10-19-11 | New Tunes on Bandcamp

Not only does Kin to Stars have a show in Tacoma this Friday (6:30pm @ the Harmon Brewery Tap Room. woot woot!), we have two new songs on Bandcamp. You should definitely give them a listen, share them with your friends, and download them to your playlist.

7-18-11 | Kin to Stars

Oh how time flies and new songs sparkle. Scott and I started a low pressure write-athon about a year and a half ago just to see what our musical minds could create. Well, I’m pleased to say that we are finally ready to debut a bunch of new tunes as Kin to Stars. For these early months, we’ll be rockin' out as an urban folk duo, and as a teaser, Scott put together the trailer below. You can find the event on facebook or just put a pencil to paper and mark your calendars old school style for our first show on August 6th at Egan’s in Ballard.

7-8-11 | Playing w/ Five For Fighting & Jon McLaughlin This Sunday!

Boy oh boy! I just found out I’ll be performing on Sunday at the GreenNote Concert series in Seattle. What’s better? I’m opening for Jon McLaughlin and John Ondrasik of Five For Fighting! Yippee!! What a great July surprise. Here are the details:

Sunday, July 12 @ 6:00pm | $22 adv, $25 at gates
GreenNote Concert Series
Mural Amphitheatre at Seattle Center
$22 adv, $25 at gate - Buy Tickets

Hope to see you there!

5-31-11 | Jazz-ified

My grandma had a subscription to Sheet Music Magazine and could perform just about any popular jazz tune on the piano. Before I knew names like Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, or Ella Fitzgerald, I had sing-alongs to the tunes they made famous. I’m pretty sure my grandma’s musical influence was the reason I was so obsessed with jazz music growing up and jazz choir in high school. Now days, I often think of new songs by scatting out made up words and sounds until the syllables fall together to form the right phrases. There’s just something about jazz that is pure, sweet and makes me completely alright with the world.

All that being said, you can imagine how fantastic it was to hear that one of my songs was jazz-ified and brought back to its slow and saucy roots. Thanks to Shayla for letting me post this great youtube video of her performance of “Something Right.”

5-25-11 | Folklife’s 40th Festival

Folklife approaches and I’m more excited than a bluegrass player with a banjo. I’ve been involved with the festival in some capacity since 2004 and love everything about this 4-day melting pot of music, dance, and culture. There are so many communities and traditions that are alive in the Northwest, and this coming weekend is a celebration of our region’s spectacular diversity. It’s an event that literally embraces everyone; musicians, dancers, street performers, scarf twirlers, “free hugs” solicitors, and food and craft vendors.

I play on Saturday, May 28 at 5:10pm on the Alki Court Stage. You can map out your festival route this year using a sweet online tool called SCHED, and you can visit the hip new festival website for even more info.

Congrats on the 40th Festival, Northwest Folklife. I’ll see you there!

4-26-11 | Schmorg-a-rific!

Balagan Theatre, you are incredible. You are the wind beneath my strings. The peanut butter to my jelly. Quite possibly the Billy Blanks to my Tae Bo. How did you know I needed the human race to prove how awesome and generous it can be? Life is glorious, especially when you can round up a couple hundred people to raise $10,000 for a friend in need. Lou, I heart you!


Last night, at the Schmorgasborg reunion, I may have dressed as Harry Potter and may have performed a totally absurd song about my Harry Potter fan club. I may have even referred to a P-P-P-Potter Face and Potterazzi (thank you Lady Gaga and Urban Dictionary for the inspiration). But the night was magical, regardless of the possible video footage that may or may not incriminate me as a Potter lover.

Support, love, friends, and laughter. We need more of these things in the world because with them, even the smallest of communities is able to accomplish great things.