Tish's Corner
April 2010


Hi Everyone,

Although the air is still on the wintry side, it is nice to see a little more sunshine with the longer days of springtime. I hope you are enjoying it, wherever you are. We had a particularly icy and cold winter in Hamburg this year. It was really fascinating to see the Alster lake frozen over. Something I had not seen in the six winters I have been here. So the locals say, 1997 was the last time that had happened. People were pretty excited about it as they took to the lake, slipping and sliding, taking pictures, and of course, enjoying wurst, beer and Glühwein. Great winter scenes. It fascinates me that winter can do things like freeze huge bodies of water, and can also create tiny delicate patterns in tree branches that shine like crystals in the short appearances of daylight. There is something to love in every season.

I got a nice break from winter when I went to Memphis and to Austin in late February and early March. In Memphis, I attended Folk Alliance, which is a music conference that brings people from every facet of Folk and Americana music together for showcases, business, and fun. Being there gave me a chance to visit with and listen to old friends, as well as being impressed and inspired by newer songwriters and their songs. I also enjoyed walking around downtown and seeing the great old Mississippi River. Austin was nice and warm already as the city was preparing for its really big music and film events, South By Southwest. I didn't stay for SXSW, but I did have a couple of nice shows in the area and kept busy with Austin home-front stuff like an impromptu apartment painting week.

I returned to Hamburg in mid-March and it was still frozen! My husband and I visited Berlin where I had a nice Culture Center concert, then attended a Country Music convention. Wow - people there seem to love country music more than country music loves itself! There was a great party atmosphere throughout between the performers and the visitors who go there to catch "Everything Country" under one roof. Again, like at the other conference I attended, we enjoyed being around music lovers and old friends. I am continuing German lessons and I also am trying to learn some digital recording with my laptop. There are so many challenging and interesting things to do and to learn. I have certainly not chosen easy ones. I'll be optimistic and suppose that I will get a little better as I go. My writing work is on hold these days. I hope it will knock me on the head soon.

In late March, we had a little tour in Southern Germany in Villingen, Ehingen, Langenau, and Munich. The audiences were receptive and really nice. I was accompanied by my German friends and musicians, Uli Rademacher, Susanne Eder, and Moe Jaksch, (and my husband Andreas, who was great help and always good company). At one of the shows, we had a terrible sound problem, so we decided to play unplugged! It really changes the dynamic of the show, in some ways for the better, because it makes the audience pay closer attention and feel more intimately engaged with the music. Our opening performer, Tabea Anderfuhren from Switzerland, was surprised to find out that this was true for her set too. She is really good, and adapted beautifully to the situation. Not that we want to do that all the time, it's not that easy and it doesn't work in all rooms, so we were pretty lucky that it worked and turned what could have been a bad situation in to a special one.



I need to mention here some sad news that an artist and musician from Nicaragua, who I admired for many years, Salvador Cardenal, passed away last month after having suffered from a debilitating illness for several years. He was in the duo Guardabarranco with his sister Katia Cardenal and was the composer of many of their beautiful songs. I had been a fan of their music since early in the 90's, then became friends with Katia after having met her by chance when I was on tour in Norway, where she was living at the time. In 2008, Katia invited me to play at a music festival she was involved with organizing in Nicaragua. While there, I had the opportunity to finally meet and play a few songs with Salvador and to listen to him sing. He also gave Andreas and me a tour of his gallery containing his paintings and his pre-Columbian art collection. Please visit the Guardabarranco Myspace site and Katia's as well, so you can hear their unique and memorable music.



I am getting ready for another U.S. trip in May. As always, we have lots of good venues to play at and also plan to do some interesting side trips to see family and friends. The tour will begin in South Carolina on May 14th, then up to the Philadelphia and Virginia area. Next, highlights in Texas over Memorial Day Weekend will be stops near Houston (The Woodlands) and the wonderful old dance hall near New Braunfels, "Gruene Hall". We will then take part in a music series high in the southern Colorado mountains via a beautiful Scenic Railroad ride. We will also hang out in my old stomping grounds around northern New Mexico with shows both in Red River and in Taos, where we will play a benefit concert/dance for saving the wild horses of the Rio Grande area. Please check the tour dates section of the website for interesting details about all these shows, and I hope you can join us. For the New Mexico and Colorado dates I will be accompanied by Marvin Dykhuis and Glenn Kawamoto, two long-time road and recording companions of mine, and two of Austin's most sought after musicians. We plan on enjoying lots of the area's outdoor summer highlights like hiking, relaxing in the hot healing springs of Ojo Caliente, and taking a white water river trip! Back in Texas, on June 12th, there will be two shows in one day in Dallas, one especially for kids and another later in the evening.

Traveling is such an important part of my work. I try not to take for granted all the pieces of the travel puzzle that have to come together to get us from point A to point B. But the system usually works so well that we don't think too much about it. I am so lucky that I wasn't one of thousands of travelers who got caught last week in the midst of the havoc created by the Iceland volcano. The airspace of the huge ash clouds were lying right where I usually fly over. For so many travelers it was and still is a nightmare even after one week. I feel very bad for everyone who had to deal with that or who still is. At least this did not cause losses of life, but is has caused a lot of expense and stress, loss of work and disruption. All this to say that nature itself still has the biggest say in what happens to us. Let's be as nice as we can to it.

On that note, I will leave you for now. Thanks for reading my little corner. Have a great spring and summer! (Visit my little store "Tiendita Tish" and buy a few CDs or a "Tish Shirt"!)

Hope to see you soon!

Tish

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