Phoenix Diary

Affectionately known as

VAGINAL TAP

you've heard of 'Spinal Tap', well this is HER-STORY where you get the real scoop on PHOENIX:

We're going to kick this off with some background on Phoenix by answering a frequently asked question - "How did you two meet?"

Diane - Saturday, October 16, 1999 1:30pm
"It was Sunday, December 27, 1998. Sara was in the midst of her solo tour & I was just home for a few days in the middle of Lois Lane's Winter Tour. Sara was performing at Forevergreen and I was there to drop off some publicity materials for LOIS LANE's upcoming gig. From the parking lot, I heard this wonderfully strong, soulfull voice. At first I thought it was Ann Mounty who I had worked with for a few years in the band Boy o Boy! (currently, Ann is with Tobi Dean & Sue King in Triage ), but as Sara finished "Come to My Window" and moved on to another song, I'm not sure if it was her emotion or the choice of material, I knew it was someone I had never heard before.

I later found out that Sara had booked the gig with the venue's old owner & the new owner didn't know that Sara was even scheduled. Sara may have never performed on Long Island if it wasn't for the new owner taking a chance on her that day!! Can you imagine, she might have had to turn around & drive back home.

At that time, home was a big, pink, 6 bedroom Queen Anne in Deleware with beautifully restored details (that she did all by herself) where her St. Bernard "Pie" was waiting for her. Sara is from Philly, but bought the house in Delaware as an investment a few years ago (only minutes from Rehoboth).

I slipped inside the bar & asked the bartendress Pat about her, but I had no luck. It was Sara's first time there & no one knew anything of her. After being blown away by a few more songs, I slipped her my LOIS LANE business card & left.

We spoke a few days later & arranged to meet for coffee at Rising Cafe in Park Slope, Brooklyn to exchanged details on venues.

Although Sara was performing solo & I was with a 4 piece (Lois Lane), we were able to help each other out quite a bit that day. I had performed for over 9 years throughout the North East USA & Sara had been down the same road even longer but with the exception of Henrietta Hudson (NY, NY), we didn't have any venues in common.

Armed with a pocket full of new bars for LOIS LANE to perform in, I left. Never expecting to see this big voice again. I thought 'what a really nice person', and I'd add her to the list of musicians I've met during my time with LOIS LANE that I promised myself I would find time to work with, eventually...."

Diane - Thursday, October 28, 1999 12:30pm "At this point there's so much going on for Sara & me within the realm of music. In a few more weeks, we'll have our first CD recorded - now we're considering splitting the material into 2 CD's. The first will be all cover tunes. Did you know that whenever a band records a cover tunes, they've gotta pay royalties for use of the song to the songwriter? It's not bad though, only a few bucks for the first 500 pressings. We'll be spending about $500 just for royalties on the cover material - but we gotta do the right thing by the songwriters. The cover CD will be titles "Ressurections" and as far at the original material...we'll I'll give you that on my next entry. In the mean time, we've hooked up with a wonderful international producer & performer to help bring quality to our work. He'll be working with us first on the CD material, then on our live material. Now, he's consulting for us on which recording equipment to purchase. We're down to CuBase for the software & it's a toss up between Layla & Motu for the hardware. I'll keep you posted."

Diane - Tuesday, November 16, 1999 6:20pm "Picked up a demo copy of the Cubase software. Can't wait to mess around with it. Decided on different recording hardware - Audiosystem EWS88MT by Terratec. It's so awsome - 8 analog audio i/o, 24 bit, 96kHz. shit a CD only gives 16 bit quality. Now I just hope to demo it as well, and it's sold!!! Besides getting the recording going, we added one last date to our fall tour in NJ. I really miss performing there. Some of the coolest women I know are I met at gigs in NJ. So the countdown continues, Diamonz in Bethlehem PA this weekend, Forevergreen in Lindenhurst, NY the night before Thanksgiving & the Den, NJ for their first Saturday of the month women's party. Then it's nothing but recording time!! Well, except for an offer I got last week to work with a new group that's being put together from the company that manages Back Street Boys, In Sync & B. Spears. They said they're looking for a new sound & have an all-girl group set up, except for the bassist. They got my name & contacted me. The kit went out today so we'll see... Who knows, by this time next year...? I'll keep you posted. Now I just have to get it together with Sara to reherse before this upcoming gig. One last thing - I was pleasantly surprised last weekend when I was guided to Forevergreen on Saturday night for a drink. Little did I know that there was a surprise in store for me. I guess being the youngest of the goup, I walked into a Birthday party complete with bubbles, games (even pin the tail on the ???) and a fantastic Birthday cake - all set up like a kiddie party - from the ladies at Forevergreens. And I though I was just inviting friends out for a drink that night. It was the best birthday surprise ever. Ok, so now you know when my birthday is, but hopefully you don't know the year :). Have a great day & I'll be posting some new stuff as soon as I hear back about that other project."

Diane - Friday, December 10, 1999 12:21pm "Just got home from meeting with the producer. We spent some time with him last night & this morning making syth noises for our upcoming performance on "THE RAINBOW CONNECTION". We'll be recording a live performance in their studios on Sunday. We'll let you know when it will be aired. Spoke with yet another producer last night for about an hour regarding an engineer for Sundays gig as well as equipment issues facing CuBase users. Apparently even though CuBase recognizes certain sound cards as being "authorized" and "compatable", they don't actually test every combination so all a company has to say is 'yes, of course we're compatable' and they're given free advertising by Steinberg (who makes CuBase). This producer knows an engineer that used CuBase on David Bowies recent tour with an approved sound card & had nothing but trouble. When he contacted Steinberg he got nothing except that they can't be expected to try out every combination. Expect a poor review of this aspect of the CuBase system in an upcoming EQ magazine - but you heard it here first. The MOTU 2408 definitely works with Cubase, but of course, it's more money...so we'll see. Oh, and we recorded our last performance in NJ at the Den & ended up with a surprisingly good recording of Untouchable Face which we gave to yet another producer who is preparing a remix for us in a dance vein - could be interesting. If it is, we'll sneak it onto the CD, off the label but after the last track. Oh, and the LOIS LANE 2nd Annual Ski Trip is on for the Last Weekend in February. Larger bus to accomodate more women more comfortably, same hotel. The hotel price rose 5% and the bus rose 10%, but we'll be keeping the price steady at $300, Last year we overdid it with the food so we will still be able to pull it off for the same price. If you'd like info, go back to the home page & email us. Anyway, gotta hit the day job now. Ciao"

Diane - Wednesday, February 9th 2:22am "I can't believe it's been 2 months since I've written something on this page!! I guess the Holiday-Black-Hole got me. Well, lots has happened & I'll have to go back to December & pick up where I left off. Sara & I had a wonderful time at the Long Island Pride Parade Winter Ball in early December. We got to spend the night with friends we usually only get to see when we're working. With the holidays upon us, nothing musical really took place, but a lot of business stuff for GFP (Girlfriend Productions) including the ski trip plans & preparing a web site for Me Jane (one of the new GFP bands)as well as preparing their touring schedule. PHOENIX also had to reschedule our TV appearance quite a few times over the last few months - once we forgot some equipment home!, once Sara was sick, once the TV crew was sick, now we're just waiting on rescheduling the date. If you're interested in being in our studio audience, let us know & we'll set it up. Then came January - with a quiet New Years Eve - the first where we weren't performing in quite some time. It was spent with friends & family and couldn't have been nicer. The rest of the month of January saw Phoenix spending lots of time checking out other local bands - something we never get to do because we're all usually playing on the same nights!! We agree that our absolute FAVORITE local band is LADEEZ IN THE HOUSE - a long island based all female band. If I ever get married, they're going to play it!! They're great musicians, but even more importantly they're really nice people, no big egos. I'm hoping to help them out over the next few months, maybe prepare a web site for them, do some bookings...oh, and they'll be on the FOREVERGREEN'S Compilation CD. Their next gig is this Saturday night at the 'greens. I'll be there! February has some new stuff happening musically that we can report (finally). Sara agreed to do another solo tour in the spring - so look for her performance dates at Forevergreens, beginning in March. March will be a busy month all around, our schedule has us completing our CD & preparing the material for the spring tour. Another project I've taken on with GFP is to bring some up & coming new artists into my favorite local venue - Forevergreens. Check out LIPP for details on Me Jane & Red Letter Day - they'll both be performing live at the 'greens in March. Me Jane is based in NJ & was a hit at the 'greens last breast cancer benefit. Red Letter Day is an INCREDIBLY talented group based in MD who have 2 CDs and a CD single currently pressed - they tour the US but have never been to Long Island. Phoenix caught up with them in PA where we performed at a mutual venue. I was so impressed with these women's performance I knew I had to introduce them to long island. They are the next "Indigo Girls", but more modern. In the next few days you'll be able to hear RLD at the 'greens once the CD gets on the jukebox & you'll see for yourself what I mean. Hmmm, what else do I have to report...Oh remember that management company for those pop stars that asked me for a demo....well I GOT THE GIG!!!! I don't know when it will happen, and I don't know exactly what it means; I haven't seen a contract yet, I have no idea what the music sounds like, all I know is they liked my shit & mentioned that the record company is based in Germany (Adel? Records) who is currently merging with Sony. There's a $25,000 advance on the project, but who knows where that will have to go. It's pretty exciting & pretty scarey at the same time. The tentative schedule is to fly out to record. Then back for rehersals for a European tour, then return to the US once we've gotten tight in Europe. I have to note special thanks to former local guitar gal TC Kross for making this happen. As I know more, I'll post it. Oh, and another thing, this Thursday night I meet up at the studio with a possible new "LOIS LANE"- so far Traci is the lead vocalist, Deny Colt who you may remember from She Wolff & Tang is on guitar, Zoe is sitting in on drums until we can find a permanent drummer & maybe I'll be able to bring Susie back on keys - that's TBA. Speaking of Susie from LL - she's been gigging wth Lori from LL who has been part of a feeding frenzy in the press - one week it's US News & World Report & the next it's People Magazine. Not to mention all the childre's birthday parties for the rich & famous she's been performing - Madonna's daughter Lourdes & Sting's son, even Bruce Springsteen has been to one of Lori's children's birthday parties!! If you have any children up to 2nd or 3rd grade in your family/friends, they would LOVE Lori's CD. Can you believe she's up to her third already!! Time sure flies, I remember when we were performing as Lois Lane & she was just making her first one. I don't know if even Lori had an idea how her business would take off. You can go to to the links page & click on Lori's web site to get more details on that. Ok, it's 3am now. I guess that's enough details for one night. I'll get back in here after the Ladeez gig, let you know how that went. Or you can go there too & see for your self. Have a great week."

Diane, Thursday, June 15, 2000 4:09pm "I've been SOOOOO bad about posting news here in such a long time! This will have to be a doosey...To start -that great deal with the German record company fell through :( They wanted to replace the songwriter with someone much younger & have her manage the project - so she scrapped it. I totally understand, once music is in your blood it's tough to be on the sidelines. Then there was the possible new LOIS LANE reunion with some new members - that didn't happen either. The chemistry wasn't there for the line up although I did really enjoy meeting Andrea who was auditioning for the drummer position. She did a few dates with Phoenix recently & I am happy to have meet such a cool chiro-chick.

Now for the new stuff - dont be sad, but Sara & I are ending our touring relationship with PHOENIX. Although we LOVE the people we've played to, I'm getting too caught up in GFP & she's into doing a bigger sound with a full band (hopefully R & B). I first got into doing an acoustic duo to strengthen my bass playing & vocals - which I definitely feel it did - I felt like I was peaking musically - yet whenever I get to this point, something always takes me away from performing. It happens to me every 3 years it seems. I don't discount ever getting back together as PHOENIX, but for now, our last performance is scheduled to be recorded for prosperity at FOREVERGREEN (www.liforevergreen.com) on Friday, June 23. I hope any & all of you can make it & be part of our recording session. (We did, after all, promise you a CD...)

Since Sara & I will still be working together within GFP, you can always find out what she's doing here on the GFP web site (http://girlfriendprod.home.att.net).

That's all folks - thank you for making it so enjoyable for us to tour & visit with you. Much love, Diane"

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