Pictures on Silence

"A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence." ~Leopold Stokowski

It’s fascinating how the most amazing things can happen when you least expect them to. Take childhood dreams for instance. Dreams can be met and exceeded when you don’t believe they can. It happens in the most random places. Like restaurants.

I should probably backtrack from there, even though the thought of giving a huge prologue makes my insides all twitchy. I met the guys-- no, that’s not far enough either. I’ll start from the beginning.

For me, the dream was one of the most difficult and serendipitous: from when I was a girl of three, I wanted to sing. I sang almost as much as I talked. Later into my life, I got myself into music, primarily rock and roll, since that’s what I had grown up with. When I was thirteen, I bought myself a guitar. A beautiful black maple acoustic-electric. That thing is my baby.

But I still focused mainly on singing. Choruses, musicals, that sort of thing. I got even more into the local scene when I got into high school; you might say I became an indie kid, but it was more balanced than that. I dug old stuff and classical and jazz and hip hop and all sorts of good shit.

I met Sean Vanderpol my freshman year. To tell the truth, I had a major crush on him, but who could blame me? Tall, attractive, English senior with serious guitar skills, voice like an angel, and an accent to die for. He introduced me to his band mates, Matt Lawrie and Jesse Christopher, and we hit it off right away. At the time, they were called The Puzzlemen and had just released an LP.

I picked up my brother’s bass one day and discovered that I loved it: I could sing and play at the same time, unlike with my badass dark green guitar; I just didn’t have the coordination for it. So I convinced my parents to get me lessons, and over the next year I got really good. So good in fact that when The Puzzlemen held auditions for a new member, I accidentally got the posish. That’s another story though.

So, getting back to where I began, I was well on my way to playing out my dream. Sure, we were only one of hundreds of bands in the San Francisco Bay Area, but we had something none of the other bands had: some major talent and potential, a shitload of passion, and, oh yeah, serious connections. One connection happened to be my best friend Aromi, who, after only a few small shows, got us a gig at Slim’s. Believe me, this was big, especially for me.

Bringing us full circle, this is where the actual story begins. If you’d have told me that all this would happen, even only up to that point, I probably would have laughed in your face. But I’m glad that it did.

I’m so thankful for everything. And everyone.