leftovers

June is always a fun, busy month for me, not least of which because my birthday is on June 22. It's also the first month of summer, gay pride month, and usually my favorite weather in LA (not too hot yet, but plenty of beautiful, sunny days). This year has been no exception. Kicking off with the video shoot for "Winnipeg Beach" the first weekend in June, we were expecting it to be cloudy and cool which I thought would be appropriate for the video since the initial concept was that I was bringing home part of Winnipeg back to LA in my luggage. However, we were all pleasantly surprised when we got to the beach and it was a gorgeous, warm day! The next weekend was LA Gay Pride and it was a fun one. It was a little mellower than in past years which was probably good for me. We didn't have any out-of-town guests, no gigs or parties, but I did celebrate in the festivities each day. Friday we went to the Purple Party, which was a new free night at the festival grounds ...

Last night, I performed with the Traitors at the Amp Organization 's "Qore: A night of Queercore/Homocore Music" which took place at Que Sera in Long Beach. For this show, Elene was not able to make it since she has school on most weeknights, so it was just Brandon, Angela and myself. That meant I played the keyboard parts on most songs which made it more difficult for me, and I wasn't able to move around as much, but it's a trade off as it also shows my keyboard playing abilities. I was so happy with the turnout of all my friends who came out to see me, I was very surprised that on a Tuesday night in Long Beach we actually had a decent showing. Back when I was with Shitting Glitter, I always dreaded Long Beach shows because I think we had a few good ones and then I remember one horrible one where tons of people came to see the opening act, a solo acoustic "girl with a guitar," and then proceeded to quickly file out as soon as we started setting up, a...

<a href="http://devintait.bandcamp.com/album/alien-nation-single">Alien Nation (Single) by Devin Tait</a> Tomorrow is the "official" release date (which gives me time to actually print up the inserts and burn the CD's tonight) but my debut single, "Alien Nation" is now available on the website Bandcamp ( devintait.bandcamp.com ). In my mad rush of planning to get everything done for this single and album release, I had gotten it timed down to the last minute of course. Once I had finished the album and mastered it, I sent it off to the factory and while that was happening, I finished up the b-sides for the single (mainly just recording new vocals as the instrumental tracks were pretty much finished) and creating the artwork. Thanks to Shawn Sagen, of www.thestrangerpage.com , who directed the video for "Alien Nation" which we filmed w...

It was quite the big day for me, again, in a year filled with big days! To start off, I did some holiday shopping to take my mind of things and to get ready for the holidays, something I hadn't been doing much of yet. I went to 99 cents store and got some little things and drove around to a few other places, finally getting to Guitar Center so I could pick up some percussion instruments for the show and guitar picks for Brandon. I ended up getting these little black maracas and a cool small jingly tambourine thing, that looks like a ninja star and can also be mounted on a high-hat cymbal, which will be cool for Invisible Material I think. Dylan and I then got ready and were the first of our crew to arrive at Cafe Muse, closely followed by Rick and Melodie, then Brandon and Angie, Elene, Marc, Kalil and his crew, and Rafael. I'm trying to not leave anyone out but I'm sure I did; needless to say, I was so happy with everyone that came out. The Ukulady and the Evil Sandwic...

We were going to have dinner and rehearsal at Elene's house for the Traitor's tonight and I wanted to get some percussion instruments and Brandon needed guitar picks, so I rushed to get to West LA Music, on Ventura Blvd., before they closed on my way to Elene's. But when I got there, they didn't have anything I needed at all! They didn't have something as simple as guitar picks! Apparently everything non-keyboard related is now at their other location, in Santa Monica. Oh poo! I was going to run to Guitar Center but I was already running late. Elene made a fabulous dinner, all Asian-themed, and it was delicious. There were potstickers and the main dish was these pancake type things that you filled with meat and vegetable, with hoisin sauce. After dinner we ran through the acoustic set and it sounded really good, much better than rehearsal at Cascade had gone. I even decided to add a new song, "Fruitcake," by The Superions to the set and we ran throu...

There was an event today for Michael’s Village, a new permanent supportive housing facility in Hollywood which is going to be for chronically homeless, mentally ill people. It’s a great project and the celebration was really nice. My boss was one of the speakers and she did a great job, and we even got to hear from Michael, for who the place is named after, and his mother who flew in from New Mexico for the event. It’s definitely a step in the right direction for ending homelessness in Hollywood. After we got back from the event, I went out and took photos and did my “What do you Think” survey for the Sunset/Vine newsletter, which is turning into one of my favorite things that I get to do at work. I went to Golden Bridge Yoga, K & L Wine Merchants, and The Waffle to interview people for it. Then I went back to the office and finished the Sunset newsletter. Then I went home and very quickly arranged synth-string parts for Elene to play on “Winnipeg Beach” and “...

We woke up in the beautiful Star Light room and were immediately sad that we would have to be leaving. We got up early enough that we didn't really need a late check-out. We just took our time packing up and enjoying the last few hours there. The maid had left the door to the next room open, which was the room Tiger, Brandon and Angela had stayed in a few months back, so we had to go in and sneak a peak. Then we took a little video of our room so I could post it on YouTube. After we got all packed up, we checked out and then had brunch at a nearby Denny's before hitting the road back to LA. I drove since Dylan had driven on the way up. It actually went by pretty fast, and since it had been nighttime when we arrived, we actually got to enjoy some amazing scenery on the way home. Back in West Hollywood, I had to immediately get to work on arranging songs for the Devin Tait & the Traitor's acoustic holiday show which is coming up soon. "Paper Sea" is a son...

Today the Human League released their video for "Night People" on their official website. I watched it immediately when I woke up, but the first time I watched it I was pretty disappointed that the band members don't actually appear in the video at all. Rather, it is more of a short film that documents five different "night people" as they prepare for an evening on the town, go out to their clubs of choice, party with friends, and then head back home. It ended up growing on me after a few times watching it, and I really like the characters and the stories they each tell, but of course it would have been nice to at least have a cameo from the band in there. I guess it's a marketing attempt to disguise the fact that Phil and the girls are older than the average electro band, but I'm not really sure that anyone is going to become a Human League fan at this point in time and not realize that they have been around for awhile. I worked on editing the video...

The Traitors had a show tonight at The Palms, for Club Strapped, which is produced by my friend Kalil and his wife Karen. When Kalil first asked if we would play, I was a little weary of performing again at the Palms since we had just played there last month, knowing that we would have to bring all of our PA equipment and everything again, and taking the risk that the Palms might have something booked before us which would prevent us from doing a soundcheck. However, I'm so glad the other band members convinced me to take the chance because it ended up being a really amazing show! Karen dressed up as a Superhero (it was a superhero theme) and there were so many people there!! We did managed to set up and do a sound check, which was great because we were doing a new set up utilizing the Palms' house PA as well as ours, and it took awhile to figure out how to get it all to work. As we were getting set up, Uncle Ronnie and Hoagie showed up, and there were already some people ...

What an exciting day for me! I woke up and checked my e-mail, only to find that the Human League had sent out their brand new single, "Night People," since I had signed up for their e-mail list! I had to play it right away, and of course, I loved it! It sounds so much better than the iPhone clip that someone posted on YouTube from when they debuted it in Berlin. I almost wish I hadn't listened to that version, but it's worth it to finally hear the produced, studio version! It's got a really dark bassline sound and lots of weird noises in it, and an almost-chanted vocal delivery on the verses. The bridge section, with the girls singing, is really uplifting and fun, and then Phil really takes off at the end of it, singing "Get away, get away, get away, get away, I wanna know, I wanna go!" I just love it! I played it several times while I was getting ready for work. Then, at work, I found that people started posting the remixes, which had been playe...

Since Dylan and I are doing the Homewalk tomorrow and I hadn't yet reached my fundraising goal of $500, I posted a plea on Facebook and within a few minutes I had met my goal! The real surprise was that one person donated enough money to get me there, and it's someone I haven't seen in many years. My friend Brad from back in Kansas who I used to work with at McDonald's and before that we were in band together at Hays High School. Brad was one of the first openly gay people I knew and as I came out, he was one of the first people I could talk to about things. I tried to hide it from him at first, but since we lived in such a small town, it was difficult. One morning when I was driving back to Hays from spending the night at Dustin's place in Russell (my first boyfriend), his friend had seen me on the interstate and somehow or another he put two and two together! Anyway, it's been a long time, but his extremely kind donation is very much appreciated. After w...

I kept waking up because of the sun but would check my clock and go back to sleep, until finally it was really time to get up because we were going to Elene’s for brunch at Traitor’s rehearsal at 1. Elene cooked these Dutch pancakes that were incredible, and apparently very easy to make. She also made bacon and eggs, and we had croissants too. I brought stuff to make a breakfast cocktail called “Blueberry Morning” that we (meaning me, Brandon, Travis and Natalie) had invented during “Woodstock Weekend,” which is a story for another blog. Anyway, Brandon informed me I got the wrong ingredients, as a true “Blueberry Morning” is made from Blueberry Schnapps and Sunny Delight, but I got orange juice instead. And, to my utter dismay, the Schnapps was a nearly-neon, bright blue color which is most definitely not found in nature. So, when I mixed that with the orange juice, the drink became a sickly green color! Not like the original “Blueberry Morning” at all which had ...

My computer wouldn't start at work, which really sucked and freaked me out. We had to call our computer guy, Mark, in to take a look at it and he couldn't get there until the afternoon so I had to work on the computer in the intern's office (we don't have an intern right now so we all just use it when we need to use the graphics programs since they are only on that computer). Because I didn't have my Outlook Express, I totally forgot that I was supposed to go to a Visit Hollywood meeting. Oops! After work, Brandon and Angie came over and we had dinner and watched some TV. Dylan had made this Jib Jab animated e-card using photos of all of us, which were pasted on bodies of famous monsters like Frankenstein, Dracula and the Wolfman and it was so funny! We had all watched it earlier separately but we all watched it together and laughed so hard! We were laughing so hard that none of us heard Elene trying to call us because she was outside! Finally I went out to g...

It was a rainy day in LA but I was excited because it was the first ever show for Devin Tait & the Traitors! We actually weren't all ready to perform, since we had only had one rehearsal, so Elene just came to watch and support rather than joining us on stage. Marc came with me and we got their first, but Brandon and Angie drove up right after we had parked. The club was called the Airliner and it was in Lincoln Heights, which is a BID that I'm familiar with because I know Misty who runs it from the LA BID Consortium meetings. It's kind of a run-down looking place and there weren't too many people there. The promoter was working the door and he didn't really want to commit to telling me whether I would be performing upstairs or on the main floor, asking me how many people were coming to see me rather than answering the question. I told him I didn't know, so he said we'd play it by ear. Besides the main area and the upstairs, there is also a big open a...

What an exciting day for me - the first rehearsal for my new band, Devin Tait & the Traitors! I decided to have rehearsal at a studio I've never been to, MDM Rehearsal, near Brandon and Angie's place. It's a really nice place and they gave us a bigger room for the price of the smaller room I had booked, since they were not busy while we were there. For this rehearsal, it was me, Brandon on guitar, Elene on keyboards, and Angie on backing vocals. We set up another keyboard for Angie and Dylan also played the xylophone on one song. Time went by really quickly - much too fast! I wanted to get through every song on the set list a couple times and in the three hours we were there, we actually ran out of time before making it through every song! Here was my setlist: 1. Tape 2. Get Outta My Way 3. Bridge to Nowhere 4. Alien Nation 5. Digital Representation 6. Not in a Million Years 7. Sleepytown (didn’t get to) 8. Ordinary World (didn’t get to) I forgot to bring the sheet...