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June, 2005

How's it going?

All's cool in Cali.  It's hard not to become a bit of a good news junkie out here, but luckily there is a bit of good news.  So I guess I'll share it.

First of all, Kay and I are doing our first stint of east coast dates in July, as the Dilettantes, of course.  We'll be at the Mercury Lounge in NYC on July 12th, TT the Bears in Cambridge on July 14th (my birthday, by the way) and Fenway Park, yes, THE Fenway Park on July 16th.  Can't wait to see all my east coast peeps. I have a feeling these shows are going to feel more like parties!  It's been sooooo long.

On the song front, Courtney Jaye, an awesome and lovely young singer/songwriter, will be touring to promote her album, which will be released on June 7th.  My husband Dan and I wrote 3 songs on the record with Courtney, one of which is the title track, "Traveling Light."  Y'all gotta let me know if you here the single - which is called "Can't Behave" - on your local radio stations!

Our friend Marla Sokolof, who you might know from the shows The Practice and Desperate Housewives, is going to make a full length CD with us over the summer which will include songs we've written together and some covers of songs from my two albums, so that should be fun.  But that's kind of the closest I'll be to any kind of solo project for a while.  There's SO much to do out here.  Making a record of my own seems kind of self-indulgent at this point. 

Speaking of self-indulgence. please allow me to go off for a sec -

In the past, I've used this space for rants and gripes about the lameness of the music biz and the bottoming-out of pop culture.  But fuck that. you've heard it.  We all know the labels are in trouble and that modern rock radio (the stuff I listen to) is in a tailspin.  Basically, music that we loved in the 90's has been marginalized to a fringe audience. kind of like Jazz. 

Did I just say that rock is the new jazz?  I guess I did!  Well, you heard it here first - you can quote me.  But really, rock is for old people.  Ouch.  The kids are all about hip hop and pop music that somehow involves people they see on television, or something like that.  So fuck it.  It's ok.  Our parents probably hated The Clash and The Pretenders, or whoever. so it's our turn to grumble.

Or not!  The fact is there is SOOOO much awesome music out now.  Trick is finding it. Did you know that there are independent radio stations like KCRW and 103.1 in LA that will play DEMOES?!?!  And as satellite radio becomes a bigger and bigger deal, there will be even more places to hear good stuff.  I don't think it's doom and gloom time at all, I just think the big, widespread revolutions become harder to pull off.  It's been a while since a more "alternative" artist has broken through, right?  I mean, who's the new Beck? Or even more so. Nirvana?  And if they show up, will we even know? Hmmm.

Anyway, I'm just saying to fight the good fight.  Don't stop caring about good music because it's harder to come by.  We gotta set a great example for the kids coming up who love it as much as we do. (so I'm sorry to the "other" Michelle Lewis for my previous prickliness - she's working her ass off touring, writing and getting her stuff out there - and that's amazingly impressive - maybe I'll just gently suggest that she should add a middle initial to her name or something, so that we stop getting each others' emails).

And check out The Dilettantes new message board - www.thedilettantes.proboards19.com - if you want to stay in touch and up-to-date!

Thanks!

Xoxo - Michelle