Branches full length album Thou Art The Dream has been officially released, as of February 10th, 2012. We are so proud of it and we are hoping for big things and great opportunities to come from it. It is available on Itunes here:
Also, We have a show booked with Milo Greene in Monterey February 24th at the Black Box Cabaret Theatre. Milo Greene is currently on tour with The Civil Wars and are stopping in Monterey for a small side show. Listen to Milo Greene here:
http://www.milogreene.com/
Also, our Northern CD release show is coming up as well! March 2nd at Cornerstone Fellowship in the East Bay. We hope to see you there!
Safe Travels! x -N
Here are some photos of our Southern California release show and trip to San Diego to play for Invisible Children (Which was one of the most fun shows we have played - thank you IC interns for all you do!)
I have a myriad of things that inspire me and i'd love to share them with you! (though they are not only music) I always tell people, if you want to understand me better, listen to Lisa Hannigan, Glen Hansard and maybe a bit of Mr. Rice in there too (Damien, that is). And the three are actually all connected and come from the same roots and friend group.
These particular songs are having a profound affect on me, particularly now, when a lot of changes are taking place. Quite often lately, I've been re-evaluating the last four year of my life and how much i have learned and grown. From friendships, to relationships, to styles, to the way that I handle situations, and the three artists listed above have only grown with me. I'm not sure any of the three will ever be forgotten or leave my life, as they are timeless, well-written, strong songs with simple truths. I can't choose my favorites, but here are a couple that have aided my reflection times.
and this....this is an oldie, but legendary.
I hope these warm your earbuds and minds and hearts. x -N
BRANCHES release of our new album was delayed about a month, but it is nonetheless, being printed as we speak! We are planning on two release shows, (soon TBA), one in Southern California, and one in Northern California. The album sounds great and we are so proud of it! With the new album will be album promotion, more videos, more shows, and more photos! 2012 also brought our second TV placement on "One Tree Hill" of our song "Sleeper". This wasn't through the licensing company we signed with "Position Music" but from now on, our licensing will be done through them! Also, exciting news! Our official website was launched thanks to our great friend Greg Christian (Sticks-stones)! Check it out!
www.branchesmusic.com
Here are some pictures from filming our promo video for the new album "Thou Art the Dream":
Also, the Reeds have been active as well! We are in talks with one of my best friends Matt Starcher for some work together in the future that we are so excited about! We recently played our good friend Lacey Bryant's art opening at Modern Eden gallery in San Francisco on january 21st! We had the honor of being Lacey's models for a couple of her paintings that were displayed in the show and they look amazing! Please check out Lacey's website here, she's incredibly talented!
http://laceybryantartist.com/
Here are some pictures from the night!
In other news, my great friend Shawn Morones (of Brother) has a project called "Cigarette Barbies" that sounds great! He wrote and arranged all the songs for this project, then brought in different girls to lay down vocals. It sounds amazing and i cannot wait for it to be released! It is so close to being completed and released and i was honored to get a track on it! Once publicly released, i will post it on here!
And finally, Robert DeLong (Robbie, aka Rob-dawg) continues to wow audiences and i am so lucky to be friends with such a talented fellow! Occasionally i will join him on - stage for live performances of "Perfect" but even if i am not singing I wouldn't miss a show for the world. It is a great community of friends and one of the things i look forward to most. He continues his residency at Los Globos and on January 21st got to play with Dillon Francis at the Observatory (big room) in Orange County.
He's also being played on KROQ and KCRW, so please call in and request OR send an e-mail requesting:
As promised, Branches and The Wild Reeds have released their Christmas music!
The Wild Reeds' is available for download here: http://thewildreeds.bandcamp.com/
and Branches is available here: http://soundslikebranches.bandcamp.com/
The Reeds is a live setting, so it's obviously cut production quality, but that is what we were going for!
Also, exciting news! After our gig in San Diego, Branches was invited to the Invisible Children headquarters to play a livestream session for the freetimmy campaign. It was live online from the headquarters and we heard so much support from viewers. Thank you for all the requests and love! (Check it out and donate here: http://blog.invisiblechildren.com/2011/12/free-timmy-and-help-invisible-children-cross-the-2-million-finish-line/)
They said some kind words about us on their blog! Thanks Invisible Children! http://blog.invisiblechildren.com/tag/free-timmy/
Also, my very talented friend Taylor Broughton just released his E.P. yesterday on Itunes and it is great! I was so privileged to get to take part! Listen and buy it her: http://itunes.apple.com/album/this-old-house-e.p.-ep/id489248244?v0=9988&ign-mpt=uo%3D1
Thank you so much for the continued support and helping me do what i love for a living! Now I will retreat to my bed with my gnome socks and a coffee to watch a Muppet Christmas Carol, and i suggest you do the same! Merry Christmas!
Hello friends! I have tons of projects i have been involved in lately, and they are beginning to take full bloom.
Branches has their first full-length record coming out! We are so excited! We have been hard at work on this for a long time, and the songs have changed about 20 times each (haha), but we can't wait to show everyone what we've been working on. It will be out and available on bancamp, Itunes and pressed in January 2012, so stay tuned! We are also releasing our single "Helicopter" in December 2011, and hopefully filming a music video for it as well.
We continue to film our cover of the months and our most recent is 'Somebody to Love' by Justin Beiber. While not our first choice for a cover, we left the vote up to you! And you chose Beiber. You asked for it. So check it out!
We will also have 2 FREE christmas songs that we've just recorded and will be released on bandcamp in the next few days!
and finally , we've just been signed to position music as a new artist! They are a music licensing company and involved in other various industry things. They are so wonderful and kind and have been so supportive of us thus far. We are working closely with them and Mark Chipello (Tyrone Wells tour manager and drummer) to get some new performances, TV and movie placements, etc.
Check it out! We are on the homepage as a new artist signing! http://positionmusic.com/
To stay updated with us go on our facebook band page! _________________________________________
The Wild Reeds are also hard at work! We have a website that will be launched December 1st that looks amazing! Thanks to our friend Brian Dibble.
With the website we will release our christmas songs we recorded a few months ago. They are live sessions and we can't wait to release them!
We also continue to write our new album and are planning for the future and whats next. We've been talking to a few industry people about music placement and management so stay tuned!
Catch us this winter before we the distance comes between us again for a bit! Dec. 28th at Villain's Tavern
In Los Angeles and check our facebook page for constant updates. __________________________________________
For other various projects, i have been working closely with Robert Delong for a while now, and many exciting things are happening for him! He is now with a management company and is working with producer Bill Racine who has worked with artists such as The Flaming Lips, Modest Mouse, Gym Class Heroes, Rogue Wave, etc. I had the privilege to go to Bill's studio in L.A. and record on "Some Perfect" with Robbie and it sounds amazing!
Robbie is working on re-recording yet another version of his album "Just Movement" and you can keep up with him on his facebook page.
Meanwhile, listen to his newest collaboration with Racine, here, shared by KROQ: Robert DeLong - Happy by KROQ
and DON'T MISS Robbie's performances. They are incredible. Dec. 5th, 12th, and 19th at the Galaxy Theatre in Santa Ana. 18+. only $5 at the door. 21+ free! I will be joining him Dec. 5th and 12th.
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Another project I just finished working on was lending some harmonies to Taylor Broughton! He is going to release his EP in the coming months and it sounds great! His style is reminiscent of Brett Dennen, Ryan Adams, and Noah Gundersen. I'll keep you posted on the EP when it is released.
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Phewf. That's about it for now. Somewhere in between all of this i fit school and travelling to San Francisco. But i wouldn't have it any other way!
Well! It has been some time since i have written. I was so lucky enough to have my class get out early and i am forcing myself to not think about any schoolwork and take some time to catch up on things that i love.This semester, the struggle between schoolwork and survival mode has been prominent. I want to put effort into my classes and i want to learn! I have amazing classes and professors, but circumstances outside of school keep creeping in, forcing me to go into survival mode perpetuating my thoughts of "school isn't the most important thing right now" and it's really not, considering all that is happening in my life.But it still needs to be, and that is my constant struggle.
As far as an update on my life goes, I have been traveling quite a bit for my music. Also, it doesn't hurt that Greg is up in San Francisco as well. I think it would be safe to say I am gone two weekends out of each month. It's great! But i have had no time to be creative in that time. A Few things have crept out of me because i just NEEDED to write something, but other than that, i haven't had time to create because i'm traveling for the things I've created. Another strange struggle. Regardless, it seems Northern California has become a second home. I know my way around pretty well now, and the I-5 and Southwest are my new norms. I am blessed with the ability to travel, and funds, but it does get waring. I have my favorite places though, in the city! Farm:table coffee is a must in the city, it's on Post and Jones in Downtown. Mars Vintage in Berkeley is another must. And many sourdough bread bowls have been eaten as well as pasta from Colosseo in North Beach. Cafe's are frequented and iced latte's are constantly fueling my body, and City Light Bookstore always brings warmth and peace. It is a new life i am getting used to, but so far, i am trying to take everything with grace and ease.
Things are pressing forward with music, much quicker than anticipated! The Wild Reeds are talking to a management company and recently sold out a show with Ben Henderson in San Jose. Branches recently sold out their Hotel Cafe show with Tyrone Wells and also signed with Position Music for Music Licensing, and we also got another song, "Sleeper" on One Tree Hill! Hopefully we will be able to get on commercials and different shows with this new contract.
I have not been able to create any tangible art recently. I have an etsy started up, but it is hard to maintain. But most of my creative art energy has been put into creating a lovely home with my 5 other roomates in my Townhouse in the Los Angeles suburbs.
The year has been strange, and a bit shaky at the start off, but i feel stabilization coming. I just hope it comes soon! X
I remember the cold night you brought in a pile of logs and a chipmunk jumped off as you lowered your arms. “What do you think you’re doing in here?” you said, as it ran through the living room. It went through the library and stopped at the front door as though it had knew the house well. This would be difficult for anyone to believe, except perhaps as the subject of a poem. Our first week in the house was spent scraping, finding some of the house’s secrets, like wallpaper under wallpaper. In the kitchen, a pattern of white-gold trellises supported purple grapes as big and round as ping-pong balls. When we painted the walls yellow, I thought of the bits of grape that remained underneath and imagined the vine popping though, the way some plants can tenaciously push though anything. The day of the big snow , when you had to shovel the walk and couldn’t find your cap and asked me how to wind a towel so that it would stay on your head-you, in the white towel turban, like a crazy king of snow. People liked the idea of our being together, leaving the city for the country. So many people visited, and the fireplacemade all ofthem wabt to tell amazing stories; the child who happened to be standing on the right corner when the door of the ice cream truck came open and hundreds of popsicles crashed out; the man standing on the beach, sand sparkling in the sun, one bit glinting more than the rest, stooping to find a diamond ring. Did they talk about amazing things because they thought we’d turn into one of them? Now I think they probably guessed it wouldn’t work. It was as hopeless as giving a child a matched cup and saucer. Remember the night out on the lawn, knee deep in snow, chins pointed at the sky as the wind whirled down all that whiteness? It seemed that the world had been turned upside down, and we were looking into an enormous feild of Queen Anne’s lace. Later, headlights off, our car was the first to ride through the newly fallen snow. The world outside the car looked solarized.
You remember it differently. You remember that the cold settled in stages, that small curve of light was shaved from the moon night after night, until you were no longer surprised the sky was black, that the chipmunk ran to hide in the dark, not simply to a door that ledto its escape. Our visitors told the same stories people always tell. One night, giving me a lesson in story telling, you said, “Any life will seem dramatic if you omit mention of most of it.” This, then, for drama: I drove back to that house not long ago. It was April, and Allen had died. In spite of all the visitors, Allen, next door, had been the good friend in bad times. I sat with his wife in their living room, looking out the glass doors to the backyard, and there was Allen’s pool, still covered with black plastic that had been stretched across it for winter. It had rained, and as the rain fell, the cover collected more and more water until it finally spilled onto the concrete. When I left that day, I drove past what had been our house. Three or four crocuses were blooming in the front – just a few dots of white, no field of snow. I felt embarassed for them. They couldn’t compete.
This is a story, told the way you say stories should be told: Somebody grew up, fell in love, and spent a winter with her lover in the country. This, of course, is the barest outline, and futile to discuss. It’s as pointless as throwing birdseed on the ground while snow still falls fast. Who expects small things to survive when even the largest get lost? People forget years and remember moments. Seconds and symbols are left to sum things up: the black shroud over the pool. Love, in its shortest form, becomes a word. What I remember about all that time is one winter. The snow. Even now, saying “snow,” my lips move so that they kiss the air.
No mention has been made of the snowplow that seemed always to be there, scraping snow off our narrow road- an artery cleared, though neither of us could have said where the heart was.
Our travels took us to Monterey. After being in a car with gassy mike for 6+ hours (love ya mike), we were anxious and ready to play for our first show in 5 months! Here is some live video footage of "Maps of Wars", which was featured earlier this year on "One Tree Hill" Enjoy!
Hello travellers! This blog is bits and bobbles of my life documented on this blog, for my sake, and for your reading if you wish! There will be music updates, reviews and recommendations, artwork updates, reviews and recommendations, stories and thoughts that find their way through my brain, and anything else that wanders into my life. I hope this blog finds you well, and brings you warmth and festers in the deepest cockles of your heart. Much peace and warmth, friends!
