Studio session 3 update...

After writing my morning blog, I decided to call my doctor in New York for advice.

What I got was a referral to the vocal doctor that treats Lyle Lovett.
That was enough legitimacy for me.
And as it turns out, it's also the vocal doctor for my producer Mark.
Done deal. I'm there.

I called immediately, begged and was seen 45 minutes later.

I postponed my graphics appointment and sat in anticipation, after telling my long
sorted past, present .... and waited for the news & my asap treatment plan.

What I did, that I swore after the Telluride Festival incident I'd never do again, was take steriods.
The difference was instead of pills, I took half a dose by way of a shot in the hips. A nice fat needle straight through the skin.

Although I am a bit scared of the outcome, when I was told this would shrink
these apparent allergy-inflamed sinuses, I was all for it. There is too much time
and money and well, people involved and invested in this project to not do everything I can to make this work.

Though fair enough, I have serious reason to hesitate on the steriods front.
Last time I tried them for a vocal problem not only did it not help but made me pretty pyscho. Then again, steriods wasn't going to give me any kind of voice back as
in that incidence, it turned out I had a tracheal infection which ultimately needed
the right antibiotics.

Anyway...

Today, after the said shot, I got a bag full of this and that, sudaphedren (or however you spell that) nasal sprays, you name it and I am well full of it. Of course no pun is intended. *smile*

Now I am writing from the studio, watching the awesome Mark play bass on Angel you've come too soon and Andre run the boards. Taking a minute here and there between takes to write.

Andre tells me that if that vocal was considered bad (the one that threw me into years yesterday) then he was really, really excited to hear the good stuff.
This gives me the confidence I will need to make it out it one piece, with a great
record in my hands. At least that is what I am telling myself.

I'm not sure why my traveling & it seems vocal luck is the way it is. But rest assured, this is not bringing me down in the slightest because if all else fails, I have a plan B.
And at the end of the day, in the big scheme of life, this is far less important than
things like my family, husband and friends. I stand by that no matter what happens.

People run marathons with one leg. Some people have no legs and enter marathon races in wheelchairs. For crying out loud as my dad says, there are far
more important things in life to worry about.
And wasn't it the Irish proverb that tells us, "worry is the interest you pay on the troubles of tomorrow?"

Yeah.
I'm ok.
I am.

Just a little bummed after all the work to get the money and the flights and the schedules for all involved. All the preparation, trials while traveling. *sigh*
Really I am ok.

Totally bummed but optimistic the universe will make things right.

til soon...
love from Austin,
Chris

Studio session 2 (& part of 3)

Day 2 and 3 (studio)...

I want to give you (and me) good news.

I want to say my allergies or cold or whatever it is that is completely
clogging my nose and throat is not interfering ... but I'd be lying through
well, my nose.

Yesterday (day 2) was a rough day vocal-wise.

We got an amazing mix of Angel you've come too soon turning it into a
bittersweet road song. I was so happy that when I ran down into the "hole" (I say
that fondly) to record vocals to say I was more than disappointed in my performance is a huge understatement.

With all the teas, sudafed, claritin, sprays, mucinex and even Fed Ex'd vocal
vapors from my Dr. Kessler in New York, it was still well, not there.

What does this mean?

That if I am very lucky, by our last session Tuesday I will have beat whatever
this is and have a voice.

The downside?

If I don't, we are making arrangements for me to sing my heart out when I return to Innsbruck and send the vocal files to Austin - which will then be mixed/mastered
and head out to duplication.

In the long run, this may mean the release is pushed back by maybe 4 weeks.

Now... this is not something I am fond of doing.
In fact, yesterday after this said performance as I was sitting in the control room in
tears, I was comforted by this plan B.

Because despite all the people I feel on my shoulder pressuring me (and cheering
me) I realize this is life and things do not always work out the way we had planned,
no matter how hard we try or want them to.

So... *sigh* this is just a little news to let you know, there is a slight chance plan B.
may take effect.

If you have any deals with god or angels or .... please, can I cash in any amount
I may have alloted?

I have come so far, I can't believe it.
I have and continue to try everything short of taking two days out and flying to
New York to see my doctor. And trust me, I am considering this.

Remember that summer I flew in from Sweden to play Telluride and had laryngitis?
That was important enough for me to fly into New York to see Dr. Kessler personally. And well, this is beyond that .... so... hmm...

Finances are not great. Borrowed, sponsored, you name it.
But I may have to may it work.

I am a fighter and although it big scheme of life this is nothing, I am in the thick
of it (no pun intended) and plan on fighting.

I have a saying, "Will it matter in a day, in a week .... in a month ... in a year?"

Maybe today it is time to practice this as a mantra.
At the end of the day, I have my health (for the most part) my family and friends,
a wonderful husband, a life I am happy with.

I am done whining and updating.

Although your dances to the gods would be greatly appreciated.

with love and gratitude for all that is life,
Chris
p.s I haven't gone in for day 3 yet. Heading to my graphic designer in 2 hours, then will be back. I'll let you know how it goes - as well as upload the video I made yesterday. <3

Studio session 1...

Day 1 and 4 songs down. Yay!

After one claritin, sudafed, a whole lotta' throat coat, breath easy and ginger tea - entertainer's secret spray and just a ton of water, my voice is resembling something
close to what it should be. *whew*

The stress of the London Terminal 5 Heathrow threw my body into a cold that came
on so fast that even I questioned it could come from that.
But after talking with my vocal doctor I can confirm being over-stressed and over-heated for hours can often throw your body into a sort of fever, i.e bringing on any
bug that may have been lurking.

My producer Mark and his awesome assistant Jed were nothing short of amazing
and everything I could have imagined it to be working easily and painlessly.

You see, recording for me is like, well - pulling teeth.
And being that mom is going under the knife tomorrow, it's no small comparison and do not use it lightly.

But really, some artists thrive in the studio. I am not one of them.

Although, after today, I maybe have to re-think everything I ever thought about being in the studio. It's hard work yes, that is undebatable. But wow, with the right combination, you can work your 8 hour day laughing and smiling.

I took only a few photo's at the end of the day.
It took awhile to get into the groove ... for me anyway ... but I promise more
photo's and videos coming soon!

I heard on the news last night it's tornado weather. Oh joy.
Remember that year we (as in America) had a record 400+ in one week? I think it was 2003 maybe?
Anyway, that was the year I lived in Nashville and was touring my way to California. I was stuck in 3 that week. One in Tennessee, one in Arkansas and one on the Texas panhandle. There are of course others, like living in Texas and even one major one before I lived here and was only touring through in 2001. And...geez, I hardly remember anymore.
All I know is, I don't like them.

Mark and I were talking about earthquakes today and I realized, having grown up in them in California, they never scared me one lick. Seriously.

But tornadoes... please, anything but those.

So I am singing off at 21:05. I'm going to have a late dinner of the biggest spinach salad you have seen and then dream away the tornadoes.
If a girl can dream post it notes have legs and are chasing her off a cliff, surely she can dream away a tornado?

You think?

BBQ & bugs...

The pilot was not kidding when he said at after 19:00, it was still 88 degress.

I was landing in Austin, Texas and shortly thereafter in my rental car, I rolled the windows down.

I was greeted by warm, moist air that smelled like a combination of wildflowers and BBQ.

Literally in minutes, the bugs began their attack as they always do to me in Texas. Something about the bugs here and my juices I guess. *sigh*

I am sitting now, at Austin Java, my favorite spot to sit online for free but today, I am off the caffeine due to recording and drinking my ginger, breathe easy and throat coat teas.

Lucky me has somehow managed in 24 hours to show signs of allergies.
Everything has gone down south, straight to my cords and made them nice and gooey. Oh, sorry.

I am about to Skype with my husband, finish this tea, get some sudafed and do some serious begging from the universe to make this all well by noon tomorrow when recording begins.

The rental car agency gave me a bright red rabbit and already, as I drive by the Texas rangers, I can see their eyes widen. Not the best color to ward off tickets.

Otherwise, just trying to stay calm, prepare for graphics meetings with my designer in between recording and if I am real lucky, get back to my friend Karen's condo where I am staying and utilize that enticing pool!

After all, it is already unbearably hot (for me) and I don't think the bugs will chase me in there.

Even though I am in a Cafe and not driving around smelling the amazing food throughout this whole town, I now have BBQ on my mind.
I can't get it out actually.

I have changed everything about the way I used to eat. Ribs are out.
But after the time, money and stress it has taken to make it this far, I am going to say a plate of ribs from Artz Rib House is for sure on the menu, in the plan and a must before I head out.

More soon....
love,
Chris

one year...

I am back on the roads - getting ready to finish the new record.

In California at the moment and about to head back to Austin, Texas.

I woke up today not with my million things to do list on my mind but with both a smile and a sad face (because I am not there) that today is my one year wedding Anniversary.

Happy Anniversary Muecke! I love you!

love,
me
p. Save me some cake!

lonely stranger...

March 27th at 9:30, with a glass of bubbly in hand to celebrate the opening of Heathrow/British Airways Terminal 5, I loaded my 2 very large bags into the British Airways system - from Munich - on a wing and a prayer I would ever see them again.

Before shows, I have weird things I like to do. Like play with my harmonica holder a certain way while pacing in circles.
I don't like to talk to anyone about 10 minutes before and I drink my slippery elm throat coat tea like it's going out of style. Sometimes I go to the bathroom nearly 4 times in those 10 minutes and on the not so rare occasion find myself running for the stage as my name is being called.

So when I put luggage on a flight, it's no different in the routine department.
While checking in, I have this little goodbye parting with my bag, asking it nicely to please make sure it pushes and pounds its way to the other end, where I promise to lovingly be there waiting to take care of it.
I secure everything so it has a chance of getting less banged up. I proudly set it down knowing it's one tough cookie and think how lucky I am it's my travel companion and carrying so many important things.

Today is April 2 and finally, after much stressing and compulsive online checking and phone calling with my lost luggage reference number, I read that it has been found!

Out of from I hear now is 28,000 bags in a pile in London with a mere 450 volunteers doing it all by hand, I am totally and completely amazed.

And what has made this worse than say, if I were on a holiday is everything I have needed (except for my guitar thank goodness) is in my 2 very large suitcases. One of which Eagle Creek calls the trunk if that tells you how big I am talking here!

So to say I have been stressing out since being put on a new flight - the day after boarding in Munich - out of London after my original connecting was canceled and being told both bags may be in bag land for weeks to come, is putting it very, very mildly.

I was supposed to start driving by Thursday actually and with the bag situation being dire for me, I scrapped that and decided flying into Austin would buy me an extra few days to wait for them to come.

And that it did. *whew*

During the past 7 days, I have literally lay awake thinking of every last thing I put in those bags, making a mental list of what I had lost. Irreplaceable things and all the files and documents for my graphics. The now I see stupidly placed 50 autographed Little Lighthouse CD's for my main distributor who has been out forever, presents for family.
What was I thinking?
It seems I wasn't.

As ridiculous as it may seem when we have much bigger things going on in this crazy world, to me, this was a big big bleep that in the end would cost me and my husband thousands upon thousands of Euros and already, from the stress I had developed a cold.
A cold to a singer is like the plague and with recording commencing in less than a week, I was preparing myself for no voice. Which equals no recording. Which of course means no new CD... canceled tours, career caput.
And after coming out of over a year of burnout and the past eight months in and out of hospitals, I was not going down without a fight. Not this time.

I am a pro-active kind of girl. Anyone who knows me or has read my journals over the years knows, that although I seem to have some kind of terrible traveling luck (being put smack dab into whatever is going on) I always fight my way through smiling and hoping and being pretty darn positive.

So in the larger scheme of things this really is nothing.
But in my world, it was 5 years of waiting and loans that would be just be gone.
The hope hanging on this by my family, my friends, fans and readers. By my agent and my husband, myself. Was well, huge.
People sometimes hang their hopes on your coat rack and I say this not complaining by any means ... but after having let down everyone and in the process considering hanging up my own dreams last year, I started to wonder what the heck was going on. 2008 has been really amazing thus far and trust me, it was not easy to get to a good year.

So when I posted on a news site my opinion and soon thereafter received hate mail, I was beside myself.

Not angry or sad or any of those things. Just completely surprised that because I was affected by what I and many others consider to be British Airways trying to save money on training their employees (as this is the start of the entire luggage system breakdown) I am deemed by this obviously bored person an 'ugly American.'

Has she not read anything about me or my life, my past...present?

And although I am over it now - both her and the bags - I still can't help but wonder what the heck she was thinking.

It's crazy to think.

The whole carrying a guitar on a plane thing.
People somehow think we are getting away with something.
Like we are having too much "fun" and should not be allowed to carry them on.
You get glares when you do.
And really, have you ever looked at how much space a guitar takes up compared to a business traveler carrying it all? You can't even compare.
And would an airline ask a business man to leave his tool - his large laptop bag, carry on with sometimes his suit wrapped around it behind?
Are you kidding?

We are not getting away with anything. This is our job.
And although we love it and it can be fun sometimes, like everyone, this is a job. A job we must get on a bazillion flights and trains, boats and into cars for. A job where we give literally every single last ounce of energy in the hopes something we sing or say will inspire and help someone. Inspire us to keep going and watching life and listening and writing and singing.

A job that most times, especially in the world of folk music - most presenters, radio DJ's, bookers and so on, volunteer.
They volunteer because they love it.
They volunteer because they believe in the powerful healing of non-commercial, society-fed music.

And we try our hardest to write good songs and sing them with emotion and soul. We try really hard to make sure we keep writing more and finding money somehow to make more CD's. CD's that cost no less than 10,000 each time and in the end, usually double and triple that amount.

And we don't do it because our record label tells us we have to be a money making machine. We don't have one.
And we're not all young and beautiful and trying to get played on top radio or write a hit country song.
A folk singers prime is usually past 40. If we're lucky.

Most of us are doing it for some inexplainable reason.
Some drive that takes hold at whatever point in our lives and does not, despite the sometimes clawing to get away, go away.

It puts us on the roads with little in our pockets, hopefully watching the faces of our audiences and crossing every finger and toe they like us. That they really like us.

We don't need to be rich and good thing because we never will be.

We just want to pay our bills like everyone else.
We want to try and be happy doing what we are doing and on days when we would rather stay in bed, we try our hardest like we all do, to get up and go to work. Give it our best shot.
We don't want to stay out too long because we want to have lives outside of our jobs. We want to see our families and friends and do things like paint or take long walks, pick strawberries and bake pies with them.

And I say all this not for any other reason than this person.
This anonymous person who I will probably never in my life meet.

I say to her - to you - please, before you jump the gun and judge someone, please step back and take a look at why you do what you do.
You want to be happy like every one of us I suspect.
And if any of us are lucky - even remotely - we somewhere, somehow in whatever line of work, inspire someone to be happy, be themselves, not be afraid to love or be loved, stay alive or start living.

This post is dedicated to you stranger.

We are all lost in some way or form.
We all need a safe place to go.
Me included.

I know the internet is not one of them.
I can and have accepted that.

But music for me is mine.
Next to my family of course.

And although we don't know each other and you and I have no stakes in one another's happiness, I hope you too have a hope, a dream, a safe place to go.

I hope you never feel like something as silly as delayed bags and a cold will kill them. It's pretty ridiculous yes ... but real.
At least for me.

I will gladly share my safe place with you any day and I do hope we meet out there. I will sing a song just for you to celebrate.

love, Chris

the price of a connection...

18:50 British time


A glass of champagne?

Is that enough to start off my supposed relatively painless flight
from Munich via London to San Francisco?

Because that is what British Airways gave us checking in at 9:30 this morning to celebrate the opening of their new Terminal 5 in Heathrow.

I figured a glass of bubbly at an ungodly naughty hour would at least mean the start of a very good travel day.

*cringe*

So now I write to you from a British Airways sponsored London hotel room, while on a £17 ($40 US!) internet connection - to say, champagne can make up
for sitting on planes for hours, lost luggage, almost 4 hours in line to try and get out, a $40 internet connection, well...

*ehem*

And I changed all my Euro over already into dollars thinking it would be best. Damn.

When did our dollar get so low? Yikes.

And now I want to upload the mayhem video I took and photo's but it seems I didn't foresee any problems and packed my power source in my lost checked in luggage. *sigh*

I am running on empty (in more than one way) and will have to cut this short. I did get on here long enough to cancel my ride on the other end in San Francisco and reschedule for tomorrow's rebooked flight (granted it actually goes!) and send you this little note.

Now I must go and use my dinner coupon and meet the large amount of friends I met at the airport, on the bus here and in the lobby. We are having a "We hate British Airways new Terminal 5" dinner party. It was decided I bring my guitar and we write and video tape a song just for the occasion. Oh the joys of traveling as a folk singer. I did actually miss this part.

til next time...
leibe grüße,
Christene

I was in, I was out...

... and good thing too because I am talking about the dentist.

At first I found it really odd that she said literally, nothing to me
other than the occasional "open" in German.

It didn't take long at all to realize this is a very good thing.

You see, back in the states, I have had the same dentist since I was 9 years old.

Even when I moved around out of state, out of the country, had no insurance - whatever ... he was always there to help me out, clean me up and strike some kind of deal so I wouldn't end up toothless.
Hallelujah!

But my oh my if he didn't tell the longest stories of my entire life.

Heck, I'm a storyteller too, I know the draw to keep em coming and going and...
um.

But I am beginning to put the pieces together as to why my office visits took
all afternoon.

As lonely as I sometimes felt as my dentist made a mad dash for the room next to me to tend to another - while I numbed up - I was also relieved I could just close my eyes, rest and count on her dashing back in to get me move on out.

I guess they get paid per customer here.

So after a non-harrowing but more like lovely little nap in a quiet room, good and drugged up, I've had a pretty good day.

I was in, I was out.

Found footage - 2006 concert in Stockholm, Sweden with my trio, "The Black Sheep girls." This was at the end of a long 3-month tour throughout Europe

mein tag war sehr interessant...

All in all, it's been a pretty interesting day.

Dressed mildly for Spring only to be caught in a snow flurry.

Ended up being interviewed on local TV and I spoke German
understandably.

Was walking my bike across the crosswalk when a car stopped for me...
a second later the car behind him crashed into him.

I gave my first real help to tourists, at least 3 minutes worth - entirely in German on where to go to have an inexpensive lunch - nearby and how to get there exactly.

I found a 10 Euro bill at the Supermarket and paid for half of my groceries, mainly gifts for frieds & family in the US next week.

About the only downside (other than the poor suckers who crashed their cars and my cold Spring-like jacket) for some reason my key to get into the building didn't work.

Luckily we have good friends I could ring and get buzzed in.
Still.

I came home to an email that my friend can house me while in Austin for the record... which was a nice cross off my check list of a million things to do in one week.

It was a very interesting day.
Not perfect but damn near it.