Kayte Strong

I Started !

2011-05-19T14:59:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to start my new instrumental album and I finally did it. Notes are coming out on the computer. It feels great. Is is very intimidating to follow-up on the best albums of my career, but somebody's got to do it.

This computer is typing REALLY s-l-o-w so I'll come back tomorrow and post something when the internet isn't so jammed.

TTFN

Oh Where Oh Where Has My Apogee Gone?

2011-05-17T07:38:00.000-07:00

Apogee Electronics sent me the tracking number of my D/A unit which was picked up by the evil UPS yesterday and I went to the website to find out where the unit is and the website states that "it is unable to locate the shipment--try again later".

WHY THE TRACKING NUMBER IF IT CAN'T BE TRACKED?????????????????????????????????????

I really hope they lose it this time. I mailed it on March 12th to be repaired with the understanding this was only going to take a few days. This is May 17th.

Today's Rant

2011-05-16T11:30:00.000-07:00

Couldn't be happier today...back at my desk...packing & mailing off 50 CD's that I just sold from home while in Oregon. I'm completely out of "Born To Love You" now and it feels good. I'll get some more when I get around to it.

I'm sending off a show fee (a VERY SMALL ONE), and Den & I are painting the front door white. Yesterday we picked up a kitchen remodeling book and some stones for the garden. So strange to be sending money out to a show when I'm so deep in this domestic bliss. I'll snap out of it. Trust me.

UPS Crushed My Apogee

2011-05-14T11:47:00.000-07:00

I can't wait to get back home. There's NO place like home. Home home home.

I've been dying to create new music, and putting it off because my Apogee Ensemble has been in the shop for 2 months after being crushed by UPS in transit to a repair shop. (If your not a musician/gear nut/engineer/techie, my Apogee is the "heart of my recording studio"--my digital to analog converter that I bought just prior to recording "Born To Love You".) My Ensemble is currently in California waiting to be shipped on Monday to Indiana, where it will then be shipped to my house. If this seems a bit convoluted, well, it is. Because it was damaged on the way to a warranty repair in Indiana in March, it had to be shipped to the manufacturer in California where they had trouble repairing it. And because I didn't pack the Ensemble correctly in the original packaging, I am at least partially responsible for the shipping damage even though I insured it for the full amount through UPS (?) I already argued with the insurance adjusters and got nowhere. I've decided that I'll handle by dissatisfaction by never shipping with UPS again since, hopefully, the damages will be "only" $120.00 in cosmetic repairs. I'll find out next week.

I've been writing down zillions of titles for a new instrumental album but only one is coming up in itunes as completely unique. It just keeps getting tougher to find a fresh title unless, of course, it makes no sense: "Love At The Bottom Of The Ocean",
"Angels, Babies and Puppies", or "Peace, Love, and All That Stuff". Got any suggestions?

A Little Space & Time

2011-05-13T22:06:00.000-07:00

So-- I haven't posted in awhile. I get to look back on the mess that was...and it is bliss! After all, the past year has been AMAZING since I took my hands off the wheel and quit driving so hard. How great is that!!! I kept going to festivals and people just walked by my booth and didn't buy CD's so I thought the music was over. Actually, I was paying $1500 dollars a week out of my own pocket to play on the street--by the time I'd come down from Tennessee and stayed in a hotel and payed the show fees and payed for the gas and wear and tear on my vehicle let alone 5 days of labor and driving/singing...well, when I stopped touring I started making money! What a thought! I am working on a new album right now and until I see an advantage to touring I just might continue to stay home--after all--I do better on the internet than on the road (!) So my challenge to all my fans is: ? Sadly, the expenses of touring and the greediness of the promoters have made it tough to make out-of-state artists to come to your area to perform. We have the internet. Concert venues are the only places I can come to you unless you patronize one of the rare art festivals like Letchworth or Bonita Springs where sales are enough to keep us coming back from other states....unless you'd like to sponsor a concert in your area this summer...just a thought...So tell me where I should book a concert because I've been really lucky over the past 4 years with my concerts--I've never charged that much for them and we've had SO much fun trying out new songs. Pleas email me Kayte@kayte.com.

"Forget Everything And Rock"

2010-06-11T15:59:00.000-07:00

I'm in the final stages of mixing and mastering my first album with a real record label, and I ache with missing the sessions today to drive to an art show (my day job). I hear that the mixes are great, but I am so confused as I have friends and family at my homes in Nashville and Portland in so much pain while I'm in a nice Marriott. I can't enjoy this trip when my family is in trouble, but what am I to do? I gave notice at my rental home in Nashville and I'm letting go of everything I know to face the future.

At the root of change is fear. So I have to be strong and face fear which has been over-quoted as being "False Evidence Appearing Real". I also like the acronym "FEAR" as meaning "Fuck Everything And Run". May I add my own addition:

"Forget Everything And Rock". That's what I've got to do!

I think I own this one.... Copyright 6/11/10

Kayte "Strong"

2010-05-31T16:17:00.001-07:00

Completing The Circle

2010-05-31T13:49:00.000-07:00

I keep my car fairly packed for the long drive each week, so when the alarm goes off at 5 AM I only have to warm the coffee, take a quick shower, and put my suitcase in the car. I've been used to the early morning for years now, as I can save a night's hotel bill by driving to the show in one shot. I'm lucky this weekend as it's "only" 550 miles, which would normally be a breeze except I've been in the studio trying to repair a blown tweeter at 10 PM, and then I can't go to sleep once I lay down for another hour.

The alarm plays soft classical music to wake me, and I reflexively punch the sleep button for another blissful ten minutes. I'm not ready, but then comes the second alarm and like a trained inmate I make the bed, pack the car, and heat the coffee. Once behind the wheel I plug in this week's audio book gamble that will hopefully coax me into the long journey ahead of me. This time it works. It's a suspense novel about a therapist who ends up in a dangerous relationship with a murderer. These are all things I can ride with and relate to and not clock the miles or feel the stiffness of my legs and back for at least the first few hours. A great book will hypnotize me until I fuel the car every six hours from the first fill up in Monteagle, TN.

The audio books take me as far away as I can be from the drive, the ache of knowing my father is alone in a rest home for the first time at my own insistence. I am on the other side of the earth it seems, trying to reach out to him, but he might as well be on the moon. He is blinded by cataracts, deaf without a hearing aid, and can't walk due to a recent hip fracture. Most of the time when I try to call him on the phone there's no answer. I don't think he hears the phone ringing. Once in awhile I get lucky and tell him over and over again that I love him. But I only get through once a week. That is too little, and my heart screams each time he doesn't answer his phone.

I drive below the speed limit so I won't have thoughts about cops or where I am or if I'm safe. I drive because I have to pay the bills somehow. Ten years ago that drive was easy because I was making good money and had the hope of a future in the music industry. Now I drive because it's all I have left except my Dad, who waits for me patiently to come home. I don't look at the scenery much anymore as it's all too familiar, except when the unusual scene pops into my private windshield movie.

This weekend it was a helicopter lifting seemingly right in front of me off the freeway. My synapses came to life as I realized that someone was being airlifted off the opposing lanes into the hands of physicians waiting for him at a local hospital. Then I fantasized -- maybe more than one person, were they on life support? Were they going to make it? Was their family watching as I was as they were airlifted to their destiny?

I've always made a habit of saying prayers every time I see an ambulance race by, or see someone flown off like this. I often wish I could be there administering care, calming the injured, and knowing that I did my best to save a life. It is at these times I question why I am a musician and not a physician. But I do music for a living, and it was my choice long ago. "Heal Thyself, Musician" doesn't always work as well as the right medical care, but once in awhile music does have the power to illuminate a moment, heal a wound, or bring joy to someone, including myself.

Nine hours later, I'm ebbing into Hilton Head, tired but ready for the challenge. When I get to the show site, I find out I have only an hour to set up my tent. I swear these rules are invented only hours before I get there, as I try so hard to read the printouts from the promoter. I've learned to be flexible. So in an unprecedented burst of energy, I set up my tent in record time, which manages to twist my shoulders and back in ways that demand payback the next day. Once accomplished, I found the local Piggy Wiggly where I stocked up on water and fruit for the next day.

Once circling the area, I finally found the lot (.08 miles from the show) where "we gyspy artists" are allowed to stay overnight. Once I parked there, I quickly found two of my most favorite artists on the circuit, and we hung out on the back bumper of an RV trading good old days stories and catching up on life. To the traveling artists, it's our watercooler. I then went to a pizza place down the street and had a slice of pizza before walking the .08 mile back to my tent where my queen size mattress and sleeping bag were all nicely made up and ready for entry.

The mattress has a slow leak in it so I woke up to a partially inflated bed and the slamming of car doors at 6 AM. That's when I walked the .08 miles back to the car lot to take a "bottle shower" (I put on a swimsuit and pour soap and a gallon of cold water over my head and body and lather until I feel clean. That's one of my favorite things to do; it must be the Nordic blood in me). Then I get in the car and run the heater to dry out my hair and move the car to the day parking site (only .03 miles away). Still dripping wet, I continue my setup of my booth from 7 until 10 am. Then I'm expected to sing all day like it's no big deal as customers walk by and say "That's Nice" or whisper among themselves that I must be faking it. I've long lost my attitude as the media has done a brilliant job at selling artificial talent to the masses.

But now the masses are getting savvy. So I sing and then stop the song or change the words and all of a sudden the audience realizes this is NOT a recording. I've always sounded like my recordings (but I've always sold the truth) but now there are so many dang computer gadgets to enhance a live performance that the consumer KNOWS when they're being sold a bill of goods. The trick is that as soon as I record something, I've always found a way to make it even better on the road. After all, recordings are just a snapshot...

And then this weekend IT happened. I've been with one of the most talented producers I've ever been with, and we've made recordings I thought I couldn't even hope to keep up with live. He pushed my envelope so hard it ripped. So I've been fighting to keep up with the recordings. I mean--when you've made it PERFECT in the studio how the heck do you make it better unless you have a billion barely clothed dancers and fireworks and a light show to make it better? That's what THEY do....

Until this weekend I did not know how to reach beyond a camera or an audience and into the place where the real talent lives. I don't really understand what happened, but I wanted it so bad, and then I saw the O's on people's faces and I knew I'd found the real stage. I became an arc of electricity and sent my performance all the way from Hilton Head to New York City. I gave until it hurt. After all of it, I could barely speak. I had given so much of myself away I had nothing left. I became the gift.

****
I told a young lady that weekend who had trouble accepting complements what I had learned (but have never really owned until today) what I had learned from the late VP of Fantasy Records. This is the way I put it to her:

Imagine yourself giving someone a beautiful gift, and holding it out to them, and when they say thank you, you turn and walk away. Learning to accept the gift and say "Thank YOU, too" is as important as giving it, as you make the circle complete, and then and only then does the gift have meaning.

I learned that as a lecture years ago. I embodied it for the very first time this weekend. Please pass this on, as there is no greater joy than completing the circle.

*****

I reached my father by phone FINALLY when I got home today to tell him I'd be there for Father's Day. It's hard to get him to understand me, but I really know he felt my love. That's all that matters to me right now. He completes my circle, and I complete his.

****

I'm "home" in Nashville right now but it's not the same home anymore. I have a gift to give back to my father, in my real home, in his arms. I left him too soon as a child/woman thirty tears ago with no real thank you. Now is the time to take care of all that.

A Nice Crime Story

2010-02-15T06:47:00.000-08:00

Nora lay there, her hands and feet tied to the four bedposts as her husband pushed a bullet into one of the six chambers of his Ruger .327 automatic pistol. Jack was standing at the foot of the bed, staring at his estranged wife with bloodshot gunmetal gray eyes, when he lifted the gun and pulled the trigger.

"Brrrrrring, brrrring". The hammer of the gun snapped on an empty chamber, and impossibly the wall telephone in the kitchen began to ring. Sarcastically, Jack waved the gun, "Stay right here", and left the room.

Nora could barely hear Jack on the phone, "Yeah... I can get you another...I'll meet you there..." as she slipped one of her trembling wrists out of the knotted ropes and freed her remaining limbs. Taking a deep breath, listening and sensing his position to still be in the other room, she bolted out of the bedroom, down the hall, out through the front door fleeing from her captor--and a ten year nightmare that had cost her a promising career in computer animation and music. She ran out into the busy street in front of her house, and she hasn't stopped running yet.

Nora is a survivor of an incredible journey that took her literally to the streets for fifteen years, doing the very thing she was destined to do all along: sing. Her story is that of a sadly beautiful woman that cheated death by the hands of a serial murderer three times, that of defying the overwhelming odds against finally signing a recording contract in Nashville in her fifties. To know this woman is to know the depth of a musician's passion and the human drive to succeed no matter how difficult the journey.

Why I Like Waffle House

2010-01-22T08:31:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I stopped in at a Waffle House to get a quick bite. While sitting at the counter eating my brunch I took up a conversation with a waiter who was busily washing dishes directly in front of me, in the sink on the other side of the counter. The young man accidentally lost control of the water spray nozzle and sprayed me in the face while I was forking a mouthful of eggs into my mouth.

I later tipped him extra for that.

Labor Of Love

2010-01-14T07:51:00.000-08:00

It's been brutal at the festivals this year; cold, wet, and empty. I can't blame people for holing up in the record cold temps. I'm hunkered down in my project studio while my producer is in Texas buying a house. I've been making my own mixes of the record and starting the slow process of moving across the country (!). I plan to move this summer in phases and to establish homes in either or both Texas and Oregon depending on whether I can find a good work/gig situation or health care option in those states. From there I can continue to tour and work on a follow-up album for Silver Hill, which is relocating to Texas.

This album is EVERYTHING I hoped it would be. I'm taking the first mixes to Bonita Springs this weekend. I'm holding my breath.

Sing And Freeze

2010-01-05T06:45:00.000-08:00

A fan just posted a video of me performing last weekend in frigid temperatures. I had worn a hat all day to stay warm and frankly I should have kept it on. Don't ya just love "helmet hair"?

It's tricky to sing in freezing weather. I'm not sure most people know how difficult it is to stay in key in temps near 30 degrees, but if you think about trying to play any instrument with stiff and cold muscles then you'll get the picture. You can see on my face how hard I'm trying to control my performance -- which is perfect for the song "Coming Up For Air".

Immediately after the video I put my jacket and hat back on. And I didn't take them off the rest of the weekend. Forget the "Air" -- Coming Up For Heat was more appropriate.

Who The Hell Is Happy?

2009-12-31T09:48:00.000-08:00

Yes, I'm very glad this year is over. Are you?

I spent a lot of time this year putting back together the pieces of my life and body (oh! how they are connected!). I have a new heart and a new album and it's no coincidence that we finally titled the new CD "Born To Love You". You can look for the singles to be released in February.

This year I have learned to engineer in the recording studio, and I've re-engineered my life. This resetting of values began two years ago on a plane flight to Phoenix, AZ when I took every blessed fader and knob in my life and set it back to zero. I now feel like I've got a good balance again, where work has its place and change is a comfortable river I am floating on. That's why I really like the song "Everybody Needs A River" on the new record. It's so hard to let the current take you, to let the future make you.

There is no going back (good!). So bring on 2010. I'm happy to be here, right now. And have a Happier New Year, y'all.

The Elephant In The Recording Booth

2009-12-28T21:34:00.000-08:00

This song gives me an anxiety attack every time I open it up. It's a wall of sound. Last time i counted there were

14 drum tracks
1 Bass track
6 guitar tracks
2 string tracks
1 organ track
1 lead vocal
4 lead vocal doubles
6 background tracks from Julie
4 background tracks by me

all submixed into a rough form. It only took 6 months and two versions of Logic, and two operating systems (Tiger and Leopard)

Drums by dennis; julie and I did the vocal tracks and I played everything else. I finally boiled the production down to 29 tracks with some submixing.

Back To Recording Daily

2009-12-17T09:09:00.000-08:00

As you may have seen on my posts on twitter and facebook, I just spent 2 days going through my first colonoscopy :0 Now I'm SOOOO glad to be back in the project studio picking through the mixes.

Today I was stumped (and still am) by a really weird aif file that would not play back in Logic, but would play back in other apps like Quicktime. I don't really know what the mechanics were that I used to solve the problem, but I did fix it by cutting up the file in seven pieces and raising the gain on each piece individually (digitally) resulting in a mathematical change to each sample. Then I bounced the sections together. I can't forget to mention that I did all of this from my start up template and not within the actual sequence. My *guess* is that there was some errant data in the track that kept knocking the volume down to 0 without any visible cue on any fader within the sequence. Very strange.

I just finished locking the string parts on "What You Want" to the new drums. WooHoo!

Heavy Schedule

2009-12-11T08:04:00.000-08:00

So this is every day of the week--at the recording desk by 9 or 10 am, then I record until 8 or 9 at night with a few breaks to eat or go to the gym or see a doctor. I'm giving this Month to the album, and possibly the next one too. Last week I saw my life coach and the dentist, next week I'll get a colonoscopy (!) Recording seems like a vacation if kept in proper perspective.

Sleepless In Nashville

2009-12-02T00:40:00.000-08:00

Another night without sleep :0. This has been really common this month, and I seek refuge in the internet and listening to the days work in the studio. Tomorrow I'm off to the dentist and then we begin recording again at noon. My head cold has blessed me with a rich, gravelly vocal timbre that's worth the price, but I'd give anything for clear nasal passages right about now so I could get back in bed. Maybe by 3 am. ???

My First Blog

2009-12-01T07:54:00.000-08:00

I'm taking this for a quick spin--then it's off to blogland for me. I already have a blog on myspace so this shouldn't be TOO difficult. My goal is to shed light on what it's like to record a legit album here in Nashville with Silver Hill Records. The staff here are the same people who ran the highly successful Cosmic Mule Group which had many hits including the Grammy-Nominated "From My Front Porch Looking In" and signed several artists including Georgette Jones and Mark McGuinn (who held the record for the highest charting independent record a few years ago). I'm now the latest horse in the stable, and I'm trying to take this as far as it will go. This should be a spectacular journey--come along with me!

Hi! I'm Online

2009-11-30T21:23:00.000-08:00

I've just signed with a record label here in Nashville and I'm in the studio recording 24/7 so I'm going to send out some fun blogs about the whole experience as I go. I'm so thrilled with the process of making my first major release (NO pressure as the label has joked) that I have literally locked myself in my studio and will NOT come out until January when it's done. I guess this isolation comes with the territory! Yikes!

I'm VERY lucky to be here and you will see me surface at Howard Alan events in January with the goods. Wish me luck--this IS it and I give thanks to ALL of you for supporting me as I record the album I always wished I could make. :)

Happy New Year!!

Kayte