Little Big League

The world shifted this day.

Day 1

MICHELLE!

June 1, 2013

June

“I had just finished writing and recording a record with my band Little Big League (littlebigleague.bandcamp.com) and was experiencing difficulty writing new material. The band wasn't really doing anything because we were exhausted. We weren't playing many shows to save up for touring a lot when the record came out.

On May 30th I had a dumpling party at my house where I invited all of my friends to come over and make dumplings. We set up Christmas lights in my backyard and all sat around a lawn table drinking beer and scooping small spoons from a big pot of stuffing and folding them into little dumpling wrappers. I invited Rachel Gagliardi from Slutever and we talked a lot about feeling stuck creatively. I suggested that we start a blog. The conceit was that we wrote, recorded and posted one song every day for the month of June. Two days later there was:

rachelandmichelledojune.tumblr.com

The most important part of the blog was learning how to practice forgiveness. This Isabel Allende quote I read on some blog-- "show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too." that seemed relevant too. Instead of sitting down and creating a list of rules (I've written too many songs in the key of D, no more finger picking, no verse chorus structure, etc. etc.) that completely inhibited me from writing, I just had the pressure of needing to have a finished product by the end of the day to motivate me. Despite my busy work schedule, social obligations, even if I only had ten minutes of free time during the day, they would be spent making sure I got my post for the day.

While there are definitely songs I find completely unlistenable and all around awful, I was very happy with a lot of the material I produced. I plan on developing quite a few with LBL for our second LP. I highly recommend the project to anyone who is feeling creatively uninspired. Habituation is the key.

The album is made up of 28 originals and two covers Day 15 is PAWS' "Sore Tummy", Day 23 is a Liz Phair's "Chopsticks".

Here is a list of some of my favorite tracks from the project:

Day 5, Day 6, Day 10, Day 22, Day 28, Day 30

Dan Hughes made my album cover, Ben Pubusky made my banner!

special thanks to: Peter Bradley my bestest friend who makes me so brave and so powerful, Ian Dykstra my twin Machine, Rachel Gagliardi the coolest girl in Philadelphia.”

Post Post

Little Big League - Fall 2013 tour

i can’t believe she invented guitar solos

She’s a genius

Post Post

my office

June 6, 2014

Where Is My Great Big Feeling?

“I wrote these seven songs as part of a blog with Eskimeaux, Florist, Frankie Cosmos and Small Wonder. may5to12songs.tumblr.com

A few weeks before I played with Frankie Cosmos at Golden Tea House and talked to Greta and Gabby about how helpful June was for me and both expressed a desire to give it a shot for a week.

Working with four other people made the process a little more difficult because it was hard not to feel shitty about my own songs in comparison to how beautiful and well worked everyone else's felt. In the same breath, I felt like everyone was just writing some really vulnerable stuff, and it definitely encouraged me to just be really open and honest about my feelings. I feel like I projected a lot of the small things I knew about these four other musicians and felt really close to them, like we were sharing diaries or something. Florist in particular I met for the first time on Day 2 and saw her wearing a neck brace and speculated a lot of her songs were about her accident and injuries and how difficult that must have been. I also know Gabby from Eskimeaux wasn't on tour with her boyfriend at the time and how she must have missed him and maybe expressed some of that in her songs. I think it's just amazing how different all of our experiences during this week were and what we were all sorting through the same exact period of time and under the same guidelines.

In the beginning I feel like the songs are more diary like. This happened to be the week I went up to NY so it was difficult to find time to write songs. Day 1 and 2 were the sort of impending doom songs. My mother was having a lot of doctors appointments and check ups with the suspicion something was up. Day 3 we found out my mother has a rare form of pancreatic cancer. It was very difficult to write and record these songs after that and that is probably why day 5 and 6 get so silly. I'm hesitant to post this I guess, but I also feel like the musicians I admire the most are those that just put stuff out there, no matter how revealing or hurtful. It's been a difficult time for me and my family and doing projects like this really helps document and sort through these emotions. I also hope anyone else who lost or is struggling with a family member or friend with cancer can maybe find some comfort in these shitty lo fi songs.”

Little Big League