I’ve been writing new songs and I have an April residency in Melbourne Australia. Three Wednesdays in April. There will be some very talented musicians playing along side me and also opening each show.
2011 was a year of collaborations and innovation for me. With projects that caused ripples in the music industry and projects that got me working with some wonderfully talented people.
I started my year in Australia with Meredith Yayanos and Jim Batt. And then…
- I wrote a song for Twitter:
- I toured Australia with Amanda Palmer:
- Released my “Rap of Tasmania” in answer to Amanda’s “Map of Tasmania.”
- Played a residency in Melbourne, Australia.
- Launched a Kickstarter for “I Have Your Heart” – animated film short film set to my song “The Organ Donor’s March”
- Did a small US Tour – That tour was so poorly attended I came up with a new tour strategy: Pre-Sold Shows
The pre-sold show strategy changed the world. Just a tiny bit. I was on BBC World’s Service Radio, CNN Money, Boing Boing, which all started when I wrote a guest post for WarrenEllis.com
- I got printed out in 3D by MakerBot and I wrote them a song:
- Then I released my first 7″ record. It’s lavender. It’s really pretty.
- Released a music video by Jim Batt:
- Back in Australia I put together a band and wrote songs for the next album. HOLY FUCK. AMAZING. Next year is all about the next album.
- My OWS videos got played on The Daily Show and Rachel Maddow’s show.
- Made friends with a wild turkey on Thanksgiving:
- Released an OWS inspired song. It is dubtstep. It is different.
- Released “New York City” with Molly Crabapple
- Released “Music For Stray Days” with Juan Santapau (with violins by Meredith Yayanos.)
- Wrote 20 custom songs:
- Made a music video in Janice Cable’s bed:
There are things I have left out, some on purpose and some not. Some good, some less good.
People who contributed to my wonderful year:
Jim Batt, Molly Crabapple, Meredith Yayanos, Oliver Boekbinder, Kate Rannells, Shannon Marshall, RoseAnn Fino, Karina Cetin, Bri Olson, Melissa Dowell, Malcolm Doherty, Kate Black, Katelan Foisy, Jessica Bloom, Audrey Penven, SF Slim, Nicole Aptekar, Warren Ellis, Clare Saint Clare, Mikelangelo, Sean Francis, Neil Gaiman, Amanda Palmer, Oh gods this list is going to be long… Autumn Adamme, my family, Janice Cable, Fred Harper, Travis Louis, The Emperor Norton’s Stationary Marching Band, David Rule, Anthony Cleave, Jess Daly, the entire Batt family, the turkey I met on Thanksgiving, Lachlan, Murray Lorden, Cynthia Von Buhler, Occupy Wall Street, Bonnie Dennis, Ted Thibodeau, Christopher Daly, Nathalie Boisard Beudin, Salvador, Elizabeth Zibilich, Robert Starnes, Ramona Cat, Helen Gillet, Rita Burkholder (Helen Keller’s Ukulele), Teetering Bulb, Chris Grady, Myles Boisen, Hope Kodman, Laura Kidd (She Makes War), Jesse Von Doom, Myrrh Larsen, there are so many more… I’m stopping now, but if you are reading this then you probably belong on this list. I love you.
Download it now. It is free (or pay what you want.) And it is really really really really good.
Collaborations unfold in surprising ways. I’ve always been interested in comics. When I was a teenager I wrote and drew several and if I ever dig them out of storage I will share them with you. My main character was called Super Vague, she was a punk goth bad ass who did, you know… stuff. I’ve read many comics and befriended several (very talented) comics makers though I don’t call myself a comics nerd because I don’t have a collection of my own or follow any comics or creators in particular. But last year Jim Batt pointed me towards The Secret Knots which is a really wonderful webcomic by Chilean author/artist named Juan Santapau.
In June I wrote to Juan. I told him how much I enjoyed his work and that if he ever needed music for a story he was working on I’d be happy to write something for his story. Juan thought that was pretty interesting and wrote me back the next day saying that he liked my album and we should stay in touch. Later that day he sent me the outline of the story which was to become “Music for Stray Days.”
When I originally contacted him I thought I might write some instrumental music, something that went along in the background. I never expected him to write a story about a song but I loved the story and set to work on the song right away. The challenge was to write something catchy, something that would get stuck the heads of an entire population. But also something beautiful, ethereal, and compelling. And catchy is not always all of those things.
I finished writing the song on September 16th and began the recording process a few weeks later. The guitar and voice tracks were laid down in October. I then asked Meredith Yayanos, a wonderful violin and theremin player (and editor of COILHOUSE Blog and Magazine) to add a violin part. Meredith added 17 violin parts! Creating a breathtaking symphony of strings that swell and break like a tide of sound. She recorded her parts in New Zealand and sent the files through the magical internet.
I also put out the call for people to sing along to the chorus of a secret project and released a 15 second clip of the song for people to sing along to. 16 people sent their parts in.
Chorus voices by:
Alex Marteen, Andrea Kaplan, Carl Salbacka, Caroline “Dirty Carrie” Willis, Daryl Davis, Helen Perris, Holly Caldwell, Ian Gazzoti, Lisa Waters, Lisa Scrivner, Lizzie Westbrook, Myrrh Larsen, Nate Chambers, Serpa Sas, Viki Ostrovsky, and Wayne Watrach.
As the song unfolded and I became involved and enraptured by the Occupy Wall Street movement I began to feel that the song, written one day before OWS began, was a wonderful soundtrack – not to the movement, but to the feeling of compassion and awakening that I was seeing in the world. This feeling ebbs and flows now in the difficult times, but I still feel hope.
In November I finished mixing and mastering the song as Juan was finishing up the final art for the comic.
I love this collaboration. Meredith did such a fantastic job making the song cinematic and extra magicalicious. Juan’s work is really inspiring, be sure to read his other stories: www.thesecretknots.com
The title to this blog is “My FIRST Webcomic” because now I want to make more. This is just the first. I love storytelling and I want to keep doing it with pictures and words and music and drawings and well, any way I can. Forever.
You know what the most amazing Christmas present ever would be? A custom song. Yes. YES!
This Christmas why not hire The Impossible Girl to write a song for you or your friend or your aunt Lucy or your favorite teacher or your nemesis? Yes! You totally want a song about your nemesis. A group of you could all pitch in to get a song for one person you all love. You can also give this song to someone as a gift certificate to be redeemed after Christmas at their leisure.
I write songs for and about people. Or about dogs, or teddy bears, or unicorns, or crime scene investigators who hate CSI shows, in exchange for dollars.
Custom songs start at $250 and can go up from there depending on complexity, number of instruments used, and emotional impact (memorial songs take a lot out of me so I need more $ for whiskey and chocolate.) TO make things simple I have two categories of song: regular and complex (which includes multiple instruments, sad subjects, etc…) You can choose from guitar (acoustic or electric,) piano, ukulele, accordion, percussion, and/or synthesizer. Or you can leave it up to me.
Order by Dec. 18th and I guarantee a Christmas delivery of an mp3 or .WAV file to your email inbox. I’ll only be writing 5 songs so get in on it.
SOLD OUT
My songs tend to be short and can range from moody pop, to swinging country, to murder ballads, and a whole bunch of stuff in between and to the side. It is also worth noting that these songs are for personal use only – you can share them as much as you want with friends, but they are not intended to be used for commercial use, soundtracks, theme songs etc…
Here is a handy playlist of songs I have written for amazing people who have given me much needed dollars so I could eat and make art.
Come on, be a Christmas hero!
Contact me if you have questions: kim -at- kimboekbinder.com
I also have all kinds of lovely things on my music page: limited edition art prints, vinyl records, CDs, and t-shirts http://music.kimboekbinder.com
I came to New York for a show and a visit in January 2010. While hanging out with Molly Crabapple she suggested I move into her apartment in Williamsburg as her roommate was leaving and she had a few months to go on the lease. Since we were doing a webcast while she asked me she put it to an internet vote. NYC came out favorably. The rent was cheap. I was feeling adventurous. I said yes. I was in New York from mid March to June of 2010 and made a conscious decision to be in a “YES” mind frame. I kept myself open to possibilities, stretched myself to go out more, and talked to strangers – two of whom became a life changing friends.
New York is amazing. It is the best city. Rather, it is the best at being a city. I love a lot of places and none so far has been able to keep me for long. But New York is a singular place. A gigantic maelstrom of an organism that eats itself daily. And being in that crazy maw, being consumed by the energy of the city is a feeling like no other. The motion, the grind, the ever present culture, art, music, madness. Whatever you want you can have in New York. And you can have it delivered any time of day or night. The speed of the city is intense, too intense for many, but it was the first place I’d ever been where my ambition, my drive to be constantly DOING, was not out of place. In New York I didn’t have to convince people to do things, or explain why, or pull teeth, or leave people behind as I moved on to do things. New York was ready and willing to DO and make and see and dance and play.
The best of the best come to New York, whether to live or to visit/work for a short time. Every room contains at least one genius, one person pushing their field. Someone who will blow your mind in a simple conversation. I’ve met rockstars, actors, famous authors, ground breaking engineers, nuclear physicists, and amazing artists in the smallest, most unassuming places.
New York pushes people to be their best. And it breaks people too. There is only one speed and if you can’t keep up then you risk being ground into dust. All the glittering lights are run on the blood, sweat, and tears of a population who will never bask in their glow. And the ornate facades are likely to crumble or fade if inspected too closely.
And it’s expensive. New York will suck all of the money out of your wallet. There are certainly cheap things, ways to live inexpensively, but if you want to partake of the best New York has to offer – which is EVERYTHING – then even $3 a pop it will add up quickly.
In New York I learned that I could be happy. I was not in a relationship, I didn’t have any money, my career was at a standstill while I was recording my album. But I was happy. And most importantly I was happy independently of being in love, being financially stable, or having career success. I am not always happy, but remembering the time when I was helps lead me back to that place. I’m not sure how much the city had to do with my small enlightenment but that’s where it happened.
So I started to write a love song for New York City and Molly wanted me to finish it and I didn’t for a long time because I was daunted by writing a song for such a grand place. But Molly is very good at getting what she wants, and poking me, and pushing me to do more and more and more. So I finally finished the song and finally recorded it. Someday I’d like to do a big band version. But I like this stripped down simple version too, because it’s a more honest reflection of my grit and glitter existence in the city of cities. Diamonds and champagne at night, cockroaches and broken glass for breakfast.
In the time that I’ve known Molly Crabapple we have collaborated a lot and I have watched her push herself and watched her art get better and better. She inspires me all the time. Just as this song is a love letter to New York it is a love letter to Molly. One of many I’m sure. She’s a fucking legend and I’m so lucky to know her and work with her.
In addition to that gorgeous print there is a limited edition t-shirt available. Gold ink on a black shirt in men’s and women’s styles. I would LOVE to sell everything by the end of the year. That would help me release the next song.
New York City
I want to live in a shoebox,
at the top of the world,
at the top of the food chain,
with all the beautiful girls.
I want to live in the city,
that never stops,
even when I’m at the bottom,
I’ll be at the top of,
New York, New York City.
It’s big and it’s dirty,
it runs too hot, too cold,
it’ll grind you down so hard
that even the young are old.
If you’ve got the ambition,
you can join the race,
but for every opportunity,
there’s one million others crowding for space in
New York, New York City.
You’ve got myths, you’ve got legends,
you’ve got the Chelsea Hotel,
if you ring the right bell boy,
he might even ring your bell.
When you’re feeling down and out,
and you can’t pay the rent,
there’s nothing a $58 martini,
won’t help you forget in
New York, New York City.
I want to live at Ground Zero,
of culture and fame,
I want everything that glitters,
and I want it to spell out my name.
I want to live in the city,
that never sleeps,
where even the shallows are
drowning deep.
New York, New York City.
New York, New York City.
**
I’m not in New York right now though. I’m in Australia. Sneaking up on wombats.
On Tuesday morning I went to a coffee shop to check my email and catch up on internet work. In the bathroom I took a photo of that message posted on the door. Then I sat at my computer and read what I thought would be just another innocuous facebook status update from a friend. But this status update, while in the same format, same font, same colors, as all other status updates, will stay with me forever because it was how I learned that my friend J had,
“…ended a long fight with depression, pain, and PTSD last night. He took his own life.”
J was a born with a soul too big for his body, it spilled out over the edges and got trampled on by the careless and by the caring alike. He always burned with a darkness that engulfed him in waves, threatening to drag him under. Sometimes he fought the void, and sometimes he let himself be carried away.
When we were growing up he wanted to be a mortician. He was obsessed. He joined the army, hoping that he would be trained in the morgue. But the Army had other plans for J and they made him a medic. Instead of preserving the dead he saved many lives.
While serving in Iraq he saw things that have since haunted him, and his neck was broken. Surgeries botched by army doctors left him in chronic pain and he was dropped from army medical care. A series of difficult personal relationships left him shattered. His darkness found confirmation for his betrayal every day. The world was not for him.
But J also had a community that cared for him. A family of relatives and friends who were loyal and constant. He had a beautiful wife that loved him deeply, as he loved her. He lived in Portland, Oregon which is a lovely city with a great deal of culture and a high standard of living.
Someone’s reasons for ending their own life are always deeply personal and cannot possibly be weighed by anyone else. People have reasons to live, and to not live, if they choose. Though in the darkest moments it feels like there is no other choice than to end the pain. I am so sad for J’s pain. I knew it always and I am sorry that I couldn’t do more for him to let him know how much he was loved. And he suffered so much; a casualty of war, of personal betrayal, and ultimately of depression.
I am sad. So sad.
But I cannot say that I was surprised. I am not angry with him. He left his family in a mess. And he was selfish. And I wish he was still alive. And not in pain.
If I could have a superpower it would be the ability to make people feel loved. Truly loved. In their darkness, when they need it most. Even if doesn’t change anything.
Greetings from New Orleans on Halloween. People wear “costumes” here so often that it’s hard to tell Halloween from any other day. I’m enjoying an iced coffee at The Orange Couch on Royal Street while I wifi my work afternoon away.
I have a very wonderful secret project coming up that I would like you to sing on. Here’s a piece of the track, send a recording of your voice to kim (at) kimboekbinder.com Be sure to include your full name if you want credit. You have until Nov. 6th to send me your voice. You can use your phone, your computer, or any other recording device you may have.
My first pre-sold tour stop was in San Francisco on Sunday night and it was amazing. I love the venue: the sound as wonderful: the audience was perfect: my trumpet player was great. There was so much love in the room. It was exactly what I needed. I get lost in the day to day business of my job and forget why it is I keep doing what I do. The logistics of my life are difficult and uncomfortable. Always leaving, always moving, always on the internet.
When I’m playing music everything else drops away and I feel whole. Thank you for helping me put on my shows. Your support inspires me to get better and better, to put on the best show possible, and to keep going.
Kim Boekbinder is The Impossible Girl; a performer, composer, musician, and visual artist who defies genre. She has travelled the world, stealing hearts and changing paradigms with her indelible live performance and her excitingly original and unforgettable music.
