Seasons Greetings and more...

December 10, 2009

Seasons Greetings!

Cindy arrived in Los Angeles to rain and below average temperatures (“freezing!” to LA natives). The Refugees started recording our 2^nd CD this week! We cut four new tracks with fabulous drummer, Scott Babcock and we are extremely excited about it! It will be very different from the first but obviously still featuring our vocals and harmonies. We have written five new songs together so far for this album, with one or two more on the horizon. As with the first record, we also will have a couple each of our own songs we’ve “Refugized”.

We’re finishing up a year of a lot of road work, touring all over the country and Canada, truly solidifying The Refugees as a band. 2009 was an odyssey of sorts, we learned a great deal about ourselves and about us as a band. Along the way, we met some wonderful people and played some kick-ass shows. We go into this new phase now, recording a new CD and booking for 2010 with assurance, confidence and optimism about our future.

Going back a week or two, here is an example of the glory of “the road” (other than the performance itself) --The Refugees met in Calgary, Alberta for one concert, Thanksgiving weekend. Now for Wendy and Deborah, the travel consisted of getting on a plane Friday late afternoon in Los Angeles and flying non-stop to Calgary, arriving three hours later. For Cindy, flying from Maine was a completely different story. Long, tedious story short (cancelled flights etc)--it took her almost 22 hours to get to Calgary on that Friday. Now the concert itself on Saturday night, and the folks at Bow Valley Music Club were awesome! We were well taken care of and had a great time! We love Calgary! (And they seem to like us—we’ve been there three times in the last year or so and go back in January!) Only hours after arriving it seemed, Cindy, Deb and Wendy got to the airport on Sunday at 6:30am to fly home and discovered that through an error of United’s making—Cindy didn’t actually have a ticket! She DID have a ticket according to her itinerary and receipt—but not according to the airline. So… let us just thank the good folks at DELTA—who finally after an hour and a half of them being on the phone with United not being able to get it fixed—actually fudged a bag tag and a ticket, walked Cindy through immigration and security and put her on the plane! During this time Wendy and Deborah had a nice breakfast and some coffee at the new and lovely Calgary Airport. (Why, you might ask, would you fly to Calgary, Alberta, Canada for only ONE gig? And you would have a very good point! We’ll just say that we are learning from our experience.)

We look forward to seeing many of you along our path in the coming year. We will be playing sparsely for the first few months of 2010, we are doing our first dates in Europe in April. But hopefully we will be bounding across the country in the summer and fall months with our new CD in hand.

We wish you all peace, love and joy this Holiday—and all that in the New Year too!

With much love and appreciation,

Cindy, Deborah and Wendy

Spring is here!

March 24, 2009

Scary landings
Greetings from Fayetteville, Arkansas, where the Refugees 3 flew in on 3 different planes, all landing within minutes of each other, and all with fairly harrowing tales of the descent through the thunderstorms over Little Rock.
The grand prize went to Deborah, whose plane actually touched down on the runway and then lifted off again in the storm, because, as the pilot explained, the windshield wipers weren't working fast enough to keep the window clear, and they couldn't see...the...runway... OK, so my flight with the 1000 foot drop in the clouds was nothing compared to that...nor to the second prize winner, Cindy, whose entire suitcase and all contents are completely soaked through. In her corner tonight, all of her clothes are hanging everywhere to dry.

Miles and miles of shows

At this point in 2009, we've already done more shows than we did in all of 2008, and that seemed like a lot. Check the website for the latest tally of interviews, reviews, radio stations, tv, internet, and live shows that we've done, and what's coming up. Balancing this road life with our private lives is a real challenge, as Cindy mentioned in the December blog--fear not, the challenge continues, at times dwarfing last years' obstacles--but it seems that with a fairly developed sense of humor and a basic sense of purpose, we keep mushing on, with our wonderful families in our corners.

We started the new year in Manhattan, playing at APAP, the conference for performing arts presenters--you get to play for 20 minutes and you'd better rock..
i think we did. Then it seems like I remember a lot of driving around the northeast, in snow, and rain--and being in Memphis at Folk Alliance, in Nashville at the Bluebird, in lovely central California: Monterey, Newman--Steinbeck country, and magnificent at that. of course, I'd been in Poland in early February between tours with the Refugees, so the best I an say is that I seem to remember these landscapes, and these moments on stage.

Speaking of moments on stage, we've all got little video cameras now, and we're trying to capture as much of this experience as we can--some of it, alas, can never be shown to the public, but some of it just may appear in some form or another--stay tuned...

The Inauguration

Cindy and I went to the inauguration courtesy of the great state of Maine..I knew it was good for something besides LLBean and Cindy Bullens...:) and we were among the famous "purple ticket holders," who shared the common disappointment and bonding of those who held tickets but were unable to get inside the grounds to see the ceremonies. However, there was a moment when we found ourselves in a circle of people, all kinds of folks, gathered together, where one man was holding a portable radio, as Obama gave his inaugural address. One woman was crying, we were all in awe, and we still are. It was magic.

Next

Coming up: big doings! We've got the Getty Center series in Los Angeles May 30, Falcon Ridge in July, the Canmore festival in Alberta, Canada, a webcast from Kulaks woodshed April 22 with our special guest, Mietek, the Polish superstar singer with whom I've been working, and now the Refugees as well, our video taping from Woodsongs Radio airs this month on PBS stations, we go to Alaska in the fall, you name it, we're out there doing it.

In the meantime
Our families are great, our children seem to be driving each of us crazy simultaneously, Deborah is still teaching and juggling plates, I'm writing, producing, and juggling plates, and Cindy is the master plate juggler, between her personal appearances, the Refugees administration, and another grandkid on the way...
hmmm...well, at least we have each other.
I played hookey and planted a garden--I did it in a day, of course....

This week in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and then next week in Chicago and Iowa.

Happy spring to everyone
Wendy Waldman
for
The Refugees