January 30, 2006 - 6:31 PM

Anatomy of a Busy Week

Imogen Heap will be on Carson Daly (NBC after Conan, 1:35-2:05 AM) both Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. And you'll probably get a glimpse of me at both shows.

I attended the tapings this past Wednesday (they tape a week in advance, I guess) at the NBC lots in Burbank. Originally, she was only supposed to play the show for next Tuesday which taped at 6:30 PM, but they asked her to stick around for the Wednesday taping (which occurred later that night at 8:30) too, and she said yes. There were about 20 people there expressly to see her (I was expecting more to show up, what with her show at the El Rey the night before being sold out), and the rest of the studio audience, maybe 100 people, was made up of paid seat fillers, who probably had no idea who she was.

One of the writers on my show is roommates with the head writer for Carson Daly (insert your own joke about the writing of Daly's jokes here), so I was on a guest list that let me be the first one in to both tapings. I sat in the first row the first time, and the second row the second time. When they interview Chris Masterson on Tuesday night, and you hear someone clap when Chris mentions that he directed an episode of Malcolm in the Middle and Carson points at the audience, that's me clapping and me to whom he's pointing. I'm embarrassed.

Anywho, after the interviews (the second show's interviewee was Simon Baker), the wranglers shuffled off the first couple rows to stand in front of the stage off to the side where Immi had her setup. A few of us were situated on a raised platform (kinda like those Dance Party U.S.A. things where the REALLLY good dancers get to show off their stuff), including me, and we had a good view of Imogen. She performed "Hide and Seek" the first time (and had to do it twice since the cameramen kept getting in each others' shots), then came out during the 8:30 taping in a different dress, pretending like it was another night, and performed "Goodnight and Go". That mbira is so awesome!

She's fun to watch. As they were setting up cameras and making sure the equipment was right before each performance or the ending-goodbye segment, popular music was laying over the P.A. system. Songs like "My Hump" by the Black Eyed Peas, and as guys were milling around her, or Carson Daly chit chatted with her, she smiled broadly and did some goofy dancing. So worth a trip to the Carson Daly show.

Other than that, it was busy music week for me. Two Saturdays ago, I went to the Hotel Cafe to see Charlotte Martin play to a packed house. As I told Terami Hirsch aftewards, who was there as a friend and a fan of Char, it was nice, in a spectacular sort of way. Charlotte is so intense and manic and funny and freaking good. The only other time I'd seen her was 4 years ago at the same place, before her major label album On Your Shore came out, and while I enjoyed that show, this blew that one out of the solar system. She had a keyboard and two synths on stage (one of which she used as a vocoder), and was joined towards the end of her set by a drummer; in addition, she had someone who I think was her touring engineer at the house board cueing up drum loops and backing tracks.

On Monday, I was at the Troubadour to see the young Brandi Carlile with full band headlining. What i was surprised by was how familiar all her songs sounded to me, even though I didn't think I knew her music that well. I guess that happens when they've been playing her a fair amount on KCRW. That show was excellent as well. She reminded me, looks, performance and energy-wise, of Holly McNarland (although not quite as full force as Holly...I don't think anyone could match Holly's intensity, unless they spontaneously combusted on stage); her voice leaned towards that rough yet pretty, sometimes swoopy twang of Emmylou Harris. But she was closest, in my ears, to the sound and songs of Maria McKee. A little more pop and rock, but still with that alt-country edge.

Tuesday night I was at work until 9:00 prepping for the first table read of Season 3 for the show I work on. Wednesday started at 7:30 AM as I drove around to pick up doughnuts, bagles, lox, fruit, and coffee for the table read. I left work at 4:30 to go to the Imogen Heap taping. Thursday was a 12 hour day at work (we're busy working on both season 2's last 7 episodes which started airing last week, and season 3's new batch which are just starting to get recorded and storyboarded).

Friday night, I saw a performance by Kyler, who's working on new studio stuff as we speak. It was good to see some old friends from Berklee there, and surprising to see Vienna Teng in the crowd. Apparently, she's been in town the past few weeks, working on a new album with producer Larry Klein, including a few days at Paramount Recording studios where I used to work. She couldn't pass up an opportunity to see Kyler and support her before heading back up to S.F. which is so nice of her. She's hoping to have her album out sometime this summer.

Saturday I took my car in to get it serviced (in a sexual way, of course), used up some of my Tower Records gift card that I got from work to purchase special editions DVDs of West Side Story and Saving Private Ryan (WSS was on sale for only 14.99, down from almost 30 bucks!), and watched an anime DVD from my Netflix queue called Read or Die which I do recommend, yes I do. Finally, Sunday, I watched TV, then went to the Mint in L.A. to see Alaskan Kate Earl put on a decidedly uneven performance. Girl's got a great voice, but her inexperience on stage, and her lack of training on the guitar showed. She plays the keyboard fine, but my friend G, who is friends with her, told me that she only recently picked up the 'tar. Partway through the set, she stopped to let us know that one of her songs was being used on Grey's Anatomy that night, which made the second person in two days I met who had a song featured on that TV show. The other? Berklee buddy and Victoria co-engineer Mike, who was at Kyler's show. A song about Hot Dogs that he wrote and recorded at home was used two weeks ago during a scene where a bunch of the interns had a hot dog eating contest. Ha!

Know what's even weirder? When I went out two Fridays ago with the girl, at the dessert place? T.R. Knight, who plays George, and Katherine Heigl, who plays Izzie, were eating there. I even spoke to T.R., telling him he could go ahead of us in line because we were still trying to figure out what cake slice to get.

In case you were wondering, being this busy wasn't a planned thing. I often have this many shows on my calendar that I'm interested in seeing...it's just that, normally, I end up skipping most of them because I'm lazy and don't feel like mustering the energy to be out. But this time, well, let's just say that it helped to keep myself (pre)occupied as much as possible. That wasn't the intended goal, but it certainly was an impetus, at least for the Brandi Carlile show. And work happily obliged by getting wayyy too busy, too.

Still, there were those moments, when I was driving around and my mind was allowed to float around to the places we want to avoid, there were times when I started to think and analyze. And a small weight, like a tiny black hole, settled into my stomach, and dull waves throbbed out to my fingertips. I did my best to push it back, to not let it overwhelm me, and I did a fair job of it. Sometimes, though. Sometimes. And then she text messaged me on Thursday to tell me that she was having delicious soup at Clementine, and I thought "how unfair...she can't contact me all friendly like...not before I've had enough space and time to readjust, refocus, reassess and resign", but I just responded with a text of "working late. so very late."

It's better now. I think I'll have to keep my distance for a little while longer, but at least I haven't been driven to drink yet.

Now Listening To : Brandi Carlile- Brandi Carlile
Random Thought : I'm not as devastated as I thought I would be, but I still think it sucks, y'know?

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