The cover of my Mahalia Jackson CD mix

Because I wrote my Masters Report about American gospel music, I have collected quite a bit from the 60s and 70s, Mahaliah, Sam Cooke, the Dixieland Hummingbirds and more. And of course because I love to collage, I made some covers that I am REALLY proud of, and got to hang with my amazing friend Elisabeth Rene who provided help with lettering and decoration.

The cover for the Soweto Gospel Choir's 2005 Voices from Heaven

Make a Joyful Sound – A Gospel Mix CD 2
1. Last Mile of the Way - Sam Cooke with the Soul Stirrers
2. Sit Down Servant - The Staple Singers
3. I'm Sealed - Dorothy Love Coates & The Original Gospel Harmonettes
4. What a Friend We Have in Jesus - Aretha Franklin
5. He's Worthy
6. Every Day Will Be Sunday (By And By) - Dorothy Love Coates                                                            and The Original Gospel Harmonettes
7. Swing Down, Sweet Chariot - Spirit of Memphis
8. Wade in the Water - The Staple Singers
9. Steal Away - The Harmonizing Four
10. Let's Go To the Programs - Dixie Hummingbirds
11. Will the Circle Be Unbroken - The Staple Singers
12. I'm Willing - Albertina Walker/Caravans/I. Andrews
13. Move Upstairs - Bessie Griffin & W.H. Brewster
14. Hallelujah - Farifield Four
15. Go Tell It on the Mountain - Montreal Jubilation Gospel Choir
16. Christ Is All - The Soul Stirrers
17. You'd Better Get A Move On - Louise McCord
18. Shadrack - Pure Gospel Chorus 19. By and By (part 1) - The Soul Stirrers & R.H. Harris
20. God's Unchanging Hand - Church in Como, Mississippi
21. Samson and Delilah - The Staple Singers
22. Do Your Thing - Marion Gaines Singers

It's finally done! Three years ago, the lovely Serena Bartlett of GrassRoutes inspired me to finally DO something with all these t-shirts I had been collecting since I was little and couldn't part with. So over many sunny days in her living room she taught me to use a sewing machine.

The quilt has no less than 19 shirts sewn into it, many of them building blocks of my musical life. I think I have a whole other stash of shirts from which I could make another one!


Thank you so much to Serena and Elaine Turcotte for teaching me how to quilt and helping me through this process. This will not be my last, I'm sure of it. I'm so excited about sleeping with this gorgeous thing. So is the cat! She already loves snuggling with it.


The flip side of the quilt is this gorgeous orange and yellow embroidered fabric, totally changing the colors in my bedroom, which I'm excited about. One of the best things is that I can now display the flowered pillow my Grandmother embroidered for me. Now it matches!


The last couple nights I've been staying up super late, determined to finish this thing, hand sewing the binding, a nice fuzzy velvety purple fabric.


Earth Day - Elementary School Lorax t-shirt, tie-dyed by yours truly when I was really into that.
middle strip - From a bar in Aberdeen, Scotland that used to be a church and now has a haunted mansion theme. If you drank all 7 deadly sins cocktails, you won a deadly sin t-shirt. I did it in one night (oh, to be 22 again! They were actually pretty weak anyway) I, of course, choice the Gluttony tee.
NHSMI - Summer high school music program at Northwestern, met some of my best friends there, convinced me to be a music major. Got vocal nodules and put on vocal rest, didn't work (I was having too much fun), got in trouble.


Pirates of Penzance - How I spent my second semester of my fifth year of college. Realized I hated being in staged productions, still had a blast. Love Gilbert & Sullivan. Love this show.
High School Honor Choir - Yes, I was a high school choir geek. Did this program twice.

Leader of the Pack - Didn't get a part in this junior high production, based on the music of Brill Building's Ellie Greenwich. The music is AWESOME ("River Deep Mountain High", "Be My Baby", Da Doo Ron Ron". Worked as production assistant instead, building sets, etc. Wished I was in the show and was so jealous of those that were. They got to wear gogo boots!
Forever Plaid - A musical about a four-part harmony vocal group in the early 60s, was a total groupie, saw the show five times, know every word. It's been on PBS lately and I still love it.


Cabaret t-shirts - There are three of them on this quilt. We wore them during the shows. Cabaret was our High School musical Revue and I learned so much music being part of it. They were so much fun (but I still hate staging).
Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Fest - I volunteered with my roommate in 2002 as my fifth year of college started. It was humid and rainy. I got to see Koko Taylor sing "Wang Dang Doodle".


Lori's Diner - In San Francisco. My grandma's name is Lori.
University of Michigan Women's Glee Club patch - Taken from the terrible, horrible button down long-sleeved shirts they made us buy. But I went on tour with them to Europe and had a blast.


Danzig Tour - hysterical t-shirt my aunt made for our clan when we went to Danzig/Gdansk in Poland, where my grandmother was born. Ten of us kids and grandkids went with her in 2002. It was in incredible experience.
I heart Ann Arbor - Well, I do.


Ben & Jerry's and the Great Harvest Bread Co. - high school summer jobs. Yum yum yum.

New mix! I made this for my brother years ago and even posted the collage cover, but now you can download it. It's got some tunes from the City of God soundtrack, some foró, funk, rock, samba, bossa nova. Lots of good stuff.

Click here to download

1 No caminho do bem - Tim Maia
2 Panis et Circenses - Os Mutantes
3 Que Bloco E Esse - Ile Aiye
4 Sonho Meu (with Gal Costa) Maria Bethânia
5 Margarida Perfumada (Live) feat. Caetano Veloso - Carlinhos Brown & Cicero Menezes
6 Toque De Timbaleiro - Nem Cardoso
7 Mama Africa - Chico César
8 Asa Branca - Luiz Gonzaga
9 Girl from Ipanema (with Stan Getz) - Joao and Astrid Gilberto
10 Sem Essa #5 - Jorge Ben
11 Mangueira - Seu Jorge
12 Motumbá - Timbalada
13 Ponta de Lanca Africano (Umbabarauma) - Jorge Ben
14 A Deusa Dos Orixás - Clara Nunes, Romildo/Toninho
15 Desaforo - Fala Mansa
16 Meu Guarda-Chuva - Paula Lima
17 A brisa do mar - Olodum
18 Samba da Bencao - Bebel Gilberto
19 Na rua, na chuva, na fazenda (Casinha de Sepe) - Hyldon
20 Metamorfose Ambulante - Raul Seixas

Please meet my friend Jessie Woletz, fellow lover and promoter of local music. We met when I was singing with the all women's choir Conspiracy of Venus and learned of a little project she's called the Seaweed Sway.

I'm in awe of what Jessie is doing for San Francisco's music scene and we have been supporting each other in our endeavors.

Please read my article about her and the Seaweed Sway HERE and come see one of her Seaweed Sway showcases on the third Sunday of every month at the Make-Out Room in San Francisco.

This is the first article in a series interviewing folks behind the music in the Bay Area's music scene. These folks are making it possible for musicians to get out there and do what they do best. You know, people like me! We need to support each other as well as the musicians we love.

Stay-tuned for profiles on the gentlemen of Chasing the Moon and the Joyce McBride of Conspiracy of Venus.

I love making mix CDs. And I love making the collaged covers that come with them. It's so fun collecting all this stuff and then seeing how it will be used in projects. I've noticed that my mixes are like the collages that dawn their covers: patchworks of sound, texture, color, pattern and language. Everyone has a style for making mixes, I guess that's mine.

I made a stack of CDs as thank-you's for the volunteers that came out to "Swab for Elissa" yesterday (which was a lot of fun). There is nothing purposely symbolic to/of/for Lissy in the tracklisting or in the images themselves; they are just what I felt like using at the time specifically for this event keeping in mind the folks I was making them for.

Feel free to download the CD here and grab the cover you like the best for uploading into itunes or printing out for an actual physical CD (imagine that)!

Here is the tracklisting insert:

I make personal collaged cards for friends and family when I can and I'm super proud of this one for my brother's birthday: David Bowie, Stephen Colbert and Flight of the Conchords all rolled into one. My brother scanned the inside of it (it just said "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" on the front) and put it on facebook, so I figured I'd grab it and share.

Double click to see it larger.

This is a second version of a mix I made over the summer when visiting friends in New York. This time I opened up the track list to songs about the city (while maybe not mentioning it in the title) and the individual burroughs. I have to say, I'm pretty happy with this one. I listen to it all the time!

I collaged the cover as well back in August. It's cute.

Note: I only bought two of these songs from itunes especially for this: the Sinatra and the Busta Rhymes. SO, if you have any complaints here, blame it on the mp3 collection.

1. "New York S**t" - Busta Rhymes & Swizz Beatz
2. "N.Y." - Doves
3. "Spanish Harlem" - Aretha Franklin
4. "The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)" - Simon & Garfunkel
5. "Manhattan" - Ella Fitzgerald
6. "New York City" - John Lennon & Yoko Ono
7. "Brooklyn" - Mos Def
8. "New York State of Mind Billy Joel" - Billy Joel
9. "Talkin' New York" - Bob Dylan
10. "Englishman In New York" - Sting
11. "There's a Boat Dat's Leavin' Soon for New York" - Louis Armstrong
12. "An Open Letter To NYC" - The Beastie Boys
13. "Autumn in New York" - Billie Holiday
14. "Angel of Harlem" - U2
15. "Manhattan"- Kings Of Leon
16. "Morning in Manhattan" - Raya Yarbrough
17. "Fairytale of New York "- The Pogues
18. "New York, New York" - Frank Sinatra

Almost made the list but cds aren't long enough:

- "What New York Couples Fight About" Feat. Kurt Wagner - Morcheeba
- "The Only Living Boy in New York" - Simon & Garfunkel
- "I Can't See New York" - Tori Amos
- "New York J-D Blues" - Pete Seeger
- "New York" - Sex Pistols

What would you put on your list? I know I asked this a couple months ago, but feel free to share again.

Made this for my Australian and English cousins that will be cruising across my home city and state for the next month. Enjoy guys!

Happy to make any of you a copy. Let me know!

1. California - Low

The question on the tip of my tongue as I decompress from my first Burning Man experience:

Just because Burning Man is very much based in rave culture, why do all 45 thousand attendees have to settle for electronic music reigning supreme? You’d think that a bunch of creative people in the middle of the desert could get it together enough to make their own music with actual instruments!

What I learned about electronic music from my first Burning Man experience:

READ MORE OF MY ARTICLE HERE

My best friend from elementary school made this collaged poster/flier for this show coming up on Thursday, I love it. She's a member of The Conspiracy of Venus chorus that sang with for a few months when I first moved to the Bay Area. Read the article here.

Check out these awesome CD covers I made last night for my brother's long over due birthday present.

This one made use of a Sergio Mendes ad. This one is my favorite. The sun burst is plain old construction paper.

This one is a little bizarre, I was trying not to make it too stereotypically "African" looking and ended up just making it silly looking. I can live with that. I like the dancing people. That was my housemate Erin's idea.


These are going to my next Always More to Hear mix cds. Who wants one? Which one do you want?

A coworker and his wife are having a baby and everyone in the office each decorated a onesie for him. I'm pretty proud of mine. I used this picture of Bruce Springsteen, who has a large fanbase in the office, to get the back right. (And I know the strap wouldn't be attached to the neck like that, it just ended up that way.)

Check it out: this Sergio Mendes record didn't have a proper cover (it was living in a Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture jacket) so I decided to collage my own.