Deborah Crooks: News/Journal

I will be performing a set at the Ben Bernstein & Friends stop along the Bay to Breakers route this Sunday.
Joining Ben will be Michael Faiella on Drums, Jordan Klein on Banjo, and members of Free Peoples and Bucky Dub. He'll likely sit in w/me on bass or guitar.

Later that day we'll be playing at
Cafe La Vie. There, I'll have Yoon Ki Chai joining me on violin. Both shows are free!


SUNDAY, MAY 18TH, 2008
Golden Gate Park
Bay to Breakers Hootenanny - 8 am
Marx Meadows (30th & JFK)
San Francisco CA
Price: Free
BB & friends perform along the 2008 Bay Breakers route.

SUNDAY, MAY 18TH, 2008
Cafe La Vie
Deborah Crooks and friends - 6 PM
514 Octavia Street
San Francisco CA 94102
(415) 621-6877
Price: Free
Bay to Breakers Day in the heart of Hayes Valley. Come hang out after
the race for original music, great coffee drinks, and other eats.

Hello,
I'm happy to be returning to San Luis Obispo on June 28. Am looking to book gigs on the way and on the return.
Let me know if you have any leads or would like to share a So. Cal/Central Cal. show

I'd love if you became a fan:
http://www.ourstage.com/fanclub/deborahcrooks

I've been back in the studio the past month, working with Ben Bernstein again, and am really excited about how the new recordings are sounding. Aiming for a mid-summer completion date. Stay tuned!

I'm playing June 21. A San Francisco tradition: http://www.sffolkfest.org/

"Turn It All Red is the title of the excellent new janglerock album from Bay Area songwriter Deborah Crooks. Backed by a tight three-piece band, singer/guitarist Crooks opens the album with the catchy, bouncy title track. It’s about pulling out all the stops: “pull out your purple heart and turn it all red,” she cajoles. And what a fine song stylist she is, sounding like Chrissie Hynde at her late 80s peak as a vocalist on the next track, the beautifully pensive Land’s End. In a highly nuanced, subtly soul-inflected delivery, she retraces the steps of someone who’s finally come into her own, finally ready to stop burning her bridges." — Lucid Culture, http://lucidculture.wordpress.com/

you can buy mp3s of my tunes at cdbaby:

DEBORAH CROOKS: Turn It All Red
http://cdbaby.com/cd/deborahc2
also, check out some video stuff I'm doing at SXSW with the conversation group team in Austin
http://www.thisissxsw.com/

I'll be one of the artists that will get
airplay on 3/9, as part of Radio Crystal Blue's coverage of Airplay Vote 2008..I'm a nominee. Please vote here:
http://pub36.bravenet.com/vote/vote.php?usernum=3071115404
Thanks for your support!

just booking a gig Wed. 3/12 1pm venue, details tba. Gonna be fulllll week.....

I've started recording anew. Tracked three songs this weekend with Ben Bernstein producing. Here's some studio video for ya where we're putting lead on "Miss Me Sometime":

INSTEAD OF
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
we'll be on
The Bruce Latimer Show
Wednesday, March 5
Taping Wednesday night at 9:00 pm from the Pacifica Community Television station in Pacifica, California. Studio Audience is welcome. Jean Mazzei, Alex Walsh and I will be playing a few songs and talking to Bruce.

I've a last-minute performance at Nomad Cafe tonight as I'm be subbing for East Bay Songstress Christina Kowalkchuk because she is down with the dreaded cold. Send Christina some love and do come down to the Nomad for some original music by myself as well as David Silverberg. The tunes start at 7:30, I go on at 8:30. Kwame Copeland will be playing bass w/me and perhaps a special guest on guitar.


NOMAD CAFE
6500 Shattuck Ave. (at 65th St.)

Dan Herman of Radio Crystal Blue is debuting a song of mine on his next live show, in
one of the two New Music Sampler segments. The show airs Sunday January 20 7pm ET and runs for 5-6 hours.
HOW TO LISTEN:
LIVE 365: To hear the live show, fans need to go to www.radiocrystalblue.com and find the mic graphic that links to the Live365 station. This will lead you to the
official station at http://www.live365.com/stations/142950

and while you're at it, 2003's effort:

the 5 song ep containing the songs:

Turn It All Red
Land's End
Adding Water to the Ashes
Raising Cain
&
Cafe La Vie

is at the manufacturer's. More news on how to get one soon!

blogging continues @ http://deborahcrooks.blogspot.com/

A tune I did with BZ Lewis, "You Are Home" (written, while I was in India, a few months before my mother passed away due to complications from her cancer treatment) is featured on this Adult Contemporary CD put out by Indie Music for Life which benefits those working to prevent cancer and promote cancer research.

Check out my latest recorded song
Turn It All Red on the music page
produced by Ben Bernstein with
Damon Alexander on Drums
Art Khu on guitar and keys
and Ben on bass.

Let me know what ya think.

also blogging continues at:
http://www.deborahcrooks.blogspot.com

Studio time continues: "Land's End" is being remixed by Steven A.K. and I'm doing a final session for "Believe" and "All Red" later this week with Mr. Bernstein. Look for new tunes next week.

In other news, I've formally entered the blogosphere:

http://deborahcrooks.blogspot.com/

Saturday looks good to me
A pair of tickets to Arcade Fire's Shoreline show arrived in my mail this week so bass player/songwriter Kwame and I took a drive to Mountain View post work on Friday. I have all but sworn off amphitheatre shows but I had missed Arcade Fire's ACL performance by a day and rumor of their great act followed me home. They were almost upstaged by LCD Soundstation who took the stage at the very moment a large bolt of lightning and crash of thunder broke over the Shoreline's tent. We found some protected seats and rocked out through LCDs unrelenting set that was equal parts disco, punk and new wave. Members of Arcade Fire sang back up on a few tunes "North America" and "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah" (I don't know the real titles but we were all singing too). That was show enough but Arcade Fire did not disappoint. Red neon lights, videos of evangelists and retro swimmers formed an ominous backdrop to the 10-piece bands impassioned set, which found members trading lead parts. Who can resist a band that mixes xylophones, trumpets, French Horns and Hurdy Gurdy's with bass/keys/drums? Too bad the Shoreline never got the sound quite right-a lot of lyrics were lost in the muddy mix.....check out the music page-new demo of old song Adding Water to the Ashes is up.

There will be no San Quentin performance after all this weekend-Kurt found out two hours before I met up with him at Grace Cathedral for the Artsfest/Bread and Roses/Harmony Fest production of Sheila Chandra http://www.sheilachandra.com/ that the yard captain had shut down the show. It's actually not that easy for law-abiding folks to get IN to the fabled prison that's seen performances by J. Cash, BB King and others. Somehow, this didn't surprise me, watching and listening to Chandra sing inside Grace Cathedral. I first heard her music, a fusion of her Indian ancestry and UK upbringing, a good decade ago during a cold Colorado winter. The sound of her singing sparked in me a curiosity and wonder--I'd heard nothing like it before. Unbeknown to me at the time, it served as a harbinger of things to come. In the subsequent years I went on to study yoga, sing in European churches, chant Lotus sutras, take voice with Chloe Goodchild and travel to India amid writing my own work-all liberating practices that I still weave into urban living. Perhaps they have taken me closer to free than I thought.
The show was packed. While a line to get in snaked around the outside of the church, I did a turn on the outdoor labyrinth (http://www.gracecathedral.org/labyrinth/), laughing to run into someone I knew, mid-spiral. It was a beautiful night up on Nob Hill, the city glittering below, surrounding gardens glowing. Inside, Chandra, whose voice is her instrument (she's accompanied by a drone) opened with a round of clicking Indian vocals, then proceeded through a relatively short 45 minute set (Evidently she has a fragile voice and doesn't perform any longer than that amount of time) including Waiting and Ever so Lonely, her first hit which is formed around raga. I enjoyed her stories -she proclaimed herself a "reclusive artist" who came late to performances. From her website:
"I’m very aware of the relationship between the creative process and my ego. I can have a sense how I would like things to be but it doesn’t necessarily translate realistically. I think that conscious intelligence is often inferior to this instinctive intelligence. The process is not about constructing your work of art, it’s about connecting to something higher and allowing it to weave levels of meaning into your work for you to discover later."

I think nearly every song I've ever written references freedom in some form, so it's fitting I'm going to have a Johnny Cash moment at San Quentin this weekend with Kurt Huget's band Moonlight Radio (who just released a CD). I haven't been up to Marin in a while, nor have I ever been behind those fabled bars so it should be interesting to say the least ...last weekend marked two years for me back living in San Francisco, in the Hayes Valley district. I moved in the day they cut the ribbon on Octavia Blvd. Before that, my increasingly hip 'hood was the site of the crumpled freeway underpass, (fall-out from the 1989 earthquake) and was more notable for a lot of behavior which can land one in a slammer. It's still an urban environment containing just about everything; nonetheless, I came home from Austin to a community event, "The Linden Alley Street Fair" which featured local vendors and residents selling their wares, as well as PTA reps, District Supervisors eating hand-made gelato and a stage full of my fellow artist/musician residents run by local music teacher/performer Horus Tolson. I sang two short sets with Alex Walsh (who has a CD release this weekend at Bazaar) and was psyched to see and catch up with the rootsy/bluesy duo of Rick Hardin and Aireene Espirito. They've had a great year full of Fillmore dates and are also starting recording. Seeing as everyone I know is making a CD, its no wonder I continue making my own, long overdue I've recently starting working withh Ben Bernstein. One song "Cafe La Vie" --fittingly, an ode of sorts to my regenerating neighborhood-- is up for review on the music page. Feedback is welcome!

A plus of festivals is you trip upon acts you might not of seen otherwise and meet people from all over the country and the world. A chance to see Bjork in action and a rebooted Crowded House were main draws, but Jesse Malin's pointed commentary on our modern age and Will Hoge's passion made me stop and listen to THEM. Blonde Redhead underwhelmed me as a live act though their set provided a soundtrack to waiting for Crowded House to begin. On the last day of their 6-week No. American tour, these guys sounded as fresh and relevant as ever, reminding everyone as to what constitutes a great song by playing their old hits as well as a selection of new material as well as demonstrating what it means to engage a crowd. Plus they truly seemed to be enjoying themselves despite their road weariness. Kudos too to the Heartless Bastards as well -Erika Wennerstrom can kick some ass. Inspired, I had to go try out some Gibson guitars between acts to get some playing in. Pete Yorn underwhelmed, his set interrupted by a fire when a propane tank exploded inside a Budweiser truck, igniting some trees, injuring some folks and sending up black plumes of smoke....The fires didn't stop. Evidently there were three throughout the day, including one of Bjork's speakers. Bjork WAS on fire-dressed in gold lame, painted forehead and singing songs from her full catalog, she was backed by a horn-toting choir/orchestra. An artist's artist, she didn't let up on her vocal pyrotechnics during her hour-plus set which was augmented by a green laser light show.....

Club 115 played host to both a YELP party and a pre-ACL reggae event as well as me, Eric and John. So it goes here during ACL when every venue is doing triple-duty in the show department. It meant I got to test out TV lights and a fog machine during soundcheck. Too funny. Playing here is always happy and easy and we enjoyed our set before Eric took me on a tour of "real Austin music" ie: old guard country and honky tonk players such as Cornell Hurd at Jovita's at Jovitas where I practiced my Texas 2-step and Eric sat in on keys w/fellow Stepsiders bandmate Jason on vox before we hit Ginny's. Ginny's is the kind of place you wouldn't know existed unless you knew a local. At least I wouldn't have ventured into this windowless building with a plywood ceiling where Jim Stringer and his fine, incredibly accomplished band were holding court in the corner, playing Ricky Nelson tunes, while the proprietess carried a rooster through the bar. One more old-guard stop before the night ended was an even more off-the-grid place, Buddy's, where Justin Trevino was playing in the back in to a small group of folks. He was backed by one of the best steel players in town whose name is eludingme. Smoky bars, lone star beer and blind, genuine country playing musicians--it must be Texas.....
Today it's 180 degrees in the opposite direction-- the Zilker Park Zoo, err, ACL. Bjork, Crowded House are highlights but I'll plan to ease into it with the Heartless Bastards.

my way around. I keep coming back to Texas, and these parts are among the known. Grackles, heavy clouds and green lawns, and musician's and musician stories everywhere. The women I shared a airport shuttle used to pump Willie Nelson's gas and had Alejandro Escoveda's daughter working in her office over the summer. She's been to Club 115, the fairly new club where I'm playing tomorrow night. In a couple of hours I'll meet up with the bassist Eric and guitar player John H to rehearse. But first, catching up on work and email and this at Quacks in Hyde Park where everyone is drinking good dark coffee and getting their dose of apple pie and NY times (which has a lot to report about coffee today: http://news.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/11/coffees-holy-grail/ ) Johanna Newsom is playing on the stereo. Just yesterday I was sitting in SF by folks discussing their plans to vie against her cousin Gavin for the mayoral seat. No, it wasn't Green Party's Matt Gonzalez (who I see nearly every morning walking through my 'hood).... I wouldn't know Austin's mayor if I saw him (though I've been told of a sighting of sleepy looking TX governor noshing on a breakfast taco solo next door)...the big topic here is that the White Stripes have cancelled their ACL appearance (and tour) but there's plenty of other music happening. After rehearsal, Eric says there's good honky tonk....

Acronyms are it today as its conference and festival time. I was down at Foothills College with the songwriter crowd on Saturday. An industry event, the highlight (for me) is catching up with people I've shared shows with in the past and hearing about their new projects. Caught up with Saul Kaye who once backed me in Silverlake who has a fine new CD, made a nice connection with Jennifer Caldwell Hogan, a dedicated writer from Soquel and laughed with Vanessa Van Spall over the wacky situations one finds oneself in as a performer on the drive back to SF. Also discovered new music of Steve Key and enjoyed Mike Steed's Petty-esque music. Good stuff! Got back in time to meet another songwriter Mary Elizabeth Chapman for a Brandi Carlile show at the Fillmore who rocked out. There were some highlights, notably a song she did huddled around the mic with her bass and guitar players (who are matching twins-trippy!) but truth me told, I enjoyed the music of my as yet fairly unknown peers just as much. There's a lot of great music being made that's off the radar.
That all said, I'm off to Austin on Wednesday for a show of my own at Club 115 and a dose of Austin City limits. Bjork! In Austin! Who would have thunk......