Gillian Grassie

Gillian to perform for Bombay Elektrik Project Jan 20th

// January 18th, 2010 // No Comments » // Cool Stuff, Performances, Travel, Uncategorized

Very pleased to have been included in this event!

The Bombay Elektrik Project in association with UTV World Movies is hosting an evening of film and music at Cafe Goa in Bandra on Wednesday, January 20th.

Featuring performances by yours truly and Mumbai’s own Dischordian (nominated Most Promising Indie band of the Year by India’s leading indie-music blog, indiecision.com), followed by a screening of La Femme Nikita (yes, really), the night is sure to be an overload of awesome. And it’s free!

Come on the early side to enjoy Cafe Goa’s yummy food and martinis.

January 20: Mumbai, India
Bombay Elektrik Project & UTV World Movies present
Gillian Grassie & Dischordian
8:30 – 11:30 PM / FREE
Cafe Goa
Agnelo House
Off St. John de Baptist Road
near Mount Mary Steps
Bandra

Serpentine getting spins across the United States!

// December 22nd, 2009 // No Comments » // Cool Stuff, Music, News, Press

Thanks so much to the following AAA stations for giving Serpentine airtime:

KXCI Tucson AZ
KCMV Breckenridge CO
KDNK Carbondale CO
KVNF Paonia CO
WFIT Melbourne FL
KKCR Hanalei HI
KDEC Decorah IA
WFPK Louisville KY
WMKY Moorehead KY
WTMD Baltimore MD
MPBN Bangor ME
WERU E. Orland ME
WNTI Hackettstown NJ
Indie SF Santa Fe NM
WEXT Albany NY
WDST Woodstock NY
WCBE Columbus OH
WXPN Philadelphia PA (these guys have been backing me for years…Thanks XPN!)
WVIA Scranton PA
WETS Johnson City TN
KFAN Fredericksburg TX
KPFT Houston TX
WNRN Charlottesville VA
WRRW Williamsburg VA

Most of these are public radio stations, which means they operate at least in part via member support. Consider making a (typically tax-deductible) donation to help keep your local station up and running and bringing you independent music.

Thanks and happy holidays! (next up: a blog about Mumbai, finally…)

-Gillian

First German Review!

// November 27th, 2009 // 3 Comments » // Cool Stuff, Music, News, Performances, Travel

Many thanks to Das Consortium, the wonderful Musikkneipe in Hamburg/Harburg who hosted me for my last performance in Germany. It was a totally lovely evening playing for you all and I’m completely blown away by these very kind words from the venue:

“Diese Frau ist wirklich Megaklasse. Die Kombination aus filigran gespielter Harfe zu einer Stimme, die sich mit weltklass Stars vergleichen lässt, und einer Titelauswahl, die einem jeden Zuhörer den Mund vor Staunen offen stehen lässt. Musik zu Versinken in seinen schönsten und/oder auch emotional einfühlsamsten Gedanken. Brillant! Danke.”

Can’t wait until our paths cross again (and I promise I’ll have worked more on my German by then)…

Vielen Dank,

Gillian

Top 10 Desert Island Songs… from Paris

// August 24th, 2009 // No Comments » // Cool Stuff, Music

Well! I’ve been traveling around quite a bit during the past few weeks in Brittany and Normandy without much internet access, which doesn’t entirely excuse me from not posting updates sooner. And, I’m afraid, you may have to wait just a day more for a proper blog update. BUT, I promise that I have plenty of new stories and pictures and potentially even songs for you.

Before we get into all of my adventures in France, however, I’d like to post the Top Ten list I’ve put together for the XPN 885 Desert Island Songs countdown. You can vote for your own top ten list on the XPN website until September 11th and then tune in from September 29th – October 9th to hear the station listeners’ top 885 songs, in sequence, without commercials.

I know that the numbered ordering actually does matter for these things, but I can’t say that you should put much weight on my order.

Gillian’s Top Ten Desert Island Songs

1. Urge for Going – Joni Mitchell
My father used to sing this song to me as a lullaby, which probably contributed to my initial assumption as a child that Joni Mitchell was a man. The record was set straight a few years later when I wandered up into the attic and found my parents’ Court and Spark vinyl – a pretty earth-shaking discovery that firmly solidified my love affair with songwriting. Joni is hands-down the single most important artist in my collection and it takes some concentrated restraint not to fill this entire list with songs like Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire, Court and Spark, Cactus Tree, Trouble Child, People’s Parties, Blue, and A Case of You.

2. The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades is Out to Get Us! – Sufjan Stevens
I was really torn between this song and John Wayne Gacy, Jr. – which I also consider a sort of tour de force of songwriting – but ultimately sided with the one that doesn’t involve serial killers.

3. Everything is Free – Gillian Welch
I’ve been listening to this song a lot recently; it hangs around. “I could get a straight job / I’ve done it before / never minded working hard / it’s who I’m working for / everything is free now / that’s what they say / everything I ever done / gotta give it away / someone hit the big score / but I figured it out / and I’m gonna do it anyway / even if it doesn’t pay”

4. What a Little Moonlight Can Do – Billie Holiday
Ah, Billie… When I was younger Jazz seemed something akin to wine, in the sense that I was absolutely sure it was this fantastic thing that was probably going to take a little time to understand and appreciate. I kept listening and grew into Jazz about the same time I started actually liking the vintages my uncle pulled up from the cellar at Christmas. Billie Holiday was one of the first artists who really opened up the genre for me. Nobody does deep-set grief like Billie, but her rendition of this happier song always makes me dance, and there had to be at least one song on my desert island good for dancing.

5. Meadowlake Street – Ryan Adams
My friend Stu gave me Gold sometime last winter and I quickly ran to the record store to pick up Cold Roses and Heartbreaker. I’m in love with many of his songs, but this verse is the cincher for me: “I feel like a dream that’s not worth having / like a nervous joke, ain’t nobody laughing / like somebody with nothing ‘cause they don’t know what they want / and tiny like the sand in the cracks of the driftwood / washed up on the shore of an ocean of you / boats out on the horizon / made out of the maple tree where we used to lie down on Meadowlake street / counting the stars, you and I.” I mean, really.

6. Première Arabesque – Claude Debussy
There was a time in my life when I thought I was going to go to conservatory and become either an opera singer or an orchestral harpist or both. Things didn’t quite work out that way, but there’s still a corner of my heart that only classical type of music can reach. I haven’t played pedal harp in a long time, but Marcel Grandjany’s arrangement of this piece was my favorite.

7. Shebeg & Shemore – Turlough O’Carolan
Sometimes I feel a bit of a traitor for taking the Celtic harp so far away from our beginnings, but the truth is I really do love Celtic music. Turlough O’Carolan was this incredibly prolific Irish harpist of the 17th Century, who picked up the instrument after being blinded by smallpox at the age of 18. He’s credited with over 300 gorgeous melodies. For years, my dad brought a recorder with him wherever we went, and this melody became the backdrop of many mornings on the rocky Maine coastline and evenings around campfires. I pretty confident I spelled it wrong here.

8. No One’s Crying – Patty Griffin
I love Patty Griffin for many reasons, not the least which is that this song of hers almost single-handedly got me through both my parents’ divorce and my own first major break-up.

9. O Canada Girls – Dar Williams
The ideas and imagery in this song are just so lush and abundant. I especially like the bit about secrets written on hornet-nest paper blowing across the border. Bryn Mawr, you’ll have to forgive me for not putting “As Cool As I Am,” much though I cherish the memories of dancing around the May Hole covered in flower petals and rain. “If I did not dream, who would you be? / and if you did not dream, who would I be?”

10. Take it From Me – The Weepies
Writing happy love songs is absurdly hard, and The Weepies do it absurdly well. This is one of my favorites.

So close to being on this list that they may as well have been: Kathleen Edwards, Damien Rice, James Taylor, Indigo Girls, Handel’s Ombra Mai Fu, Joshua Marcus, Portishead, James Taylor, Fleetwood Mac, Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s.

Pictures and stories and proper updates coming soon!!!

The Great Mailing List Sign-up

// June 6th, 2009 // No Comments » // Cool Stuff, News

The Short Of It:

Help me build my mailing list and, in return, I’ll link you to a free download of an exclusive track.

Just go to to the sign-up form on the home page, my Myspace page or directly at gilliangrassie.fanbridge.com, sign up, and then follow the link on your confirmation e-mail to download your free Thank You track.

If you sign-up for the Street Team (I may call on you for help with promotion while on tour in your city), I will personally e-mail you with another exclusive song.

The Long Of It:

I finally decided to make the switch to online mailing list management through FanBridge. This is good news for many reasons: secure online back-up, no more accidental duplicate e-mails, more targeted mailing campaigns (so you only receive notice of shows that are geographically near to you, etc), just to name a few. You can also always edit your information to include as many or as few details as you like at gilliangrassie.fanbridge.com. There are even options for text message alerts (crazy, eh?).

Thanks so much!
-Gillian

Graduation

// May 17th, 2009 // No Comments » // Cool Stuff, News

“I spent four years prostrate to the higher mind, got my paper and I was free!”

Well, it’s been a long road, but today I graduated from Bryn Mawr College cum laude, with a B.A. in Comparative Literature.

Sincere thanks to my family, friends, professors and administrators. Special thanks to professors Kirchwey, Torday, Gorfinkel, Seyhan, and Higginson for your encouragement and support, and to all my co-workers at the Bryn Mawr College Bookshop.

I’m very much looking forward to re-directing my focus towards my Watson year and music full-time now.