#joepisapia

[samsmyth]

Joe Pisapia's new record Connection is ready for the world. I was honored to contribute this cover art. Join his Pledge Music campaign now to be part of the Connection community: pledgemusic.com/projects/joepisapia. #joepisapia #connection

[tattletalesaints]

David Rawlings walks into a dive bar...

Sometimes I wonder what I’m doing here. Starting over again in yet another city and giving up the years of contacts, work, bands, friends I’ve built up in every previous city I’ve lived. This is the 4th time I’ve started over again, moving countries to pursue study, love, music or a mix of all. And when times get especially tough I’ll be wondering why it’s worth doing it all over again, to be based in Nashville when I could live a much more comfortable, easy, financially stable life in New Zealand, and then David Rawlings walks into the dive bar I’m playing a rock n roll gig at, and I remember why this city is worth it. Being based in the place that so many of my musical heroes live is worth the step back in career, stability, finances we’ve had to take to move here. Playing that night in the smokey, noisy dive bar with The Date Nite Band (led by the impeccable Zach Ryan and Shane Tutmarc - check out what it’s all about here), I not only saw David Rawlings (producer, musician and half of Gillian Welch’s duo), but guitarist Laur Joamets who played on one of my favourite albums of last year (Sturgill Simpson’s, Metamodern Sounds In Country Music) got up and sat in with the band. Yes it was incredibly loud and no we didn’t exactly get to have some kind of amazing musical moment on stage, but the ability to meet and jam with these people, as well as just be able to check them out so frequently playing around town, is why Nashville is worth it.

On the days when I’m feeling weighed down by car troubles, taxes, insurance decisions and the overwhelming feeling that I’m failing at life by how frequently I have to turn to my (generous, kind, wonderful) mother for financial help - I have to trust that being here, moving the band, moving our lives will ultimately be worth it. That the experiences I’m already having here, are worth it.

The last few weeks Joe Pisapia, who produced our new single I Did This To Myself, has been playing a residency at The Five Spot. I managed to get along twice and the total creativity that was pouring out on stage was wonderful to witness. He surrounded himself with fantastic musicians and basically just let rip. His energy on stage is so un-self-conscious and so genuine. So un-pretentious. I love that in this town where, granted, there are many douche-bag singers who are trying to be the next “big thing” (whatever that really means) with no regard for creating anything truly beautiful or genuine, we’ve managed to fall in with some amazing people who are all about the exact opposite. It was amazing to be at The Five Spot, watching Joe and his band perform their fantastic songs, surrounded by wonderful friends who are also fantastic musicians and songwriters… all for $7 entry.

Here’s a song that Joe wrote called Sing It Loud, recorded by KD Lang on the album he produced of the same name. Last night he described it as being about his niece and the joyfulness she had as a child, that he hoped she never lost, that he wished we could all retain. The whole album is awesome, Cy and I both had it on heavy rotation on our headphones on the last tour. Video - KD Lang, Sing It Loud  

Check out Joe’s version of the song and his whole album (art work above) here https://joepisapia.bandcamp.com/album/nightvision

At the end of last year we met Aaron Tosti from new Nashville based music licensing company Levelo at The Five Spot. We had just played a set with Jamie on drums and Aaron approached me saying that he’d loved it and did we have anything recorded that he could check out. I was a few beers into the night and my first reaction was a dismissive, yeah right - like this is going to go anywhere. I left him sitting at the bar, went outside for a while to talk to friends, honestly forgot all about getting him an album and only barely remembered to grab one and find him before he left for the night. I assumed that it was a wasted $4 (or however much they cost per unit here) giving him an album, but a week or so later we were emailing and discussing Tattletale Saints joining the Levelo family. Aaron has been playing drums for the rock n roll band I’ve been playing with the last few weeks and now that I know him a little better I was pleased to regale him with the story of how close I’d been to writing him off as another one of those big-talk goes-nowhere encounters. I’m not exactly sure why I was so quick to assume he was all talk and it was a waste of time. It wasn’t anything to do with him or the way he approached me. Aside from it possibly being the beer, I think it’s maybe just that I’m so used to having to do all of this ourselves, so used to fighting so hard for everything we do and achieve, that I just assume that nothing really great will fall in our laps. But Levelo is great, and I’m very glad I gave him an album that night. Check out our Levelo artist page here.