Malamute Blogs

Saturday, June 7 2008

This has been an amazing year so far. With the help of Sarah Hunt, Beth Whitney, and Star Anna and the Laughing Dogs we have released two great albums. It's been satisfying to know that people from all over America and the world have appreciated the music that we've put out. We're super excited about the two new releases from both of these artists that should happen within the next year.

On a side note, we ate an amazing dinner tonight in Belltown at the Basque tapas bar Txori. Man, if you have a chance check it out! They're open 11am-1am 7 days a week. It's as good as anything I've eaten in Spain, if not better. Tito

Thursday, June 12 2008

I had the highly coveted spot on the cushy little couch in the KEXP studio for Star Anna's in-studio with Don Slack of KEXP's Swingin' Doors today. Small little star lights hung behind Travis, as Justin tuned his guitar and Frank grinned in anticipation. The band passed their inside jokes back and forth, a closeness one only gets from being on the road touring together. Star Anna tucked her hair behind her ear and smiled as Eric, the sound engineer made last minute adjustments. The sound in the studio was flawless. Shane Tutmarc and I giggled as we awaited the beginning of the in-studio. Don asked a few intro questions to a light-hearted interview and asked them to play a few songs. As soon as they began, you had that old familiar feeling of being in the presence of something amazing. The band finished their interview and played two last songs, ending with the favorite 'Restless Water' on the much anticipated next Star Anna album. The energy in the room was high and was a perfect introduction into their gig later at Conor Byrne. Check out the Malamute home page for your chance to be a part of an exclusive Star Anna 'Crooked Path Live EP' in Seattle on July 18th. We'd love to hear why you're a Star Anna fan... Stay tuned... Sarah.

Thursday, June 23 2008

Had a great Malamute meeting yesterday morning with Star Anna and the Laughing Dogs. We sat around our large kitchen table grubbin' on eggs and blueberry pancakes while discussing many things including the release of Star Anna's follow up to Crooked Path. Gotta love the old kitchen table. We've eaten many great meals together thanks to Tito, the head chef. This new album, WOW, what can I say? Every single song is a gem. We'll be finishing the final recording hopefully in July and then mixing, mastering and CD production. Our goal is a Nov/Dec release. I think we're hittin' this one outta the park. Margaret

Monday, July 14 2008
Star Anna's track 'Restless Water' was chosen to be featured on KEXP's 'Bumbershoot Sneak Peek' Podcast. You can download it for free here! Thanks to KEXP, Don Slack and Swingin' Doors! Friday at The Tractor was so much fun, Star Anna played first and everyone was standing up front singing along to all the songs. There must have been 15 photographers there, and someone from the Seattle PI who writes about Star Anna being the highlight here. Next up is Star Anna's Live EP Recording Party! Email to get on the guestlist. Think MTV back in the day before all the horrible reality TV shows when with the show Unplugged? Intimate, amazing and recorded for you! If you live in Seattle, don't miss it. Sarah

Wednesday, July 23 2008

Beth Whitney lets us in on what's on her iPod!
Music drags my insides all over the place- so I tray to harness that. In my little shuffle these days, I have two types of music: stuff to work out to and stuff to chill out to. That's why I can't really put it on 'shuffle' because I'll either stop running and take a nap on the grass, or be yanked into heart snapping attention during a quiet starlit evening... Some of these songs are...

Falling Slowly - Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova
Viva la Vida - Coldplay
Rain, Rain, Beautiful Rain - Ladysmith Black Mambazo
Sweetest Girl - Wyclef Jean
Wedding Dress - Derek Webb
Shosholoza - Soweto Gospel Choir
These Words - Natasha Bedingfiled
Be My Husband - Damien Rice and Lisa Hannigan
Bonnie and Clyde - Martina Sorbara
To Be Alone With You - Sufjan Stevens
Stay or Leave - Dave Matthews (Some Devil)
Crooked - Derek Webb
Just Like the Water - Lauren Hill (Unplugged)
Lay Your Head Down - Keran Ann

I'm sure you'll be able to decipher the chillaxers from the kick-boxers. I don't really kick-box but it had an 'x' in it like the other word... Check 'em out! -Beth Whitney

Monday, August 4 2008

Summer is in full swing!
The weather in Seattle right now is why people live here. It is for me at least. And over the weekend was the celebrated and infamous Seattle summer-fest of Seafair. The Blue Angels, the hydros, the people, the traffic, and all those sunburns today... Star Anna played a rockin' set on the main stage at Malamute's first Seafair and we sat in the sun selling t-shirts and 'Crooked Path' CD's to instant new fans. The 15 foot inflateable Jack Daniels bottle and revvin' Nascar next to the stage (which Margaret hoped the brake was on) were probably a bit much, but it's Seafair and that's just how it is. Thanks to the Malamute crew, Laurie, and Chris Porter at One Reel for making our first Seafair a great one! Check out the pics in our Malamute flickr photo pool! Looking forward to Bumbershoot in 3 weeks! - Sarah

Monday, August 18 2008

Bandwidth. It's a measure of the width of a range of frequencies, measured in hertz. It's also a music and technology conference in San Francisco. I spent two days in the cool foggy hills with the music industry's current movers and shakers to discuss the evolving musical experience. It was a chance to interact with others in an intimate environment - the right people in the right space in numbers that make it easy to connect. Topics focus on marketing, fan behavior, trends and future forecasts, and an examination of the ways people discover, purchase, interact with, and are exposed to music. If anything, it's a gauge to measure where the state of the industry is, and ask those questions that keep you up at night. Apparently, they keep us all up! In the changing state of where music is at, it makes me happy to know that I work for an artist friendly record label, one that cares about our artists like their family members, roots them on and and cooks dinner and encourages them when they're down. We go to shows, sing along to songs, and are the biggest fans. I've seen the other side, worked at major record labels and seen the dollar signs in people's eyes. I'm lucky to be surrounded by a great team, talented artists, and feel that in an ever changing industry, that's the best combination to have. Bandwidth was my measure of the current environment, and Malamute is on the right trail. -Sarah

Wednesday, August 27 2008

A short while back, Star Anna was asked by ZUNE to do an artist Breakdown. Simply put, it's a background of each song written on her album 'Crooked Path'. We thought it would be great to share with you. Enjoy...

Star Anna Breakdown of “Crooked Path”

A lot of these songs I wrote in my old trailer late, late at night sitting on a suitcase with a notebook on the floor. It was 12’ by 6’ so there wasn’t much room. At the time it was my only private space to be in, so it meant a lot to me. I have a hard time writing songs unless I feel like I’m alone and comfortable and safe. And that’s what I got in the trailer. So in a way it inspired a lot of these songs on this album. And most of these songs were written after midnight, when the creative flow just seems to happen, or maybe it’s just a way to get through insomnia.

If Wishes Were Horses: I was sitting in my Mom’s trailer, maybe a year ago. I had the potential ending of a relationship on my hands, and it was one of those relationships that no matter how hard you try to make it work its just not meant to be. I had been reading a Ray Bradbury book of short stories and at the beginning of one was the line “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.” I’d heard it before but it had never really hit me until that night. So the song kind of stemmed from there. It was the wishful thinking that if we could just get away from everything and everyone else there might be a glimmer of hope, but knowing it takes years and years to even start to figure things out.

Black Cat Blues: This is one of the most cryptic songs I’ve ever written. Each verse has to do with something different, (living in a house with too many people, drinking all the time, the beginning and end of yet another relationship…) but they all tie together in the fact that no matter how many times I’ve been down, or made poor choices, there is always the next time. Part of me tries to blame it on bad luck, but I know deep down that I keep coming back to it on my own accord.

Crooked Path: I wrote this song in Roslyn. I was working at the Brick and was spending my time between Roslyn and Ellensburg (my home town). It’s about a late night of going from sober to drunk to sober again and the series of events that lead me to walk the streets alone, watching day light creep in. The ribbons in the chorus refer to Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. I guess I wrote this as a sort of anthem and a reminder of that horrible night and the way I felt in the morning, knowing something had to change.

No Surprise: I wrote this song during a very vulnerable time in my life. I was trying to make changes in my life and I wasn’t sure if I was doing it for me or someone else. I was having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that I had a hard time being alone, even if that meant substituting false feelings for something real, or trying to be with someone you don’t love just for the sake of having someone. And not only that, but having them lead you on then reject you over and over again. As much as I thought it was hurting me, I realized it was my own ego, not my heart that was being hurt. One of those “wanting what you can’t have” sort of deals, sometimes the effect that one person in a chain of people can have on someone not related. One person liking one person who likes another person who still has feelings for someone else. All of a sudden I realized I was being affected by someone four, five, people down the line. This song has a weird bridge at the very end of the song and it’s only sung once. A lot of people told me it wasn’t right and people wouldn’t get it, but when I kept it that way and put it on the record, it became one of the things people liked the most about the song.

Places We Exist: This song came from a few poems I had written about reincarnation and love. Feeling like you had found someone you knew in a past life. Someone you had loved before. Also added with the fear of death being the end. Somehow hoping we live on, or maybe coming back in a new life. It’s also one of the first love songs I wrote that leaned more on the brighter side of love. It talks about someone easing your fears of death because you feel like you must have known them before. This song also has a bridge only sung once. It felt too redundant to sing it more then once.

Five Minutes To Midnight: I’ve always had a fear of death, but at this period in my life it had become more apparent, to the point that I was having reoccurring dreams about the world ending. I would wake up at least once a week in a state of panic. I was sitting in my Mom’s room one night listening to NPR and they were talking about the doomsday clock and the different points in time and where it had been set. It was like a countdown to how close we were to nuclear explosion, aka end of the world. It really scarred me but I couldn’t get away from it. So I wrote down the chorus for this song. Writing it down and facing it seemed to ease my fears and I started having less dreams. When I got to the verses for this song, it had more to do with a relationship. It was a taboo relationship that I felt I wasn’t supposed to be in. It always felt like any time we spent together was limited, and I could never fully commit myself. So the verses can be double sided, counting down to the end of the world, or counting down the inevitable end of a relationship.

Devil Don’t Remember: I wrote this song in my Mom’s VW bus one summer. It’s about leading the sort of life that inspires other people and in a sense won’t make you a notable person to the devil, whatever the devil may be. Though I must add, I don’t believe in a devil or in hell, but just a sense of being, maybe the demons inside of you. It’s about living a life that doesn’t feed those demons and about going through things in the search of a better way of life. Learning from mistakes and getting tired of making the same ones over. My favorite line in this song is “before the end of days, we’ll set this whole wide world ablaze or no one will remember our names.” Again I guess it’s about wanting to exist even after your gone, having people remember you for the good things you’ve done. The chorus is about that ache you get for a home, a place to rest your head when life gets heavy. I think everyone is looking for that because life just has a way of throwing curve balls at you no matter who you are. Having a home, a safe place to go, with people who love you always makes it sting a little less.

Bed That I’ve Made: This is definitely one of my folkier songs. Folk chords, folk strumming patterns. I really love how this song turned, very rootsy and down home. It’s another song I wrote in my trailer late one night. It’s a personal proclamation of security in myself and the life I have created despite any hard ships I’ve gone through or mistakes I have made and its also a message to the young ones in my family (or anyone) because its hard being a kid. I remember how hard it was for me. I had a lot of energy and a lot of people didn’t know how to deal with that. It’s a terrible but unavoidable thing that we all grow up with unnecessary guilt instilled in us, and it’s about getting past that. Realizing that you are in charge of your life and you have the ability to change and the ability to not let those negative things affect you. Its one of my favorite songs because it carries such a strong message, one that I hold dear to my heart, one that I need reminding myself from time to time.

Space Beneath The Door: I was living in Roslyn and the door to the room (shed) I lived in had a big gap underneath it, so as it got colder we had to put a towel there to keep it warm. I lived there for three months and when I had to move, it was during a potential end of a relationship (reoccurring theme?) I felt abandoned and angry. Something this person had told me was that if he hadn’t ended it, then I would have, so “you always believed if it wasn’t you it would be me” was a bitter bite back at that. I wanted to be able to let go of that place and that time, so this song was a freeing experience for me. It has a bit of a sting to it and it was my way of saying things I wanted to say but I am glad I never actually said in person.

Wait: I feel like this song is pretty obvious in it’s meaning without being too specific. It can be related to a family member, lover or friend that’s going through a hard time that affects you strongly because you love them, but at some point you have to accept that you have to step back and let them go through it. That sometimes there isn’t anything more you can do then just be there and wait. It’s one of the most emotional songs for me to sing. It’s also one of the most honest songs on this album.

For more on Star Anna go to StarAnna.com Catch her Sunday at Bumbershoot on the Mural Stage at Noon! - Sarah