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My birthday was last weekend and I’m now 23. I feel old but I honestly can’t voice that seriously—all of my friends are at least two years older than I am if not more and they, very rightly, tell me to hush when I say I feel ancient. I still feel like I haven’t accomplished anything, though. Lady Gaga and Lily Allen are my age and look at all they’ve done. But, as one of my friends pointed out, they were born having music industry connections. I was born with talent, which will hopefully count for something if I ever figure out exactly what to do with it.
My birthday weekend started out with a show at Slainte Wine Bar on Friday. About 50 people said they’d come and about 15 showed up. I’m thankful for the ones who showed up and am trying to not be hurt by the people who didn’t. The show was my absolute worst one I’d ever played and unfortunately the only one to be fully videotaped. I’ve talked with my friend who videotaped it, though, and made a request that she only put up the two songs I didn’t mess up on. I’m not sure why but I couldn’t remember lyrics, even to my own songs. I got so frustrated with myself for the way I am onstage too—I just stand there and it’s horrible. I’m not established enough that people would want to see me stand there like a cow stuck in the mud. I have good songs but it’s hard to show people that if they’re distracted by how boring I look. I had a cold among other things, so my voice is also pretty bad in the one video I do have so far. Here it is anyway, me singing in German with what I suspect is a pretty poor German accent. There’s a guest appearance by my two year old nephew, Max:
My favorite moment has yet to surface on the internet. I ended up dueting on “Voices Carry” by Til Tuesday with my friend Kate (Yes, that Kate). It felt epic at the time, but I won’t really believe it until I see the video. I also loved the moment where Jason and I sang Corrugated Racing Machine which is, as Jason said, the only performance of that song to ever occur live.
Unfortunately, My night was kind of….less than ideal. I was pleased to see two of my favorite bands (who happen to be my friends as well) Wood Burning Cat and Huak play after my set, though. My nephew adored Wood Burning Cat, which was nice since he sat with me for a little bit and watched the show. He grew to love Jason from the one family dinner Jason came with me to so my nephew kept running up right against the mic stands and standing there, sucking his thumb with his big noise-block headphones on. That’s the only reason why I wish my relationship with Jason had worked out—I’ve never seen him reenact so positively to someone. It was nice.
In the middle of Huak’s set I was already feeling a big down, letting my own thoughts eat away at me like I sometimes do. My friend Tara did a rockstar thing and walked across the low table in front of me to get to the stage area but the table wasn’t as steady as she thought and it tipped over and spilled two glasses of ice and a bit of liquid on me and my backpack. Everything happened super fast—I was sobbing, face in my hands bawling my eyes out and then there were people around me, and someone had their hands on my shoulders. Through my fingers I could see Tara and Kate going through my backpack and showing me how there was actually minimal damage and that my digital camera, phone, 35mm, ipod, etc. still worked fine, but I couldn’t stop crying. Jason brought me outside and we sat in his car until I calmed down. When I came back inside, Tara was pretty upset and was afraid I was angry with her, which I could never be—she had no way of knowing that would happen. When I got home I cried on the floor of my bedroom and felt pretty emo.
The next evening I watched Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure with Jason, David, Kate, and Derek. We ate cake made by my friend Mary (one of two Marys involved in my birthday weekend) and it was very delicious—vegan vanilla with a layer of homemade lemoncurd and butterless-buttercream frosting. The best part, however, was the decorations:
All artificial dye free and decorated with kitties. Perfect!
That Sunday (my actual birthday, the 22nd) was the best in some ways, though, if only for the morning. I made a video with Mary (not the one who made the cake, the other one) at her and her mom’s bar, the deliciously dive-y Mama’s Crowbar (or, according to the sign above the door, Awful Annie’s). Here’s the finished product and wait for the guest appearance of Mary’s Chihuahua Kiwi at the end of it:
I guess this is the end of my blog so it’s as good a time as any to say this (if anyone cares to notice, and I appreciate some people might not care about it) but I’m taking a hiatus from music for the next three months. That means you’d have to pretty much offer me a kitten to get me to sing WITH somebody and there’s no way in heck I’m orchaestrating a show of my own during that time. I still have a fair number of demos if anyone wants one (they’re generally free but a donation of a dollar or two is always nice) and I have a few pins with my logo on it (made by Mr. Bryan Bruchman as an awesome birthday gift to me) that I’ve been giving out when the mood strikes me. But yeah, no more Aubin shoving herself into the music scene in any capacity other than an observer for the next three months.
Until the next time I blog, here’s a picture of me as a baby to celebrate the fact that I’ve somehow lived 23 (wait, 24? Birthdays are counted strangely, I think) years on this planet. Please note that I used to basically have anime eye proportions:
-Aubin
