Many thanks to those who came out to the Vancouver show on Friday at Trees Coffee. It was great to see the place so full. And thanks are also due to John Pippus, who organized things and also played a great set, pinch-hitting for Laura Doyle, who was sick and could not make it.
The question "how'd it go?" is always a funny one to answer; it went okay, in that people seemed to have a good time and there were no major mishaps. I don't like to elaborate much further, for fear of denigrating the audience's enjoyment with minor self-criticisms. I felt a bit rusty, it must be said: five months or so without doing a full set makes one feel it. All the muscles get a bit out of shape. Also, I forgot the words in one song, despite my best efforts to practice beforehand. But there you go, it all went off, and I'm rather glad it's over, because I don't like the nerves that also develop when it's been a while. I'm usually not stage-fright-prone at all, but the butterflies come back when you're breaking a longish silence, I find.
It's been hard to focus on music as I've been pouring all my energy into trying to find a source of income and a place to live here in Victoria. It's been more difficult than I anticipated, although I have faith that my efforts will pay off eventually.
I really wish I could just play music for a living, but for now that's not feasible. The balancing act continues. But let me say this: if you've bought a CD or an MP3, your money has gone to my pocket and has allowed me to buy groceries (literally). So thank you, thank you for not just torrenting it. By all means, sample the music before you buy if you want to--but if you like it, and are likely to listen more than once, why not spend the 6 to 15 bucks? It goes to a good cause, I promise. Okay, here endeth the lesson.
Anyway, all this to say, Vancouver was nice, and now I have a month or so to get my chops back together before the show at the Superior, which will be a long one. Lots of words to remember! See you there, I hope.
Love,
Kaya

Happy holidays to all--I write from my new home of Victoria, BC, which got its first white Christmas in years. I'm so happy to have finally gotten here, after months of planning; can't wait to make some music on this side of the Rockies.

And in fact, I just got my first opportunity to do so: I'll be playing at Trees Coffee in Vancouver on February 6. It'll be my very first Vancouver show, so I'm pretty excited. They also are reputed to have fabulous cheesecake at this cafe, which gets me even more excited. Hope to see many of you Vancouverites there!

I notice that I've just hit 25 000 site visits on MySpace. Not bad for two years! Thanks to all who've taken an interest. Stay tuned for what I hope will be an eventful 2009, with lots of shows and--if all goes well--a brand new record, too!

Love & light,

Kaya

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Last night's brief return to the stage at the LMC was lovely...my thanks to Alex Krakus and Sam Allen for inviting me. Good to hear the songs of the White Album lovingly reinterpreted by so many fresh, young voices. I had lots of fun with "Julia" and "Sexy Sadie"... It made me realize how much I miss performing. I can't wait until my self-imposed exile from the stage is over. Another month or two?...

In other news, I just found out that Tremor and Slip hit #2 on the CJAM (Windsor) charts last week. Thanks, Windsor! I'll have to drop by one of these days...

So, it has been one year since the record was released. A memorable twelve months. Here's to another year of growth and progress.

Love,

Kaya

So, having emerged from the comfortable womb of academia this fall (by
my own volition), I have been working a job lately--a plain ol' regular
job, for the first time in years. It's not a bad job; in fact, there
are things I really like about it. But I'm not playing any music at the
moment (again, by my own volition) and it's gotten me thinking about
what it means to "be" something like a musician.

When people ask me what I do, that's my answer. I'm a musician. But
what if it's not really something I am *doing,* at least at the moment?
What actually makes me remain a musician, in that case? It's a strange
question, lingering--it seems to me--in the grey area between doing and
being. When I am not doing music, am I still being a musician? Where
does action end and identity begin?

This pondering led me to the conclusion that, for me at least, being a
musician requires one key thing: a listening audience. That might make
me sound narcissistic, but I don't mean that I need people fawning over
me or whatever. Rather, it's a bit like the old
tree-falling-in-the-forest adage. I need someone to listen in order for
me to feel like I am *being* a musician, in the present tense. For it
to feel like an active vocation, and not just some static trait of
mine, like the fact that I have brown eyes, or that I'm right-handed.
Whether that audience is at a live show or listening to a CD or MP3, it
doesn't really matter (although there is much more energy to be derived
from the former than the latter). I just need that sense of
communicating outward, toward someone else. Maybe there are others for
whom this isn't the case. Maybe some people could play their songs in
their bedrooms only for their whole lives, and be a hundred times the
musician I am. But I think I've discovered that that just doesn't work
for me.

And the reason why is simple: I stop playing. Without the energy of the
communication, my musicality atrophies. It happened about five years
ago, when I started grad school and moved away from my musical family
for the first time. My guitar literally gathered dust for about three
years. Then, gradually, I dusted it off and started playing with some
friends here in London (thank you Alex, Jason, Johnny and others...). I
actually had to re-learn one of my own songs from an MP3 I sent to a
friend after I wrote it, because I had totally forgotten it. (That song
was "Late," the opening track on my record.) And then, once I started
performing, the floodgates opened. All the songs started coming and a
record got made and everything else.

So I'm a bit hesitant about this hiatus I'm taking. It's nothing to be
blown out of proportion, of course--it hasn't been THAT long since my
last gig--but I just don't want to see that dust on my guitar ever
again. I don't want to fall into a depression, as I did in that
three-year dry spell. I don't want to stop *being*--in the active,
continuous sense--a musician. I'm trying to keep up a little activity
and keep moving forward, towards getting the next record happening. But
it's not easy. Very little money means that promotion is hard and
studio time is not possible; working all the time means that I'm tired
and have pretty much no time to do shows or write. I didn't get the
grant, but I'm going to try again. That's my most realistic hope at
this point.

Not to turn this into a political rant, but next time you hear a
politician talk about cutting funding to the arts, remember this. It
means that people like me can't do what we do, because we're too busy
doing what we have to do in order to eat and pay rent. Record companies
don't come knocking with bags of money anymore (if they ever did). We
all just have to kick and scratch our ways through, gigging and
applying for grants, until maybe, just maybe, things will take off.
Leslie Feist was a working musician on the rough-and-tumble Toronto
scene for years and years before the iPod commercial and the sold-out
stadium shows. This is what I try to remember, while I do what I have
to do in order to stay afloat, to stay true to what I am, and what I do.

Thank you all for listening.

Love,
Kaya

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Well I found out yesterday that I did not get the grant I'd hoped would
fund the next record. That means the project is suspended indefinitely,
until I can figure out another option. Sorry, everyone. All I can hope
is that the feedback I got doesn't reflect the actual potential of the
music (or me)...

Love,
Kaya

<!--- blog body -->Hi friends,

Just
wanted to clarify, since the internet seems to think I'm playing at
Place des Arts this weekend with Mark Pinkus, that there is no such
show coming up. There was a possibility of this show happening at one
point, but sadly, it didn't work out. I guess the PR department didn't
get the memo. Let's hope something similar might go down in the
not-to-distant future.

No music news to report other than that, but stay tuned. In a couple of weeks there should be some important updates.

Love,
Kaya

Just a quick note to say what a lovely time I had at my very first folk festival this week, Home County Folk Festival here in London, Ontario.

Memorable moments include playing a "Next Generation" workshop with fellow kids-of-folkies Catherine MacLellan and Nathan Rogers. After I led up with my dad's song, Dance Hall Girls, they did a tune each by their eminent fathers: Catherine played Gene's "Snowbird" (which I've never heard sound so pretty; sorry, Anne Murray) and Nathan did one of Stan's great songs, the title of which alas escapes me. We then did some of our own tunes, and if I do say so myself, the kids are doin' it for themselves just fine. I felt humbled to share a stage with those two.

Also did a couple of workshops with my pal Alex, who, although her new work with her band is quite amazing in its ambitious innovation, I think is just as great all by herself with her little nylon-string guitar. She just keeps writing these interesting, catchy, smart little songs, and her voice is like frayed velvet. Hard to keep from envying! It was great to play with her again.

Then my showcase on Sunday went really well, I felt. The rain held off, blessedly, and the ever-wonderful Jonathan Davis did his magical one-snare-and-brushes job by my side as I played about eight songs. Won a few new fans over, and mostly just had a nice time. 

So I'm grateful to the good people of HCFF for inviting me this year, and hope this will be the first of many festivals for me. It's a beautiful way to experience music. My thanks, too, to those of you who listened and came to say hi. I hope I'll be seeing you again soon...

Love,

Kaya