:: BITCH | MUSIC ::

I wrote this album in pieces. I was in pieces. Heartbroken and in my RV lifestyle where nowhere and everywhere is home.

I had spent a year working with Ferron. Not just on the album I made of her, “Boulder,” but traveling and playing shows and, as is unavoidable in hanging with her, having mind-altering conversations that were bound to change my life.

At some point, while camped outside her remote Michigan house, she was teaching a writing workshop in her home that I joined. She told a story of an alcoholic artist who, one morning woke up with his face literally in the dirt of a potted plant. It was a life-changer in that rock-bottom way, and he began to build his artistic life from there. Ferron asked us to describe a time when we had our face in the dirt and what we saw. I believe this record came from that place. An “ok, I’m lost and broken and know that these tools, my hands and my words are something I can rely on.”

And so I began to record myself, on my laptop and Mbox—a humble beginning of an unseen road that would lead me back home to Brooklyn to finish it with one of my newest and closest collaborators, Gabriel. I called on a lot of friends. Liz Kelly, a.k.a. “Teen Beat” came out from Portland for a week and we spent day and night in my friend Viv’s studio in the east village, sleeping on the floor and slowly wiping the dirt from my face as we played. We wrote some songs on the spot. God-des would come by to throw in her two cents. Viv taught me more and more about Pro-Tools every day. We had a bunch of party girls come in and lay down the vocals for “Kitchen” and mostly we dedicated ourselves to the fun of loss, the sound of fun, and the songs of sad and release.

Then I brought in Lee Free, our drummer from Bitch+The Exciting Conclusion. We recorded a couple songs we had written together. I brought one of my favorite NYC performance artists, Geo Wyeth in to play a track live that would eventually be the title track, “Blasted.” I kept the tracks with me and felt by building them up, treating each song like a new and special creature in the world, I was healing myself.

Hearts mend, right?

And so began my long nights with Gabriel, locked up in his Brooklyn loft, waiting for his room-mates to all leave so we could crank up the amps. We got the most amazing sound I have yet heard from my electric violin. Thank the goddess for Friday nights and living with people who work in the service industry.

Making this record was like a series of prayers. The wood-stove at Ferron’s house and the echo of the floors I can still hear in all the songs I made there. The late nights at Viv’s after Liz had played her heart out all day and was passed out on the couch behind me while I stayed up editing the stuff together, making a plan for what to do by morning. My long walks to Gabriel’s house with my hard drive in tow, my up-all-nights at Wayne’s house editing and re-thinking and scheming. I soothed myself in this work. I didn’t let myself get too alone, and yet I was so alone, taking comfort in the colors of Pro-Tools on my screen, a whole life behind me and one ahead that was still unseen. I was catapulted into “Blasted.” A sheer emotional propellor.

I’m happy now. Happy to share. Happy to Open Up. Happy that I Lost You cuz I refound myself. Happy about what’s cooking in my Kitchen. Happy to be Blasted and not so Blasted. Happy that the Rain is the Only thing that’s Clear. Happy.