leftovers

  It's been almost 10 months since I released "The White Tomato," my first original album in this decade. I've told the story before of how I had pandemic-induced writers block for several years, no motivation to write new music, let alone record and share it.  When the floodgates finally opened, I experienced a blur of creativity and productivity which resulted in not only the 9-track album, but four new b-sides and a slew of remixes. Then came a holiday song, and a couple of live shows where I got to perform a couple of the new songs for small crowds of friends in both my new home of Sacramento, and my adopted hometown of LA, where I lived for most of my second (gay) childhood.  Welp, as happy as I was releasing an album on only digital/streaming format, I finally decided I needed to release a definitive physical version of this album along with the bonus material. As much as I would have loved to go with vinyl, CDs are much more affordable and also able to fit much...

In the late 90s when I was coming of age, and coming out of the closet (slowly), there was a little explosion of gay indie films. Some of the ones I remember the most are Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss, Trick, Beautiful Thing, and Edge of Seventeen. Oh, and of course, To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything! Julie Newmar, which inspired my brother and I to have a party where we dressed in drag.  In the years since, there have been huge milestones in LGBTQ+ representation in film and television, with grounbreaking shows like Will & Grace, Queer as Folk, and Call Me By Your Name. One that really hit for me was "Brokeback Mountain" in 2005. I was obsessed with that movie and saw it several times in the theater. However, that movie was really very sad. So many LGBTQ "romance" stories have sad endings. Either the lovers couldn't be public about their love, or they couldn't be honest and open with each other, or one of them gets sick or dies.  So when I first st...

Seasons greetings! It's been the usual mad dash for the holidays around here, with lots of party mix, puppy chow, and orange slice cookies being prepared in our kitchen as gifts, and the usual decorating, party going, and shopping (although we're trying to minimize our shopping this year, along with many places we're boycotting).  I had the ambitious idea to have not just one holiday party here in Sacramento, but an additional party in Los Angeles. And of course each party would feature a special performance by yours truly, since I haven't performed my own music live in over three and a half years. This year being particularly productive for me, as I released a full-length album in August along with four single EP's that featured bonus tracks and remixes. I also filmed four music videos which I had a great time doing. But I hadn't performed any of these songs for anyone other than Dylan and our cats, so I really wanted the opportunity to dust off the keytar and ...

Next Friday will see the release of the fourth and final "single" from "The White Tomato," "Indigo Cassinova." For this album, my third solo (and fourth when you count "Mixed Signals" which was recorded by my band, Devin Tait and the Traitors), I have been more prolific than usual. For each of the four single releases, I created EPs which each had four songs. The EPs included alternate versions, remixes, and each had one exclusive "b-side," because I am a huge fan of b-sides! The White Tomato Era has been extremely fun for me, and even though - or perhaps because - I haven't been playing any live shows, I've been more focused on producing these single EPs and doing video and online promotion. If I had any influence over the world, I would have won an award for my video diaries leading up to the release of the album, and I'm proud of the videos that I've made to accompany the songs.  With Indigo Cassinova, and it's ac...

I've surprised myself by releasing a new album in the year 2025! My last actual collection of new songs was back in 2019, and my - how so much has changed since then! I'm counting "The White Tomato" as my fourth album, and they are all so different yet I do believe my sound and songwriting has stayed true to myself throughout. With four albums under my belt of songs I've written, performed, and produced, I definitely have favorites over the years but I am so proud of this new work because I believe so many of the songs are very strong both lyrically and musically, and really am excited for people to hear it. I'm trying to get back into writing more, too, so here I spill the tea on all nine tracks on "The White Tomato" plus the one exclusive non-album track (so far) of the White Tomato era!!! Before we begin, you need to know a couple of things, most importantly, that I have an alter ego named Mannifred LaCroix. Manni, as he is affectionately known, p...

  Civil Twilight by Devin Tait I'm tripping out over here that it's 2025 and I have released a new single today! As detailed in my previous blog, when I was younger, I told myself I would not allow myself to still be playing a pop star by the time I was over 28. Well, that was quite awhile ago but I'm still doing what I love, chasing my dreams, and making music that I want to hear. "Civil Twilight" is a song that came about very quickly, about a year ago. I first decided I liked the title one day when going down a Wikipedia hole and reading about civil twilight, which is "the brightest phase of twilight, the illumination of the lower atmosphere when the Sun itself is not directly visible because it is below the horizon." When I wrote the lyrics, I was actually imagining the music video at the same time, but it remains to be seen if I'll ever actually shoot that video. The video being released later today is a lyrics visualizer, meaning it includes t...

It's been a very long time since I've written anything here, but I wanted to get some thoughts out of my head and onto the world wide web, in advance of the release of my fourth-ish solo album (counting the one album I did with my band, Devin Tait & the Traitors). This has been a long, strange trip, as this album actually began life way back in 2018 when I was recording my third album, "Art Damage" in Hollywood. At that time, my alter-ego, Mannifred LaCroix was working on an EP titled "International Agent" which I was recording concurrently with "Art Damage." During the final vocal recording session for that album, at a studio called The Room on Melrose, I banged out all the vocals for "International Agent" - or so I thought! Later, when I listened to it, I realized it just wasn't working. I realized I didn't have the time or energy to complete two projects at the same time, so I focused on "Art Damage" and released ...

I'm getting older, I'm writing less, I'm living in a city I've only known for a little over a year, and nostalgia looms larger and more intensely than ever before as beloved family members leave us and the state of the world seems to devolve by the day. With that, I'll add that my family celebrated my parents 50th anniversary earlier this year, and I got to travel to Hawaii (the big island) earlier this spring. In October, we moved across the river to a new apartment. Musically, I completed and released a posthumous Shitting Glitter album "Damn Skippy Baby" in September which included a new music video "Microscope," directed by Jasten King and featured at the NSFW Film Festival in Los Angeles. Also, Boynanarama reunited for a one-off performance at Bisbee Pride in Arizona over the summer, and we got to march in the parade there, hosted by our lovely friend Gretchen Bonaduce. As for consuming music this year, my Spotify Wrapped really only tells a...

  it's been a few months now since the release of damn skippy baby , so i've had time to reflect and hear with new ears now that it's something that exists out in the world, and not just primarily in my imagination. when amy passed away in february, 2021 the only thing i could really do that made me feel less awful about the way everything had ended up was working on this project. i knew we had enough material left behind that we could finally finish what had basically been planned as shitting glitter's fourth album way back before our third album was even finished. some of these songs existing in demo form, some posted to our myspace page as a series of holiday-themed tunes, one in the soundtrack of a short indie film, and some that had just been emailed around. here is some behind the scenes 'tea' on each song, for anyone who harbors curiosity about these songs which have taken many years to finally see the light of (streaming) day. microscope this was the mos...

When I was a kid growing up on a farm outside of a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, we had MTV. This portal into all things "cool" and "happening" was my lifeline. One of my favorite bands I discovered on the music network was an Icelandic group called the Sugarcubes, and while their lead singer Bjork eventually became a world-famous superstar as a solo artist, it was the band's adorable keyboard player Magga who I was most obsessed with. I even tried calling her on the phone one time, but unfortunately had chosen the wrong option of the two numbers I received by calling the Icelandic directory assistance. However, years later when the Internet arrived, I was able to somehow track down her email address and surprisingly, she wrote me back! I'm sure I have a copy of her response to my ramblings of teenage obsession printed and saved somewhere but essentially she said that I must have "had good taste for a child, but eventually we all grow up."  N...

It's my 15th Annual Top 10 Songs Countdown here on my otherwise pretty dormant blog! This was a year of huge change for me. The year started with a big focus on my work. Two years of the pandemic, with lots of isolation and uncertainty had taken a toll and it seemed like the time was right to start looking for change. I had a couple of big milestones in this pursuit, traveling to New York City in May to complete a leadership program that had begun just weeks after the initial Covid-19 lockdown. In June I attended a conference in Reno where I told anyone who was listening that I was looking for a new job, and on the last day of the conference I had my first, virtual, interview with a company I was very interested in working for. The day before my birthday, I took an hour-long flight for an in-person interview, and before I got on the plane back home, I was offered the job. By mid-July, I had already moved six hours north of Los Angeles to the state capital, Sacramento, although it w...