Some new things I've been having some fun making videos at home, just some of my old guitar songs from the original QUEENIE album and how to play them. More videos are coming soon.
This is the video for Hiding:
More is available at my Queeniemusic.com website in the new Video area.
There is free sheet music & guitar tablature for both songs Hiding and Monsters in the Free Stuff area.
I would LOVE to hear from anyone who tries playing them, by ear or otherwise. It's really exciting to know that people are playing my songs.
I've been really busy, I keep meaning to get to so many things but I get terribly behind.
So I felt pretty guilty for playing hooky all day today, I did frivolous self-indulgent Valley girl things like blow-drying my hair, going shopping, then I went out and got a mocha fudge ice cream cone!
Most people have no idea what race I am when they first see me. This doesn't bother me at all, it's just a reality of my life. Sometimes Hispanic guys will walk up to me speaking Spanish. My Spanish is pathetic, so even though I try a few words on them, I can't fool anyone. I've been mistaken for Israeli, Brazilian, Russian, Polynesian, Spanish, Pakistani, you name it. I'm the uni-race.
in my mind, half-Asian is it's own race, a subdivision of a larger overarching category that I think of as halfies or halfsies. Barrack Obama is a halfsie because he is white and black. I am a halfsie because I am half white and half Japanese.
When I was a kid up to about age ten I was jealous of girls that were entirely Asian. I remember coveting the straight black hair and non-lidded almond shaped eyes of the Chinese and Korean girls at my elementary school, wishing I could wake up looking like them. My hair has always been very coarse and wavy, it's always been huge like an unintentional 60's bouffant, but mane-like and out of control. It's a blessing to have such big hair as I grow older, if you have hair like this you'll never go bald, but I have what seems like 10 pounds of defiant hair. It was not cool to have this hair as a kid.
Then in high school I started feeling bad for not looking more white. I wanted paler, less yellow skin and curlier, lighter hair then. For some odd reason, I could never reconcile my two races while I was young. It wasn't enough to be half, I had to be one race or the other. To conform where I could not.
Happily, nowadays there are more halfsies, even halfsie celebrities like Tiger Woods and Namie Amuro. So girls growing up halfsie will look at images of famous halfsies and be proud. There's even a book called Breeding Between the Lines that purports that halfsies are smarter and more beautiful because they're like hybrids. According to the book, halfsies are smarter and better looking than people with just one race. I had a few good belly laughs reading it, it's a real hoot to hear a scientist tell you everything you've ever wanted to hear. The scientist, Alon Ziv, truly believes halfsies are genetically superior because of something called "hybrid vigor".
I'm still dysmorphic about some stuff. My big European nose. My mouth. My wiry hair. I think all of us have some form of unhappiness about our bodies & faces, I'm no exception. It's not about being Asian or White anymore though, and eventually I hope to accept myself fully, no matter what I look like.
I'm sorry that I have not kept up with many of you who are special to me lately. You know who you are.
I am a hyper-creative person with a regular job. I don't go into detail about my work for many reasons, mostly though I shroud my everyday life in secrecy both to preserve my own privacy and out of respect for those I work with. Sometimes in life we feel like actors. I have many "roles", one of which is Queenie, one persona that writes horror fiction, quite a few more that demand attention from time to time. I think we all feel like this: divided between the things in life we "have to do" and the million things we "want to do". But once you have time for the things you "want to do" sometimes you are so exhausted that you lose inspiration.
"Queenie"
Happily, I've been making big leaps with "Dream of Flight". Every song is being re-worked in Reason and then I'm re-doing all vocals from scratch. A few songs are complete and simply await the addition of vocals. Soon (within the next month or so) I'll post some preview tracks that represent my current machinations/manipulations.
The current tracklist of the upcoming Dream of Flight album, not necessarily in this order:
1. Forest of Dreams Intro 2. Dream of Flight 3. Ukiyoe (The Floating World) 4. Sister Moon 5. Why 6. Sakura (Cherry Blossoms) 7. Notes From Hell 8. Life is Strange 9. Shelter Me 10. Voice in My Head 11. The Courtesan Sang Farewell
I do keep meaning to produce a holiday album, a wedding song album, a meditation album, even a cover song album! So I imagine that's years in the future, but I do think about it. The emails to Queenie (atsign) Queeniemusic.com that you my listeners have been sending have been very nice & reassuring, thank you so much for your continued support of my independent music.
My Fairy Tale Crown Store Sometimes I make crowns in my spare time out of wire and beads. Last month I had some time so I made a Store on Etsy for them.
The crowns are modelled by Bixby Bear and Dolly. You can read more about their star-crossed romance at the Store. Yes, I'm very strange indeed.
Right now in Chicago the 17 year cicadas are emerging from the ground. Cicadas are large bugs, but they are not locusts. It's a very special "event" where insects that have laid dormant for 17 years swarm the trees and make eerie sounds. Supposedly many Japanese tourists are here visiting specifically to see this special 17 year cicada. This type of cicada only lives in certain parts of America for some reason. Cicadas don't bite or anything, but many people get freaked out because there are so many of them around the bases of every tree right now.
I think they are completely adorable. They are a little hideous, yet they are super-cute with little red eyes.
They go through a shed skin phase that is rather grotesque but they make a very soothing sound as they fill the trees. You can hear the sound all day and in tree-filled areas it is almost overpowering.
Now you can hear the the sound of cicadas! This MP3 is from a cicada fansite, by Dan of CicadaMania.com
Abstract thoughts Yeah, the reason why I haven't posted in a while is the usual reason . . . being REALLY REALLY busy . . . but I've been learning a lot. I'm taking 2 classes: Recording and Japanese.
I'm rooting for Lakisha on American Idol. I hope she wins it all. She's phenomenal and I seriously called it from the first audition. Though I didn't actually call and vote.
Some guy was going around knocking on all the apartment doors, seeing if someone would let him in. He had a cell phone on him and no jacket, so I think he locked himself out of his apartment. I was mad--how can people be this stupid? You don't let strangers into your apartment or even open the door for them these days. What on earth did he expect? Grrr . . . call a locksmith!
I've been thinking about the significance of hair. Britney Spears shaved her head and the press calls it "having a meltdown." Hair can be very symbolic, even though it can also seem an everyday annoyance. For Britney, the long, blond hair was symbolic of her feminine power over men. When Demi Moore shaved her head, it was a ritualistic denial of her femininity to play the role of G.I. Jane. For me, keeping my long black hair is a part of being Japanese.
Jupiter has 63 known satellites (moons). Isn't that crazy? 63! Perhaps someday our ancestors will live on one of those moons.
Happy New Year, new Recording Class, Japanese, and a gift from Barrie!
I hope yours was wonderful.
I've been blogging and neglecting poor LiveJournal.
But I like LiveJournal very much.
Over break I completed a new song called Believe. It's on my Queenie MySpace, so please listen & become my friend if you have not already. Believe sounds like Loreena McKennit, more drums than I usually use. I created it with Garageband loops, it was SO fun to make.
Around the end of January, I'm going to be taking a Recording class at my local college! I'm totally excited. I'm hoping to learn how to mix tracks and get a really great sound!
My Japanese class is very nice. I have a good teacher.
Barrie from Ohio sent me her new CD, Season of Giving,</a> plus a really nice holiday card.
October 20: New pic by Allie! Trying to learn Spanish and Japanese, Autumn in Chicago. Oops! It has been a long while since I wrote a blog!
I've been incredibly busy with a lot of personal stuff. Additionally, I am trying to learn both Spanish and Japanese right now.
I'm confused by the formal tense in Spanish. I'm not sure in which situations to use it, or with whom. Japanese is really neat, some aspects are almost easy, but the writing of Japanese is difficult.
It's my favorite season, Autumn, here in Chicago. I love the weather right now. Funny though, how colder weather makes you sleep a lot more. I have the urge to drink coffee every day, but I try to fight it and drink tea instead. It's a very creative Autumn for me and I've had ideas for a new album and a new novel. Not sure which will arrive first.
2 Great Ways to Relax This free game called R.S.V.P. is way more addictive than Solitaire. See if you can win all eight rounds and become "the Hostess with the Mostess"
Also . . .
My friend Michelle got me addicted to Peppermint Oil. Whenever you are feeling tense, dab a drop of essential oil of peppermint (available very cheaply from any health food store) on the back of your neck. In about two minutes you feel a wonderful cooling sensation. The smell is also very soothing. Sometimes if I feel REALLY tense I'll put a tiny bit in the middle of my forehead.
Queenie September 2006 Here we are at September again . . . it is turning into Autumn and has been very beautiful outside. Some leaves have just begun to turn colors where I live.
I've had the honor of reviewing some great artists lately for Guitarlab magazine, including the peaceful music of Moon-Eyes, a Japanese piano player from Tokyo, Japan. Her music is very meditative, somewhere between a Buddhist temple and a big movie soundtrack. It comes highly recommended by me.
Saw a wonderful film called "Howl's Moving Castle". It is a cartoon a.k.a. anime. It is the story of a girl with an unloving, uncaring family who is transformed into a 90 year old woman by an evil witch. She finds refuge in a towering castle that moves about on chicken's legs, like Baba Yaga's hut in the old Russian fairy tales.
I'm currently working on a few websites, one of which will be a complete refurbishment of "Dream of Flight". There have been major setbacks with Dream of Flight lately. I purchased the wrong Reason upgrade, so I will be trying to produce songs with the old version of Reason 2.5. Time spent in the studio was frustrating because the sounds being achieved are just not right at all. Nevertheless, there is a lot of new material coming soon in the form of Queenie collabs.
Collabs with my new friend Wim from Norway have been a lot of fun. We send songs back and forth about every two weeks. He writing the songs and recording them, I am providing vocal parts and back up vocals. Our latest track is called Save Me (Star Stalker) which uses celebrity stalkers as a theme. Sadly, stalking is very common these days, and even I have been stalked more than once.
My most recent photo . . . my hair was driving me crazy, so I got a new haircut!
I'm feeling great, healthy, and very happy. So many good things have happened, I don't even know where to begin. My next CD, Untouched is days from release. I've gotten some nice press on it, but I'm already onto the next massive project, Dream of Flight.
My Predictions About What Is Going to Happen in Music
--Terrestrial (regular) radio will become exceedingly rare or obsolete. Most cars will start coming standard with either satellite radio or iTunes. Radio stations will start folding and closing up shop by the hundreds. Clear Channel will radically change.
--Indie artists will become bigger when compared in audience than major label artists. An indie artist like Rachael Sage will technically sell more CDs/make more money/become a bigger draw than Good Charlotte.
--More consolidation for major labels.
--Most music will be free. Artists who do not "give away" their music will be pirated mercilessly. Artists will make income from shows and placement on t.v. and film, and from pay-access website membership like http://www.davidbowie.com.
Beautiful Women
Here are the female artists I am worshipping right now. They are all gorgeous in their own way, but it is their awesome talents that make them shine. Emilie Autumn She is so fierce and beautiful! A one woman tour-de-force, and if you don't know who she is yet, don't worry, you will soon. She has played with Corgan and Courtney Love, but I think her genius is beyond the both of them. Oddly, she was personally burglarized much as I was! So buy her album and merch . . . !
Alessandra Celletti Gracefully and wonderfully revamping Classical Music for this generation. Piano player to rival all great piano players.
Happy Rhodes The greatest female vocalist of this century or the last. If you like Kate Bush, Happy is Kate Bush but also so much more. She FINALLY got her CD on CD Babyso please buy it! She is very sweet but also very shy.
Yidneth: Priscilla Hernandez Priscilla (Yidneth) is an artist kaleidoscope. Her world of faery mysticism is something she lives and breathes. She is just about to release her first CD on her own label, Ancient Shadows, which I believe will most likely be amazing. Dream of Flight!
Hard to stay sedate in such a busy/crazy environment.
I went and saw X-Men The Last Stand. Critics panned it but I liked it. This is usually the case. Critics are often expecting too much from a movie that is really just a filmed Marvel Comic episode.
Dream of Flight! I loved his scenes. They definitely should have had more angel flying scenes in the Last Stand!
Famke is beautiful, because Famke Jannsen has a near genius I.Q. and can speak seven languages. She started out as a model (she's Swedish) and then of course you know the line from me . . . "a girl named Famke stole your heart". I have such a huge crush on her.
Saw the Omen trailer. Looks quite cheeseworthy. I didn't even realize they were doing a remake. I was the only one in the theater laughing when they flashed the release date in big, bold, bad-ass numbers:
06.06.06
I played the Asian American Heritage Festival at Naperville North High a few weeks ago. It was fun to be a part of it. My friend Michelle's mom, Emiko, was super nice to me and helped me put on a beautiful antique kimono for the event:
About a week later I went up to Stage Left in Woodstock and played a nice show with Frances. Then my students had their recital, it was huge and very successful. I've been busy.
Here's what I look like most of the time (as if anyone cares). I took this before work:
Finalizing album art for the Live Album, Untouched. Hopefully it will be duplicated okay and for sale soon.
Happy News!
Happy Rhodes, my favorite recording artist, is getting her CD on CD Baby! YAY! :D :D :D
The major record label industrial model is crumbling. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a part of it. Nowadays I want to be as far away from it as possible. Intellectual property is becoming the new digital currency.
Medium Thoughts:
I'm working on an insane number of projects right now. I'm collaborating with an Italian band (from Torino, actually) called the Wimshurst Machine on a new song called Der Mond. I have already recorded vocals and lyrics. I mailed the discs to Torino last Tuesday. Augusto, my new Italian friend, lives in such a remote location in the Italian alps that I had look up the address at the Post Office!
I have just come off of a fabulously successful performance for my Live Album. I feel good about my vocals and my playing. View the photos at http://www.queeniemusic.com/concertphotos.html. I'm mixing down at Brookdale Music this weekend. Exciting!
March 12 Live Recording Show Photos Yesterday's show was the big Queenie event: my 14 song Live Album, Untouched, was recorded at Brookdale Music. I did a guitar set and then a set on their gorgeous new Yamaha grand.
The songs I played on guitar:
Jonathan Monsters Let It Find You Sister Moon Story The Sad Letter
Then on piano:
Lost Yoshi Cried Piano Lullaby Shelter Me Hey Soldier Medieval Princess In Disguise Voice In My Head
The recording will be made into a CD, which will be on sale at CD Baby by June at the latest. I'm very excited because the recording was absolutely pristine, I managed to play extremely well thanks to a lot of practice, and I recouped all my show expenses in CD sales and pre-orders.
Also, the weather cooperated for about two hours. Today we are back to scary winds and low temperatures in Chicagoland.
I figured out an lj-cut! I owe people some gifties.
Mozart's Birthday It is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Birthday today.
Famous Dead Composers Rule!
Two of my students are playing Mozart pieces right now. Some people think that Mozart was "greater" than Beethoven. I think they were both special in different ways. Mozart was a tortured child prodigy, pushed by his father Leopold. By the time he was in his thirties he was already dying.
It is sad that Mozart died poor and drunk and was buried in a mass grave. People did not know what great music was then. Not much has changed.
In Salzburg, Austria where Mozart was born, you can buy all sorts of stupid Mozart merchandise. There is an entire industry in Salzburg hawking Mozart chocolates, Mozart shirts, Mozart jackets. The city that never recognized him in his lifetime uses his image to push junk on consumers, but then so does Vienna.
Hopefully future Mozarts can take their music right to the internet and bypass the Stupid Machine: Kings and the Music Lawyers and the A & R Reps. The question is: will fans know the great music when it passes under their nose? Or does it have to be shoved down your throat to be considered "good"?
American Idolatry . . . Before my life was thrown into complete disarray from my recent move, I had some time to record a couple of cover songs. The FREE Queenie versions of "My Immortal" by Evanescence and Sarah McLachlan's Angel await your vote on the popular soundclick OMD.
Medium Thoughts:
I am honored to be writing for Guitarlab magazine. I have been doing it for 2 months now and it is really fun.
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Dream of Flight by Allie
