Keepin' it Fresh.

So it's been a while since I've written on here, and honestly I'm not sure who is reading this thing. But the beauty of that is that I feel like I can vent a little bit here because, while I can feel like I'm being honest and transparent with whoever might care, I can also feel OK thinking not too many people may see it. Funny enough, that's kind of what got me here. To this point.

  I've been feeling a little like I'm forcing it lately.  A little like I'm living by way of doing what I think I "should be doing" rather than taking life's temperatures and sailing where the winds take me. I've been fearful, I guess. Hey, that's not altogether a bad thing, right?  Los Angeles Alfa is the Alfa that has learned all too well what growing up can be about: being more concerned about security, finding the right mate, understanding that a retirement fund is not an old coffee container labeled ... "retirement fund" or "party money," thinking long term. I think the message has sometimes hit a little too hard, though, with everyone's timelines boasting newly-bought houses, fancy vacations, high and mighty jobs. It's in that light that my creativity suffers. See, then I'm picking up my guitar and thinking that it's gotta get me to that point B where I can start boasting the fancy bootie of my chosen career, when that's not what a guitar is supposed to do. It's just supposed to make music. That's all.

Yes, "that's all." And that's not a bad thing. Not supposed to be. When I start to dread playing music (which happens from time to time) is when the red flags should start to go up (kinda going up right now). I started doing this thing because I was 13, and angst-ridden, and had so many things to say from thoughts I'd never thought before, and I figured that if I told too many people about it they'd think I was off my rocker, so I locked myself away in my attic and sang them to myself with my voice all rusty, untrained and unsure, my fingers still learning the geography of each chord.

 It's been a crazy ride, right? I'm now in the middle of writing my first album that will be released under a record label (some people may say it has taken too long for me to get to this point. To you I give the evil glare. You try being me). And just like all the other records, I have no idea what I'm doing. Each song bears both the hopeful potential and untested vulnerability that makes this phase of record-making so oyster-like. But sometimes I find myself fighting to differentiate the songs from each other - not that they sound exactly the same - but the visceral connection I have to each one is not always as tightly-wound as songs that have come in my younger years. I've learned a lot about songwriting, and I do think I've become somewhat decent at it, but anyone knows that good songs come down to more than good technique. They're also about heart and honesty. Both things that should come naturally to me, but are sullied by questions of the career stuff: are they license-able? Will they be catchy enough? And then there's the personal stuff I wrestle with too. Am I getting too old? Am I not cool anymore? (yes, that question doesn't just apply to high school) Do I still have the energy for this?

When you're young, you can almost postpone the answers because they don't need to be there yet. When you get older, you get your strength from facing the answers-head on and saying fuck it anyway.
 So, that's what I'm doing. Fuck it anyway. Whatever it takes, I'm gonna make music, and I'm going to stop paying attention to the noise around it.

New Video! WAR!

[View full-screen in HD for best quality]

Shooting the War! Video

Two weekends ago, I had the immense pleasure of gathering some friends together to help me shoot my video for "War!", which will debut on April 22nd. I can't actually properly express how much fun this whole thing was, so here's a GIF to give you an idea. Photos shot by Red Lebrun:

As you can see, we are decked out in face paint and some interesting costume choices. We got together one Sunday for a massive pillow fight in the park.  We will be pairing these shots with some band footage we gathered at The Great Company in downtown LA.

The idea for this video was born out of a small idea I had a long time ago to pair the song "War!" with some kind of fight. I ran over the list in my head - zombie fight, paintball fight, water fight, and eventually pillow fight. After approaching a couple directors and running into small hiccups left and right, I put the idea on the back burner while doing my travels in the Fall and Winter. Eventually, I brought the idea to my friend and director Conrad Lihilihi, running the idea of a zombie fight past him. He instantly got excited about the concept and came back with some of his own input. I was getting a really good feeling that we were on the same page, and also felt that the video would need the kind of comic timing that Conrad is naturally great at.  Eventually, we fleshed out the logistics and realized the zombie fight would get costly and might seem too violent (I wanted to move away from anything controversial - like in last year's "Blue" video). We opted for the pillow fight instead, and I'm super happy with the way it all came out.  Stay tuned - the video will be officially out soon, but in the meantime, you can listen to it on Bandcamp!

When you have woman-parts.

A few weeks ago I did a video interview for Planet X, hosted by my good friend and musician-extraodinaire Inch Chua.  The show was ahead of the She Rocks Awards, which focuses on women in the music industry, and so I was asked about any difficulties I run into as a woman in the "music business." At the time I couldn't think of what to say - I had never felt like my gender got in the way of progress, and even if it had, nothing in my memory felt worth mentioning.

Recently I ran into a bit of a head-butt with a sound guy.  I know this isn't exactly unique - every working musician runs into this kind of snafoo - but I couldn't help wondering if my gender had anything to do with the blowout we exchanged.  In short, I was the only female in the line-up, and in trying to verbalize my sound needs, I noticed he was getting very short and sarcastic with me. I couldn't imagine what I might have said that quickly switched the tides - I'd barely been onstage for 2 minutes when I felt his attitude flare. At one point, he even compared me to the other acts, saying they were all "cool", except me.

There are two things at work here. First, are the circumstances causing a certain level of self-consciousness: being a woman, I am used to being underestimated in many cases, and have learned to be forthright about my sound needs. I'm not mean about it, I just know what I want to hear through the monitors. I see that this can probably be misinterpreted as "attitude", particularly if the sound engineer isn't used to a woman asking for certain adjustments to be made for more than 30 seconds. Now it's very possible this could apply to every artist in particular, but I ask you - if a guy got on stage and asked for the sound through the monitors to be made "more intimate", do you think the sound engineer would snap back at him?  Doubt it.

Second: ego.  The guy had a big ego about what his capabilities were; he thought it insulting that I wanted adjustments made, and furthermore, seemed to want me to "coddle" him in the way I asked for certain changes, as evidenced by him mistaking my simple sound requests as attitude. Of course I'm sure my own ego had something to do with it too - I instantly took his shortness with me to mean he didn't think I was a knowledgeable musician, and the snowball began.  Ego is such a funny thing, though. We love it in men but hate it in women - why?  It's a by-product of working at something we love; it isn't always good and it isn't always bad, and that goes for both genders.

In the end, the show was great and went off without a hitch, but I couldn't help wondering how it all would have gone down if I weren't a female. The expectation for us women is to be softer, less targeted in our demands; and it's a shame all sound guys can't just set aside those expectations and be real pros.

Mixing signatures and structures.

I was up late last night starting a song. It was 1am and I was avoiding sleep. I'd started thinking about past relationships that were almosts-but-not-quite...thinking that a lot of the time I just didn't feel like the other person was letting me in as much as I wanted them to. That sort of unevenness seems to be an early sign of relationship problems to come. Anyway, I was messing with a rolling finger picking rhythm on the G# chord and started at the verse.  I know some people say starting with a chorus is a must for pop songs, but I wasn't sure this was going to be a pop song, and more often than not, I just want to go along with the song and see where it takes me when it gets to a "Chorus" moment.  What ended up happening was a Verse, Pre-chorus, Verse, Pre-chorus, Chorus pattern.  It's a little different, but something I've been gravitating towards the last couple of weeks.  I also gravitated towards the phrase, "from me."  I thought about the idea of repeating a phrase as a tag, but having it mean something slightly different each time... I also think the phrase "From me" sounds kind of nice at first, but in this song, is actually mellow and sad.

After some tweaking today, I wound up finishing the song. I think I'll end with the Pre-Chorus, rather than a Chorus, or a Chorus repeat. AND...this is a first for me, I think I will go into 3/4 time in the 2nd chorus.  I don't know exactly how it happened, but it felt very natural today. We will see how it sits tomorrow, if I can find time to play before my flight to Buffalo.

There is tweaking yet to be done... but here's that first bit that I wound up writing last night, along with edits from today:

From Me (Written by Alfa Garcia, BMI. (c) 2013. All Rights Reserved.)

Verse 1:

I try to speak to you / all casual and true

you speak in riddles back to me.

I wonder if it's just / the language that we have

I know you love your poetry

Pre:

But it seems I have to find 

a better man who doesn't hide

from me.

Verse 2:

You're such a wanderer / you're beautiful that way

and I would never tie you down

But your symbolic sighs / the overdrawn goodbyes

baby, they don't keep me 'round

Pre:

Lookin' for someone like you

who doesn't have to keep the truth

from me.

Chorus:

Tell me your secrets / tell me where do you go

I promise I'll keep it / I promise I'll let you go

when you want to be free.

----

In other news, I had my second rehearsal with drummer Kevin Jimenez, who will play with me at Room 5 on Nov. 22nd. I enjoy our weekly get-togethers, because it forces me to practice the older stuff, rather than get caught up solely in writing new songs.  I think songwriters are too quick to walk away from a song once it's written. I guess it's the artist's job from there...so if you're both (artist and songwriter), you carry a song with you a lot longer.  

That's it for now... will be in Buffalo playing a showcase with NACA this weekend. :)  More news when I return.

Einstein on the Beach.

I topped off the birthday weekend by watching - rather, witnessing - "Einstein on the Beach," the seminal opera work composed by Philip Glass and directed by Robert Wilson, at the LA Opera.  I'd heard about this from my boyfriend Rob, who pretty much had the avant-garde 4-act opera on repeat in his car the last few months, even though I have to admit, the sounds kinda made me dizzy and nauseated (this is coming from a girl who's played in orchestra for a good chunk of her younger years).  Nonetheless, when I saw that Einstein was coming to LA, I told Rob all about it - like a good girlfriend, right?  He went and bought the "cheap" tickets, at a whopping $77 a pop.  (cue side-discussion about the accessibility of music, whether or not art is skewed by economic demographics, not to mention the fact that Kanye and Kim Kardashian apparently attended opening night in a Lamborghini, etc etc...)

Anyway, 4 hours long with no intermission, it features a cast that does it all - singing, dancing, remembering seemingly nonsensical lyrics and delivering them at lightning speed...as well as a great bunch of musicians, including a stellar violinist, who was also Einstein, (Jennifer Koh) that must have played repetitive half-scales for 40 minutes straight at one point. The work is supposedly a statement on time, space, etc. I won't pretend I really know because my head is still wrapping itself around what I experienced today; but I will say this - I enjoyed the opera a lot more when I could hear the music along with the visuals; I am thoroughly impressed by the cast for their sheer endurance and precision; and I really appreciated the rhythmic landscape of it all - even if, yes, it was very dizzying at times.  As a musician watching all this, I took comfort in watching the pit orchestra, and pretty much made a game out of trying to figure out the ever-changing time signatures.

Here's where you can give "Einstein on the Beach" a listen: http://grooveshark.com/#!/album/Einstein+On+The+Beach/3696937

And here's some info on it from LA Opera's website. Today was the last performance, but you never know when they'll put another one together again: http://www.laopera.com/season/13-14Season-at-a-Glance/Einstein/

It's my birthday.

Yes, here's that day again. Instead of getting down about getting older, I'm resolving to focus on the love I'm getting from all my friends and family.  So, OK...no more being emo about life's ongoing progression. :)  [deep breath]
  Also, I figure the best way to get my mind off it will be to play some music, so I'll be hosting the first-ever songwriter's round over at Renaissance Hotel LAX tonight along with some musical friends.

If you aren't familiar with a songwriter's round, that's because the only place it really happens is in Nashville, which is kind of ridiculous because it's a genius idea.  Sidenote* - another genius idea Nashville has is figuring out restaurant splits for the bill before the customer actually orders. (duh!) I digress -  so the way it works is there are a number of songwriters onstage at the same time, each songwriter plays one song at a time, rotating per song until the set is done.  It's a cool way to break up the set, plus it encourages songwriters to communicate with each other. Or at least, that's what happens during good rounds.  Personally, I think it's kind of awkward when songwriters sit up there and don't say anything to each other.  

So yes, if you're in LA and you don't have anything to do tonight, you should come check it out. No cover. Tip jar only. I'll be hosting. There will be happy hour food and drinks... oh and yes, you can buy me a birthday cocktail.