolini, passed a law that gave a tax break to those folks who really need it, including people that owned a television channel (that would be himself, since he owns most of the italian communication network).

this is why everything here is done "senza scontrino" or "senza fattura." if you don't want a receipt, you will likely get a price cut (if you know to ask for it). at first i kind of turned my nose up at this cavalier side-stepping of "duty," this casual tax evasion....but when i talk to my friends who earn less than 1000 euro a month (not considered low here) and who pay 400 euro/month in rent, plus 200-300/month in electricity, gas, etc...and then i try to do the math, putting 600 of those 1000 euro into my taxes pile....i don't know...something with my numbers always comes out negative....this is why all my italian friends live at home until they are married and have two incomes...and why a lot of them live at home still, married or not.

mail : undeliverable

2006-02-27T11:57:00.000-06:00

see if you can follow this train of thought.

we were up north this weekend for a pair of shows on the ligurian coast. quite lovely, will post pictures. in any case, the guy who booked our shows was telling us about this one late night he was driving home and fell asleep at the wheel. no physical damage, just a totaled car, but i got to thinking (perhaps morbidly) that since i had never met him outside of booking shows, if something had happened to him that night, i would never have realized it. our only contact has always been through email (till this weekend), and i probably would have sent him 3-5 messages regarding us playing a show up north and then, having never heard back from him, i would have given up and moved on.

it is just kind of funny how email dictates our human contact. i thought of a friend of mine who died in a terrible, grotesque accident a few years ago. i sent an email friday afternoon to my houston listserv, telling them about a show i was having the following week. i then went camping that weekend and didn't have email or phone service. i didn't hear about the accident till sunday on my way home. it was a shock to get to the office on monday and check my inbox, only to find a message from him telling me how much he was looking forward to coming to the show and how he was bringing a lot of friends. the message was sent just a few hours before he died. it arrived instantly in my inbox, but i was already gone, too far away for it to catch me.

my uncle died this summer and he too was on one of my listservs. sometime this fall, after sending a message to my dallas crowd, i got one of those e-postmaster "mail undeliverable" messages. a weird, robotic reminder that his email address had expired or been canceled, due to inactivity. obviously.

all this from davide telling us how he nodded off at the wheel late one night.
italy offers free coffee to drivers between the hours of midnight and 5 am. seems like a good idea to me.
love
vanessa

blackout!

2006-02-01T15:57:00.000-06:00

http://www.vanessapeters.com/blackout.htm

blackout track listing

2006-01-27T17:36:00.000-06:00

here are the songs that are going to be on blackout:

1. never been good (acoustic version)
2. afford to pretend (the hi-comp version)
3. such good actors (acoustic version)
4. blackout (2 Vanessa mix)
5. the hero and the heroine (acoustic drum loop version)

all of these songs were recorded with just voice and guitar - the hero and the heroine has a super-cool drum loop underpinning the song, and "such good actors" has a cello in the chorus - and that's it folks. all acoustic, all the way.
you can get your digital copy soon (i'll let you know) or you can pre-order a limited edition EP for $10. they will be hand-numbered and signed and based on pre-orders already received, they are expected to sellout. don't wait! if you want the LE EP, send $10 via Paypal to acousticgirl01@hotmail.com or a check or money order to:
Vanessa Peters
3000 Wind Flower Lane
McKinney, TX 75070

It's a good idea to email me and let me know a check is on the way...keeping up with mail from overseas can be a bit dodgy at times. :)
here's to no more power outages (but lots of blackouts),
v

blackout, little films, leaving home and coming home

2006-01-27T17:06:00.000-06:00

greetings earthlings,

i broke out in hives this week. first time for that one. i had to have a shot in my bottom and everything (but i got gelato afterwards, YES!). the good dottore says it was stress-related. I think maybe it is time for me to slow down a little? but not just yet.

hello! i am back in italy. we had SUCH a good time in texas - so many great shows - thank you all so much for coming out, especially the mucky duckers and the revolutioners. you guys made those shows rock. and special thanks to the entire Harris household for the best darned house concert ever.

I finished Blackout! yee-haw! Well, the musical portion....but the art will be along shortly. And Little Films is about 65% finished...I'm offering samples on request only for the moment.

It has been snowing here. Everywhere, in fact. All of Europe, blanketed in snow. It was 75 degrees the day I left Texas. Russia is cutting off gas to Europe and prices are rising and trees are falling and blankets are being tucked tight into the corners of every bed as we all drift off to sleep with snowflakes in our head.

if you have pictures from the texas tour, send them to me, please. and thank you. i have a bunch more to download then upload....a large portion of my day seems to revolve within those two phrases...down, then up load. download, then up.

we're in italy now, but we'll be back in america again in march. carmen sandiego ain't got nothin' on vanessa peters and the ice cream boys.
gelato on a cone kisses,
vanessa

Please come to the Mucky this Sunday!

2006-01-12T12:06:00.000-06:00

Please come out to the Mucky Duck this Sunday night! We need everyone to show Rusty why they should invite us back for another show! :)

see you soon,

vanessa

2006-01-10T13:01:00.000-06:00

Here's a great shot of Salim Nourallah and Chris Holt, with whom we shared a show on Friday night at Standard and Pours. The Salim and Vanessa show at S&P's is starting to become a much beloved Dallas tradition....

2006-01-10T13:00:00.001-06:00

Hanging out at Pete's super-cool Slingerland drum set. Had Gumo been around, he might have had a heart attack upon seeing these babies.

2006-01-10T13:00:00.000-06:00

Here we are, tuning up the guitars before our first-ever podcast interview. Yee-haw!

2006-01-10T12:57:00.000-06:00

Here I am at Troubadour Studio, surrounded by guitars too cool and too expensive to mention.

start your pods!

2006-01-10T12:49:00.000-06:00

We're up! Head to the iTunes music store and search under Podcasts for Troubadour Studio ... we're the latest episode (#4). Go listen and tell us what you think of the new songs!
See you Sunday at the Mucky Duck!
Vanessa

podcasting sucks me in at last

2006-01-08T12:04:00.000-06:00

okay, now i get it.
apparently you go to iTunes (which is free to download if you haven't already), and you search for "Troubadour Studio" in your little Podcast directory...or you use this link
http://www.webpasties.com/podcast-3854-248.xml
though I don't know how.
The podcast is free to subscribe to. That sentence is grammatically incorrect but I am not sure how to fix it. I am very tired.

We played last night in McGregor, about 15 minutes west of Waco. The venue, Texas Tea and Coffee, was charming and the audience was super attentive - kudos to the Collinses (also members of the band Deadman) for putting together such a great venue. The bonus was that they invited us upstairs to their AMAZING studio to do an interview (hence the podcast to which you are going to subscribe). Their studio is chock full of unbelievable gear....Slingerland drums, Les Paul guitars, Hammond organs, gargantuan red velvet couches...the room is unbelievably beautiful and homey. Manuel had to close his mouth after five minutes of drooling on the floor.

We played 3 songs, two of which will be on Little Films....go check out the podcast and tell us what you think!! It will be up by the end of next week.

We got home at 3 am. I am going back to bed. Take care and sleepy little kisses,
Vanessa

deep breath, forge ahead

2006-01-07T10:39:00.000-06:00

thoughts that i would like to recap:
1. shows
2. salim
3. chains (stores, and bondage)
4. new albums (see #2)

happy new year to you all! i hope that 2006 is off to a great start. we have seen 2006 from the car window, and from behind a microphone, both in a studio and on stage. we rang in the new year at lawrence's house (great party), and i sang auld lang syne (sort of), and promptly realized why we all sing "hmm hmm hmm auld lang syne..." The words to that song are a trip.

shows have been going great. we had a fantastic time last night at standard and pours in dallas - you should have been there, because the rest of dallas was. it was packed. good times - and they did a webcast, and probably it is archived somewhere...check out pirate radio network and look for standard and pours. or their myspace site. who knows what you'll find.

we've been recording with salim and i am chomping at the bit to put new songs up on the site. i can't really, or shouldn't, because they are all unmixed...we don't have our bass recorded yet, or much electric guitar, and the levels are still wacky, but everything sounds amazing. it has been such fun to record with salim, because he is a very calming presence in the studio - and i need more calming presences in my life. anyhow, we'll probably set up a dummy myspace page with some of the songs....i'll release the address soon.

as we were driving down I-45 in Houston the other day, between Spring and downtown, Manuel said something really funny...in Italian he said that if you try to open a restaurant here, "ti spaccano il culo," which basically means they kick your arse. he was referring to the fact that, at least from what you can see from the highways, it's mcdonald's or whataburger or kfc or god knows what else, but it sure as heck isn't mom and pop's country fried steak, at least not until you get to nowhereville, texas, and even there the giants are invading. it was a funny but sad observation.

the new cds will be released in some order in 2006, but i am not sure yet how/when. blackout, the EP, is almost finished....just one song remains to be recorded. little films is going swimmingly, as mentioned before. i will soon be sending out my "please help us, dear goodness" email, in which i plead once more for support from those who love our music. since we have an outside producer this time around, recording costs are, while low by industry standards, high by any other.

lastly! award nominations for the My Texas Music are being taken at the link below. Categories in which you could vote for us would be:
song of the year
female vocalist of the year
album of the year
singer/songwriter of the year

the link is here - you can ONLY VOTE ONCE. :) double voting will be disqualified.

http://www.texasmusicawards.org/nominate/index.html

thanks and happy saturday to you,
v

blip on the radar

2006-01-07T01:43:00.000-06:00

hey gang,
more to come and auld lang syne. in the mean time, we're doing a podcast thingie tomorrow (saturday night) after our show....here's the address.
http://www.webpasties.com/podcast-3854-248.xml

it's being broadcast from Troubadour Studio, run by the musicians who make up the great band Deadman.

love and i will explain all things tomorrow.
v

2005-11-22T10:29:00.000-06:00

Simone and Gabby gathering up the telo as we pack it up for the night.

2005-11-22T10:28:00.000-06:00

Oskar is bummed because no one will play ball with him...we were all too busy with the olives (and the sausages).

2005-11-22T10:27:00.001-06:00

Here I am monkeying around...actually, I am working hard not to crack my skull wide open as I reach into the highest branches for every last little olive!

2005-11-22T10:27:00.000-06:00

Manuel's cousin, Sorana, and baby Matilda. She looks like olive-picking is low on her list of places she'd like to be.

2005-11-22T10:25:00.000-06:00

The view from Zia Gabby's house...that's Castiglion Fiorentino way off in the distance (okay, 5 minutes in the distance).

2005-11-22T10:24:00.000-06:00

A crate of freshly-picked olives, ready to go to the mulino.

2005-11-22T10:23:00.000-06:00

Here Rossana and I are grabbing the lower branches while Gabby is up in the tree...the white stuff on the ground is the netting, which extends all the way to the edge of the dropoff (this tree was at the edge of one of the terraces).

olive you too

2005-11-22T08:58:00.000-06:00

you wanted an update!? an update you shall have!

the olives are here! the olives are here! and so many of them....
Sunday morning dawned lovely and cold as a welldigger's bottom, as my mom is fond of saying. Snow was predicted for this week (and has in fact arrived in the foothills), and so we took advantage of the Sunday sun to help Zia Gabby, Manuel's aunt, with her 200 olive plants. She is a widow and does the 200 plants every year by herself, with the help of her daughters who come in on the weekends. For perspective's sake: on Sunday, 10 people finished about 5 plants, working from 8 to 5 with a long Italian lunch. You can imagine how slow going it is for one person.

The ground under each tree has to be well-covered with the telo, or net, because the olives are picked, or rather raked, off the tree and thrown onto the ground. This is done by hand and also with tiny rake-like tools (I prefer the hand method). The bottom of the tree is the easy part; the top of the tree is the hard (but more fun!) part. A ladder is required, or a monkey-like ability (and desire) to shimmy up said tree.

Here is my book report, "What I Learned While Picking Olives." I was out there with Manuel, his mom, his aunt, his cousins, and his brand-new second cousin, baby Matilda. Manuel used to work at a frantoio (where they press olives), and his mom and aunt have 100 years of olive-picking between them, so they were able to answer all my questions without breaking a sweat. It was one of the easiest interviews I have ever conducted...the sun was bright, the sky was blue, the leaves were silver and green, the smell of the lunchtime sausages (cooked over olive branches) was wafting through the air...Oskar the dog was barking...people were laughing...the thought that passed through my head was this: since getting an iPod, I often put in my headphones and tune out the world while I am cooking or cleaning or whatever....it occurred to me that, while olive-picking is the kind of zone-out-activity for which an iPod would be useful, I would not for a million euro have put on my headphones...there was way too much sensory beauty going on.

And here is the story of olives:
In a good season, each tree yields about 25 kilograms of olives. A quintale, or 100 kgs, will usually make about 15-20 litres (4-5 gallons) of oil. SO 200 trees would make about 700-750 litres of oil.....that is a lot of oil. Of course, Italians use a lot of oil (not that much though).

The frantoio or mulino is where the oil is made. Each family hauls their harvest off to the mulino, and by appointment the olives are pressed. Olive-pressing usually goes 24 hours a day in this season. It used to be only cold stone pressed (as you see on expensive bottles of oil in the States), but now they also do a rapid hot-press method, which seemed to be shunned by the Italians with whom I was picking. Changes the taste, apparently.

And oh, the taste. There is almost nothing as good as REAL first press olive oil. The problem is that it is almost impossible to find in the States. I am bringing some home (pressed from the very olives I picked!) so if you come visit me in Dallas I'll let you taste it. :) Its color has to be seen to be believed...a thick, opaque Van Gogh sort of green.

Pictures accompany this report; please forward all questions to the author. :)

vanessa

i hang my head in shame

2005-11-18T11:05:00.000-06:00

as i think about how long it has been since i have posted. my little sister has posted a comment asking for an update....but nothing of note has happened....or at least nothing i noted. but when i am in the middle of booking a tour and finishing the writing of an album, i notice very little.

december and january will be busy months for me...i will be in the states for 6 weeks, will play at least 15 shows, finish the acoustic EP, Blackout, and start recording for Little Films. I am going to do the same thing for Little Films that I did with Thin Thread...there will come the day again in which I beg for sponsorship as we try to complete our first album recorded completely in a studio not our own...we are turning over the reins to the more-than-capable Salim Nourallah, but this will require turning over the pocketbook and the pen, so to speak.

I need to take a few pictures....after a month, the fog over Castiglion has lifted. Positioned as we are in the valley, trapped by the foothills of the Apennines, we are in a lovely little area of the world...except when the fog arrives. Once it arrives, it takes a northwesterly wind of gross proportion to blow it out of town. Today, the temperature dropped to freezing and the fog finally took its leave of us.

it's olive and grape picking time again! and baking time! i have turned into a baking machine. the students at santa chiara are missing home, and my kitchen is providing relief...between strawberry orange muffins, my famous chocolate chip cookies, and full-band concerts at the Velvet, they are all much happier, or so they say. I am thinking of making cookies to give away with every purchase of a CD this holiday season. What do you think?

Speaking of that....if you email me to order CDs and mention this blog entry, you can have 3 CDs for $25, including shipping to wherever in the world you please. I'll even wrap 'em up real nice for ya. :) Tee shirts are still available in M and L through www.castori.com.

Lastly...if you need a musician at your house this holiday season, email me! We have a few house concerts set up already throughout the state, but I am never averse to having more shows to play.

kisses from the land of the cold cold wind,
vanessa

3/5 of the way there!

2005-10-21T18:16:00.000-05:00

On Wednesday we recorded:

Never Been Good
Such Good Actors
Blackout

for the new acoustic EP! It went SO fast...Salim is such a professional, and a pleasure to work with. I will record the other two songs (I'm still choosing from 4) when I am in Texas in December...with any luck, the CD will be ready to go at the first part of the new year!

little chocolate kisses to you,
vanessa

live tonight via the Internet

2005-10-21T16:40:00.000-05:00

hey!
tune into the Salim and Vanessa show if you can't make it out....
go to:

http://www.pirateradionetwork.com/

and scroll down to Music, then Alternative... look for "Standard and Pours Coffee"...that'll be us!

cheerio,
v

shameless

2005-10-18T22:46:00.000-05:00

in an attempt to begin the GREAT-UNCLUTTERING-PROJECT, version 2.4, year of our Lord 2005.

http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZacousticgirl01QQhtZ-1

check back frequently...i have a feeling that more that the G.U. project progresses, the more random and loveable stuff there will be...

v.

2005-10-18T21:32:00.000-05:00

Here we are during the house concert...one of the loveliest settings I have ever played in...in front of me were 20 or 30 super attentive audience members...behind me was a rocky valley of cedar trees ... okay, doesn't sound so pretty when i put it that way...must work on descriptive skills...

2005-10-18T21:30:00.000-05:00

It might look scary from here, but this was damn fine chili, prepared by Gerri Gros and Stephanie Carter...thanks! :)

house concerts, oh how we love house concerts!

2005-10-18T21:24:00.000-05:00

hey gang,
just a word of thanks to my awesome Austin (and San Antonio!) fans who came out to the house concert on Friday night. i had such a great time - thanks to all of you who bought CDs, tees, and contributed to the gas fund. :) also, thanks to my fantastic hosts, Dustin and Kim, Bob and Gerri, and Stephanie and Josh...you guys rock. And MANY thanks to those of you who asked for recordings of the news songs...that vote of confidence was much appreciated. :)

and in that spirit...tomorrow I go to the studio of the fantabulous Salim Nourallah.... his studio is Pleasantry Lane and I hope to create many pleasantry things there. In truth, I know not yet what will be on this acoustic EP...just that something will. a few of the songs I am considering:

little films, such good actors, signposts, bonnie and clyde, amelia, if i stay, blackout, restless traveler, love story, june 2005 revisited, this riddle, no sense.

it is good to have so many to choose from...yet hard to choose. some of those songs will also be on the full-band full-length album Little Films, to be released in 2006...

if you feel like voting for a song to make it on the EP (or the full-length, for that matter), post a comment here, or drop an email at good ol' info @ vanessapeters com etc.....

i just saw "moonstruck" with my mom...it was my first time to see it, and it was even funnier in light of my adopted italian citizenship. when Cher's grandpa is crying and his son asks him what is wrong, and he says, "I'm confused!" ... I can relate. that was greatness.

okay, onto bed, then the studio, then the open road!
vanessa

2005-10-13T12:15:00.000-05:00

along the road...the road runs in a circle of about 2 miles, from Mimi's front door to Richard's to the oil wells to Aunt Velma's and back to Mimi's...we used to walk it after nearly every meal at Mimi's...gotta get that southern cooking worked off somehow!

2005-10-13T12:13:00.000-05:00

My Mimi and her little log cabin, built just a few hundred yards down the road from the blue house.

2005-10-13T12:12:00.000-05:00

The house my Dad built, where I lived until I was about 5.

2005-10-13T11:52:00.000-05:00

the sun rising at Mimi's house, over the pasture where I once played with my horse, Ginger.

2005-10-13T11:46:00.000-05:00

Alison Chapel United Methodist Church
Scene of my very first stage appearance EVER, at the tender age of 4, wherein I snuck on stage during a church dinner (held in the back, through the doors on either side of the altar) and proceeded to belt out "We Are the World" to the amusement of all.

texas from air and land

2005-10-13T11:20:00.000-05:00

bonjour,

i tell myself - don't fall behind! you'll never catch up!
but such is life, i am learning. you fall down, you get up. you fall behind...you run faster? haven't yet figured that one out.

i flew into town on saturday night by way of bologna/paris/cincinnati. i dream of the day i will be able to afford direct flights, maybe even in business class. i dare not dream of first class. :)

i am addicted to my mini ipod. how did i ever live before without 1000 songs at my disposal? sick. sick. sick.

in the interest of time, i won't be able to write about my charming flight on air france (the posh menu, a billion movies at a click, being called mademoiselle, accidentally using the way-cool first class bathroom) and will instead barrel on towards other items.

why is it that, upon landing in an american airport, i am immediately seized by the desire for fried food? chick-fil-a. french fries by any vendor. a cinnabon. (okay, that's not fried, but might as well be). a kid's meal later and i was in the air again, to touch down shortly in dallas. north texas from the air is SO darn flat. it is fascinating in its ugliness...the miles upon square miles of gray roofs, packed into subdivisions that are positively indistinguishable one from the other. yet there is some kind of strange beauty in its order, its efficiency. i wanted to take a picture, but i was in the middle seat, and at the window there was a little boy, about 3 years old, chanting insistently that the plane was going to crash into Lake Lewisville, so i stared ahead and thought as many positive thoughts as i could muster.

my friend leslie is an amazing artist. go check out her art: www.lesliesealey.com . likewise my friend dani, who designs jewelry: www.agapanthanyc.com

since arriving on saturday night, i have eaten an enormous quantity of mexican food and have consumed my fair share of margaritas, dr. pepper, and cookies. and amazingly, i am no worse for the wear. in fact, i am planinng lunch....

i played at my grandmother's tiny small-town church on tuesday night. the audience was mostly folks over 60 who knew me when i was knee-high-to-a-grasshoppper, etc. the total church membership hovers around 25 people, so we had nearly a 100% attendance rate. i was introduced as the "eye-talian" granddaughter. i played some of my songs and some gospel i learned for the occasion, and i have to say - there's nothing quite like singing "i'll fly away" to get your blood flowing.

the pictures posted are from the church, and from the land surrounding my grandmother's house. we went on a long walk before the show, and chatted about who owns this pasture and who sold their oil royalties on this acre of land and how small pets have been disappearing lately, due to (they think) some sort of bobcat or mountain lion in the area. i had forgotten how nice it can be just to walk, and remember an area you once knew very, very well. small town texas isn't so terribly different from small town italy.

on that note, come out to shows! they are happening in shreveport, austin, college station, and dallas. check the website for details and come out and say how's your mama and 'em.
y'all be good now, y'hear?
vanessa