Old News :: Winter 2001
Below is an archive of old news from Winter 2001. For more old news, click here.
3.8.01 ::
Website Launch!
Ellenshapiro.com finally launches, after quite a number of
delays. If you're looking at this, you know you're all
right.
1.5.01 ::
Psychadelic Goat Records Winter 2001
Newsletter
Hey everyone,
Man, fall 2000 was one of the busiest times in my life. Want to know why? Read on.
1. SO TELL
US ABOUT SEATTLE!
Okay, so for those of you who don't remember, I got invited
to play at the Rockrgrl Music Conference 2000 in
November out in Seattle. This was, far and away, the
most fun I have had in years. Basically, it was 200
female or female-fronted acts (ie with a female lead
singer) from all over the US and the world. If I
remember correctly there was even a couple of acts from
Denmark. The showcases, in which I played, were
basically venues for all sorts of acts to come out and
make noise and try to make their fanbases larger. The
conference was basically a series of speakers and panels
on various topics in the music biz. The conference was
very well run, and both of the keynote speakers Ronnie
Spector (from the Ronnettes) and Amy Ray (from the
Indigo Girls) were very good. The panels were really
interesting, and I ended up learning so much more useful
stuff in one weekend there than I have in the last two
years of just trying to sift through everything
myself.
2. WELL,
THAT'S GREAT. BUT WHAT DID YOU DO?
I played a 25-minute set in a Starbucks, which was kind of
ironic, since I've worked there the last couple of summers
and had sworn I would never walk into one again. So that
went straight out the window, though I must admit I
actually found their egg nogg lattes <gasp> good. I
think my set went quite well, and I managed to pull off the
fastest string change I have ever made in my life, as I
only had one guitar with me. I was first in line since the
entirety of people that have heard of me are probably on
this mailing list, so it's not like I played before a
screaming arena of thousands. But there were more people
there than I thought there would be, thanks both to my
ability to cajole a bunch of musicians from Chicago who
were out there and my dad's ability to cajole some friends
of his who lived out there (thank you Daddy).
3. SO DID
YOU MEET ANYONE FAMOUS?
Actually, yes, I did. I met Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls, to
the extent that saying hi and shaking someone's hand can be
called meeting someone. I met Shannon Curfman, a 15-year
old blues phenom who I'm convinced is the next Bonnie
Raitt. I met Kate Schellenbach, the kickass drummer from
the sadly defunct Luscious Jackson. Vicki Randle, the
percussionist from the Tonight Show, played later in the
evening at the Starbucks I was at, and she and the person
she was playing with were really damn good, though they
have no CD as of right now. I also met a woman named
Melissa Ferrick, who is not as famous, but basically if you
know her music, you love her music.
4. SO DID
YOU FIND SOME COOL OTHER MUSICIANS THAT WE'VE NEVER HEARD
OF BUT YOU RECOMMEND? (if you don't care,
skip to #5)
Hell yeah. A few links and explanations for ya:
* Ellen Rosner is a really phenomenal
songwriter from Chicago and a very cool person to boot,
and her album, The Perfect Malcontent, is extremely
good. She was in the process of working on a new one
when I last spoke to her before winter break.
* Brooke Fox played right after me at
the Starbucks, and her CD, Nightlight, is also extremely
good. She was in Nashville for a couple of years, but
she's now in New York City, so if you're there, keep an
eye out, because she's quite good.
* From my lovely hometown of DC comes one of the funniest,
dirtiest, most affecting songwriters I've heard in some
time. Esmirelda is a real character, and
she can make you fall on the floor laughing at the most
inappropriate things or really move you, depending on
her mood. Not for the faint of heart or sensitive of
ear. Like me, she says fuck a LOT.
* Summer Chance is another one of the
Chicago people that I met out there, and she is also a
really nice person and an excellent musician. Her CD is
a bit more low key, but it's very, very good.
I met a lot more very, very good people, but these are the
ones that I highly recommend, and if you want a list of
others, please email
me at [now ellen [at] ellenshapiro.com] and I'll send
it along. Everyone there was extremely nice. I don't think
I met one person there I didn't like, at least among the
musicians.
5. SO
OVERALL, HOW WAS SEATTLE?
Kickass. I'm so going back next year if they let me, which
I really hope they do. For further coverage of all the
stuff they did, check out http://www.rockrgrl.com and they've
got some coverage of the conference on there.
6. COOL.
SO WHAT DID YOU DO FOR THE REST OF THE
FALL?
I was in school. I did schoolwork, schoolwork and more
schoolwork. I really put my nose to the grindstone this
past quarter, and while I found that when I do that I can
get very good grades, it also means that I have no life.
Personally, (I'd like to point out that my parents don't
agree with this stance) I'd rather have a life than numbers
on a sheet of paper, so I will not be working myself to
death again this quarter. However, I did manage to
start...
7. THE
WXRU MONTHLY CONCERT SERIES
What in the hell is WXRU, you might ask? It's the small
radio station that's run out of the basement of my dorm,
and I am the Program Director. Basically what this means is
that I make up the schedule, try to get people to actually
do their shows, and find ways to promote the station. With
this one, I've ended up accidentally doing blatant
self-promotion as well. What happens is that myself and
another random songwriting type person from Northwestern
will each play a 90 minute set in order to try to hype the
wonderful webcasting of our station. The station is on
Sunday thru Thursday nights from 8pm-1am Central Time,
[webcasting got nixed by the RIAA. jerks.]. You
need either a Winamp player or a Macast player to hear the
stream. If you don't know what these are, email me at [now ellen [at]
ellenshapiro.com] and I'll attempt to explain. My own
personal show, Skinny Dipping in the Mainstream, is on
Sundays at 10 (central time).
7. WHAT'S
WITH THE NEW LINK ON YOUR EMAIL SIGNATURE?
Ah, someone noticed! When I was in Seattle, I learned of a
lovely internet company called CDBaby.com, which is an online
distributor of CD's. And unlike most internet companies
right now, they're actually hiring people and making
money. They're basically a big consignment record store:
you give them your CD, you tell them to sell it for $10
or however much you want to sell it for, and they keep a
portion of that and give the rest to you. And unlike my
other online distributor, they actually pay me within a
reasonable period of time. So I'm starting to send all
my website traffic to them, since they're very nice,
very helpful people, and they sell my CD cheaper than
most of the internet places except buy.com, who sells it
for the same price, but who I'm afraid will be going out
of business any day now. CD Baby is basically the indie
clearinghouse, so if you like independent music,
definitely spend a couple of minutes piddling around on
their site, because you might stumble across something
cool. My direct link is http://www.cdbaby.com/ellens.
8. SO WHAT
HAPPENED TO ELLENSHAPIRO.COM?
I bought the domain name, and right now it's directing
people to my mp3.com site [which no longer exists,
thanks to the internet bubble], but I didn't have the
time to actually put together a site as I spent a lot of
time digging my way out from underneath a giant pile of
work. However, by the time of the Spring Newsletter, it
should be up and running, as one of my classes has a Web
Design section, and I'll be setting up es.com as that
project. Hopefully it will be very cool, and it will
officially be unveiled with the Spring
Newsletter.
9. THIS IS
THE ENDING...THE ENDING OF OUR STORY...THE
ENDING...
So that's it for the Winter, I'm sorry there wasn't a
tremendously large amount of news in this Newsletter, but
like I said, I spent last quarter with my nose plastered to
the grindstone, so there wasn't a whole lot of music stuff.
I hope everyone is doing well, and if I haven't heard from
you in a while, drop me a
line at [now ellen [at] ellenshapiro.com], I really do
like to hear from people. The Spring Newsletter should have
a lot more interesting stuff in it. Hope everyone has a
good winter, and I hope you don't all spend it digging out
from nine zillion feet of snow like we're going to in
Chicago.
Much Love To All,
-Ellen
More Old News
2003
2002
Spring
2001
Winter 2001
Fall
2000