Journal

Here's what Angie has been up to . . .

Posted 3/19/2005 4:28:08 PM Well, the sad news is that the Kerosene Kondors, the band I have been touring with (singing backup and playing phantom guitar...aka not plugging in but strumming along so's I have something to do with my hands) have disbanded temporarily. Our van, Vanna White, died about 4 hours west of Chicago, and most of the members of the band are taking the train home from Chicago. Will (lead singer) and Jubal (drummer) borrowed a friend's car to deliver me to Ohio where I rented a car so I could finish out the solo shows I had booked on this tour. I'm gonna miss all them boys and that girl for the rest of this traveling time...

Posted 1/27/2004 12:58:54 PM The South Florida Folk Festival (An essay by Angie Heimann) Two weekends ago, I flew into Fort Lauderdale (after a six hour delay at the San Francisco airport- grrrrr.) It was midnight, and I had had quite a day of traveling, and so the unfolding of the following events saved the day for me: - Very nice woman named Cheryl picks me up at the airport (at midnight!), gives me the festival lodown, and delivers me to the campgrounds. -As we pull into the park, I spot a hat coming toward us and recognize it as belonging to none other than my good friend Michael (buy his CD's at www.michaelmcnevin.com) who has setup a tent for me. What a kindly fella (last thing I feel ready to do is setup an unfamiliar tent in the dark. Tents and me , see, we have an agreement. I can take them down, but setting them up is a whole new balla wax.) -I confess to Michael that alligators are a mild concern of mine. (The tents are setup on the edge of a lake, and we all know what can live in a Florida lake.) He assures me that there are no gators in this lake, but even if there were they would get the dogs first. He tells me there are lots of little dogs that swim around in the lake here. I am mildly confused by this but in the daylight of the following morn I see that he must have meant ducks, because there are indeed ducks. Geese, to be exact. -I meet several kindly folks that first night before retiring to my tent. Among them are: Susan, who helped with so many of the details on getting me to and from the festival, all out of the kindness of her heart without ever having met me before. Brian the Breadman, who, through the course of the weekend filled many a belly with homemade bread and hosted many a great campfire circle at his camp. The meadmakers. These folks made their own mead and weren't stingy with it either. The next day was contest day. After walking around the festival grounds in a crinkly but what I thought to be alluring dress, I decided that since I didn't have access to a mirror, shower, or fashion -savvy, brutally honest friend (I did ask Michael, who is most definitely a friend and most definitely honest) I better go for the tried and true jeans and t-shirt and bandana. Lipstick always makes me feel dressy, so I stole a glance in a minivan window to apply my lipstick. The kind but unsuspecting minivan owner saw me peering into her rig and gently approached with a quizzical look on her face. I got to hear and meet many talented performers that day- there were 20 finalists and I did my best to hear most of them. It was humbling to be there among so many great musicians. I didn't take home a prize in the contest, but (fade in slow sappy piano music) I did take home an invaluable experience. And met some fine folks. And decided that folk festivals are where it's at.

Posted 1/27/2004 12:25:56 PM It's Tuesday morning, and I woke up ten minutes before the alarm (a pot of green tea last night left me caffeinated) and took Sally for a walk around the block. She has been copping a tude with neighborhood dogs lately, pulling on her leash in a way that's not good for her healing back. So I've been trying different routes, buy bygod this neighborhood seems to have a law that says everyone must have a dog and cat, and all of them have to loose in the yard. There is also apparently some sort of law that says sidewalks are the best place for dogs to take care of their business, if you know what I mean. It is not the first time I do the scrape-walk all the way home. We must look pretty cute, Sally with a shaved back pulling me along in my blue pajama bottoms doing the scrape walk. My friend Kristin and I went to the video store the other night (rented "Death to Smoochy"- I give it a B+.) There were five minutes to close, and the following conversation ensued: Guy at the register (as he pulls up my account): This one's free Angie: Uh, thanks! (Angie and Kristin exit) Kristin: Why was it free? Angie: I don't know, maybe he thought we were cute? Kristin: He didn't think we were cute! He's sixteen! Angie: Oh (Turns out that every fiftieth movie is free.) The end.

Posted 1/12/2004 4:46:35 PM It's January, which means rainy in northern California. The woodstove is keeping our house heated, and we have a new cat named Harriet. She is a calico, which I have been reading up on- it's not actually a breed but just a color combination that almost only happens in female cats because of the chromosome codes that allow for the tri-color combination. We had a rough start with her- here is the story: We were taking our dog Sally to the UC Davis teaching hospital to get a checkup on her back ( which she broke when she fell off a cliff while we were hiking.) Since the hospital is 4 hours or so from our home, we stayed the night with our friend Rebecca in Gilroy. While waiting for her to get off of work, we did some window shopping and ended up going into a pet store to browse the lizards and fish. There were some cats in cages, and one very cute cat in particular, who had apparently been there for two months and whom the pet store workers had found in a dumpster. She charmed us with her purry ways and we thought we might take her home right then but alas they wouldn't let us until she was spayed. We tried to buy a spay certificate and told them that as we lived four hours away, it would be tough for us to treck down again for this kitty. But they stuck to their guns and so we went home kittiless. But we kept thinking about this little dumpster diver, and our friend Jeff offered to bring her up to us after her spay operation, as he was going through Gilroy. He was kind enough to do so, and all seemed well until I noticed a lump where Harriet had been spayed. I looked online and found that it is normal for a bit of swelling to occur on the spay spot, but the next day and the next the swelling only increased. So I decided to take Harriet to the vet when I realized that her lump was the size of a golf ball, but didn't have a car so started walking with a meowing girl in my arms. My frend Paul just happened to be on his way over to our house, so he pulled up and took us to the vet. It turns out that the spay job was not a very good one- it created a tear in her abdomen, and Harriet's bladder was coming out of her abdomen,(under the skin) hernia style. So the vet was nice enough to sew her up right away. Harriet was a sore cat for another few days, and seemed mad at us. But now she seems to feel much better. She is half cuddleball and half attack kitty. She's about a year old, and quite tiny (which you can tell all the more with her shaved belly.) We thought about naming her: Banana, Amelia, Three Hundred Dollars (how much her hernia operation combined with the initial spay operation cost,) Rasputin, Biscotti, Chalupa...but thought Harriet suited her quite well. So what do you think? Should I write the pet store a nasty letter because of the way they acted all hall-monitor bossy and wouldn't let us figure out any kind of solution to have her spayed in Fort Bragg, and then botched up the spay job themselves? Or do we just let it slide and be glad that Miss. Fluffmuffin is ok and with us? Other news: I am traveling to south Florida this week to compete in the South Florida Folk Festival's songwriter competition (I am one of 20 finalists! Woo hoo!) I can't wait! Am bringing my bathing suit in hopes of getting warm enough weather to go for a dip. Am kind of afraid of alligators, and will be camping at this festival. Am going to remember everything I learned about gouging out alligator eyes, just in case I have a run-in with one. This is supposed to be a really fun festival, and I will report back with details as to how it went! Currently reading: The Woman Warrior (Maxine Hong-Kingston) - reading this because it is on the Songs Inspired by Literature compilation CD contest- they give a list of 10 books to choose from, write a song about , and submit it for their compilation CD. I am trying to read and write a song for each of the 10, figuring I increase my chances that way, and get to read some great books in the meantime. The Woman Warrior is book # 4 for me. (The first three were: To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee,) The Things They Carried (Tim O'Brian) and Othello (Shakespeare.) This process is reminding me how much I love writing about literature. And some more good news: we will be getting visits from some good friends who just booked flights our way- one in early February and a group of four in early March! Yee-haw, we get to show off our nice little town by the sea, while it is still our nice little town (in July we'll move back to K-town. Ohio that is.) Well, I am signing out for now. May your new year be a sweet one.

Posted 12/9/2003 1:40:45 AM I am listening to Niel Young's "Harvest Moon" realizing that "one of these days" I need to sit down and write a long letter... So, our pup Sally (who's 4) fell off a cliff and broke her back. She is healing and recovering really well, but she's fairly depressed that she has to be confined. But she's tied up nearby the woodstove, and I think she likes Niel Young- I guess she's about as cozy as she could be. I am writing a Christmas song about being in California and away from family for the first Christmas ever. Am debating whether to get a tree of sorts- thinking a branch with some lights might be nice. Something cool happened for me in the music world- my songs "Giving Tree" and "Ruby Red Shoes" were chosen for the finals of the South Florida Folk Festival which will take place in January. I'll get to go, play my songs, meet lots of other musicians and nice folks in the music world. I am really looking forward to being there! Also, I am going to be at the Folk Alliance conference in January, where my pal (and a very talented fellow musician) Michael McNevin and his agent Susan will be hosting the Alamood showcase room, where we will play in-the-round style with some excellent musicians. I am going to go hang out with Sally!

Posted 8/1/2003 4:32:10 PM Boy am I sleepy. My mom is here for a visit- I picked her up at the airport last night and didn't get home until about 3am, and couldn't even sleep then because of the coffee I had to keep me awake while driving. I need to, as a general rule, stay "decaffeinated Angie." This week I lost a bunch of my booking database records and also my entire mailing list! Eeeek! If you want to be on my mailing list, hows about you send me an emial with all your information so I can start to rebuild it! How silly of me to let this happen- I backed it up but apparently not the right way. The new CD's will probably be on my front door step in 3 weeks! The day I leave for tour! Yee-haw!

Posted 7/17/2003 12:33:46 PM All is well on the Western front. Last night Brek and I had a gourmet meal of Mac and Cheese. After I had already crawled into bed Brek discovered that we might need some ice cream. It was 11pm and I wasn't about to put my shoes on to go to Safeway, the only store in town open 24 hours. Brek said it might be OK to go in my slippers, which are ratty dirty blue furry things, so I agreed to be his sidekick on this mission. The whole time I kept looking at everyone's shoes, trying to figure out if it's normal to survey people all the way down to their feet (so I could know if my own feet would be a target of speculation. My slippers are pretty nasty.) I don't think anyone noticed, until we got to the checkout aisle. Brek was parusing the magazine racks a few aisles down and I stood there, all alone in my slippers, clutching a frozen pint of Chocolate Cheesecake ice cream, when this dude came up behind me and started talking to the guy in front of me. I recognized the guy behind me as someone who had been quite talkative and maybe a little flirty with me at the health food store one week back. I noticed him looking at my grossening slippers and when he caught my eye I looked away and pretended I didn't recognize him. I spilled my tale to Brek as soon as we got into Robin, our minivan, and he assured me that I shouldn't feel guilty for pretending I didn't recognize the guy, and that being caugut in the checkout in nastoid slippers clutching a pint of ice cream at 11pm on a Wednesday night was a perfectly good reason to avoid eye contact with someone.

Posted 6/17/2003 12:47:58 PM Hi. This past week has been a rough one. Our sweet little cat Ramona got attacked by a dog and died at the vet's office. The thing that makes me the most angry is that Ramona was never anything but sweet and trusting to any dog she met. I only saw her hiss mildly once when a dog was really getting in her face. But instead of telling the details of our last days with her I would rather tell how we came to have her as our kitty. The Story of Ramona: I had been working on Brek for awhile to let us add a kitty member to our family. My cousin knew this, and he called me saying "Ang, I know of some people who are going to drown this litter of kitties. I thought you might want one of them." So I have this excellent group of laydee friends, and the network got buzzing to find homes for all the kitties. I went down to the basement, where Brek was sawing something, and told him very sweetly that we would be sharing our home with kittens for one night (and maybe keep one of them.) He cocked his brow and agreed to "one night." Well to my surprise, the mama cat was in the box with the kittens when I went to pick them up. Turns out her fate would have been the same as thiers. And to top it off, the kittens weren't weaned yet, so they all had to stick with their mama for at least 2 weeks. One night turned into two weeks and we turned the extra room in our house into "The Cat Room." We got to know all the kittens and gave them temporary names and the network of Laydeez buzzed away at finding them homes. We played with them all and tried to decide which one we should keep. The mama kitty surprised us with her chill attitude and sweetness. (We had heard she was a crazy, and found this to be naught but a rumor.) So, the main test, we decided, would be to introduce all the kittens to our dog Sally (who spent most of those two weeks sniffing the crack under the door of the Cat Room. Mama kitty watched as we took each one of her kittens out to meet The Black Beast (Sally.) Each kitten was pretty good but a little nervous with Sally, and Sally seemed about the same with them. Of course she did her best to sniff them thoroughly. For kicks we decided to see if the cool Mama cat would be OK with Sally, because we really liked her. We thought she would probably hiss and scratch, being an adult cat in a strange place and all. But we set her gently on the floor and Sally sniffed her behind and Mama Cat did nothing but walk all calm and cool-like to the other side of the room. And thus a great friendship was born. We decided to keep that mama cat, but had to take her to the vet to make sure she was not infected with Feline Leukemia. On our way to the vet that very same day, we got a flat tire. We pulled into the parking lot of Huntington Bank and Brek changed the tire while I held Mama Cat (we didn't have a cat carrier, but she was so sweet and chill that we didn't need one.) We got to the vet, and all was well with mama Cat. Thus, we gave her a name: Ramona. On the way back from the vet, on our 3 good tires and one spare, we passed the car dealer strip of Kent. We thought, what the hey, let's stop and see how much used mini-vans cost. Ramona waited patiently in the car and we put the down payment on a Dodge Caravan, robin's egg blue, on our credit card. (Still paying off! Yow!) In the span of a couple hours, we got a new cat Ramona and a new van, (Robin.) Since then, both have added nice purring noises to our lives. And now, some Ramona-isms. 1) Sniffing our hair in the middle of the night and making like she's eating the air near our heads, while drooling. Our only guess as to what this means is that our shampoo is fruity and she likes fruit? 2) Sitting on the keyboard of my computer while I am trying to type, jonesing for some luv. (I always gave in.) 3) Trying in her kitty way to play with Sally. They were very good friends and fun to watch. Ramona would sometimes bat at Sally's tail, and Sally would get very nervous about it but lick Ramona as if she knew she was making a kind gesture. Also Ramona would occasionally go on a rampage through the house and would leap fully into the air, over Sally if in her path. Ramona's rampages were funny because she was always a very teensy,delicate cat but not very graceful. The first few times she ran down the stairs we thought "who else is here?" We thought it was a human going down the stairs. 4)Sleeping on her back with a mass of white fluff and four paws sticking into the air. 5)She made warbling noises. She was a very quiet cat, rarely meowed or made any noises, but every now and then she would make a little warble noise. 6)Brek, who used to be Mr. No-Cats, could often be spotted cradling Ramona like a baby (her favorite way to be held) talking to her in a sweet voice. This was a prime time for her warbling, too. 7)Ramona had very goopy eyes. The vet said she had small tear ducts, and there was nothing to do but wipe the goop away. Sally would often lick Ramona's eyes and Ramona would brace herself on her four legs and stand there pushing against Sally's tongue. Together they got the job done. 8)Ramona nick names: Kottikit, Kottinball, Kottis, Rasputin (in rampage mode), Monzar, Monz, the Ponz, the Pony, Sweetikit, Fluffbutt, Fluffikit, Lovemuffin, Littleist, and "the little Sweet One." A song I would reccomend to anyone who has buried a pet recently is the one on the new Be Good Tanyas CD (Title: Chinatown.) The song, I believe, is called Dog Song # 2. We listend to the disc yesterday and that song hit us like a heavy blanket. The description in the song was almost our exact experience in burying Ramona. I know that eventually Ramona will get her own memorial song. But we need to just miss her for awhile first. A shout out to my girl Jessica and boy Josh, who lost their sweet kitty Norman about two weeks ago. If there is a heaven, they must have needed a couple of good cats there this month. And they got them.

Posted 6/3/2003 1:44:11 PM 6/03/03 I am having a fun low key summer so far. I have written 2 new songs this week- 1 about "the other me" which features a little bit of harmonica, and one is a sad twangy tune inspired by the new John prine album of duets. Have any of you heard his duets with Iris Dement? The one that goes "We're not the Jet Set, we're the old chevrolet set..." and the one that I think is called "In spite of ourselves" (which is a really funny song, especially when sung around the campfire with a bunch of woodworkers taking the different verses of the song.) I am bit sad because many of our woodworking buddies have gone home to their real lives. But this weekend will be a fun little jaunt about 2 hours away to visit friends. So now I am focusing on booking the fall and also Brek and I are about to start working on a CD cover design for the newest CD, which will be out in mid August. I am still working on a title for it, too. Any ideas?

Posted 5/1/2003 10:31:04 AM Hi! Well, the website is back up, thanks to Eric! We've lost all the previous journal entries but I look at this as a new beginning! Today I am sitting at my brother-in-law and sister-in-law's computer in Atlanta, GA. Soon I will drive on over to Sound and Fury Studios and sit in with the fabulous and talented DeDe Vogt (engineer, producer,mix-master and musician extrordinaire) for the very last day of mixing on my third CD! I am so very excited! There will be lots of new sounds on this CD- accordian, drums on a few songs, and my very own star appearances on the omnichord and xzylaphone (how do you spell that? ) to name a few. Also lots of harmony vocals. This will be the first album that I have had someone else produce (DeDe Vogt!) and that means that she put her mind to thinking about what other instruments would sound really good on the songs, then hired the musicians to come in and play. It was so fun to witness all of these stellar musicians coming in and playing on my songs! So that was back in March. When we were done with most of the tracking (laying down all of the instrument and vocal tracks on the songs) DeDe made some rough mixes and I got to take a copy home to California (which we will call home for another year- Brek got into woodworking school for a second year! Ye-ha!) I sent out copies of the rough mixes to a few souls who I knew would give me honest feedback, and Brek and I listened over and over and I took copious notes on everyone's comments and suggestions and came up with some things I wanted to change(and a list of things to keep just how they are.) Meanwhile DeDe was listening to her copy. And so when we re-conviened at the beginning of this week to get to work again. On Monday we finished up the tracking and then Tuesday, Wednesday and today are dedicated to mixing. (A picture of mixing: Dede sits in her mix-master chair and listens to each individual track and turns knobs until she gets the sound she wants. Then she gradually brings all the tracks up together. We listen together and when it all sounds perfectly balanced, DeDe records the final mix onto a DAT tape, which I think stands for Digital Audio Tape. Mixing one of my songs takes anywhere from an hour to two and a half hours for DeDe.) The next step will be mastering (taking to another studio where the mastering engineer will listen to all the individual song levels and then bring them up or down to a common level. This is so that when you listen to a CD you don't have to turn it up and down too much from song to song. The mastering engineer will also put the songs in order (based on the list that DeDe and I give him) and hand over the Master copy, which is the CD that I will send to Oasis, the duplication company. Before sending this off, however, I'll work with Brek who will be the CD-cover-designer-daddyo for the next CD. Once all the templates are in the right format we will send the CD and graphics to Oasis, and then, about 3 weeks to a month later, the US postal service or UPS will deliver 1000 CD's to my doorstep! Then I will eagerly take an exact-o knife to one of the boxes and pore over every detail of the new CD! I am thinking this might be sometime in August ( I have to afford this in steps- but I do have the goal to have my new CD with me when I launch out for my September tour. And so, there is everything you probably ever wanted to know (and more) about what goes into making a CD. Ta-ta, lovelies!