The Journey Back To The Stage

Today’s Fashion Attire: Today I’m wearing a black scoop neck t-shirt (Gap Outlet $4) dark wash skinny jeans (Gap Outlet $29) black and white mesh and leather loafers (Rockport Outlet $19) a soft cotton military style black cap with a rhinestone bow adorned on the side (Some random accessory store out in Victoria Gardens $12)

Outfit Justification: This outfit is basic and it revolves around the hat.  I bought this hat when I was on the great search for shoes for my audition dress for the Voice audition a few weeks ago. That was totally cute almost military looking with the exception of the shiny bow. I’m not normally a bow person but the hat was darling. My husband loved it, so I had to snatch it up. It made sense to pair with a black t-shirt.

The Journey Back To The Stage:

I’m kind of at a loss as to what to talk about today.  I didn’t write my blog on Friday because I was too hungover from my work happy hour the previous day to be witty and informative…I was basically useless. It happens.

On Friday, my friends Patrick and Starr, have kindly asked if I would be willing to sing two songs with their band Lounge-O-Rama. I was thrilled by the offer of course I said yes.  I really like this band. The musicians are all talented. They play all kinds of great covers.  They touch all the genres that I love and touch all of the different decades.  In a city like Los Angeles, it’s hard to find a local band that I really like. There’s a lot of crap out there.  I’m always a bit skeptical when someone says “Come see my band”. I smile and try to worm my way out of it.  I don’t want to really hurt someone’s feelings if the band sucks, and they generally do. Every now and then I’m pleasantly surprised. So when the members of this lovely band who I’ve gotten to know on a friendly basis invite a struggling singer like me to sing with them, you know I was all over that opportunity.

After saying yes, I went into a small baby panic. This is the first time I’ve had a gig since April. The length of time between gigs is normal since I’m not a part of a band exclusively. But the reason why this is so significant is because I had an illness that was very lengthy that did a lot of damage to me physically and emotionally.  I had taken a taken a social hiatus to recover before I knew exactly what was wrong. And then I was put on medical leave with major restrictions. The illness was wreaking havoc on my sleep, my brain and my voice.  I had never gone that long without singing. As a result my spirit was very broken. 

Since I’ve been diagnosed, had surgery and recovered from that, I’m still fighting the residual effects of the illness. Working with my vocal coach, practicing at home, singing karaoke, I can still hear the damage pieces of my voice. My heart sinks when I sing songs and my voice breaks.  It’s disheartening and frustrating to not be able perform the way I want to.  I struggle to maintain the power in my voice when I hit certain notes. My singing means the world to me. I’m very proud of my ability to sing.  I love that my range is large. I love that the genres I attempt are so different than what’s expected of me. It makes me happy when I sing a song and nail it.

Last night I went by to see Starr at Sonny’s because she was running her karaoke show there. It was super quiet.  When I have a gig I don’t do karaoke leading up to it.  So last night was the last time this week I’ll do karaoke until I sing Friday night. So I made the best of it. I sang songs that not a lot of people know. I tried stuff that’s been out of my range for a while. I sang stuff I’ve never tried before.  Last night I attempted a song that was completely out of my range. This specific song was one that when I first started working with my vocal coach, it was one of the songs that I said was completely out of my reach.  I worked with her on this song for a few years.  I chipped away at it. I never really mastered it.  I gave up on it because the song isn’t really that main stream. Frankly even if I did master it, no one would really care but me and I felt that was a bit self indulgent.

The other reason why I abandoned this song is because of the lyrics. They remind me of my darkest time in my life when I was diagnosed with depression. It echoed a lot of the thoughts I had during that time. The song is called Lithium and it’s by Evanescence (It’s not a cover of the Nirvana one). Last night I attempted to sing it expecting it to be a huge disaster. Something happened to me while singing it. I felt like I had left my body and something else had taken over. It wasn’t a disaster. In fact it was pretty good. There was so much power and passion in that song that I didn’t even recognized myself singing it. I felt like I was on the other side of this tragedy and looking back. I had somehow overcome some inner battle that was going on inside me.  The song wasn’t easy.  But I got through it. And I felt good doing it.  There was a little triumph inside me after I did it.  A small part of me was screaming “Yes, you can do this.” That little bit of confidence that I’ve been lacking was peeking its head out.

Today I’m feeling good. I’m looking forward to performing on Friday.  Over the weekend Jeff played me a video that he took of me singing at live band karaoke at the Hard Rock in Hollywood on Friday. As I watched and listened to it, I can hear the improvement in my voice. I can see all the little things I was missing a few weeks ago are starting to come back.  Somewhere inside of me is the girl who was ready to take on the rock world 4 years ago. She’s not quite out and about, but she makes an appearance every so often to remind the world she’s still here. I can only imagine what will happen when she’s full blown unleashed on the world. I’m looking forward to that day.