Journal

Music

Nields

Karl Wallinger and Our Midwest Tour

Music has a power that I don’t understand. I feel it sometimes when I experience the loyalty of our own following. But it took Karl’s death for me to remember its sway on me. Lately, I’ve avoided listening to music. Why? Music makes me feel. I can’t have it playing in the background. It’s distracting––not so much to my mind but to my heart. Listening to music, I become a sea creature, at the mercy of the waves. When I get fearful, I pull myself out of the water and sit on a rock, my knees to my chest, glowering at the fickle ocean.

posted March 29, 2024

Journal

Music

Nields

River Roads

Here’s the strange thing about me: I can completely forget I’m a musician until I arrive at the gig. It’s as though that part of me is a set of clothes for another season, kept in a moth-proof box in the attic, out of mind until the weather changes.

posted September 23, 2023

Music

Nields

Parenting/The Full Catastrophe

Day 7-Abbey Road

The rest of the trip could have sucked, and because of this, I still would have been glad for every penny and pound we spent. We did NOT stop traffic,…

posted July 26, 2017

Music

Nields

Parenting/The Full Catastrophe

Suzuki

Me and the Sarge Are Fifty!

To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on…

posted June 8, 2017

Parenting/The Full Catastrophe

Suzuki

I Wanna Be a Woman Like Patti Smith

Tomorrow is the official Day Without Women.We are encouraged to wear red, to abstain from shopping and to tell our bosses to try to live without us. My bosses are my…

posted March 7, 2017

Music

Nields

Parenting/The Full Catastrophe

Writing Process

Post-Iron Horse. Can I Sleep Now? Please?

After our big 25th anniversary shows at the Iron Horse last weekend, I was so tired I thought I would never recover. As I age, it seems performing takes more…

posted June 27, 2016

Music

Nields

Twenty-five Years

This band started as a dream, like most bands do. Two girls, born 10 years too late, pouring over the cover of the Beatles Blue Album, which is not even,…

posted June 7, 2016

Music

Nields

Our First Vinyl

Doesn’t every musician born about two-thirds of the way through the last century dream of releasing a double vinyl LP collection of greatest hits? I know we did. One of…

posted May 24, 2016

Music

Nields

Parenting/The Full Catastrophe

Suzuki

Writing Process

Who Needs the Bravermans?

I’ve been watching the now defunct TV show Parenthood recently. Skip this paragraph if you don’t want spoilers. I am up to Season 4, and just saw the episode where Victor…

posted July 30, 2015