Last Spring, the Bachelorettes and friends released a compilation album called The Special Passenger Project—a Jackson and beyond CD that included 17 songs inspired by the phrase ‘Special Passenger.’ The success of this project inspired us to begin our label, Special Passenger Records and we are just so excited to announce a brand new project called Family Portrait.
Family Portrait will be a compilation cd + zine of collaborations between family members. We are fascinated by family bands and hope that this project inspires you to create music with family members who you may not have played with before. If you and your family members like to make music together, or want to try for the first time, we would love to include it on our album.
The CD will be released with a zine that will include portraits of the performers and special pages designed by each group. In addition to submitting a song for the project, we are also asking you to send in a photo of your fam-band, and a page for the zine. Your page can include anything you would like, such as stories, lyrics, drawings, jokes, etc. It should fit in a 5″x5″ square. Also, keep in mind that the photos and zine pages with be copied in black and white. The deadline to submit final recordings, pictures and zine pages is April 15th, and the project will be released on May 30th at the Special Passenger Family Reunion, a bbq picnic & day of fun.
Please let us know as soon as possible if you are interested in being a part of this project. All songs should be original material, written for this album. We are so excited about this special project and we can’t wait to hear from you!
Thanks,
Annie & Amanda
Special Passenger Records
e-mail us here:
annie.blazer@gmail.com
akrainey@gmail.com
Hello everyone and everything reading this blog! I am sad to inform you that we have just left the state of pleasant peninsulas, Michigan, and are headed to Louisville, Kentucky on the highway, while listening to (TIGER VAN MUSIC UPDATE) The Mountain Goats while doing various activities such as eating beef jerky, knitting, and of course blogging on mini computer.
On Monday, we left New York and arrived in Detroit, Michigan just in time for a lovely date with each other of a pizza dinner and cinema experience of ‘Away We Go!’. It was a really goofy night for us, and we sat in the car and laughed about the stores we passed by (‘Slightly Pregnant’, ‘The Self Esteem Shop’), I guess everyone gets a little goofy/crazy after a 12 hour car ride. That night we stayed at Annie’s brother’s really nice little house, and would stay there for the whole time we were in Detroit.
On Tuesday, we explored downtown Detroit with Annie’s brother John, who fit right in with our silly bunch, and ate some flaming cheese and other good stuff at some greek place in Greektown. Detroit is a really interesting place, with lots of old, abandoned buildings among new condos and strip malls. The old peeling and broken buildings were really sad, but there’s this beauty in things like that, especially the old train station, which has been abandoned since the seventies. Creepy stuff.
Later that day, me and Amanda and Annie walked around the awesome strip of shops near where John lives, and successfully bought some beautiful things at this awesome vintage store, and got some coffee along the way (duh). We ate dinner at this neat brewery (nachos, score), and then headed down to PJ’s Lager House, where we instantly bonded with the sound guy and made friends with the other bands. The Detroit show was pretty weird, because we didn’t know anyone there because none of our friends showed, and we played a show with a free-jazz group (ha!) called The Clap (ahaha) with a sweet jewish guy on sax, and then this psychedelic really really loud band called Dark Red. Obviously, The Bachelorettes’ poppy, happy sound was not a really good match with these guys, but the show went on, and we actually got a really great response from the crowd, who gave us such compliments like that they have been having a bad week and our show made them happy again, and that we should create a mini musical out of our music! Ahaha. After the show, me and Annie enjoyed a delicious Mexican plate while Amanda and Lizzie got hit on by ‘the boys in the band’. Ha! That night I slept on John’s beanbag chair (again!), woke up in the morning and we hit the road to get some Detroit BBQ at Slow’s, which was mighty delicious with really great sides such as sweet potato mash and mac and cheese.
Before we left Detroit, we visited the insanely incredible Heidelberg Project, which is a street devoted to symbolic art started by this wonderful guy, Tyree, who we got the pleasure of meeting. All along a impoverished area of homes, the project is supposed to bring hope and art to the people who live there and to people all over the world who come visit it everyday. The project consists of houses and sidewalks and grassy plots of lands covered in colorful polka dots, old stuffed animals, shoes, toys, old cars, vacuum cleaners, abstract pictures of God’s face, and lots discarded items all painted in crazy colors, beautifully abandoned around this powerful place. We captured the heart of Tyree, and played him and the other people at the exhibit our Obama song, gave him a bachelorettes tshirt, and then he let us each paint a dot (these dots are pretty big, like a Frisbee size) in various places of the project, which was awesome for us. He said he was going to mention the visit of a cute sixties girl band to the Heidelberg Project in their newsletter! It was a moving experience.
Only an hour and a half away, the tiger van next entered the small town where Annie grew up, Laingsburg. It’s surrounded by beautiful green farmland, we just looked about ourselves at the pleasantness the whole time. We reached Annie’s family’s adorable house, and were greeted by the whole fam: her wonderfully charming mother Christine, her step dad David, younger brother Matt, and youngest brother Joe, who is my age, sortof. Ahaha. After helping with dinner, we all sat down for an awesome lentil soup meal and discussed the fun times of our tour so far, with our highlighted atlas handy. Afterwards, the Breck family got treated to a mini concert of me on ukulele, Lizzie Wright Super Spaceship, and a mini set of Bachelorettes. Awesome. The evening went on with us watching this AMAZING movie called Benny and Joon, which I had never seen before, and really really liked. After that me and Amanda and Lizzie and Annie and Joe played this weird card game called Caliente and I lost lots. Darn, Moags.
The next day was really fun. We had a quinoa lunch and then went and explored Laingsburg (not much to explore..), and managed to have a really great time going to the post office (DTP!!!), eatin honey sticks, and hittin up TWO garage sales, (I gots a fuzzy bear mask and penguin and owl cups. Rad). We got back and practiced our yoyo song for 3058603568 hours, and then later on headed down to LANSING for our show at Mac’s Bar. Annie’s whole family came!! The first band, the Satin Peaches, was supposed to sound like The Strokes, according to Annie, but they were a little harsher than that, and the lead singer guy’s finger was bleeding on his guitar the whole time! Ahaha. Lookin hot as always, our set went just okay, but as usual, we got a pretty good response from the crowd, who probably weren’t expecting a band like us! After the show, we went and hung out with Matt and his friends, which was pretty much a blast. We came home, and I watched some Flight of the Concords with my best friend Joe before going to bed. The next day we realized some awful things: 1. We were leaving Michigan and all of our new pals! 2. Our coolers smells like rotting fruit! 3. ANNIE’S BASS GUITAR WAS MISSING!
In a hurry to solve the missing bass mystery, we left the our adopted fam of two days, and headed down to Mac’s, but it no one was there, so we ended up hanging out in Lansing for a bit, eating sandwiches and hanging out with each other, what’s new? Annie decided to take us to this cool vintage shop in Lansing and guess who was working there and had some awesome news? The drum player girl from the last band that played on the line up the night before, who said that their band had picked up our bass guitar, and had it at their house! What a crazy coincidence, right? After that miracle happened, we went and got the bass and left Michigan, finally.
Thanks to Misha and Shannon we officially have an album for tour. Misha finished the mixing in the middle of the night before he moved to Oxford, and Shannon designed the beautiful album cover you see above. Now all we have to do is burn the cds, sew on buttons and rubber bands, print 100 t-shirts, make pins, pack, get snacks, and practice!
Rachel moved to Dallas on Thursday and we are already missing her in Mississippi. Luckily, we will pick her up for the last four shows of tour and bring her back to Jackson for our homecoming show on August 2nd. Delia (the dubb) gets in tomorrow night and she is so excited to tour with The Bachelorettes. She has been practicing in costume in my parents house and she asked me to give her a haircut when she gets here so her hair will fit in a wig. She is also our official tour blogger, so you will get to know her over the next few weeks.
Want to know a secret? You can click on the link below and download a song from our album! It will teach you the secret to keeping secrets.
The S.S.Passenger pulls into port in just two days! Don’t forget to dust off your cruise ship costumes and come to 121 on Thursday for the release of the Special Passenger Project CD. We are so excited to get these albums playing on your car stereos and yacht sound systems! $10 at the door gets you the CD, performances by some great local acts, and a chance to win a 121 membership (free shows for a year!). Here’s the line up. Don’t be late!
8:00 Chris Wheeler
8:30 Emily Baker
9:00 Woodpecker Street
9:30 Lizzie Wright Super Space Ship
10:00 Videos and single song performances — Josh&Nicole, Quills, Melody Moody
11:00 AJC
11:30 The Bachelorettes
Click on the music tab to your left to listen to The Ballad of Lou and Mona, our spesh pass song. Thanks Misha and Shannon, and everyone else who has helped with this project. We have amazing friends. You are all our special passengers!
We hope you are excited to hear 16 more S.P. songs. The cd will be released on Thursday, April 30th at the Special Passenger Party!!
Grab your S.P. and put on your cruise ship finery to board the S.S. Passenger for a night of mayhem on the high seas that you won’t soon forget. There will be special video passengers and live performances by Emily Baker, Lizzie Wright Super Space Ship, AJC, The Bachelorettes, and more.
$10 at the door gets you into the party, a cd, and a raffle ticket for the chance to win a membership to One to One Studios, which gets you free shows for a year.
One of the things that we love about Jackson is the collaboration that goes on within the arts community. People are always working together on events and projects and everyone gets excited to contribute to the creative scene in Jackson. Whether it is helping organize a literary reading, printing t-shirts or learning about a Jewish holiday, it is always amazing to us how wonderful and involved this community is.
With that, we are excited to formally announce our ‘Special Passenger’ project! We are compiling a CD of ‘Special Passenger’ songs written by our friends and we need your help! Click on the link below to learn all about Special Passengers and how you can contribute to this project.
The rules are simple: Write and record a song inspired by the phrase ’special passenger’ and send it to The Bachelorettes by April 15th. We will compile them and create a beautifully designed CD that will be released at a Special Passenger show/party on Thursday, April 30th, location TBD. We will also love for you to play your songs at the party! The CDs will be sold at various locations around Jackson and the proceeds will go to a charity or cause to be determined. Please comment on this post if you have any ideas for donations or the project in general, or to let us know that you are participating.
We can’t wait to hear what everyone comes up with!
p.s. Come out to our show at 121 on Tuesday, March 24th to see the debut of The Bachelorettes’ special passenger song!
Here are some upcoming events we are particularly excited for:
Tonight is Janine’s Writers Spotlight at the Sneaky Beans at 7:30pm
Monday is the Jewish holiday of Purim!! We are celebrating with Purim crafts, Megillah reading, carnival games, costume wearing, dance pong, and so much more! RSVP 7pm at 121 Studios
March 19th at Sneaky Beans is a special performance of Taylor Hildebrand and Lizzie Wright. It will be beautiful.
March 21st is the St. Patties Day Parade!! Look for The Bachelorettes in green wigs. You may even get to hear a song on the street!
March 24th, 121 Studios. Taylor Hildebrand, The Physics of Meaning, The Bachelorettes.The Physics of Meaning will be here all the way from Chapel Hill and are very talented and friendly.
March 26th –DUBB NUBBare coming to Jackson!!! They are the amazingly talented little sisters of Amanda and they are playing a show at Drink Space at Swell-O-Phonic. Robert’s son Baxter will be opening and Lizzie Wright Super Space Ship + band will close out the night.
Holy Cow!! There is so much happening….MISSISSIPPI HAPPENING!!
Hey there boys and girls in radio land! We have been busy and excited here in Bachelorettes land about our new radio project with Mississippi Happening on WLEZ 100.1 FM. We are recording a concert calender each week to spread the word about Jackson’s music scene, and let people know about all the events going on that week. The show is every Friday at 5pm and is an hour of pure joy and happiness as Daniel Guaqueta plays local Misssissippi music and discusses all the crazy things going on in the Jackson music world.
Tune in tonight at 5pm on 100.1 fm or listen live on their website. You can catch our calender several times throughout the show, or listen to it below.
