12/25/05 A Salvation Army Christmas

My god I’m broke!!! I’m back in the east, freezing my tail off in the city with zero dollars in my bank account. How did this happen? A few years ago I was doing so well. Jazz gigs are expensive!!! It cost me a thousand bucks to do that gig. I need a loan!! Luckily when I had a lot of money, after I signed my publishing deal, I bought a bunch of musical equipment. Cause I just keep selling it off piece by piece to get by. Too bad I cant get anything for the ridiculous amount of shoes and sweaters and pants and....girls always buy way too much stuff. But I think performers by way more. It’s dumb. But the past is past. I never had much cash growing up, so when I got some I spoiled myself, my friends, lovers, family. It was way too much fun to want to take it back. Now I’ve learned my lesson. Anyway, being poor is good for you sometimes. It makes you appreciate life and the things you have so much more. If you can get over the stress attached to it. Besides, I can’t worry about that crap. It’s too distracting, and I have a record to plan for. I’m heading back out to LA to record my second full length album, “The Old Fashioned Way.” it’s a lot cheaper to record in Los Angeles than in NYC so I’m going there, where I can stay with friends and record a kick ass record with my new favorite people – Kneebody!!!

This Christmas my boyfriend and I are hiding out and watching movies all day. We couldn’t afford to buy presents for anyone, so we ixned everyone. Christmas is the perfect time to hide out with your loved ones, stay out of the crowded stores, eat pie and chill the hell out. Merry Christmas Everyone!!! And I hope you got that new x-box. ;)

Ps. And let me say in advance...Happy New Years My friends!!
May 2006 be full of fun and surprises, love and happiness.
I will be wishing on all of your lucky stars. xoxororo

12/14/05 Kneebody rules!!!

Oh my goodness, what a fun show!!! I loved playing with those guys. Since they have all been in a band for years together they have such a great flow and vibe with each other. The picked up the songs very quickly and played them with tenderness, as if they really cared for the songs and even liked them. I guess you don’t always see that, when you’re hiring people to play music that is not theirs ya know? So that was dope!!

My best girlfriend Chelsea invited some A&R guys from Concord Records, a really cool jazz label. I talked to them after the show, and they both said they were planning on coming already...random!! They said that they were both big fans of my first record, which really surprised me because I never thought jazz guys would dig my urban-pop-rock-thing. Ha!!! Colin, the head of A&R there asked me what had changed in my writing for this new record? And I said, “I’m happy now.” That gave a big laugh all around. It’s true though, I always wanted to write a bunch of pretty songs that could be moody, but not tortured and sad in nature. I think I did it. :)

12/13/05  Rosey Performing Live in Los Angeles @ Hotel Café at 7:30PM

Hotel Café  
1623 1/2 N Cahuenga Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90028
12/13/05 – 7:30PM
$8.00 Cover

12/11/06 I’m Going back to Cali, bringing my special Jazz to the Hotel Café

It’s getting cold in NYC, especially where I’ve been staying on and off out in the country, so it’s time to get out for a while. I’m like a bird, who sniffs the cold air and starts looking immediately for deals on Jetblue. ;) Plus the house in the country is not selling and the realtor wants me the hell out. She keeps coming over with random people, only to find me in my half naked recording vocals. I really can’t tell who’s more annoyed, me or her? I told her to call first... oh well.

So I have a gig on the 13th of Dec. in LA. I’m so excited to get there that I booked a flight 2 weeks early. I miss my friends so much and my parents and brother now all live in southern Cali, so I will have a happy homecoming I’m sure. Since I cant afford to fly my little band out to LA to to the show, I am hiring some friends of mine who are in a really cool progressive jazz group called Kneebody (kneebody.com) This show will be extra fun because I’ll have a horn section, my first time playing with one. Yay!!!! Hopefully I’ll see some of you there. Peace &Love. Rolo (my traveling alias)

11/16/05 Come & See - Rosey Performing Live @ Rockwood Music Hall at 10PM

Rockwood Music Hall
196 Allen Street
New York, NY 10001
10PM – 11/16/05
No Cover

This will be my last show of the year as I’m heading out to LA soon to do some gigs out there,
so come down and give me hugs. Xoxororo

10/29/05 Bad Highlights, Big Weddings and Big Budgets

Because I’m not an asshole, I wont say where it happened, I will just quickly tell the story of how one day I looked like a normal girl and the next like freak. I went to a fancy salon in Soho, with a gift certificate one of my friends gave me so that I could relax and have a day of beauty....I said maybe I’d take a few highlights in my hair. Next thing I knew my hair was gray!! Then peach, then 6 hours later it was white!!! In other words, my S was totally F-ed up. I cried. It ended up costing me another $500 to try and fix it. I had to sell one of my guitars. Luckily I had one 2 many. ;) Anyway, the moral of this story is, a day of relaxing should be spent in a massage parlor or at the beach, not at the hands of a stylist who doesn’t have your same goals in mind.

Moving on...I took my totally f-ed up hair to my cousin’s abnormally huge wedding. What an event, I could hardly believe it. There were so many people there, when they all took pictures you could swear you were at a film premiere and the paparazzi had been invited. Amazing!! I sang “At Last” with the wedding band as a special dedication to the beautiful bride and groom. And I wrote them a song which I presented to them in CD form on their big day. The song is called “Hand in Hand.” I am such a big fan of love I decided to write a song for people into tying big knots. I wrote it with John Chin and we recorded it with the band.

Because my manager loved the song so dearly, he decided we should re-record it, to make it sound better. After some thought, he flew me out to Seattle to his new house so we could “talk about my future.” Oh I was scared kitten. I had no idea what was coming next... The news was good. He decided that in a time when labels where mostly signing artists that had full albums recorded already, it would behoove us to make a full-length album on our own. So we started to work out the numbers it would take to make that record. I was so excited I could hardly believe it!!!

10/5/05 Rosey Performing Live @ Rockwood Music Hall at 9PM

Rosey AT:
Rockwood Music Hall
196 Allen Street
New York, NY 10001
9PM – 10/5/05
No Cover

9/15/05 Birthdays & Demo tapes

Well, they used to be called tapes. I remember giving cassette tapes out to label people when I got my first record deal. Hilarious!!! Luckily those hissy things are a thing of the past. For a dream we will do a lot of crazy things. I spent the last of my money on recording live demos of these jazz songs in a dope spot called Peter Karl Studio in Brooklyn. Jonathan Townes recorded us and he was the bastion of professionalism and technique. Thanks Jonathon!! The piano vocal demos are cool, but it was time to take it to the next level. My manager helped me some too. Thank god he got that other job, cause being a manger isn’t cheap at all (if you’re a good one). We recorded 15 songs in one day. Good lord that was exhausting!! The recordings convinced my manager that I had studied hard and was ready to get a deal at a cool jazzy label.

It is my birthday today, and on this day every year I quit smoking cigarettes. It is a filthy disgusting addiction that has had it’s hold on me since I was a poor little 12 year old. My boyfriend is quitting with me, so it’ll be interesting to see if we can both leave these nicks behind. I sure hope so. I want to be free from it already. If you have NEVER smoked, you are one of the lucky people, and you should be happy and proud of yourself. If you do smoke, it is never too late to stop. Choose life.

8/26/05 Big gigs, Hot rods & Heart Throbs!!!

Our first gig was a success!! Luckily all my old friends came out as well as a bunch of old fans and packed that little room. There was a line down the street to get in. perfect!!!! The sound was great, and I cant wait to get back in there. We scheduled a bunch of gigs to follow and are probably going to do a residency in the near future. Ken Rockwood kicks ass!!!      

It’s very sad, but my manager decided to take a job in the pacific northwest that will take him away from being my manager fulltime, not to mention, he and his wife are packing their things and moving out there soon. My cushy lifestyle in the country (when I’m not slummin it at my friends houses in the city) is over. I’m helping them pack, and trying to figure out what I’m going to do. I needed a way to get around cause these crazy long bike trips were no longer cutting it. So I got a ride out to Long Island, with the sweetest guy ever, where I bought a cheap car off my friend’s mother. When I say cheap, I mean it. The car was $100.00, because the woman who drove it burned the front seats out with a cigarette, yuckkk....it stinks in there, but I just had to put new tires on it, some seat covers and get a new battery. I gave up my super tanned, long blond hair picture on my California driver’s license, for a pale faced picture on a new New Jersey one. This car is so ugly. I think it’s lavender, but some say it’s blue, grey, who knows? All I can say is that it only has 24,000 miles on it and it’s gonna be my ticket to playing a lot more shows in the city. I’m allowed to stay in the house until it is sold, so that’s cool. I still have a minute to figure out my next move.       

More on the sweetest guy ever. Behind every good gal is a good guy (or gal depending on the gal). I always thought to be successful, I needed to be solo - get things with my career into motion undistracted and focused solely only my goals as an independent artistic woman. But Boy was I wrong. Love has changed my mind, and I’ve never felt more motivated and inspired. I feel like I can be 10 times the artist I was now. We have been writing pretty songs together 2. The boy is in that rock band Thursday, and yes, he may be a dirty rock n’ roll guy, but he is the epitome of manners, brains and charm. And strangely, he’s as trustworthy as they come. I didn’t think guys like this existed, but they do. And now I can prove it. He’s leaving to go on tour in march, so we still have plenty of time to have plenty of fun before he goes on the road for 10 months. No one ever said love would be THAT easy....

8/17/05 Don’t Miss Rosey’s Jazz Debut @ Rockwood Music Hall at 9PM

Rockwood Music Hall
196 Allen Street
New York, NY 10001
9PM - 8/17/05
No Cover

8/10/05 A whole new kind of Band Practice

My manager’s scheduled my first jazz gig at a little hole in the wall venue in the lower east side of Manhattan on the 17th. The place is call the Rockwood Music Hall, which has a really great intimate vibe, a baby grand piano on the stage and an outstanding sound system.  I went to check it out, and it’s free to get in and the people who own it and work in it are so cool. If my show goes well, I’d like to make it my main place to play, while I’m growing this live jazz thing. Sounds like a plant ;)   Band Practices have been so rad, because we got the coolest players to work with. It’s just me & John on upright piano, Bob Hart on upright bass (www.myspace.com/spiraling) and Bill Campbell on a small drum set in John’s living room. These guys are making me love this switch to jazz even more. The players are so well versed and tight, we sounded like old pros at our first practice. I cant tell you how many hacky rock&roll shows I’ve done, just barely getting through the set alive...ughhh, so over that. And these guys are so good, even their mistakes sound good, if you can even catch them in the first place. Also, I don’t have to use a mic at all at rehearsal and I am no longer screaming to be heard. These guys play super quietly as well as being really dynamic. It’s such a joy. Words can only hope to explain my happiness :) Nice...

7/14/05 My Adventures with Hugh McCracken

It’s no accident that my manager is a music buiz smarty. He grew up in that world, surrounded by the coolest rock stars. His dad, Hugh McCracken, is a legendary session guitar player who has been on almost every awesome record you can imagine in the 60’s 70’s, 80’s etc. Go to allmusicguide.com and check out his credits, they will astound you!! He played with Paul Simon, Paul McCartney, John Lennon...the other day he did a session with Alicia Keys for her new record. So he’s still pumpin out the jams!! I had always wanted to work with Hugh, and like a dream, an opportunity presented itself for us to do a bunch of work together. My beautiful manager’s wife got a job in Irvington, NJ as a pattern maker for The new Jersey Shakespeare Company. I drive her to work in her car in the heinous morning traffic. My god commuting is hell!! Then I drive into the city, spend the day writing songs with Hugh, then go back and pick her up at work and drive another hour plus home. That puts me in the car everyday for about 5-6 hours, but it’s totally worth it. Hugh and I wrote a song the other day called “The Old Fashioned Way.” I’m really excited about this song. It reminds me of my gypsy-Jewish roots. I think I am going to make it the title track to my record. Yay!!!

6/1/05 Fine Tuning

I’m enjoying writing out here so much that I paid for a piano tuner to come out to the house and make the piano sound sparkly and perfect!! Now I can invite my main writing partner from Brooklyn, an awesome jazz piano player John chin ( JohnChin.com ) to come out and work with me here. Now he gets to enjoy being out of the city too. We are both loving this peace and quiet amid our loud sessions. We wrote a bunch of new songs and are close to getting this record finished. The writing part anyway...  The guys from Thursday have been coming to visit me too. They are writing their new record in Hoboken just 45 minutes away. It’s nice to have some company, it is summer after all!! Plus hanging out with a rock band makes me feel like my life hasn’t been completely taken over by jazz. I put away my gramma clothes and am back in black t-shirts and jeans again, phewww!!!!

5/26/05 Country Living

After a few weeks of jamming and writing jazz stuff in the city I’ve gone back to my manager’s house in the country to set up all my recording gear and put some lyrics to the songs we started. My manager and his wife are hardly ever home, so I look after the dogs and have this huge house on a lake all to myself. It is paradise. We are an hour outside of the city, but it seems like we are 3 or 4 hours away from the very rustic super small town vibe. I love it! I don’t have a car, so I have to ride a bike 12 miles into town, so I'm getting some great exercise. I have been feeling very creative here. And already have about 6 songs written and a few more on the way. I love the work I’m doing, but I miss communicating with people!!! All this me time is making me a bit stir crazy...I’ve been online a lot late at night when I’m not writing and forming new friendships with other freaky local musicians, Joshua Radin, Carey Brothers, Kate Diamond, Jonathon Blum, all really cool songwriters. And my friend James on the west coast is totally keeping me sane…I’m hoping to get back into the city soon to check out some of their gigs and write some more jazz songs. I feel like I’m on the right path. In fact I haven’t felt this good since before I got signed to Island. Getting record deals can be an answer, but to me it’s the climb and the songs that come out of it that is so satisfying.

5/9/05 Back to couches and Gypsy Life

It was so great living alone in LA the last few years in my very own apartment, but now things are back to the way they have to be, for me to be free to write my next record. And live rent free for a while so I can figure out where I’m really gonna live, if I even want to stay here? My back is killing me, from sleeping in weird places, but I’ll adjust. It’s great to see all my old friends again. I went to a Blue Merle show last night. My friends in the band The Shore opened for them (the Shore is awesome!!!!) and I met some of the guys from the band Thursday there, they were hilarious. I guess they are on the same label as Blue Merle. So I got really drunk, cause everybody was buying me shots, celebrating my homecoming and I crashed my bicycle and busted open the ass of my favorite jeans. So kids, take it from me, NEVER drink and ride!!! It’s just not worth it. ;)

I love New York, but this city is hard livin! Crowded spaces, high rents, so much suffering on every corner and from block to block, I admit it hurts my sensitive heart. Maybe this time I’ll live out in Brooklyn, it seems a bunch of my friends have moved out there...we’ll see. I’m going to do some writing in Brooklyn with some friends who play jazz. I think it would be fun to learn as much as I can about writing jazz songs. It will be a crazy hard challenge for me, but I like challenges. They definitely keep things more interesting. Plus my manager seems to think jazz is my calling, so I owe it to us both to at least try it.

5/4/05 On the Road back to Good-old Manhattan...

I left California today again for the 5th or 6th time. I’ve lost track at this point, all this moving back and forth...But when it’s time to go, you know, and you get gone. After my first record’s touring cycle was over, I made another record, which never got put out. That was a bummer, but I found myself much better off leaving Island records, as they blew my project anyway. I joined a new funk band with Raphael Saadiq, which was really fun. And I found myself utilizing my publishers more by having them set me up with other artists to write with while I was figuring out my next move. It was great branching out and working with lots of random people on different styles of music but after a year or so of that I started to go a bit crazy, and get slightly depressed...I missed writing my own songs and gigging and was worried if I didn’t get back to it soon, I may never. My manager and his wife, who are my extended family, invited me to come east to stay with them for a while. They thought it would help me if I had a little change of scenery. So I sold most of my furniture and gear to raise some cash for the move, put a bunch of my stuff in storage and snuck into Island Record’s mail room and shipped the rest of it back east to my manager’s place. Thanks Island/Def jam!! I’m on my way in a huge truck with my girlfriend who happens to be moving to NYC too, so this is all working out very well. All except for the part of leaving my boyfriend crying in the street waving goodbye, that sucked!!! But shit happens I guess. And it was time to go....

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