Greetings!
Check out what I just got!
You may remember that earlier this year I attended a soundcheck for Ani DiFranco, a longtime favorite of mine. She came down after and sat with me for a bit, which was entirely unexpected. Her team just shared photos that were taken during the various soundchecks on the spring tour and I’m in two of them! Which is great because the entire event is a blur, so it’s nice to have photographic evidence that it actually happened.
Beyond that, I’m still slowly making my way back to reality after vacation. July and early August were incredibly busy, so I’m taking advantage of the quiet. I’m finally going through the hundreds and hundreds of unread emails in my work account. (Most of which, ironically, were notes I sent to myself about people to interview or things to write. Notes that I obviously paid no attention to once they were sent.)
I’ve also been doing a lot of reading and painting and back to school shopping. Typical life stuff.
In other news, today would have been Mia Zapata’s 60th birthday. If you’re not familiar, Mia was the frontwoman for the punk band The Gits. An absolutely extraordinary singer and performer, she was described to me once as a cross between Janis Joplin and Johnny Rotten. Tragically, her life was cut short in a random attack on July 7, 1993 when she was just 27 years old. The band’s albums have recently been remastered and released through Sub Pop, and you can find old live footage—including this, my favorite Gits track—on the band’s YouTube channel.
Paving the way for women like Mia was Donita Sparks, who in 1985 co-founded a band, L7, that would inspire countless women in rock. I recently chatted with Sparks about her career and the band’s upcoming 40th anniversary show at the Belasco Theater in L.A. Keep an eye out for that interview later this week.
In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed last week’s interview with Jon Agee.
It was great chatting with him about his 40-plus years of writing and illustrating children’s books, particularly given that his 2018 release, The Wall in the Middle of the Book, was a favorite when my son was little.
That’s it for now. Wishing you a wonderful, art-filled week!