Crazy Beautiful Dream

Published on October 26, 2011 in Uncategorized. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

It has begun. Fight A New Day is officially released to the world on Monday – Halloween – and the big Cape Town launch celebration in my dream space, The Fugard Theatre Studio, is next weekend – yes, Guy Fawkes (my timing is completely unintentionally but ridiculously cool, I’m just saying).

I’ve been prepping for this for months, working solidly through the night the past few weeks to make sure that everything goes off perfectly, on time, as it should… and then I packed my car and hit the road for the 7 week promo tour that lies ahead, starting off in Gauteng…

I drove the 600km to Joburg feeling like a kid before Christmas. Even that long, straight road that I’ve driven countless times looked shiny and new. It’s almost sickening how chipper and excited I am. Hearing that the first single from the album received its first confirmed playlisting made the start to this tour rock even more than it already does. I have never worked so hard and dreamed so big, and I’m so ridiculously amped to watch this chapter unfold.

This week the printer delivers the final printed product!! The bubbly is chilling in anticipation… As soon as that box arrives, I send out local and international pre-orders and drop off stock with the distributor for retail stores countrywide. Worldwide digital distribution through iTunes and Nokia is prepped and ready to go. Details for the launch in Cape Town are coming together beautifully with a few media interviews coming up this week, VIP launch invites to finalise, last minute press releases and media kits to prepare, a setlist to write, a set design to envision, and a guitarist to rehearse with…. oh, and another 1,900km to drive.

It’s all a beautifully epic blend of crazy that I proudly call my dream. And it’s totally happening to me.

Releasing An Album

Published on October 11, 2011 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Fight A New Day - The Master

I got distracted. Briefly. I recorded the new album months ago and set off on a mission to find help. Releasing independently was not really something I wanted to do again, purely because I don’t have the resources to do it the way it needs and deserves to be done. I don’t have the push. I’m just me. So I set off on a mission. To find people. But people, the right people, are not actually all that easy to find…

So here I am, months later, exactly where I knew I would end up anyway: releasing the album independently. And I’m making it work. I have no budget to speak of, so I’m calling in small favours when needed, and focusing all my resources on getting this album finished and released… on time for the big dream launch in Cape Town!

The final stages of pulling an album together are, for me, the most exciting, terrifying, daunting, intense and exhilarating of what I do… Getting the final mixes, sending off to mastering, finalising tracklisting, designing the artwork, sourcing printing, prepping online and retail distribution, organising couriers, pre-orders, launch venues, posters, press releases, publishing, radio submissions, and videos;  all while touring around the country so that I can pay for it all… It’s a crazy interweaving web of intensity, all for 11 songs that I wrote, primarily in my bedroom, that I’d dig for you to hear. All this fuss seems a little ridiculous when you think about it really. But the truth is, once all these crazy pieces fit together and I’m holding that final product in my hands, that I’ve poured my heart and soul into… it’s one of those magic moments. And it’s almost here.

Here’s a little taste of what to expect:

Email shannonhope(at)rocketmail(dot)com to pre-order your signed copy of “Fight A New Day” hot off the press for R120 (excl. P&P)… Please include desired quantity, full name & delivery address.

Snowflake Radness

Published on October 10, 2011 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Snowflake 2011

There are two arts festivals in my touring calendar that I most look forward to every year. The first is the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown in July – a festival that shapes and challenges me in so many ways. The second is Aardklop Nasionale Kunstefees in Potchefstroom in October, which I’ve just returned home from.

I don’t play on the main festival program at Aardklop, but at a venue called Snowflake, an old flour mill which has been converted into a double volume exhibition space, and plays host to an incredible exhibition of art and music until all hours of the morning. The awesomely attentive audience consists of Potch residents, festival visitors, actors and musicians participating in the festival, journalists, and industry gurus, and aside from the ridiculously rad opportunity to play for an audience who are really there to listen, it’s the most concentrated collection of industry contacts you can imagine and the perfect opportunity for some quality career networking… not to mention an overdose of rocking ‘n rolling with some of the coolest people I know!

This year’s edition was jam-packed with intensity. Aside from finalising and planning the launch of my new album during the day (which included a very well-timed day trip through to Joburg to collect the master!), and celebrating my 32nd birthday (YAY me!), I had a show every night through the week. As luck would have it, Tim Rankin (my producer / drummer) and Schalk van der Merwe (ridiculously talented bass player) were in town on the Tuesday evening and jammed a few songs with me, a pretty awesome birthday present if you ask me!! It’s been far too long since I played with a band onstage, so it was ridiculously awesome to have some extra noise and sounded pretty darn epic from where I was sitting! I really can’t wait to be in a position to showcase my music in a full band setting like this on a more regular basis. I was also invited to play a song with Karen Zoid on the Thursday evening, which was a great honour and just moerse cool!!

I have to send a huge shout out to my hosts Steven & Richardt for putting me up and for just being plain awesome, and to Santoni for giving me the opportunity to experience another unforgettable, life-changing week in the North-West! Biggest love.

The Fugard, The Dream

Published on October 7, 2011 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

About 3 months ago I walked into a venue in Cape Town and fell in love. I’ve been dreaming about a space that would serve my music, my soul, my performing spirit in exactly the right combination of awesome, and on my last national tour, I was lucky enough to find that exact space.

Turns out, the managing director of the venue, the epically beautiful Fugard Theatre, was at one of my shows at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown and had already made up his mind that it was the right space for what I do. So after a few discussions, we’ve booked my album launch in the Studio space at the Fugard Theatre for November 5th and I am beyond thrilled. Having the opportunity to perform in my dream space so soon is too rad! Add to that the obvious excitement of finally releasing my album, and performing live on a Kawai grand piano for the first time (yes, really!!), with complimentary bubbles courtesy of Van Loveren – because no event of this magnitude would be complete without bubbles – and you can imagine the ridiculously epic smile on my face…

For booking details, visit Computicket.

The Song That Rewrote Itself

Published on September 12, 2011 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

I have always loved the idea that one song can be interpreted in different ways; that one song can mean something to one person and something different to another. That is one of the mysterious powers of songwriting that I find so completely captivating and one of the reasons why I write the kind of music that I do. But it wasn’t until very recently that I realised to what extent this is true, because it’s not often that one song can have entirely opposing interpretations and then come to mean something entirely different to its writer.

I wrote Alone In The City about four years ago. In theory, it was about searching for a sense of home after losing what I thought defined it. In theory, it was a sad song about love lost and the search for something to hold onto. In theory, it was about finding yourself in a foreign place, struggling to settle into a new reality.

Then, four years later, quite unexpectedly, someone else played it.

It was quite a surreal moment for me, hearing someone else playing a song that I wrote for the first time. A beautiful moment. At first I couldn’t place the song, hearing familiar chords played on guitar when I’m used to hearing them on piano, and words that felt so much a part of me that sounded so foreign on someone else’s voice. But what made the moment even more powerful for me was the meaning the song had for them. “It’s the most beautiful love song.”

And in that moment, a song about losing love became a song about having love to go home to. In that moment, a song about searching for home became a song about knowing where home is and pointing steadfast in its direction. A sad song became a love song.

I guess it depends entirely where you’re at and what noise you’re hearing in the background, because your emotional noise defines how you listen and what you hear. Just like it defines how you live. Hearing someone else play a song that I wrote a lifetime ago, rewrote its place amidst the noise in my head. I don’t hear a sad song anymore. I hear a song about love and hope and coming home. That’s what I love about songwriting, about life, about love. That it changes. That we change. Turn the good stuff up.

Believe

Published on September 1, 2011 in Uncategorized. 2 Comments Tags: , , .

The album is nearing 100% completion. A few last minute tweaks and it’s off to mastering, printing and then the big reveal… It looks like I’m releasing this one independently. I didn’t particularly want to do that but it’s the best option for me at this point. Maintaining control. What this means is that I’ll most likely be doing a pre-order release very soon as I’m a little short on funding for this final part of the process. More about that when the time comes…

Believe is a song I wrote the week after I quit my day job. It keeps me going when it feels like I can’t, and it reminds me where I’m coming from, where I want to be, and how I’ll get there. Looking back over the past two years, I cannot even begin to imagine what my life would be like if I hadn’t taken that terrifying leap. I’m beyond stoked that I had so many people telling me that I could. Thank you. Now I’m telling you.

Believe.

Being Brave

Published on August 21, 2011 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

I’m flying across the country listening to songs from the forthcoming album in preparation for the studio work ahead this week. As Being Brave starts pulsing in my soundspace, I’m reminded how intensely happy the truth behind this song makes me. The foundation laid down in the music captures exactly what I was trying to say with this song, and moreover with the album. I have been dying to share this song with the world and as we wrap things up in studio this week, I’m thrilled that it’s almost time.

This music thing is a strange beast. After every tour there’s an emotional slump, after every studio session I feel strangely empty, but gazing out of the window 30,000 feet in the air at the snow covered mountains of the Eastern Cape on route to Cape Town for one last studio session to finalise the new record, I’m inspired again. You know those songs that make you feel like you’re flying when you’re driving down an open road? This is one of those songs for me. I’m so proud of this record and everything it says about where I am, where I’ve come from, what I believe in and what I’ve done in the last two years. As lonely as the road may sometimes be, as frustrating as this industry is, as isolated as I might feel in this giant whirlpool that is the music business, I am doing it. I’m living my dream. I’m believing. And this album is about exactly that. Being brave enough to believe. Being brave enough to wake up and fight a new day. And the story is almost ready for you to hear…

“It’s not brave if you’re not scared…”

Hearing The Song

Published on August 17, 2011 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

“I discovered my true love for music

only when I discovered I could connect with any of it

if I just got myself out of the way.”

- Stuart Muller, August ‘11 -

Stuart is an old friend from ‘varsity, and when he muttered these wise words the other day, they really hit home with me. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how I experience music, how I listen to it, how I watch it… I ANALYSE. And it’s very much a case of me, the musician, being in the way of the music.

When you – the audience – hear a song, you hear the song. You don’t hear the parts that make up that song. Not at first anyway. The melodies, the beat, the sneaky hooks, they all mould into one unified piece of magic that you hear in one glorious entirety. When you watch live music, you don’t notice the brown notes here and there, the small glitches given away by that look on a musicians face that only a musician knows, you won’t think the sound guy must be deaf or wonder why on earth the lights were set like that. If something is wrong with the sound, the musicians in the audience will notice it first, and very often they’re the only ones who do… And you’ll watch your favourite artists on stage just being awesome.

Musicians don’t hear music like other people do, like their audiences do. They hear the elements that make it up. When I hear a new song, generally the vocals stand out first because I’m a vocalist, the hooks will grab me, and then I’ll hear each layer of instruments that carefully sits one on top of the other and I’ll carefully disect where and how each one fits. But I never hear the song. Just the song. Listening back to my new album, I wish I could hear it as a whole so that I could hear it the way my audience will. I hear every note of every instrument so clearly but so separately. It’s the one thing about what I do that frustrates me. I will never hear my music like you do. I hear it like it felt, I hear each thought, each separate layer of sound, but never the whole song…

Chatting to a friend recently about a pretty epic show that we had watched together  last year, he noted how critical I’d been on the night of each element that made up the show. I was blown away by the show, but there were so many elements that still needed work and the musician in me couldn’t see past that at the time and just enjoy what he experienced as perfectly awesome. I really wish I could just enjoy a show for the show’s sake without constantly over-analysing the elements.

But it comes with the territory, and being able to translate feeling into sound is worth any small frustration it may carry. And every so often there is a seamless show that truly blows your mind, a song that sneaks up on you and takes hold of everything you are and you forget for a second the elements that make it up and hear just the song. Every so often you forget the elements that make up who you are and you just are, you just listen, you get out of the way of yourself. I’m going to try to do that more often. In more than just music…

Oppikoppi Unknown Brother

Published on August 12, 2011 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Oppikoppi Unknown Brother

I vaguely remember going to Oppikoppi in ‘00 with the band that I was playing for at the time. Actually, when thinking back, all I could remember was “dry, dusty and thorn trees”. But when I was booked to perform this year for my first solo set at Oppikoppi (high five!), I was all too chuffed to add an extra 1,500kms and an extra week to the tour – talk about ending a tour in what I knew would be epic style!

Arriving around lunch time to an already set-up camp (yes, I am THAT clever), I had enough time to take in my surroundings before heading up the koppi to the acoustic stage for my show at 6pm. It doesn’t take long before you feel like you’re at a festival. An hour or so usually does the trick. Apply instant layer of festival grit, rinse (or not, depending on the availability of hot water in the showers), repeat for 3 days. I love festivals.

Dust and Day Dreams

Before my show I managed to catch a snippet of music by The Blues Broers, and some of Mr Cat & The Jackal, but I’m always a bit distracted before a show, particularly festival shows, and can never really concentrate (or chill) until after I’ve played. It’s not a nerves thing, it’s the anticipation that plays with my mind. I plan to chill the hell out a lot more from now on… My show went pretty well, complete with candles (thanks Haddad!). It started off a bit quiet with a large majority of the 16,000-strong Unknown Brothers watching Karen Zoid down at the Skellum Stage, but the audience filled out as the set progressed and I had fun.

The View From The Top

Once I’d packed up and safely escourted Bella back to the already dusty confines of the Hope-mobile, I could resume normal “festivalities” and have some actual fun. After the 6 week tour I’ve just completed, one of the best things about this past weekend was being able to take some time out and watch other artists for a change, a pretty impressive collection which included: Goodluck (rocking set!), Gazelle, Van Coke Kartel, Double Adapter, The Black Hotels, Durban boys The La Els, Die Tuindwergies, Not My Dog, Dance You’re On Fire, Dan Patlansky, David Kramer, Wrestlerish, and was thrilled to finally catch a bit of the Lark electro set (what a voice!). I watched (and met) Michelle Shocked which, having grown up listening to her music, was an absolute honour. I also caught international acts The Used and Sum 41, something you don’t get to do every day – nothing life-changing, but they were rad to watch. The big news is that I maintained surprisingly decent composure throughout Die Antwoord’s set, despite mere mention usually making the blood boil. I’m not a fan but I was intrigued to watch them live. I’m still not a fan. I don’t have a problem with the music itself – electronic music speaks to my inner rave bunny – it’s the lyrical content and the commentary it makes on where this industry is at, that gets to me. Oh, and it’s classy…!

Michelle Shocked

And then it was all over. Without a doubt, the best festival I’ve been to in my 12 years in the industry. Superbly organised, incredible vibe, ridiculously rad talent, too much fun… I’ll definitely be back next year! Festival gets under your skin. Festival gets everywhere. It doesn’t matter how hard you try and it’s pointless trying to avoid it. During the snail’s pace drive out alongside 16,000 other Unknown Brothers who want (and need) to get home and shower just as much as you do, you can’t help looking in the rear view mirror wishing the sign was coming into view, not disappearing, so that you could do it all again.

Corné & Twakkie

Die Antwoord

Lark

David Kramer

Goodluck

Sunset Op Die Koppi

The Art Part

Published on August 11, 2011 in Uncategorized. 1 Comment Tags: , , .

I’ve spoken about music as a business before and over the past 2 years I’ve come to accept that in choosing a career in music, I have to accept that sometimes it will be more about the business and less about the music. But, during a conversation last week, I stumbled on the thought process that has been keeping me going, despite the constant “music as a business” battle that rages in my artist heart. I realised that the “art” in my music, the part that I most cherish, is not the performance of it but the writing – that initial, magical moment of creation when a thought and a feeling merge into a sound that makes it all feel sensible. That is the art.

Now this doesn’t mean to say that I view my performances as any less of an artistic expression. The experience of performing for me is something incredibly powerful, but it’s become a means to an end in a sense. It communicates the art and it pays the bills (well, it’s trying to). The songwriting is the true and cherished art that I hold closest to my heart. It’s also not the art that I get to do as often as I’d like. But that will change in time.

Thankfully songwriting is something I can protect, which is unlike the rest of my career (the business side), which is at the mercy of so many other factors all the time. At the end of the day, not every performance is going to be my best, not every tour is going to make a profit, and sometimes touring will be tedious. That’s the “work” part of what I do. When a song speaks to someone, the way my favourite artists speak to me, that is the part that I love most intensely. And it makes all the business crap tolerable.

I think it’s important to acknowledge the difference between that cherished part of my heart, and the relentless passion with which I pursue a career in the music business. I love what I do for a living but sometimes it really feels like a job. But at the end of the day, I can write and whether that song is heard or not, I still have my art and it still has my heart.