The Sarah Saturday Weblog

Gypsy Life: Volume Two

2011-10-17T16:27:00.000-07:00

I've always enjoyed riding the bus. There is something really romantic about it. Listening to music, looking out the window, watching the people get off and on, trying to guess what their lives are like, having the occasional interesting or awkward conversation with strangers, watching the city go by... It always plays out like a music video or my own personal scene from a movie.

Today, I was riding the bus with my dog, and I didn't have my earbuds in like I usually do (to prevent those uncomfortable conversations that can come up -- especially when you have a cute dog in your lap). And so, today I met Lloyd: a 70-something, semi-delusional, rambling old man who took a liking to my dog and wanted to tell me about where he was born, and how the city has changed, and all the places he had lived in his life, and all the jobs he'd had, all the while pointing out the window at random buildings and houses and claiming to know the people who worked and lived in them. He talked about how his "body's been halfway around the world and back" and how he's "got a lot of memories" and doesn't just want to "sit around doin' nothin'." He also talked a lot about how he wondered what had happened to his friends in different parts of the world, and that he assumed they "were gone." He said he's survived so many illnesses and surgeries that he reckons "the man upstairs isn't ready for" him yet. He said a lot of other things that I couldn't quite make out, and I don't think he even heard my "Oh really?"s and "Wow, that's amazing"s. He got off the bus about fifteen stops before downtown Seattle, which is where he had claimed he was going, to "have coffee and visit the people who know" him. I watched him fumble for something in his pocket as the bus drove away.

Meeting Lloyd today, of all days, was very fitting, since today is the day I announce plans to put my stuff back into storage and head back out on the road for a few months (or more) of the gypsy life. Listening to Lloyd talk about his many adventures, jobs, and trips around the world (true or not) -- and his current frustration with "sitting around doing nothing" -- I was reminded of how precious youth is, and how easy it is to take it for granted until it's too late and you can barely muster up the energy to get on the bus, or the cognizance to know where you're trying to go. Even at my age, not quite old but no longer young, I still feel like I need to make up for lost time. Today, Lloyd reminded me that it ultimately doesn't matter if you make a lot of money or buy a house or do any of the things we think we are supposed to do by a certain age. What matters is that, when you get to be Lloyd's age, you feel like you made the most of the time you had on this planet, while you had the physical and mental energy to do so.

So, with that anecdote, I present to you THE GYPSY LIFE: VOLUME TWO.

Next month will be my last month in my Seattle apartment. I'll be selling whatever I have left to sell, on eBay, Craigslist, and even a yard sale next month. I'll be putting the rest into storage, and hitting the road with my dog and the incredibly talented Chris Staples for a two week tour that we have affectionately coined "The Migration Tour," which will take us down the west coast and across the south, to a small beach town near Pensacola, Florida, which will serve as my winter retreat and home base between the following tours:

South Florida Weekend (Jan 12-15)
Gainesville, FL
Tampa, FL
Miami, FL
Orlando, FL

East Coast Tour (Jan 20 - Feb 4) with SPECIAL GUESTS TBA
Jacksonville, FL
Savannah, GA
Myrtle Beach, SC
Richmond, VA
Baltimore, MD
New York City, NY
Danbury, CT
Boston, MA
New York City, NY
Philadelphia, PA
Pittsburgh, PA
Cleveland, OH
Chicago, IL
Indianapolis, IN
Louisville, KY
Nashville, TN
Marietta, GA

...and then? Who knows!

In NEW ALBUM news: we are in the mixing phase right now, while I sort out where and how to get the album mastered. If all goes as planned, I'll have the final master copy in my hand sometime in mid-November, to send to the Kickstarter Backers who claimed the advance copy reward. I'm not sure how I'll release it after that; it will take some time to get it into iTunes, but I think I'd like to put it out through my own site and/or Bandcamp, digitally, for free or donation first. I'll be making some handmade copies of the album for my shows, until I can afford to press the album for real!

THE MIGRATION TOUR will kick off in Seattle sometime in November (we are working on a date and venue), and I think I'm going to put together a band to play that show! We set up a separate Facebook Page just for the tour, where you can RSVP to your local show and get the latest info about the tour. If Chris and I do any touring together on the east coast this winter, we'll be using that same Page. There is also talk of us teaming up on a few cover songs together! We made a Tiny URL for the Page at tinyurl.com/themigrationtour, so we don't have to commit to a Facebook URL just yet.

Lastly, I just want to say thank you to my employers at Perfect Copy & Print in Seattle, who hired me in January and have supported me and my crazy schedule, from the EIY Tour to recording my album. They've always been understanding and encouraging about my music, even when I gave them the sad news that I would be leaving Seattle (and my job) for the foreseeable future. That awesome little print shop has been one of the few consistent things in my life this past year, and I'll miss it -- and my co-workers -- dearly! ♥

Now, it's time to start the engines...

Love,
Sarah

Bravely, Faithfully, Perhaps Successfully

2011-09-01T10:12:00.000-07:00

Four hours until my first-ever attempt at using Kickstarter as a fundraising platform is officially considered a success -- wait, a HUGE success. I thought it would be a miracle if I reached my $5,000 goal, which to me (and most people) is an insanely large sum of money. Knowing how broke I am, was, have been, will be, I thought it was too much to hope for, to ask people to put money aside for something like this. I thought most people would only be able to donate $1 - $20. I laughed to myself when I made the $100, $250, and $500 reward packages, thinking that if even one single person claimed one of these rewards, I would be dumbfounded.

Well, dumbfounded doesn't even begin to describe how I feel right now. Over 100 people have not only helped me hit my mark on Kickstarter, but have pushed it $1,000 over, and more. Over 100 people put money aside from their paychecks, cut into their budgets, took the time to create profiles, and committed to making the second Gardening, Not Architecture album a guaranteed reality.

So to everyone on THIS PAGE: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gna/send-gardening-not-architecture-to-record-her-seco/backers,

THANK YOU. This album is for you, and I can't wait to make it, and I hope you love it and play it for your children someday and tell them, "I made this album happen!"

But it's not just the money, and it's not even just this particular fundraiser. It's bigger than that! (It always is!) This attempt to raise funds for a second album is yet another humbling reminder to me that there are so many real people who are really involved in Gardening, Not Architecture. People who have believed in this project since I first started recording the songs, people who have come to the shows, and worn the shirts, and played the music for their friends. Real people who have let me sleep on their real couches, have cooked me real food, have sent real donations again and again from around the world to keep me afloat on the road. Real people who have "liked" the G,NA Facebook page, who "follow" G,NA on Twitter, who send me real heartfelt messages, who really listen to the music, still, two years after the first album came out -- four years after the first EP came out! There are so many real people who have encouraged me to keep G,NA moving forward, who can see enough value in what I'm trying to do that they don't tell me to quit, or try to get me to change direction, or try to convince me to get a real job, live a normal life, give up this crazy adventure. It's so real, and that is the craziest and most inspiring thing in all of this.

I feel like I have hundreds of relatives constantly pushing me to create and produce new music and ideas, moms and dads and aunts and uncles and cousins and sisters and brothers and nieces and nephews all over the country and the world, who have my back and want me to be happy, who love me unconditionally and care about my well-being. These are people I have gotten to know, whom I look forward to visiting on the road, like miniature family reunions in every town. These are people who have let me into their lives, who have made me a part of their stories, who keep me updated on what they are doing. These are people who check in with me on a regular basis, who are happy when I come to town, and who share their lives with me. If that isn't a family, I don't know what is.

So, thank you for being my family. It's all of you that I think of whenever I start to feel lost, and it's all of you that keep me focused. I can say the sentence "I couldn't do this without you" and know that it has a tangible meaning. It's not just some line that I throw around to evoke unfounded emotions in people who I am trying to sell something to. The truth of that statement resonates in my daily life. When I say "thank you for your support" -- I know what that means, in the metaphysical sense, in a deeper way than those over-used words could ever express.

I am going to keep doing this for as long as there are people who want to see it continue. Thank you for being one of those people.

Fortiter fideliter forsan feliciter,
Sarah

gardeningnotarchitecture.com

10 Ways to Donate Without Spending Money

2011-08-05T10:46:00.002-07:00

About three weeks ago, I launched my first-ever (and perhaps last-ever) Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for recording my second full-length Gardening, Not Architecture album. The plan, if I reach my goal, is to head to SoCal in September and record the album with producer/musician Steve Choi (RxBandits) over the course of 2-3 weeks, in two different studios. The $5,000 budget will cover the cost and fees for recording and mixing, plus travel and mastering. Although I set that as my goal for the Kickstarter, the actual cost for me to take that time off from work, hire a dog-sitter, pay my bills for that month, and not have to pinch pennies and live off of PB&Js during the process, is closer to $7,500. If I want to put out the album on CD when it's done and do any kind of touring this year to support the release, that number goes up to $10,000 or more.

When you donate to this fundraiser, you are getting something of actual value in return. There are several "rewards" to choose from, each with a different pricetag, and you can pick what you want to get in exchange for your donation! This is a lot like the fundraisers I have done on my own website in the past, but having the Kickstarter name behind it (and the platform for accepting donations) is (hopefully) lending it some extra credibility -- although, if things go well this time around, I might just stick with my own DIY fundraisers in the future and keep that ~10% that Kickstarter ends up taking in the end.

To see the list of rewards, visit the page HERE!

At the bottom of that list of rewards is my Dream Amount of $10,000. If I can hit that amount, then every single person who donated to the Kickstarter -- no matter the amount they donated -- will get the new album on exclusive, limited to the Kickstarter Backers only, custom vinyl with their names in the liner notes and one-of-a-kind album artwork!

It's only taken a little over three weeks to raise 81% of the $5,000, but there is still $940 left to raise, with less than 27 days left to go -- and even more if I want to really go for it and try to hit that Dream Amount! I know that times are tough, and not everyone can donate money, so I came up with another way that friends and supporters can help me reach not only my set asking amount, but maybe even my Dream Amount (and get yourselves some one-of-a-kind vinyl in the process)! Here's a list of ways you can get involved with the G,NA Kickstarter, and help raise funds even if you have already donated as much as you can, and even if you can't pledge any amount of money yourself!

TEN WAYS TO DONATE TO THE G,NA KICKSTARTER WITHOUT SPENDING MONEY

1. Burn copies of the G,NA album and make your own sleeves/inserts about G,NA and the Kickstarter campaign, with the information and URLs, and give them out at a show or leave them at your local record store!

2. @Mention Kickstarter on Twitter (http://twitter.com/kickstarter) and tell them to feature the G,NA project on their home page!

3. Go to my Vimeo profile and grab the link or embed code for the Kickstarter video, then post the video on Facebook, tumblr, Twitter, your own blog, or anywhere else you can think to put it!

4. Send an email to your friends and family who might be into the music, and ask them to pledge on your behalf. People can pledge as little as $1 and they will get access to the Kickstarter blog, and their name will be permanently listed as an Official Sponsor on the G,NA website!

5. Create your own video testimonial and post it on your Facebook or tumblr, and email it to me (sarah at gardeningnotarchitecture dot com) so I can post it in the Kickstarter blog!

6. Click the Like, Tweet, or Embed links under the featured video on the campaign page, and copy the shortened page URL to repost it on your own profiles: http://kck.st/oR2Cxi

7. Email your favorite music blogs and ask them to check out G,NA and the Kickstarter campaign!

8. Make your own flyers with a photo of G,NA and the URL for the Kickstarter page, and personalize it with your own explanation for what the music is and what the fundraiser is for, and hand these out at a show or leave them at a record store, clothing store, book store, etc.

***9. Encourage people to buy the first G,NA album on iTunes and from my online store at http://www.gardeningnotarchitecture.com/shop! Getting the music out there and building the G,NA fanbase are just as important as raising funds for a Kickstarter campaign! Every past album that sells helps me pay for future albums to be made!

***10. Post the link to my own personal Donation page on the G,NA website (http://www.gardeningnotarchitecture.com/contact/donate)! I use Paypal, and you can donate any amount of money you want, and you'll get listed as an Official Sponsor on my website. Some people (including you?) may prefer to donate through Paypal rather than set up an account on Kickstarter -- and this way, I get to keep 100% of the donation instead of paying a percentage to Kickstarter and fees to Amazon at the end of the campaign! Furthermore, even after the Kickstarter has ended (in 27 days), I can still continue to accept donations through my website for recording and touring. So getting the word out about my Donation page is a HUGE help, now and for the future of G,NA!

Hopefully this list inspires people to get creative and help spread the word about Gardening, Not Architecture! All I need is 250 people to pledge $25 each and everyone will get exclusive vinyl!

I will leave you with the Kickstarter video, which was edited and "directed" (via internet) by my dear friend Derek Woods:

♥ ♥ ♥
Sarah

P.S. In the time it took me to put this post together, someone donated another $50 to the Kickstarter! AMAZING!

In case you missed it at www.gardeningnotarchitecture.com...

2011-07-01T20:09:00.002-07:00

Dearly beloved friends and supporters of Gardening, Not Architecture:

I am writing to you from my new studio apartment in Seattle, where half of my belongings remain in boxes, while the other half are piled up around me haphazardly, waiting to be placed in their designated spot on shelves and windowsills. There are two things, though, that have been unpacked and in their places since the day I moved in a few weeks ago, after spending nearly 18 months on the road, and those two things are: my guitar and my computer.

These are the two things that have made it possible, over the past eight years, for me to make Gardening, Not Architecture a reality. They are the reasons I've made the songs and been able to get the songs out to the world, and they're the reasons I've met so many incredible people on the road and online through my music. They're the reasons I've been lucky enough to have had so many brilliant minds get involved with this project and add their own touches to the garden. Lately I've been thinking a lot about these people, and about how I've never had the chance to publicly thank them for helping me get to this point. So before I take another step, it's time to thank those people who have helped me take all the steps I've taken so far.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
From the bottom of my heart to the top, thank you to Beau Sorenson; Eddie Breckenridge; Krist Krueger; Hunter Burgan; Michael Lee; Bryan Sheffield; Evan Glodell; Eddy Numbskull; Steve Harm; Brian Coughlin; Stephen Chilton; Chris Laughter; Justin Sullivan; German Rivera; Chris Walla; Kevin Lyman; my brother and brain-sharer John Paul Roney; my life coach slash unofficial manager from 2008-2010 Dean Suko; my lawyers and advisors Chris Castle and Rob Wells; my booking agent slash therapist Adam Kreeft; and the one person whose help, advice, guidance, know-how, and patience I could never have done any of this without: Wyatt Glodell. This list of names is precious to me and I carry it with me everywhere I go.
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Today, G,NA begins a new phase and a list of new names. Today I come out of six months of musical hibernation and personal growth. AND! It's also the day that I'm going to ask you, dear reader, to lend a helping hand in perhaps the biggest undertaking I've ever attempted with G,NA.

First, allow me to introduce the newest name on the list.

When I finished the EIY Tour earlier this month in Nashville, and got on a plane to fly to Seattle, I didn't know what was going to happen -- except that I was going to sign a lease that night and return to my part-time job on Capitol Hill two days later. In the time since the last G,NA show in December, I have gone through a few big life changes, and more than one kind of broken heart. Arriving in Seattle on June 5th, I had absolutely no idea how or when or where I would record the next album -- if I'd even be able to record one at all.

As a joke, a couple weeks prior to that plane ride, I had posted my dream live band line-up for G,NA on Twitter, and one of those musicians was Steve Choi from Rx Bandits. I met Steve when Eddy Numbskull booked me in the opening spot at two of their shows in 2009. If you haven't seen Rx Bandits live, you'd better hurry up and get a ticket because they're on their "farewell" tour right now, and it's one of the best live shows you'll experience. They are a band that has risen to success with a lot of hard work, blood sweat and tears, and most of all: by being incredible musicians. Steve is one of those prodigious multi-instrumentalists who also happens to know the business side of music like the back of his hand. Over the past couple years, Steve has contributed his wisdom not only to me personally, but also to my other project, www.earnityourself.com. I was excited when I found out that Steve was moving into the role of producing bands outside his role(s) in Rx Bandits, but it never occurred to me that we might one day be able to work together.

After a couple weeks of being in Seattle and soaking in the reality of all the changes that have occurred in the past several months, I decided I had nothing to lose, and I called Steve Choi and asked if he would be interested in taking on G,NA as his next recording project. Much to my surprise, he was excited about the idea, and it turned out that he had an opening in his schedule right at the time I was hoping to start recording! When I got off the phone, I immediately felt something click into place. I had done it: I had pushed through this wall of fear that has popped up in my life so many times in the past and stopped me from moving beyond a certain point. The wall that is: being afraid to ask.

I never thought any of this would happen, but here we are, and it's official: This fall, I'll be going into the studio in Southern California with Steve Choi to record the second full-length Gardening, Not Architecture album!

I'm incredibly grateful and honored and excited to have this chance -- but it's not going to happen unless I can make the final push through that wall of fear and ask the entire world for help.

And this is where YOU come in. No, I'm not about to ask you for money... not yet anyway! wink

As you all know, if you've been here for a while: I'm not rich. I cashed in my industry jobs in LA in 2009, and spent my life savings over the past 18 months, in order to return to making music and running www.earnityourself.com as my two main, defining roles. You've all supported me through tour after tour, with your online donations, or by buying my music/merchandise, coming to shows, letting me sleep on your couch, and feeding me. You've all read my long and rambling posts from the road, and you've stayed in touch with me even while I've been off the road. You are my friends and extended family, and I mean it. I really mean it in the truest sense of the words.

I'm at a dead end, financially. I have run out of savings, and all I have right now is a part-time job that doesn't even cover my expenses each month. I got rid of my car, cell phone, and health insurance. The only bills I have right now are: rent, utilities, internet, and credit card debt. I also have to feed my dog, and I eat about 1.5 meals a day, but that's it. I don't go out, I don't have any expensive habits -- heck, I even cancelled my Netflix! I'm down to the bare minimum, without having to live on people's couches or in a house full of strangers where it's incredibly hard to be creative and write music.

*Addendum 6/3 - I am editing this to add an extremely important note: I do not feel sorry for myself. I think when people in my situation go online and post about their financial woes to the world, they expect some kind of pity, as if they did not choose to be in the situation they're in. Not me! I don't feel sorry for myself at all. I make the conscious decision to return to be a "starving artist" in order to be able to do what I love to do and live my life the way I want to live it in the philosophical sense. Yes, I'm struggling, but that just makes it that much more rewarding when I'm able to do something like record an album, play a show, or go on tour. And it makes something like a Kickstarter campaign that much more meaningful: I'm not someone who is already living off of music with a record deal or two under my belt; I work part-time jobs to pay the rent and get by. The only way I can record music that doesn't sound like crap is to save money, play shows and sell merch, and do fundraisers. But I do not feel sorry for myself, and I don't want you to feel sorry for me either. :)

In order to make the second album happen, financially, I've decided to launch a Kickstarter campaign on July 8th, and I'm going to ask for my ideal budget, to cover every penny from recording costs to dog-sitting to ordering limited edition vinyl for donors (what?!). I've got everything pretty much laid-out and ready to go, except for one thing: THE VIDEO.

Although not required, a video can make or break a Kickstarter campaign. If you've checked out any of the successful campaigns on there, most of the time it's the ones with unique, funny, inspiring, or creative videos that go above and beyond reaching their financial goals -- not that the project isn't also the reason, but a good video does wonders for introducing your campaign to the world. The problem is: making a video is the one thing I am completely incapable of doing for this campaign. I've never been able to sit in front of my computer and talk into the camera without fumbling over my words, which is why I've never done it, probably at the cost of missing out on a bunch of potential new fans. I can do interviews all day long, but I'm terribly awkward and shy when it's me filming myself. I'm even bad at taking photos of myself. I've managed to avoid the necessity for self-filming and self-photographing with the help of my amazing photographer and director friends, but I'm far away from those people right now, and I literally can't afford not to have a video. It could make or break my Kickstarter campaign, which the album is hinging on, which the future of G,NA is hinging on. So...

♥ I need you to help me make a video!♥

In the next six days (before next Thursday, July 7th), I need everyone to take up to one minute (that's all I need, seriously, at the most -- it can even be 10 seconds) to record a video explaining what G,NA means to you, and why you think people should donate to the fundraiser for the second album. I'll record the intro and outro clips (which is about as long as I can talk to myself on camera before I start to sound like a malfunctioning robot), but the entire bulk of the video will be a montage of clips submitted by people who want to see this project go on and want to hear a second G,NA album! You can do anything: interview your friends, family, dog; write a jingle or a rap song; tell the story of how you discovered G,NA; do a dance to a G,NA song; tell the story of the first G,NA show you saw; get a group of friends and spell something out on your shirts; do a ten-second cover of your favorite G,NA song, tell me what you'd like the next album to sound like; or simply make a sign and hold it up in front of the camera. Anything at all! Just keep it short and record it on a digital camera if you can! (Avoid PhotoBooth, cell phones, and Flip cams if possible. This will make editing all the different videos together easier and faster. If you don't have a digital camera, and can't borrow one, just use whatever you have and I will make it work!)

When you're finished, email me and I'll add you to my Dropbox folder so you can upload it directly. On Thursday next week, my friend in LA is going to edit all of these clips together for me and email me the final video, which will be the featured video on the Kickstarter campaign, which I'm kicking off one week from today, on July 8th!

AS A THANK YOU: Everyone who sends a video that we end up using in the campaign will get a handmade tee shirt from me that says something about your participation, like "I Kickstarted G,NA in 2011." And anyone who sends in a video, whether or not we use it, will go on the Official Sponsors list on the G,NA website, forever.

Of course, once the campaign is launched, I'll need your help spreading the word about it to everyone in the entire world! But for now, I NEED A VIDEO! And I need you to make it happen!

If you have any questions, email me or post a comment, or find me on Facebook or Twitter. My goal is to get 20 usable videos by next Thursday. Think we can do that?

I'm so excited for the potential of all of this. G,NA just continues to grow and morph and develop and change, and I never know what's going to happen next. It's taken on a life of its own, and it is only still alive because of all of you.

It's going to be an interesting rest of the year!

Love,
Sarah

The End of the Affair...

2011-06-13T23:36:00.001-07:00

...with my phone.

I'm about to port my cell phone number to Google Talk, thus terminating my cell service and getting rid of my Droid, which is the sixth or seventh cell phone I have had in my life. (If you have my number, see below!*)

My main reason is financial, since I just moved into a studio apartment and need to cut as many corners as possible to save money for recording and touring. But my secondary reason is nearly as important: Over the past year or so I've grown tired of feeling chained to this miniature computer that I carry around with me everywhere. It's an addiction, to be sure. I can never leave the house without my phone; I can never make it through a meal or a car ride without checking my phone; if I'm driving a car for too long and can't check my phone, I literally start to develop a twitch. I have interrupted dates, meaningful conversations, movies, dinners, and many other REAL moments in the physical world in order to see if anyone has emailed me, called me, texted me, Facebooked me, @replied me, or reblogged me in the virtual world. I feel like Narcissus gazing at his own reflection in the water, every time I look at my phone. I don't like it. And to make matters worse: I voluntarily pay for it!

I'm entering an intense phase in my life right now. I've never gone this far out on the limb before, and I can feel that there is nothing beneath me to break my fall if I lose my balance. I'm in a new city, totally alone save a few new acquaintances (no old friends, no relationship, no family nearby), with only enough money saved up to bridge any gaps between my paycheck and my bills for the next couple months, and nobody to help me if it all goes to hell. But I'm not about to turn back. I'm chopping off the branch behind me to see if I can sprout roots before I hit the ground. There's no other option.

Getting rid of my phone is one big step on a path I've committed to for the next three months. I plan on focusing all of my time and energy on three things this summer: (1) paying my bills; (2) writing an album; (3) starting over in my personal life. I've already been practicing not carrying my phone with me and have noticed a big difference in the way I feel throughout the day. I enjoy my walks more, I take more time to think about projects and ideas without interruption, I feel more aware of my surroundings, I feel lighter and happier, and I am less wrapped up in an imaginary world and more connected to whatever is happening right in front of me. I'm hoping that not having a phone to check every ten minutes will help me focus more while writing, playing music, working on projects, or just enjoying myself either alone or with other people. I'm hoping that as I meet new people and get to know this new city, I will be able to concentrate and really absorb the sights and moments without feeling the need to check in to my "other" world. And I'm also hoping that $150 extra a month will add up fast, because I need it!

Now...

*IF YOU HAVE MY NUMBER, don't worry: my number is not changing, and there's nothing you need to do or change in order to call or text me! You'll still be able to call me, and I'll still be able to call you, and best of all, we'll still be able to text each other! But on my end, this will all be happening through my computer in Google Voice, where I'll have unlimited minutes and texts, for free. The only difference is that I won't be checking my voicemail and texts as often, because I'll only be able to do so when I'm on my laptop. (I plan on saving up for an iPad so I can check in more often and be somewhat mobile.) So the only change you'll notice is that you might not hear back from me as quickly as you used to -- which was probably not that quickly to begin with.

If it turns out that venturing out alone in the world without a cell phone on my person is not such a smart/safe thing to do, I'll probably get an "emergency calls only" cheap-o phone. And if anyone wants to buy me an iPad, please feel free!

The porting process can take a day or two, so if you text or call me and don't hear back from me in that time, just email me! Or better yet, go outside and take a walk and smell some flowers and think about how incredible it is that we get to be alive.

Love,
Sarah

Gypsy Life Update: A Year in Review

2011-01-13T14:56:00.006-08:00

I did it.

One year ago, I decided to overturn my life and go out in search of Fulfillment, Love, and Purpose. I decided to sell everything I owned, put the rest in storage, move out of my house, shut down my company, pull the leeches off of my life, and jump off the cliff into the deep end with nothing to keep me afloat but my ideas and my willingness to follow through on them. And I did it, and it was the most transformative year of my life so far.

Yeah, yeah, we've heard this all before: I've been posting the same cryptic introduction to my updates for months. Changing and learning and transforming, whatever! What does any of it actually mean?

Here's what it means:

In 2010, I figured out what I need to be doing in order to feel happy and fulfilled on a daily basis. For me, this is a life filled with art and music, shared moments of inspiration, open roads, romance, delicious food, and puppies. I figured out that I would rather be broke doing something I love, than be broke doing something I don't love. In 2010, I was happier than I've ever been in my life, and also poorer than I've ever been. So for me, being able to pay my bills does not automatically mean I am happy -- it just means I am safe. And all that time I spent doing something I didn't love in order to pay my bills was just keeping me safe. It wasn't making me happy. When I am truly happy, I am not worried about whether or not I am safe. Luckily, there is an unspoken rule in the universe, that when you commit yourself to doing what you love, the money works itself out. This was true for me in 2010. As soon as I stopped trying to be safe and started trying to be happy, everything just kind of... fell into place. And as long as I work hard to stay true to my happiness, the money will work itself out. It doesn't mean I'll always feel safe, but I will always feel happy.

In 2010, I also found the missing pieces of a puzzle that I had been working on for many years: the puzzle of my trust issues in my relationships with people. I spent a lot of time in 2010 thinking about my past, and watching the way I interacted with everyone around me. By the end of the year, I had a few breakthroughs that permanently altered my perception of reality. (I also have an amazing therapist and an amazing book to thank for putting me on the path toward this self-discovery. Everyone should be so lucky to encounter a therapist like Maureen in their lifetime, and everyone should read "The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem.") I now understand myself in a deeper way than ever before. The things that used to frustrate and haunt me make sense now, and by understanding them, I'll finally be able to move past them to start building relationships with people that are based on trust, love, respect, and honesty. In so many ways, I understand the true meaning of family and unconditional love -- two things that never made complete sense to me before.

In 2010, I realized that in order to find the people who are right for me, I have to be on a path that is right for me. I realized that my relationship with myself needs to be my one true love, and the only relationship that defines me, so that any other relationships I have in life are just the icing on the cake. I realized that using my talents and strengths to help other people is not only fulfilling, but also how I can contribute to the Good in the world, in the fight against Evil. I realized that people we love do not go away when they die; they remain vibrant and alive in our memory. I realized that life is made up of significant but fleeting moments, and that the key to finding joy is learning how to be conscious of these moments when we are in them, to commit them to memory and be grateful for at least one moment every single day.

I realized so much in the past year that I wouldn't have discovered had I not taken the advice of one of my favorite quotes: to BEGIN IT NOW. And now, with a new year in front of me, I can begin building a new life to house these things that are so precious to me.

It takes a lot of time and work to build a life, and you aren't born with the wisdom it takes to do it perfectly the first time. You can only dive in and figure it out as you go. But after enough years, it's easy to get lost inside the life you have built for yourself, never stepping out into the light of Truth to examine it from the outside. It's important to put down your tools every once in a while, go outside, and look at what you've made. Check for structural damage, rust, holes, or design flaws. If necessary, call in an expert to help you decide whether or not your foundation could be stronger. If you do this often enough, you can find the issues early on, and you can patch the holes or adjust your plans as needed. However, if you step outside and discover that the life you have built is not turning out the way you imagined, and is beyond repair, do not go back inside! It is never too late to take a wrecking ball to your life. Better to smash everything to pieces and start over, than to continue living inside a life that doesn't make you feel happy, secure, and loved.

"Purity of heart is to will one thing."

♥ Sarah

Gypsy Life Update: Seven-ish Month Mark

2010-09-29T03:10:00.001-07:00

I'm sitting on an incredibly comfortable bed in my friend's adorable Los Feliz house, which is filled with paintings and mismatched furniture and shag carpets and strange artwork and fake mustaches stuck to the walls. My new glasses are on the bed... along with pretty much everything else I threw out of my suitcase when I arrived here almost a week ago: clothes, socks, underwear, receipts, a hair clip, a wallet, a handbag, my metro card from the NYC subway, a keychain, USB cables, iPod, a headband, sunglasses, receipts, chapstick, to-do lists, and a sparkly ring that I carry around but never actually wear. There's a polaroid that makes me smile, and a gigantic hardcover book that I'll be taking on the road with me to read--

--oh yeah, that's right: by the way, I'm going back on the road.

Ten months ago, right at the turn of the new year, I reached a breaking point in my life. I had been unhappy in my life for many years, despite having experienced a lot of things I never thought I'd even have the chance to witness, let alone work on or become permanentaly associated with. Even though so many wonderful things had happened in my life over those six years, I found myself at the end of 2009 in a terrible metaphysical, spiritual, and emotional rut. I had spent three months of '09 on the road, on the first two tours I had booked since my old band's final tour in 2003. The tours were rusty, to say the least, but at least I was picking myself up and getting G,NA off the ground. But I was caught between two worlds: the world in which I was an entrepreneur, with a small company that was making websites and picking up whatever internet/marketing-related work I could find for us; and the world in which I was an artist, with an album I had invested thousands of dollars into and twelve songs I was prouder of than almost anything else I had created in my life (musically or otherwise).

I had been walking a tightrope between these two halves of myself for quite some time, possibly the entire time between when I ran out of money and quit my entire life in '04 to take a job in California, and when I ran out of money and quit my entire life in '09 to start playing music full-time again.

Money puts an interesting filter on one's perspective. Before I got the job offer with the secretary's salary in 2004, I was living off of ramen noodles and animal crackers, and had just moved back in to my parents' house to try to save some money. I was 23, and I had forgotten what it was like to go out to dinner, buy new clothes, or not have to obsessively check my bank account every single day. During my time in California, I went from thinking my secretary's salary was a gold mine, to snickering at the fact that I had ever gotten such a small paycheck, to having more money in my bank account than I knew what to do with, to slowly bleeding money out of the wounds from running a small business during a recession, until I had spent $20,000 trying to keep my company afloat. I was 29 years old, and I had completely forgotten what it was like to not be able to go out to dinner, to not be able to buy myself new clothes, or to only have to check my bank account every couple weeks.

By the time I got back from touring and traveling and losing my mind, at the beginning of 2010, my bank account was in bad shape. I was having to make some tough decisions, and was scrambling to find a solution to my impending doom.

I was also doing a lot of soul-searching at the start of the year, and the stuff I was finding wasn't very pleasant. I called in the troops (otherwise known as an amazing therapist, my mother, my friends, and some books on spirituality and meditation) and focused all my energy on three things only: getting out of my current situation, making money to pay for food and the most important bills, and fixing my shattered core.

It took me about a month to take a wrecking ball to my entire world, so that I was left with rubble and forced to rebuild. I handed over my company to my friend, I gave notice that I was moving out of my house, I basically stopped hanging out with almost everyone I knew, and I began selling and giving away everything I owned. What I couldn't sell or give away went out on the curb in front of my house. Things I had spent my hard-earned money on, that I thought I would love forever, suddenly made me sick to my stomach. I couldn't get rid of it fast enough -- the possessions or the memories they contained.

Meanwhile, I had come up with a Plan. Having a Plan has always been my go-to coping mechanism. Whenever things have gotten out of control in my life, I've instinctively turned to problem-solving to keep myself from totally falling apart. As long as I'm focused on creating or finding the solution to a problem, I can avoid thinking about how scary the problem might actually be. And by the time I create or find the solution, the problem has usually gotten better (or if it hasn't, I solve it and make it better). I guarantee you that if, when something terrible happens, whether it's a glass breaking on the floor or losing your job, you immediately focus all your energy on figuring out how to fix the situation and what your next move will be to make things right again, you'll feel instantly better. Or at least, hopeful.

So I had a Plan, and I posted this Plan online in mid-February, and it went something like this:

- Move into a storage space and PO box and become 'homeless'.
- Go on first Canadian tour booked by Canadian booking agent.
- Work at Coachella and Stagecoach for two weeks to make some money.
- Play some one-offs or a small tour in May.
- Go out on Warped Tour all summer.
- Figure out what to do from August 15 to the end of the year (and beyond).

I posted my first update from my new "gypsy life" after a couple months. Everything was pretty much on target then, and I'm happy to report that everything is very much on target now, five months later.

Being able to participate in Coachella, Stagecoach, AND Warped Tour in one year, from both the perspective of working and the perspective of playing, was fascinating and inspiring. Working behind the scenes in the California desert for two weeks at two incredibly different festivals gave me a new appreciation for just how much work goes in to providing entertainment to music lovers. And then, going out on the Warped Tour as an artist performing on one of the stages, instead of a production or sponsorship assistant like I had been years before, was a whole new world that I never expected to discover.

August 15th came rushing towards me much faster than I anticipated it would. Luckily, I had planned for this, by making a checklist for my future self:

I hope that by [August 15th], I will (A) still be sane, (B) have saved some money, (C) have had an insane six months of experiences that I will never forget, and (D) know what my plan is for G,NA and EIY for the rest of the year, and beyond.

Well, let's see, now:
(A) Still sane? Actually, yes. In some ways, I'm more sane than I've ever been. I still make seemingly crazy decisions on an almost daily basis, but inside my head (where it counts) I am more balanced, confident, and satisfied than I've ever been... in my life.

(B) Have saved some money? Ouch. I guess I was being optimistic. While I did make enough money over the summer to pay down some of my debts, I got off the road with not much more than I had when I went on the road. But it was some, so I will still give myself a silver star for that.

(C) Have had an insane six months of experiences that I will never forget? Yes, oh yes, yes and yes and yes again. It was one intense moment after another, the entire time leading up to mid-August, to say the least.

(D) Know what my plan is for G,NA and EIY for the rest of the year, and beyond? Well, self, it's funny you should ask my self that, since that's the reason we are (both) here...

MY PLAN FOR G,NA AND EIY FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR (AND BEYOND)

When August 15th hit -- and it did hit... HARD -- I realized I was nowhere near ready or able to take time off. G,NA and EIY had successfully merged into one general idea that I was personally promoting, and the response I had gotten from people all over the continent to both halves of the idea was so strong that I knew I needed to stay on the wave as long as I could. So before I was even done with Warped Tour, I was already talking to my dear friend and Canadian booking agent Adam, at UO Booking Agency, about bringing his little operation State-side, and helping me book a massive two-month long, Warped Tour follow-up fall tour. (It was all his idea, I swear.) And just like that, a friendship that started with two people discussing ideas and shared values, which had resulted in one successful Canadian tour so far, suddenly exploded into a full-blown official agent-artist business relationship, and Adam and I began sending out emails and making calls about my 2010 North American solo tour.

Now, two months later, we have the most solidly-booked tour I have ever done, with not just shows in every city but fans in every city, and with not just good clubs in every city but interested press in every city, and with not just G,NA support in every city but EIY support in every city. It's really an incredible sight to see, and I suggest you do that RIGHT NOW,

clicking

here ---> http://gardeningnotarchitecture.com/shows.

It all starts this Friday, October 1st, and ends November 27th, with only THREE intentionally-scheduled days off. Is that totally insane? Maybe. Am I balanced, confident, and satisfied about it? Absolutely.

You can RSVP for all the tour dates on Facebook, by clicking the "Get Info/RSVP" link next to each tour date on my website, or by going to the Gardening, Not Architecture Facebook page and clicking the "Events" tab there.

There are all kinds of exciting events on this tour, including a couple of shows with my friends Kinch, an Official Slot at CMJ, an EIY Guest Speaker and G,NA performing slot at the Halifax Pop Explosion Festival, lots of EIY workshops and meet-ups before the shows, and of course... my favorite... LOTS OF HOUSE SHOWS!

To help cover the costs and investments for this tour, I launched a Fundraiser last week, mostly to raise money for a used car for the tour (and thank goodness I did, because after I bought said car, I took it in to the mechanic and found out it was going to cost me more than I paid for the car itself to fix everything that's terribly wrong with it). But I didn't just want the fundraiser to be about me, and I wanted to honor the memory of one of my best friends in the entire universe, who died this summer in a car accident outside Seattle, so I decided that from now on I will donate 10% of the donations I get through my Sponsor page or fundraisers to a non-profit organization in my friend's name. She was always a huge supporter of me playing music, and I want to make sure she is always woven in to the reasoning for my continuing to do it.

Beyond raising money and going on tour, I have also started to think about the Plan for 2011. I know I'll take the rest of this year off (what's left of it) after my tour ends, and I know that I'll need to start writing songs for the next G,NA album during that time. I know I'd like to play at SXSW next year, and record an album, and try to do a tour or two overseas. I know that I'd like to spend some down time with my dog. I know that I'd like to get a part-time job that I don't hate, to help get me even further out of debt. I know that I'd like to live somewhere for a while, since I will have been homeless for almost a year by then. And I know that I have a few other little dreams and ideas for the immediate future that I'm excited about. But I don't know for sure what is actually going to happen.

The beautiful thing about goals is that you don't necessarily know exactly how you are going to reach them, but they are accessible from every angle, so you can get to them no matter how long it might take. I have learned that it's best not to get too upset when you feel like you are being thrown off-course, or when you feel like the universe is trying to prevent you from reaching your goal. Neither of these things is true! Those curve balls and detours are important sub-plots in the story of your life, and you should pay attention and look for the life lessons or the anecdotes in those seemingly-discouraging twists and turns. The characters you will meet and the scenes you will have a part in along the way are the real guts and beauty of life. Those moments have such a raw poignancy about them that a person could write a hundred novels or a thousand songs inspired by one hour of one specific day during which they overheard a conversation between two old friends, one the mentor and one the student, now reversed in their roles as the mentor is aging, about the good old days when they were first starting out in that repair shop, just the two of them, and what an honor it was for the young student to work for such a master of his craft as the mentor was, and how proud the mentor was of the student when he left to start his own business using the skills he had learned from his teacher -- these two people who would never have crossed paths in any other life, but were here sharing laughs over coffee in the office of an auto repair shop, impossibly and honestly, without a second thought about it.

“To die is nothing; but it is terrible not to live.”

Here's to the next three months...
Sarah

Fall Tour/Charity Fundraiser

2010-09-20T20:08:00.002-07:00

A LITTLE BIT ABOUT WHY I DO THIS...

In addition to the ongoing Donations page on my website, I occasionally hold a fundraiser online, in preparation for an upcoming tour, recording session, or other major G,NA-related event. Earlier this year, I held a fundraiser in which I sold a bunch of my old band's shirts, CDs, and vinyl, plus some one-of-a-kind G,NA merchandise to help raise money for a new console for my light wall.

I'm about to hit the road for my second annual fall tour, and if you've ever embarked on a DIY tour, you know it's kind of like jumping off a cliff without a parachute. In addition to paying for posters, flyers, Facebook ads, tee shirts, hoodies, CDs, and other promotional / merchandise needs for the tour out of my own pocket, I also have to buy a car this time around, instead of renting one like I have in the past. So this fundraiser is to help raise money to cover not only these known costs, but also the dreaded "unforeseen" tour costs -- like flat tires, show cancellations, and bail money for Vegas.

BUT THIS ISN'T JUST ABOUT G,NA ANYMORE...

Starting with this fundraiser, and from now on, I will be donating 10% of any money I bring in through the sponsorship donations and fundraisers on my website to a good cause, in memory of one of my best friends who passed away this summer while I was on tour. Click here to read about my beautiful friend Sara Cornis. For the fall tour fundraiser, my donation will go to Cocoon House, a center for homeless an at-risk youth in Seattle, where Sara worked. For those of you in the Seattle area, I'll also be playing a benefit show to raise money for Sara on November 20th, which is also her birthday.

SO, NOW THAT WE ALL KNOW WHY WE'RE HERE...

Here's how this is going to work: Below is a list of the "packages" that are available in the fundraiser. Read through the descriptions, pick what you want from the list, jot it down, tally it up, then donate that amount and send me a note with all your specifications. If you have questions, email sarah @ gardeningnotarchitecture.com. If you don't have PayPal, you can send payment via snail mail (at the bottom of the page*), but you should email me first to let me know what you want so I know to set it aside. As items are sold, I'll update the numbers on this page, and I'll refund your money if anything you pick is sold out. Don't forget: everyone who donates in this fundraiser also gets permanently listed as an Official Sponsor of G,NA on the Donate page!

------- LET THE FUNDRAISING BEGIN! -------

$5 PACKAGE: Customized Individual Post Card

What you get: A personalized post card, decorated and hand-written by Sarah, sent to person of your choice, with your own message OR random note from Sarah (see example -- your note will be much better).
What to do: Include name and address of the post card's recipient, plus the message text (if any; or opt for the 'random message from Sarah', which is always entertaining) in the notes with your donation.

*******

$10 PACKAGE: Individual Show Sponsorship on Facebook

What you get: Your name and link listed in the "More Info" area on Event page(s) of your choice, plus the above "amazing person" image posted on Event page wall next to your name and link. Then, for each day of the tour, Sarah will post and tag a "Thank You" video for that show's sponsors on Event page wall. Show sponsorships will help pay for flyers, posters, and advertising for that show, plus gas and food for that day, and emergency funds for flat tires and bail money!
What to do: Choose the show(s) you want to sponsor (or just specify how many shows you want to sponsor, if you don't have a preference about which dates/cities), and list them in the notes with your donation, along with your name and the link (if any) that you would like to appear on the Event page. You may choose to remain anonymous as well.

*******

$25 PACKAGE: Limited Edition (50 Total) "First LP" Shirts
by Othello Industries

What you get: Black 100% cotton American Apparel brand crew tee with original cover of "First LP" (design by Wyatt Glodell; photo by Bryan Sheffield). Only 50 shirts total (limited run) in men's sizes XS - XL, printed and shipped by Othello Industries.
What to do: CLICK HERE to order your shirt through the Othello Industries website. Price includes shipping.

*******

$30 PACKAGE: Limited Edition (40 Total) Hand-Decorated
Aderra Flash Drive Wristbands

What you get: Customized Aderra flash drive wristband decorated with G,NA canvas patches, sewn on and signed by Sarah. Flash drive includes: "The Remix EP" featuring five remixes of "Proof" and "Stop, I Get It" (released by Layer23); "Live at the Hotel Cafe" recording of G,NA's set from the February 19th show with Jonah Matranga; downloadable G,NA desktops and photos; music video for "Stop, I Get It"; all on an embedded flash website designed by Wyatt Glodell. Only 40 wristbands left of the original 50 that were made.
What to do: Include mailing address in the notes with your donation.

*******

$40 PACKAGE: Limited Edition (10 Total) Customized
Lyric Paintings by Sarah Saturday

What you get: A 3"x3" hand-painted canvas with G,NA lyrics of your choice hand-written in silver paint marker, plus a little wooden desktop stand to display the painting. Each painting is signed and numbered by Sarah. Note: the "Jabberwocky" painting in photo is number 1/10 (please specify that you want that painting).
What to do: Choose the lyrics you want on your painting and include them in the notes with your donation. Space is limited, so pick up to two lines total. Be sure to include your mailing address.

*******

$50 PACKAGE: Limited Edition (50 Total) G,NA Posters
by Verdilak

What you get: One of 50 total G,NA posters, designed and printed by Verdilak, numbered and signed by both Sarah and Verdilak. Posters are 11x17 silk screened on eco-friendly chipboard French paper.
What to do: Include your mailing address in the notes with your donation.

*******

$150 PACKAGE ONE: Limited Edition (10 Total) Photograph
Signed and Numbered by Bryan Sheffield

What you get: One of ten total prints of original cover photograph from the 2009 handmade version artwork for "First LP" -- signed and numbered by the photographer, Bryan Sheffield.
What to do: Include your mailing address in the notes with your donation.

*******

$150 PACKAGE TWO: Limited Edition (10 Total) Photograph
Signed and Numbered by Justin Sullivan

What you get: One of ten total prints of original cover photograph from the 2010 digipak version artwork for "First LP" -- signed and numbered by the photographer, Justin Sullivan.
What to do: Include your mailing address in the notes with your donation.

*******

So...

(1) You've got your list of chosen packages, and all the details that you need to include in your notes? Circle one: Y/N

(2) You've got the total amount tallied for all the packages you want, combined? Circle one: Y/N

OK, now you're ready to donate! Thank you so much for being part of Gardening, Not Architecture!

*Don't have PayPal? Email sarah @ gardeningnotarchitecture.com with your list of notes and details and the total amount you want to donate, and once it's confirmed that everything is still available, you can mail a check or money order to: Gardening, Not Architecture 4821 Lankershim Blvd Ste F489 North Hollywood, CA 91601

The Results Are In

2010-09-16T13:10:00.008-07:00

*Note: These are NOT the final packages for the fundraiser; just the suggestions that I collected. The actual packages will go up on Monday.

Here's what everyone suggested for the G,NA Fundraiser, which launches next week on my website. Some really good ideas in here that I'll probably end up using! Thanks to everyone who took the time to brainstorm for me! :)

$100

Personalized video of acoustic performance
Custom CD of songs (covers, acoustic versions, b-sides, etc)
"All of the above"
Custom pair of hand painted Toms shoes
Advance purchase of a cut up piece of scenery mounted on a 24 x 36 frame, signed
Home recordings of a) one of your songs b) a song your fan has written c) cover their favorite song

$50

Limited edition poster
Limited edition lithograph
Show poster, signed
Personalized, custom song on CD, signed
Customized G,NA hoodie with personalized text (character limit)
A hand drawn / painted / water colored picture by you

$30

Hand decorated flash drives w/ Remix Ep and live show
Custom G,NA t-shirt w/ personalized text (character limit)

$20

Autographed set list
Autographed show laminate
Backstage passes
Customized postcard print with hand-written song lyrics

$10

Burned CD of music, signed
Limited edition tour cd that is available only during the tour

Personalized post-it notes
Polaroid pics or regular printed pics from a-day-in-the-life of you, at home or on tour

The following list of suggestions was sent to me by my "tour assistant" Ian, who will be going out on the road with me for the entire two months:

$15 – G,NA record and a bus pass with $1.70 balance (good for 1 ride on the bus)
$50 - Sarah leaves a voicemail making fun of someones boyfriend/girlfriend
$100 - Autographed CD + and a Portrait of you drawn by Sarah
$200 - Conference call with Sarah to prank call anyone they want and an autographed CD
$420- Smoke you and Sarah out and then go get munchies
$500 - Fly out to Sarah's house and go out to dinner and a movie
$1,000- Receive a thank you note from Sarah saying "thanks for the 1000 bucks"
$2,000- If you have a secret/confession to make to someone Sarah will come and break the news to whoever the news needs to be broken to (not responsible for the outcome)
$5,000 - Sarah flies you out to her hometown, has a sleep over with you, you get to feed her dog, then she walks on your back; following day, you will go to the turtle boy statue in Worcester, MA, and see the statue of a boy banging a turtle (18+ required or written permission from your parents)
$6,000- Sarah will come to your house and play guitar with you/your band and help you write a song
$10,000 - You and 4 friends fly out to Sarah's hometown to go camping with her, and play Truth or Dare around the campfire, +1 free G,NA sticker (1 sticker only, not 1 sticker per person) (18+ required or written permission from your parents)
$20,000 – Sarah shadows you at school for a day and does your homework for you, then eats dinner with you and your parents that night and tucks you into bed before she leaves

Amazing. This is going to be an entertaining two-month road trip!

Fundraiser starts Monday!

♥ ♥ ♥

What would you buy for $20, $50, or $100 to help a band raise money for tour?

2010-09-13T19:38:00.003-07:00

As you may or may not know, I'm an independent, unsigned musician. I shut down my website company and gave up everything this year to do what I love with my life, and my only sources of income now are: playing shows, selling merch, and getting donations through my website. Occasionally I will run an auction to try to raise money for an upcoming tour, or recording, or buying more merchandise, or paying bills, etc.

Well, I'm leaving for a 60-day solo tour in a little over two weeks, and I have to buy a car to tour in, plus pay for posters/flyers, ads to promote the tour, XS shirts that I forgot to re-order, a plane ticket for my tour assistant, shipping my equipment back to LA to start the tour, and a bunch of other random stuff before I hit the road (this shit is expensive, people -- especially when it's just one person in the band). I'm also trying to pay off a few outstanding invoices for G,NA shirts and hoodies for this year's tours, a $2,500 publicity campaign last year that got me one interview in two-and-a-half months (note: don't ever hire a publicist unless you're famous), and CDs for Warped Tour -- all while making sure my cell phone and health insurance bills get paid.

So, I'm taking a survey to find out what would be interesting and valuable enough that you would be comfortable donating $20+, $50+, or even $100+ to a band's tour fund. Some ideas I've gotten so far include:

1) A personalized video of the band playing an acoustic version of your favorite song, with a dedication at the beginning of the video (to you, or to your friend/gf/bf/etc). Worth: $100+

2) A full-color limited edition poster that is numbered (X of 50) and signed by both the poster artist and the band. Worth: $50+

3) A customized piece of merchandise (handmade shirt that says whatever you want, etc). Worth: $50+

4) A flash drive loaded with music videos, a live recording of a show, desktop wallpapers, and any other b-side music available. Worth: $20+

What do you think?

Any networking tips for a girl hoping to get touring experience?

2010-06-11T12:41:00.001-07:00

First, do NOT be one of those girls who sluts herself out to anybody in or around the band in order to get into their shows, go on the road, meet their manager, etc. In fact, don't even think about the fact that you're a girl at all. Make it a rule never to casually hook up with anyone involved in the scene where you are trying to begin networking and building your career. You only get one chance to make a first impression. Once you get the reputation of being slutty, you will always have that reputation -- unlike guys, who can flirt and hook up with girls and still be respected in the industry. It's a double standard that will never go away, unfortunately. And I'm not even a feminist! ;)

Next: offer to help local bands with merch, booking, and photography; put on shows at your house; offer to help your local promoter with flyering, working local shows, and putting up touring bands when they need a place to stay. Intern at a local record label or booking agency. If you know any bands who are about to go on the road and need help with driving or merch (who are making enough to pay you something), offer to take the job. Be the best at whatever you do, and people will take note. Then, when bands are looking for someone to go on the road, people will pass on your name because you left a good impression on them by doing such a good job. Be professional, demand respect, work hard, and don't react to the wrong kind of attention from guys. Being nice and having fun is one thing, flirting and hooking up with guys because you think it will get you "in" with a band is another. The more respect you earn early on in your career as a hardworking, intelligent, passionate person (not a girl, just a person) with honest intentions, the longer your career will last.

Too many girls start out as groupies thinking it's an "in" for them in the industry, and they end up always having that reputation, even if they get real jobs at respected companies. People always talk, and it's nearly impossible for a girl to get rid of the reputation for ever having been slutty, even if it was a long time ago. The girls I've seen who have made it really far in the industry are the girls not known for who they've hooked up with, but what they've accomplished. They're the girls who refuse to be objectified, and demand to be valued for who they are, not what they look like or what they are willing to do.

Ask away...

RSVP for your local EIY Workshop & Scene Meet-Up!

2010-06-09T11:53:00.003-07:00

Here are all the event pages on Facebook for the workshops I'm running on this summer's Vans Warped Tour. I need help getting the word out in each local scene, so if you can RSVP and then tell your friends and local bands about it, and have them RSVP so we can all start the discussion early, that would be amazing. I've got two weeks to promote the workshop and finish putting together the INSANE handbook that everyone who attends these workshops will get for free! You aren't going to believe how much information is going to be packed into those pages! But I'm extremely overwhelmed trying to get it all done in time... so please help spread the word if you can! Contact for the workshops is meetup@earnityourself.com.

Don't forget that I'll be performing as Gardening, Not Architecture every day, as well, and I am going to need helpers in each city to sell merch and keep me sane. Contact me at sarah@gardeningnotarchitecture.com if you want to work your ass off and be miserable with me in a parking lot for a day or two!

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Carson, CA, June 25th: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=103677653015263

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Mountain View, CA, June 26th: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=129206240436588

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Ventura, CA, June 27th: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=134253056589274

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Phoenix, AZ, June 29th: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=103727076342598

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Las Cruces, NM, June 30th: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=133908199956745

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in San Antonio, TX, July 1st: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=133174286698878

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Houston, TX, July 2nd: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=128049300551775

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Dallas, TX, July 3rd: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=125620384137016

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Saint Louis, MO, July 5th: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=124213924285895

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Indianapolis, IN, July 6th: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=110467755666391

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Burgettstown, PA, July 7th: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=120417274666571

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Cleveland, OH, July 8th: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=117490274960484

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Toronto, ON, July 9th: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=133655579984176

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Montreal, QC, July 10th: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=120469217995293

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Hartford, CT, July 11th: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=129042670458755

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Mansfield, MA, July 13th: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=125860047448929

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Darien Center, NY, July 14th: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=134934109850835

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Scranton, PA, July 15th: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=126009107432883

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Camden, NJ, July 16th: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=125707827461623

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Uniondale, NY, July 17th: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=131022830256615

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Oceanport, NJ, July 18th: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=117396271637124

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Columbia, MD, July 20th: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=128601907168945

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Virginia Beach, VA, July 21st: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=120411351333863

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Charlotte, NC, July 22nd: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=126043277428204

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Saint Petersburg, FL, July 23rd: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=130987953593807

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in West Palm Beach, FL, July 24th: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=100100720042282

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Orlando, FL, July 25th: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=129118880446619

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Atlanta, GA, July 26th: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=117533698289672

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Cincinnati, OH, July 28th: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=117570131619995

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Milwaukee, WI, July 29th: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=126038930763914

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Detroit, MI, July 30th: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=100211426695921

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Tinley Park, IL, July 31st: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=129339170428066

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Shakopee, MN, August 1st: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=134676096546672

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Bonner Springs, KS, August 2nd: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=133452040002707

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Edmonton, AB, August 5th: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=123600711009167

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Salt Lake City, UT, August 7th: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=134214666588908

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Denver, CO, August 8th: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=100217416697625

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in San Diego, CA, August 10th: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=110767942302842

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Pomona, CA, August 11th: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=126419054058401

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Marysville, CA, August 12th: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=129715127047509

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Nampa, ID, August 13th: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=123962467644150

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in George, WA, August 14th: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=100220140029555

RSVP for the EIY Workshop in Hillsboro, OR, August 15th: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=129064643789953

♥ SS ♥

Sarah Saturday Presents: The EIY Workshop & Scene Meetup on Vans Warped Tour 2010

2010-05-19T21:13:00.002-07:00

Warped Tour Summer 2010 -- Kevin Says Stage developer and co-booker Sarah Saturday presents a daily workshop and meeting during the 2010 Warped Tour in conjunction with her philosophy-based music resource website, www.earnityourself.com. Sarah will conduct an informative session for bands and concert-goers who are interested in learning more about the music industry, and becoming more involved with their local independent music scene.

Each EIY Workshop on the 2010 Warped Tour will feature a presentation by Sarah, covering topics such as cultivating a thriving local music scene, how and when to take your show on the road, building a nationwide underground network, the roles of fans in the success of bands, developing your personal philosophy in work/life, and more. The Workshops and Scene Meetups will include "roll call" for attendees to meet each other and exchange contact info for future networking within their local scene; a Q&A session with a panel of people from the tour including the founder of the Warped Tour, Kevin Lyman; and distribution of the FREE "EIY Handbook" which includes 50+ questions asked by members of the EIY community and answered not only by Sarah, but also dozens of well-known artists and individuals in the music industry, including:

Warped Tour founder Kevin Lyman
Vincent Fiorello from Paper + Plastick / Less Than Jake
Steve Choi from Rx Bandits
Riley Breckenridge from Thrice
Dave Shapiro from The Agency Group / Velocity Records
Michael Todd from Coheed and Cambria
Photographer Bryan Sheffield
Joshua Cain and Tony Thaxton from Motion City Soundtrack
Valient Himself from Valient Thorr
Promoter Stephen Chilton (Psyko Steve)
Venue owner / promoter Middagh Goodwin
Krist Krueger from Southerly / Self Group
Star Business Management's (and ex-Toasters bassist) Matt Malles
Aderra founder Ed Donnelly
Entrepreneur / event producer John Oakes
Promoter / venue owner Steve Harm
Creative Artist Agency's Darryl Eaton
Mike Ski from The A.K.A.s
Writer / MTV Buzzworthy blogger Leslie Simon
Promoter Eddy Numbskull
...and more!

Sarah will share her experiences in the music industry and give advice about how to turn a person's passion into a lifelong career, using the tenets of the EIY philosophy. Special guests will include Kevin Lyman (founder of the Warped Tour), band members, tour managers, label reps, booking agents and other industry professionals.

Individuals or bands interested in attending the workshop must visit www.earnityourself.com/meetup and contact Sarah Saturday. Space will be limited each day.

Attendees must already be attending Warped Tour and have purchased a ticket.

Sarah Saturday is a musician, music business professional and founder of the EARN IT YOURSELF philosophy, an all-new approach to the music industry complete with a resource and networking website, EARNITYOURSELF.COM. Sarah's band, GARDENING, NOT ARCHITECTURE, is a musical collaboration with engineer/producer Beau Sorenson that began in 2004 but officially launched in 2008. In that time, Sarah has self-released an EP and full-length album, and played over 150 shows on the road while also running the EIY website and managing her design firm The Weekend Group.

Described as "The Evolution of D.I.Y." in the July 2005 edition of Alternative Press Magazine, the EARN IT YOURSELF philosophy began as a print zine written and published by SARAH SATURDAY and became a full-scale website with partner Ernst Schoene-Rene (of BYOFL.org) in 2006. The idea behind the movement is to teach individuals how to use a philosophical approach in reaching their life goals.

###

Please contact meetup@earnityourself.com if you would like to attend the Workshops and/or help out at your local Warped Tour stop.

Be sure to follow @earnityourself for updates and info about the EIY Workshop & Scene Meetup.

Tell the world you "like" the Earn It Yourself movement at www.facebook.com/earnityourself.

Gypsy Life Update: Two Month Mark

2010-05-02T10:16:00.018-07:00

Sitting on my parents' Frank Lloyd Wright -inspired porch in North Carolina, with a picture window view of a tiny mountain town and the peaks of Grandfather Mountain in the distance, it's hard to believe that two months have already passed since I moved into a storage space and committed to this gypsy life indefinitely. In that short but endless span of time, I've toured eastern Canada, worked in the desert at both Coachella and Stagecoach, retreated to the mountains more than once, and even snuck in a couple quick stop-overs in Los Angeles - you know, for old times' sake. I've learned, discovered, and re-discovered things about myself that have helped me break a few old habits, while (hopefully) instilling new ones. I've met probably 200 or more new people (I can't imagine how many people I've actually met in my life), made at least a dozen new friends, and been fortunate enough to see some of my old favorites. I got to see Thom Yorke, Mutemath, The Avett Brothers, Lucero, and a bunch of other incredible and inspiring artists perform. I've managed to stay healthy, happy, and energetic, and I've been able to get around the continent without losing my luggage or my mind. In short: gypsy life is good.

But there are always downsides. The fact that I have no money and can barely afford to get from place to place is one big downside, and puts a damper on my otherwise uplifting adventure. Avoiding calls from bill collectors has become a game, and so far I'm definitely winning. Not being able to spend time visiting friends in different cities because I can't afford to buy food or rent a car to get around isn't the biggest self esteem booster. It's all I can do to pull enough money together (thanks, Mom) to buy cheap plane tickets out of each town. I've had to rely on the help of all my friends to get from place to place, meal to meal, plane to plane - and I hope they all realize how grateful I am, but I doubt they'll ever really know. So I'll hope that I quickly find a rhythm and a pace within this new life that will allow me to move forward while catching up, and start earning the dollars to pay off those debts, and I'll climb out of this financial hole and only have to worry about a couple of bills, food, and getting to the next gig or the next job.

To say the least, the Great Experiment has been a fascinating thrill so far. It isn't for everyone, that's for sure, and it might not be for me - but it's a surefire way to clean the slate, which is what I'm after. I'm anxious and excited to settle in to my new life, whatever that ends up being. For now, I'm taking the month of May to rest and regroup at my parents' house in the Appalachian mountains, which is a place I've been retreating to since before I was born. It calms me, and puts me back in touch with my roots, and fills me with joy. So it's the perfect place to be while I catch up on the past few months and prepare for the craziness that will be my summer on the Warped Tour!

Anyway - now that I have the mushy, self-analyzing, psuedo-philosophical rant out of the way - let's get to the functional purpose of this update: updates!

***

GARDENING, NOT ARCHITECTURE

The first-ever Canadian Tour was a complete success, thanks mostly to Adam and Zach from Underground Operations, and Crazy Diamond, my tour partners-in-crime! Click each date for pics and videos from the tour:

> 03.24: Toronto, ON @ The Drake
> 03.25: Brantford, ON @ Two Doors Down
> 03.26: Windsor, ON @ The Phog Lounge
> 03.27: London, ON @ The Fort
> 03.28: Hamilton, ON @ The Casbah
> 03.29: Toronto, ON @ The Hideout
> 03.30: Kingston, ON @ The Mansion
> 03.31: Ottawa, ON @ Tough Times
> 04.01: Montreal, QC @ L'Esco
> 04.02: Quebec City, QC @ Le Scanner
> 04.03: Sudbury, ON @ The Jubilee Centre

Rumor has it that I might be going back as soon as this Fall, which would be amazing! Thank you to everyone who came out to the shows, hosted the shows, put us up, fed us, took us out, and showed this first-timer a good ol' Canadian time.

Meanwhile, this little Warped Tour gig has really been helping build a buzz around G,NA. Who'd'a thunk it? I'm seeing lots of new activity on the Myspace, iLike, Facebook, Twitter, and other G,NA profiles. Very exciting! Not only that, but Fuse contacted me asking for an mp3 and a music video to feature as part of their Warped Tour Programming, which launches in June and lasts all summer! Perfect timing, since I was already planning to premiere the music video for "Stop, I Get It" in early June. Now it will be an exclusive premiere on Fuse, which rolls very nicely off the tongue, don't you think?

A couple of other G,NA things to think about (especially if you have a few bucks to spare):

(1) The limited edition Remix EP is still available online and at shows! Not sure how many are left, but I'm hoping to sell a bunch in the next month to help pay for my new stage decor for Warped Tour. (Oh yeah... new set design, sans lights, for the summer! Eep!)

For $30 (which includes shipping), you get:
*Five-song "Remix EP" featuring remixes of "Proof" and "Stop, I Get It" from all over the world
*Live recording of G,NA's Hotel Cafe show (opening for Jonah Matranga) on February 19, 2010
*Music video for "If You Only Knew" directed by Coatwolf
*Preview of album cover for this summer's Warped Tour edition CD release of "First LP"
*Two G,NA desktop wallpapers designed by Verdilak
*My unending love and gratitude ♥

(2) The G,NA hoodie has arrived! I never got a chance to announce the latest and greatest addition to the G,NA merchandise family (probably because I was in Canada and knew I couldn't fulfill any mail orders until I got back to the States), so here it is:

THE GARDENING, NOT ARCHITECTURE
BLACK-ON-CHARCOAL HOODIE
AND MISLEADING PHOTO!

I've wanted to get some "artsy" merch for a long time (meaning: not for the sake of promoting, as much as for the sake of looking rad) -- and what's more artsy than black ink on a dark charcoal hoodie, with the design on the back, no less?! This photo makes it seem like you can see the design clearly, but trust me, it only shows up in certain light. These hoodies are either extremely high-end or extremely ridiculous, but I don't care because I love love love them, and so does everyone else who has seen them so far. They're AFX by Independent Trading Co. brand, which are like the softest, thinnest, nicest hoodies ever. Way better than American Apparel. Yeah, I splurged a bit, but I think it was worth it.

Unisex hoodies in Adult XS, S (that's the size I wear, for example), M, L, XL are $30 each, and shipping is included if you order online! So go do it! Better/cuter photos of the hoodies coming soon... but don't let that stop you from ordering yours right now!

***

EARN IT YOURSELF

I'll be spending the next month putting together the first-ever EIY Handbook, which will include articles and commentary on 50+ different questions that I've been asked by bands and kids hoping to get more involved with the music industry. I've got over 40 contributors so far who I'm putting to work this month, answering said questions with their own personal insights, opinions, and experiences. It's an insanely huge project, but in the end it is going to be one of the most valuable things I've published, and I think everyone who reads it will get something out of it -- whether or not they are in a band or even involved in music at all! That's the beauty of EIY as a philosophy; it spills over into every other facet of life.

I'm also going to be working on getting the word out about this summer's EIY Workshop & Scene Meet-Up, which I'm super excited about and also totally overwhelmed by. Read about it and let me know what you think, or if you can help spread the word, or if you want to get involved somehow!

I'm going to need help every single day this summer on Warped, both for G,NA and EIY. I think I might find one or two people in each region who would be willing to drive to 5-7 shows and help me in exchange for guest passes and other cool stuff, like hanging out with me and watching me go crazy. Anyone? Anyone?

The EIY Spot on the Kevin Says Stage is going to be finalized in the next couple weeks, too. We made it a lot more difficult to submit for that spot this year, to try to weed out the lazy spammers, and it worked! We're going to make sure that the bands we pick are truly deserving and representative of the EIY way of life.

***

THE END, FOR NOW...

Keep in touch with me here: Flavors.me/sarahsaturday

Tell the world you like G,NA here: Facebook.com/gardeningnotarchitecture

Learn about the EIY philosophy here: Earnityourself.com

And if you want to send me a postcard, I will send you one back.

♥SS

Remix Contest Winners & Runner-Up Tracks

2010-03-14T19:28:00.011-07:00

Here are the winners of the Layer23 remix contest with Gardening, Not Architecture!

"Proof" remixes:
+ Gods Paparazzi
+ the daniel
+ Strom

"Stop, I Get It" remixes:
+ 16volt
+ Do Kashiteru

And these are the two remixes that will appear in the upcoming Layer23 Compilation:

+ "Proof" remix by Torsal Remix
+ "Stop, I Get It" remix by Jimix Remix

If you want to hear what the original versions of these songs sound like, listen to them on the G,NA WEBSITE or buy them on iTunes! :)

Order your limited edition "REMIX EP / G,NA LIVE" release here:
http://tinyurl.com/GNA-remixEP

Read a more detailed, rambling explanation of the remix contest, live recording, flash drive / wristband release, and probably other stuff that was on my mind at the time, in my last blog entry.

Official release date is March 23, 2010

♥SS

One order of "Remix EP" with a side of "G,NA Live at Hotel Cafe" - coming right up!

2010-03-06T11:49:00.004-08:00

Way back in January 2010, a new music collective called Layer23 launched the very first remix contest for Gardening, Not Architecture. The plan was simple: choose from two songs - "Proof" or "Stop, I Get It" (or both) - and make your own remixes, to be considered for the first-ever "Remix EP" release by G,NA. Almost two months and over 30 entries later, we've narrowed it down to just a handful of winners for the EP!

But we didn't stop there!

To make the "Remix EP" even more enticing, we decided to make it a limited edition physical release (only 50 copies ever made, total) and add to it some live tracks from G,NA's February 19th show at Hotel Cafe with Jonah Matranga.

But we didn't stop there!

We wanted the medium for the physical release to be interesting and collectible, in keeping with its limited edition nature, so we decided that instead of putting the EP and live tracks on a CD, we would put them on Aderra flash drives, which come encased in durable rubber wristbands. Fancy right? But wait: these 50 wristbands will also be individually decorated and signed by yours-truly (hey, that's me! Sarah!), using G,NA canvas patches and buttons.

But we didn't stop there!

In addition to "Remix EP", the live recordings, and the individually-decorated limited edition flash drive wristbands for this special release, we added a custom-built flash website that will be embedded on each drive with downloadable wallpapers featuring brand new, never-before-seen photos from G,NA's recent photoshoot with Justin Sullivan Photography -- AND, a sneak peek of the new album cover for digipak release of "First LP", available this summer on the Vans Warped Tour!

That's pretty much as jam-packed as you can make a thing, before it just becomes too jam-packed for its own good, really. I mean, let's be honest.

But wait! I wasn't finished!

The most exciting part about the whole thing is that, thanks to everyone donating time, energy, resources, and creativity to this release, we will be able to sell these gems for just $30 each -- and that includes free shipping!

The REMIX EP / G,NA LIVE wristband release date is officially MARCH 23, 2010, and you will only be able to order it online or buy it at shows.

CLICK PHOTO FOR CLOSE-UP:

Still not convinced that you should go without lunch for a week in order to add this fine piece of craftsmanship to your G,NA collection? Well, why don't I give you a sneak peek of what could be in store for you! Here is one of the remixes that almost made it onto the final EP, but got cut at the last second to make room for the final five -- and it comes from Vladimir Tretiak, all the way over in Kiev, Ukraine!

"Proof" Remix by Summer Garden

Oh yeah... NOW you're excited!

Love,
Sarah

Welcome to my bubble: won't you stay a while?

2010-02-19T02:25:00.009-08:00

I have a problem. My problem is that I live my life inside a bubble, and I forget to venture outside the bubble to tell my friends what is going on -- you know, inside the bubble. I guess that by the time I'm done obsessively thinking about and working on my ideas, projects, and plans, it feels like I've been running around shouting it out to the world, and that everyone within earshot knows what's going on with me, and is just as sick of hearing about it as I am of thinking about it. Or maybe I'm just not full of myself enough to think that anyone else would give a crap about what I'm doing, since they probably have more important things to do. One or the other; I'll go with the latter, to sound more humble.

So this is the big blog entry about about what's going on inside the bubble.

First of all, I've decided to leave the business side of the music industry, and return to being strictly an artist, by way of being technically "homeless" for the next six months. After living in Los Angeles for six years (as of

—[pause] HOLYCRAP. I swear I did NOT plan this, because I just looked it up to figure out how long I've lived here: the day that I'm flying out of Los Angeles, to begin my new life as an artist, is March 8, 2010. Six years ago, on March 8, 2004, I left Wisconsin to move to Los Angeles, to take a job working for the Warped Tour, and begin my new life as an entrepreneur. How is that even possible? What are the chances of that? That's just creepy! I had to leave it in. [unpause]—

March 8, 2004), trying to convince myself that I'm an entrepreneur, not an artist, I've finally come full circle and realized that what I'm meant to do is create things and help people. I will never be able to climb ladders, wear suits, create LLCs, attend conferences, talk to investors, or make powerpoint presentations. I really respect my friends who are successfully doing those things, and I'm looking forward to working with them from the other side of the fence, but that's not me. I'm an artist, and what makes me happy is creating things and having ideas and coming up with creative ways to put those things out into the world. That's what I used to be, and that's why I've finally returned to after a year (or more) of struggling to walk the line between the two. And this brings me to the first piece of "inside the bubble" news:

1. I am (officially) on the Underground Operations Booking Agency roster in Canada, and will be doing my first Canadian tour from March 24 - April 3.
I met my new agent-slash-friend Adam through the Earn It Yourself website over a year ago. He helped us with ideas for making the site Canadian-friendly, and was also a guest on the February 16, 2009 EIY Talk Radio Podcast. We had talked about working together on touring in Canada not only for Gardening, Not Architecture, but also for me as a speaker about the EIY philosophy and movement. So we finally decided to make it happen, and in January Adam started booking the first tour! Things got even better when we confirmed my friend Regan's band -- and electronic/pop project with Connor from Boys Night Out -- for the entire tour! They are called Crazy Diamond, and they're a great fit for G,NA. It is going to be a ridiculously fun tour:

March 24 - Toronto @ The Drake
March 25 - Brantford @ Two Doors Down
March 26 - Windsor @ The Phog Lounge
March 27 - London @ HOUSE SHOW
March 28 - Hamilton @ Casbah Lounge
March 29 - Toronto @ The Hideout
March 30 - Kingston @ The Mansion
March 31 - Ottowa @ HOUSE SHOW
April 01 - Montreal @ L'Esco
April 02 - Quebec City @ Le Scanner
April 03 - Sudbury @ The Jubilee Centre

Full details are up at Facebook.com/GardeningNotArchitecture > EVENTS

2. I'm working at Coachella and Stagecoach in April.
When I worked for the Warped Tour full time, I spent one year assisting my friend Brianne in selling, managing, and executing the sponsorships for the tour. Since then, she has gone on to be extremely successful managing on-site sponsorships at almost every festival that you can imagine, including Coachella and Stagecoach. (So proud!) So, in April, I will move into a house in the desert for two weeks to work for her on-site at both festivals, with all the sponsors for the festivals. Are you jealous? You should be! (And if you're any of my friends who work those festivals: prepare to have some crazy, delirious nights after long days in the sun working!)

3. I will be booking a short Midwest - Northeast tour in May.
I've got a few tentative shows lined up in Kansas City, Milwaukee, and Madison mid-May, so I'm going to put together a routing soon and turn it into a little spring tour! I need to go to New York, and I might book a show in a rad museum that my friend runs. Stay tuned for those dates, because I will need help with venue suggestions and finding floorspace!

4. I'm playing this summer's Vans Warped Tour on the Kevin Says Stage, and also running a daily Earn It Yourself Workshop & Scene Meet-Up for local bands and active members of each city's underground music scene.
Yep, that's right: In addition to returning for a second year sponsoring this stage with the "EIY SPOT" (and after 6 years of helping book, organize, and manage the stage), I'll be playing the Kevin Says Stage for the very first time! I talked to my friend Verdilak all about the full circle (or, straight line) that brought me from playing music to working for Kevin Lyman to playing music again, in an interview I did for his new website. Now would be a good time to take a blog break and read it: http://www.gagabeat.com/featured/gardening-not-architecture

(I need to take a blog break, myself... with this puppy video!)

(OK, back...)

Get the full list of this summer's Warped Tour dates HERE.

If you're in a band and wanting to submit for the EIY Spot on the Kevin Says Stage, click HERE.

If you are involved in your local music scene, in a local band, booking/promoting local shows in your scene, or writing for a local paper/zine/blog, and you want to participate in the EIY Workshop & Scene Meet-Up when Warped comes to your town, click HERE.

I might also be looking for help each day on Warped, promoting my set time, selling my merch, handing out the EIY Handbook, putting up posters, etc. If you want to be miserable in the sun all day and follow me around taking orders and seeing what it's really like to play/work the Warped Tour, message me on the EIY Meet-Up profile. Serious inquiries only.

5. That takes us to August 15, 2010.
I hope that by this date, I will (A) still be sane, (B) have saved some money, (C) have had an insane six months of experiences that I will never forget, and (D) know what my plan is for G,NA and EIY for the rest of the year, and beyond. Most likely, I'm going to need about four months (or the rest of 2010) to relax, hide, decompress, write songs, and play with my dog. I think I might do all of this in Richmond, Virginia. My sister is moving there and I think I'm going to move there with her, and rent a rad little house in Carytown, and be close to my parents in North Carolina, and meet a bunch of new people, and get involved with a cool local music scene, and see what it's like to live on the east coast. You are all welcome to come and visit.

Now, if you have made it this far, please take a moment to absorb what I'm about to say to you. It's very important to me that you take this to heart and understand it at the very core of your soul:

Thank you. Whoever you are, you have become a part of my life somewhere along the line; you have played a part in this story, somehow. At some point in the past or present, you've decided that the work I've done, the ideas I've put on paper, or the music I've made is interesting enough to invest your time and energy and money into. And by doing so, you have given meaning and purpose to my life. You've offered up a trade: that if I give you something of value that will make you happy or bring you joy, you will give me something of equal or greater value that will make me happy and bring me joy. That makes us partners in all of this. It's not just about me, it's about both of us deciding to be part of each other's lives. I hope you know how much I appreciate you. I hope you know that every time you cross my path, or my mind, I take a moment and stop to think about how grateful I am that you exist, and that you care about the things I care about. Without you, none of the things I listed above would have happened. I wouldn't have tried to make them happen, because there wouldn't have been anyone to make them happen for. I find joy in helping people, creating things, and living a meaningful life. I could never be able to pay my bills, eat, or commit wholeheartedly to doing these things, if you weren't there at some point, propelling me forward. So thank you, and know this: whatever you might get from me in our exchange, whatever you think I've given you that has brought you joy, I promise that it will never match the amount of joy I've received from you. You'll never know how much you mean to me, or how much you, as an individual, have impacted my life. Never ever ever. I promise.

Thank you.
I love you.
See you soon.

Sarah

Regret: An Ode

2010-02-02T02:42:00.005-08:00

Yes, Happiness hath left me soon behind!
Alas! we all pursue its steps! and when
We've sunk to rest within its arms entwined,
Like the Phoenician virgin, wake, and find
Ourselves alone again.

I used to be scared of regret. I used to believe that it was possible to live an entire life without having any regret. Regret was something for people who didn't have their lives together, or for people who didn't know what they wanted in life. I used to think that if you analyzed your past, and believed in fate, and believed that everything happened for a reason, that you could avoid regret entirely. I thought that if you were good, and tried to do what was right, that you would never have to worry about regretting anything.

For many years, whenever I entered a new situation, new job, new relationship -- I felt so much hope. I used to have so much energy for these new feelings and new possibilities. I thought, well of course this one is going to work out. Of course this is the one that will stick, or the one that will make me happy, or the one that will make me whole.

And then, always, each thing ended. And no matter how the thing ended, or why it ended, or even if I wanted or needed it to end, there was still an unavoidable and intense amount of pain that went along with the ending, for me. Perhaps I'm a bit too sensitive, or too dramatic, or maybe in my effort to avoid regret, I analyze even the most insignificant things to the degree that I can find significance in them, and therefore I can be saddened by their loss.

Then, through the distant future's boundless space,
We seek the lost companion of our days:
"Return, return!" we cry, and lo, apace
Pleasure appears! but not to fill the place
Of that we mourn always.

Over the years, as I have been through so many endings, something has slowly hardened my hopefulness -- and my heart -- against the world. At first I thought it was just the anger or frustration I felt towards the people who hurt me. How dare they? What did I ever do to deserve that from them? Or, maybe it was the confusion I had about why the situation ended, or why things went the way they did. Was it me? Was it them? Was it doomed from the start? I began carefully retracing the steps of each experience, plotting out the points where things went wrong. And with each new beginning, I started paying more attention to warning signs that this, too, was going to end.

Instead of analyzing things once they were already in the past, I wanted to learn how to recognize the turning point as it was happening. So I paid attention, in a job, a business acquaintance, a friendship, a relationship -- and I started to notice that one day something would change, in me or in the dynamics of the group or in the other person. It would be unnoticeable to anyone but me, but I had seen it, and I knew what it meant. From that point on in the situation, I would disengage myself, knowing it was over already and all I could do was prepare for that inevitable pain.

But rather than say, hey, I know what's in store for us, so I should probably save everyone right now, I stayed quiet, stayed on board a sinking ship. If anything, I acted in ways that helped it sink faster. It was my defense mechanism, because I was too scared to tell everyone what I could see in the distance, or too scared that they wouldn't believe me, and that I would cause them pain before the inevitable end could cause them pain. I guess I decided it was better to let things crumble on their own than to crumble them prematurely. Or, perhaps, I knew it was going to hurt either way, so it didn't really matter what I did.

And so, the hardening of my heart continued. But still, I did not think it was regret. I figured that since I wasn't cutting things short, causing any premature pain, and in most cases just going down with the ship like somewhat of a martyr, that I couldn't possibly regret my actions. I hadn't hurt anyone as far as they knew -- they all thought they were hurting me, or that we were hurting together. So what could I possibly regret? Right?

I, should unhallowed Pleasure woo me now,
Will to the wanton sorc'ress say, "Begone!
Respect the cypress on my mournful brow,
Lost Happiness hath left regret -- but thou
Leavest remorse, alone."

After suffering through a couple Titanic-level endings, I began to really build up the walls around the parts of me that were too sensitive to pain. I began to avoid any situation that I thought could really hurt me when it was over. I withdrew more and more from the world, and I stopped seeking out anything that seemed difficult or intimidating. I moved to the surface, and tried to stay only in the shallowest parts where I felt safe, away from the deep end. I only got involved in shallow projects where I could easily excel and succeed, or I only got involved with shallow people who I thought couldn't possibly hurt me. I accepted anyone and anything that fell into my lap, instead of seeking out the types of people and situations I knew I deserved to have in my life.

The problem was: my trying to stay safe did not change who I really was. My trying to operate only at a shallow level did not mean that I was no longer a deep person. And so, I found myself constantly unsatisfied. Every situation disappointed me, over and over. I was able to contain these shallow things because I was deep enough for them, but they could not contain or satisfy me, because they did not have the depth that I required to be truly happy with them.

Over the last couple of years, the hardening of my heart became a depression, weighing me down and making me completely apathetic. It just seemed that the hope for happiness to return was truly gone, and that I should take what immediate pleasures I could in the world, and forget about the ideals I had when I was younger. What was once a droning ache had become a piercing migraine, and I was desperate to make it go away. I jumped at everything, flung myself from situation to situation, from guy to guy, with more intensity and less genuine emotion than I ever had. Scared to death of getting into anything deeply enough that I'd be able to sense that turning point, I simply started "just going with it" -- whatever seemed to immediately soothe me, if it was accepting a job that I thought would make me feel accomplished, or trying to get into a band because I thought it would get me out of my situation, or dating any guy who paid attention to me, regardless of who he was or if he was right for me, I would do it. And the ferocity with which I would do it made the situation crash and burn a hundred times faster than any of the situations I had been in before. I was on a rampage, and nobody could stop me.

Yet, haply lest I check the mounting fire,
O friends, that in your revelry appears!
With you I'll breathe the air which ye respire,
And, smiling, hide my melancholy lyre
When it is wet with tears.

And so, the hardening of my heart became something else entirely. Like some sort of autoimmune disease, I was turning on myself, attacking myself. I didn't stop to think about why I had reached the point I was at, I just knew I didn't want to be there and the only way I thought I could avoid more pain was by blocking out my emotions, denying my unhappiness, and dealing with people and the world only in the shallow waters. I didn't want to face what was eating away at my heart. I didn't want to admit to myself that the seemingly insurmountable wall I had built up was made purely of regret.

Regret -- the one thing I had always tried so hard to avoid, the one negative emotion I thought I was exempt from, the one thing I didn't think could apply to me -- was the one thing that had brought me to the point of total disappointment and unhappiness in my life.

It was not the feeling of guilt for having done something wrong (I had allowed myself to feel guilt many times before), and it was not the feeling of shame for having made a bad decision in the eyes of others (although it was reaching that point by the summer of 2009), and it was not the kind of regret where one feels remorse after doing something to hurt someone else -- no, this was a very specific kind of regret.

I felt regret about allowing myself to get hurt. I felt regret about not applying the foresight I had, when I had it, to avoid the pain I knew was coming. It had nothing to do with the people I had encountered, who for so long I thought were the ones who had caused the pain. It was never in their power to cause me the pain -- it was my own fault, for seeing the red flags and ignoring them, for hearing my instincts tell me not to do something, but doing it anyway. I allowed myself to get involved with people and situations that were definitely going to hurt me, and therefore, in some weird way, I had brought the pain on myself. The disappointment, the frustration, and the regret that I felt were all aimed at myself.

Each in his secret heart perchance doth own
Some fond regret 'neath passing smiles concealed;--
Sufferers alike together and alone
Are we; with many a grief to others known,
How many unrevealed!

I know what you might be thinking: but Sarah, you couldn't have known exactly what would happen, and at least you tried. And you're right, I needed to go through those situations and pay attention to how things went wrong, in order to get to the other side where I could look back and learn about myself. But once I figured it out, it made it even worse to see my mistakes, to see where I was foolish and made decisions that were not aligned with who I truly was -- whether or not I knew it at the time. I wanted so badly to run back to the other side, to the beginning, and grab that former version of myself and rescue her from the painful situation she was walking into, head-on. And I knew I couldn't do that, so I tried to tell myself that I shouldn't regret the decisions.

But suppressing my regret, being afraid of my regret, is what caused me to keep making the same types of mistakes. Even though I had learned so much about my past, I had never accepted the regret I felt about making those bad decisions, which probably could have prevented me from making more decisions like those. I denied myself the chance to absorb and deeply experience so many profound feelings of regret, because I thought that once I allowed regret into my life, it would always be there.

It took one, big, final blow to make me finally stop. It took my whole life falling to ruins at the end of 2009, thanks to a series of terrible decisions, one after the other, one leading to the next, to make me go, wait a minute... what's wrong with this picture? How did I get here?

It wasn't until I looked back at everything that had caused me unnecessary pain in my life, and started accepting the fact that it was the decisions I made that caused the suffering I had felt, and started really focusing on how much I regretted letting myself get involved with people who had no business being part of my life, who didn't really even deserve to step foot into my world, that I started to feel free. I embraced the regret, and realized it was the one thing that would help me truly avoid future, unnecessary pain. Nothing else -- not my ability to read people, not my guardedness, not my cynicism, not my insight into people's behavior, not even my understanding of my own patterns of behavior -- nothing else made me slap my forehead and say, duh... you could have avoided that altogether.

Alas! for natural tears and simple pains,
For tender recollections, cherished long,
For guileless griefs, which no compunction stains,
We blush; as if we wore these earthly chains
Only for sport and song!

So for the last week or so, I have been thinking about regret: what it is, where it comes from, how it has played a role in my life (with or without my knowing it), and how I can use it to my advantage as I begin to rebuild myself and start a whole new life in almost every single way.

I believe, now, that regret can be a very positive thing. Regretting something does not mean I can change anything, so there is no point in dwelling in the regret. Admitting that I could have done a better job protecting myself from pain, however, and feeling deeply sorry that I didn't do so before, is an important way to reassure my heart that I will try harder, next time, to protect it.

And in admitting all of this to myself, I have actually begun to feel more vulnerable. I can see myself starting to come out of my shell, and feeling safe to be hopeful, feeling safe enough to maybe one day fall in love again, like I did when I was young and happy and less afraid. But it was only by embracing my regret, allowing it to really soak in, and accepting the full meaning of its place in my life, that I was able to start letting go of it.

So maybe, for now, there is a lot of regret to comb through. Maybe my happiness has not fully returned. But it's been years since I was making good decisions -- the kind I wouldn't regret later -- so if it means it will take years to forgive myself for all the terrible things I've done to cause myself my own pain, so be it. I would rather that I have to struggle with regretting my own decisions, than struggle to connect the unconnectable dots that appear when something hurts you and you don't know why. I know why. I did it to myself. And until that day comes when I'm back to making the types of decisions I ought to be -- whether it's tomorrow or a year from now -- I will embrace my regret, and accept it, and appreciate what it is doing to help me grow into an even better person.

Yes, my blest hours have fled without a trace:
In vain I strove their parting to delay;
Brightly they beamed, then left a cheerless space,
Like an o'erclouded smile, that in the face
Lightens, and fades away.

(Poem: "Regret: An Ode" by Victor Hugo - Bk. V. ii., February, 1821.)

Fundraiser wrap-up and remix contest, oh my!

2010-01-24T01:40:00.003-08:00

Well, where to begin?

The Fun Drazer was an absolutely amazing success. I'm still tallying the totals but you can see one stack of packages that went out to Sponsors on Friday, with more going out next week:

I think the final amount donated to-date by G,NA Official Sponsors will be between $600-700! Holy smokes! Not only did it help me buy the new console to power the light wall, but it also completely renewed my energy and excitement about taking this little project to the next level, and making it a success on behalf of everyone who has invested in it. I'm gonna throw the most amazing G,NA SPONSORS ONLY party, someday!

The happy ending to the console story was only the beginning, though. In the last two weeks alone, so many amazing and wonderful things have started to sprout in the garden of Gardening, Not Architecture (haha, like that?) that I almost can't contain myself. It's almost too much to absorb, and one might say it's too good to be true -- but I know it's true, because I know how and why it happened, because I made it happen with my mind and my will. This is EIY in motion, people!

But I'll have to save most of that news for later, because right now it's time for all of us to put on our Creativity Hats and have some fun! That's right... it's REMIX CONTEST TIME!!!!!!!

My good friend German runs a music "collective" called Layer23, and he has put together a remix contest using two of my songs. We'll be taking submissions until February 5th, and then our favorite remixes will be released digitally on 50 Aderra flash drive wristbands. The wristbands will be one-of-a-kind with a special handmade decorative quality (that's all I'll say right now -- mostly because I'm not totally done designing them in my head). The flash drives in the wristbands will have not only the "Remix EP," but also a live recording of one of my shows, plus an interactive flash website with all kinds of downloadable fun stuff. These wristbands will be available for pre-sale as soon as I finish making the first one... I'm excited about my idea for this art project!

SO! How do you go about "remixing" a song, you ask? Well, the answer is somewhat subjective, but here is a little history lesson about remixes as applied to electronic music, which is what we are going for with the Layer23 contest:

(Taken from the Wikipedia entry for "remix.")

Early pop remixes were fairly simple; in the 1980s, "extended mixes" of songs were released to clubs and commercial outlets on vinyl 12-inch singles. These typically had a duration of six to seven minutes, and often consisted of the original song with 8 or 16 bars of instruments inserted, often after the second chorus; some were as simplistic as two copies of the song stitched end to end. As the cost and availability of new technologies allowed, many of the bands who were involved in their own production (such as Depeche Mode, New Order, Erasure, and Duran Duran) experimented with more intricate versions of the extended mix. Madonna began her career writing music for dance clubs and used remixes extensively to propel her career; one of her early boyfriends was noted DJ John Jellybean Benitez, who created several memorable mixes of her work.

Art of Noise took the remix styles to an extreme—creating new music entirely using samples. They were among the first popular groups to truly harness the potential that had been unleashed by Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder (as well as composer Jean Michel Jarre) with their synthesizer-based compositions. Contemporaneous to Art of Noise was the seminal body of work by Yello (composed, arranged and mixed by Boris Blank). Primarily because they featured sampled and sequenced sounds, Yello and Art of Noise would produce a great deal of influential work for the next phase. Others such as Cabaret Voltaire and the aforementioned Jarre (whose Zoolook was an epic usage of sampling and sequencing) were equally influential in this era).

After the rise of dance music in the late 1980s, a new form of remix was popularised, where the vocals would be kept and the instruments would be replaced, often with matching backing in the house music idiom. A clear example of this approach is Roberta Flack's 1989 ballad "Uh Oh Look Out", which Chicago House great Steve "Silk" Hurley dramatically reworked into a boisterous floor-filler by stripping away all the instrumental tracks and substituting a minimalist, sequenced "track" to underpin her vocal delivery. The art of the remix gradually evolved, and soon avant-garde artists such as Aphex Twin were creating more experimental remixes of songs (relying on the groundwork of Cabaret Voltaire and the others), which varied radically from their original sound and were not guided by pragmatic considerations such as sales or danceability, but were created for "art's sake".

In the 1990s, with the rise of powerful home computers with audio capabilities came the mash-up, an unsolicited, unofficial (and often legally dubious) remix created by "underground remixers" who edit two or more recordings (often of wildly different songs) together. Underground mixing is more difficult than the typical official remix, because clean copies of separated tracks such as vocals or individual instruments are usually not available to the public. Some artists (such as Björk, Nine Inch Nails, and Public Enemy) embraced this trend and outspokenly sanctioned fan remixing of their work; there was once a web site which hosted hundreds of unofficial remixes of Björk's songs, all made using only various officially-sanctioned mixes. Other artists, such as Erasure, have included remix software in their officially released singles, enabling almost infinite permutations of remixes by users. The band have also presided over remix competitions for their releases, selecting their favourite fan-created remix to appear on later official releases. By 1998, Stardust released the first ever song to use "cut-up" style of remixing. The song, "Music Sounds Better with You" reached the top of the Electro music charts.

Remixing has become very prevalent in heavily synthesized electronic and experimental music circles. Many of the people who create cutting edge music in such genres as synthpop and aggrotech are solo artists or pairs. They will often use remixers to help them with skills or equipment that they do not have. Artists such as Delobbo, DJ Ram, and LehtMoJoe are sought out for their remixing skill and have impressive lists of contributions. It is not uncommon for industrial bands to release albums which have half the songs as remixes. Indeed, there have been popular singles that have been expanded to an entire album of remixes by other well-known artists.

Some industrial groups allow, and often encourage, their fans to remix their music, notably Nine Inch Nails, whose website contains a list of downloadable songs that can be remixed using Apple's GarageBand software. Some artists have started releasing their songs in the U-MYX format, which allows the buyers to mix songs and share them on the U-MYX website.

All you really need is some kind of program that will allow you to chop up and mess with the tracks. GarageBand will even work! Then you just download the tracks from the Layer23 website and let the creative juices start a'flowin!

We've already gotten a handful of remixes back, and I can't tell you how fun it is to listen to all the different takes on my songs! I hope we get a ton more entries, because I'm having a blast with this contest and it's only just begun!

Rumor has it that we might even have a few big name musicians and DJs take a shot at the songs! I'm super excited!

Thank you to German @ Layer23 and Ed @ Aderra for making this possible! Now... let the remixing begin! :)

Help me raise money for the G,NA Light Wall and become a lifelong Official Sponsor! It's the G,NA FUN DRAZER!

2010-01-14T13:23:00.026-08:00

I'm not gonna lie: my year got off to a bad start.

Having poured all my money into a tour that I thought would be more successful than it was (the definition of "successful" being: intelligently booked and budgeted; using an objective perspective about the package to make projections about turn-outs, guarantees, and suitable venue types; taking into consideration the reality of how much pull the artists actually had, before dumping money into a two month publicity campaign, etc.), and with no thought as to what I would do when I finished the tour, I found myself deposited on the east coast with barely enough money to cover the cost of the rental car I used for the tour, which I needed to turn in, and that ended up being $750 more than was quoted to me.

Wait, let me back up a bit.

Exactly one year ago at this time, I decided that I wanted to return to my calling as a traveling musician, someone with a message that is best delivered face-to-face in small venues and living rooms. I decided that if I wanted to spread the Earn It Yourself philosophy properly, I must first be living the philosophy myself. I began booking the first Gardening, Not Architecture tour.

By the time I left for the enormous 70+ day fall tour, I had completely flipped my life upside down and had unabashedly abandoned all of my responsibilities that did not have to do with my music or my philosophy. Sounds romantic, I know -- but in reality, it means I dropped the ball on a lot of my responsibilities and carelessly left all of my work in other people's hands with hardly a warning. If it wasn't for people like Dean, Jason, and Wyatt, my company would have completely collapsed and I would have been fired by all of my clients in March. But thanks to their help and support, we were able to make it to the finish line -- knowing very well that when we got there, we would get fired anyway. If that's not dedication, I don't know what is.

But then, the year was over, and 2010 arrived before I could get make sense of what had just happened over the short span of 12 months. I was suddenly faced with the very real possibility that I could be homeless at any moment. Unpaid bills, outstanding invoices, and rent were waking me up in the middle of the night. I arrived back home in Los Angeles with no plans, no money, no car, no way of making ends meet, and no idea what I was going to do.

Two weeks in to 2010, and none of that has really changed, except for the 'plans' part. I'm a firm believer that once you set a deadline to meet, or looming consequences if something isn't done, you will immediately spring into action and come up with a plan to meet the deadline or avoid the consequences. The only difference this time was that I hadn't consciously set up these end points; it seemed my sub-conscious had done it for me. This left a metaphysical gap that needed a bridge built across it -- and fast.

The first thing I did was resolve to sell every single thing I own that isn't of extreme sentimental value, or that I don't need in order to create things that I can sell to make money in the future (i.e., art supplies and musical instruments). If you find me on eBay, Craigslist, or Etsy, you will start to see my personal belongings and creations appear (or disappear), one by one.

The second thing I did was resolve to spend more time focusing on my personal philosophy each day, to get back in tune with my Self and what it is that makes me happy and whole. I finally got up the nerve to go to the bike shop, get my bike set up, get a helmet, and start navigating the city on two wheels for exercise -- not knowing it is also a very spiritual experience to get out in the open air and propel a bicycle forward, using your body as the motor, your mind as the navigation system, your muscles and instincts as your only protection against potential harm. I decided I needed more vitamin D and began taking the time to sit in the sun, for a few minutes, every day. I realized I needed to get back in touch with my spiritual side, and ordered a book on meditation so I can learn to center myself. I found nearby old, beautiful churches where I can sit quietly and take in the incense, the sculptures and art, the colors of the stained glass, and be totally free from judgment from other people and the outside world.

And now, I'm onto the third thing: solving the Problem of The Console.

If you've seen my live performance as Gardening, Not Architecture, then you've seen the infamous "light wall" - a structure made up of LED lights, shower curtains, a garment rack, and lots and lots of duct tape. Well, it has become like another member of the band, and an integral part of the overall experience at my shows.

Part of my going broke at the end of 2009 included not being able to afford the rent on the old console I was using for the light wall. The old console was much too big, heavy, and expensive for me to keep lugging around, so I had to return it. However, thanks again to people in my life like Wyatt, I discovered that I had another, even better option for something to replace the console and allow me to keep using the light wall, plus downsize the amount of equipment I needed to take on the road. Hooray, right?! Yes, I was ecstatic... until I heard how much it would cost for the specific thing I needed to keep my show exactly as it is: $1,425.

So here I am, probably foolishly, putting a piece of equipment ahead of bills, rent, and even food, but determined to come up with the money to buy it by my deadline.

My deadline is January 21st, one day before my next show.

Springing into action, I immediately started digging through all my boxes, looking for things I could sell or pawn or auction off, when I found a huge tub filled with a bunch of merch from my old band, Saving Face:

Yep, those were the days when I looked like this:

(Aaaah, the fashion fearlessness of youth...)

(For more hilarious photos, go to myspace.com/savingface)

I have piles of shirts, buttons, CDs, and vinyl all in mint condition:

Mmmm, vinyl...

I also found a comp that Saving Face was on, that was put out by Arm The Pit:

And I found a comp from the 2005 DIY Stage on the Warped Tour, with a foreward that I wrote for the insert:

SO MUCH STUFF! And there's still more where that came from: guitar picks, stickers, posters, and more buttons!

And I know what you're thinking, because that's what I immediately thought too:

(A) I need to raise $1,425 for a new console
(B) I have a bunch of cool merch from my old music days
(C) Why not throw a fundraiser and offer goodies in exchange for donations?!

We're so brilliant, you and I.

I also have a ton of G,NA buttons, patches, and posters lying around.

So here's how this works: I already have a DONATE button on the G,NA website, for people to become Official Sponsors of Gardening, Not Architecture. As you can see, some wonderful souls have already donated to the cause.

The idea is simple: the more you donate, the more you get.

TIER ONE DONATIONS

A donation of $15 will get you a handful of Saving Face and Gardening, Not Architecture buttons, stickers, patch, poster, and whatever else fits in an envelope. (See above)
A donation of $25 will get you all of the above, plus a Saving Face shirt and both compilation CDs. (See above)
A donation of $35 will get you all of that stuff, plus the limited edition Saving Face / Almost There split 7" from High Fidelity Records. (See above)
A donation of $50 will get everything listed, plus all three Saving Face albums from High Fidelity Records (Self-Titled, Holiday Cruise 365, and P.S.). (See above)

Now, here's where it gets good:

TIER TWO DONATIONS

A donation of $75 gets you: everything from the Tier One Donations list, PLUS one of the brand new white G,NA tee shirts (like the old shirts but inverted, black on white), PLUS your choice of any Gardening, Not Architecture DiNG for your mobile phone (or mp3 player)!
A donation of $100 gets you: everything from the Tier One Donations list, PLUS one of the brand new white G,NA tee shirts (like the old shirts but inverted, black on white), PLUS your choice of any Gardening, Not Architecture DiNG for your laptop!
A donation of $150 gets you: everything from the Tier One Donations list, PLUS one of the brand new white G,NA tee shirts (like the old shirts but inverted, black on white), PLUS your choice of any Gardening, Not Architecture DiNG for your mobile phone (or mp3 player), AND your laptop!

AND THE GRAND FINALE:

A donation of $250 gets you: everything from the Tier One Donations list (!!!), PLUS everything from the Tier Two Donations list (!!!), PLUS (drumroll, please...) one of these 18" x 24" painted canvases featuring the original promo image for Gardening, Not Architecture taken in 2008! These two pieces were made by a good friend of mine and given to me in 2009. They are one-of-a-kind, handmade, high-quality pieces that can never be re-produced:

AND DON'T FORGET: Every single person who donates any amount will get their name listed on the Gardening, Not Architecture website FOREVER, on the list of Official Sponsors, and will continue to receive gifts and gratitude from me for as long as we both shall live.

And everything includes FREE SHIPPING! Yes, it's true!

So what are you waiting for? Go to www.gardeningnotarchitecture.com and click the "Donate" button, or if you are impatient like I am, just click here! When you donate, I will email you back with a list of questions about what size and color shirt you want, or which DiNG you want, etc. I'll get everything shipped out to you within 7 days tops, but your name will go up on the site right away for all to see!

Please re-post this as many places as you can, or email the link to your friends and anyone you know who might be interested in donating to the cause. Post it on your Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Blog, and anywhere else you can think of. Even if you can't afford to donate right now, just helping spread the word will be as valuable to me as any amount of money I get.

Thank you -- in the past, present, and future -- for being invested in this project, and for making it possible for some random girl to achieve her goals.

Sarah

Wear Sunscreen

2010-01-12T15:57:00.002-08:00

(A speech written by Mary Schimch and originally published in the Chicago Tribune)

(Thank you to my friend Kevin for sending this to me.)

Wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.

Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when they're gone.

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's.

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.

Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.

Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.

Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're 40 it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.

A reminder of how it really is.

2010-01-11T11:38:00.003-08:00

There is a film crew in my house right now, shooting a bunch of scenes for a special on TLC about a famous cellist whose instrument got stolen off his porch or something. One of the actors was in my kitchen just now while I was making my breakfast - yogurt and granola - and he started talking to me and asking questions about my life. He's probably in his early forties, and was wearing a suit, and had a face like a used car salesman. His cheesy laugh made me feel uncomfortable, and the stories he told about backpacking in Europe and getting the farts from protein bars made him seem like such a lame, cocky loser. If I met him on the street I would be a million dollars that he'd never do anything more with his life than swindle people and laugh at his own jokes. Yet here he is, with a role in a television show on a major television network that will probably pay him more in one check than I made in the last six months.

Meanwhile, I'm taking photos of all the furniture, rugs, decorations, and appliances in my house to list on Craigslist, so I can avoid filing for bankruptcy.

I'm going for a walk.

I suck at blogging.

2010-01-09T21:13:00.005-08:00

This is about the sixth "blog" or online journal or diary or whatever that I've started in the last decade. That's weird to say. A decade of blogging. Am I really that old?

My very first online diary was at Diaryland. I started it on February 15, 2001. I was 20 years old... wow. It's still up, at yours-truly.diaryland.com, if you dare.

Then, being the little entrepreneur that I was, I started using Diaryland as a sort of website for my old band Saving Face. I used it to post updates, news, upcoming shows and tour dates, stories from the road, and whatever else came to mind. I'm going to go ahead and take credit for being among the first people to use a social networking website to promote my band. The proof is at saving-face.diaryland.com.

The next Diaryland diary I started was (and still is) a completely, brutally, painstakingly honest account of all of my relationships, beginning with the big breakup of 2001. I only update it once a year or so, but wow. If anyone ever found it and somehow tied it back to me, they'd never run out of things to blackmail me with!

Moving on...

Things were peachy with Diaryland for a few years, until Myspace began taking over the internet and reinventing social networking online for narcissistic, emo, melodramatic online diary-keepers like myself. I stopped updating Diaryland as much as I had before (I skipped over the LiveJournal phase and went straight to Myspace), but I'd occasionally wander back and post something vague or funny or cryptic on Yours-Truly.

Then, in 2006, Blogger/Blogspot finally won me over, and I decided it was time to leave Diaryland behind, for a sleeker and more mature website where I could post my arrogant and ridiculous entries about nothing. I decided not to care about what the word 'blog' actually meant, and I decided to use my new Blogger blog as more of a journal than a place to post links and news.

And thus, Yours-Truly became Mine-Truly. Get it?

Then, a year later, I randomly decided to snatch up the Sarah Saturday Blogspot URL before anyone else did. And that blog, which is this blog, sat dormant for nearly two years before I decided to start using it in conjunction with www.sarahsaturday.com and www.gardeningnotarchitecture.com, to promote events, contests, and tour dates. Until now, and with the exception of the first post here, The Sarah Saturday Weblog has been my most serious attempt at keeping a "blog" blog. Ugh, I hate that word.

So here we are. I'm still not totally sure what I want this blog to be. I liked the old days of writing whatever came to mind, no matter how crazy or dramatic or silly. I do like the idea of being informative, posting updates and actual news with important information, links, photos, etc. But I also like the idea of posting entries that contain nothing but a list of items that come in a Nursing Assistant Kit.

Love,
Sarah

Win 2 tix to Ernie Ball Showcase w/ Story Of The Year, plus VIP access to after-party w/ a performance by Gardening, Not Architecture!

2009-11-14T11:11:00.005-08:00

ERNIE BALL IS GIVING YOU AND A FRIEND THE CHANCE TO GET TWO FREE TICKETS TO THIS YEAR'S WARPED TOUR BATTLE OF THE BANDS SHOWCASE IN HOLLYWOOD (@ THE ROXY), FEATURING STORY OF THE YEAR AND EYES SET TO KILL!

NOT ONLY THAT, BUT YOU WILL ALSO GET PASSES INTO THE EXCLUSIVE VIP AFTER-PARTY WHERE GARDENING, NOT ARCHITECTURE WILL BE PERFORMING AN INTIMATE SET!

Announced by Ernie Ball on facebook.com/gardeningnotarchitecture November 12, 2009:

"Are you in or around the LA area? Let us know what your favorite G,NA song is and why! One winner will get 2 tickets to the Ernie Ball Battle of the Bands Showcase (featuring Story of the Year/Eyes Set to Kill) and will also receive an exclusive invite to the showcase after party to watch Gardening, Not Architecture perform for industry executives and VIP guests!"

Enter via email! Send your name, age, and city along with your favorite Gardening, Not Architecture song and explanation to sarah@gardeningnotarchitecture.com.

Deadline to enter is December 6, 2009.

The winner will be contacted December 7, 2009, and announced online once confirmed!

DON'T WANT TO ENTER THE CONTEST, BUT WANT TO SEE THE SHOW?

CLICK THE POSTER FOR TICKETS!

www.gardeningnotarchitecture.com
www.sarahsaturday.com

DiNG your phone, iPod, computer, even your guitar, with Gardening, Not Architecture photos and artwork!

2009-11-11T19:06:00.002-08:00

Check it out: now you can *ding* your phone, iPod, computer, and more, with G,NA photos and artwork! More designs coming soon! Click here:

[Press Release] E.I.Y FALL TOUR 2009 EXTENSIVE FALL TOUR CONTINUES THROUGH NOVEMBER

2009-10-22T13:37:00.000-07:00

E.I.Y FALL TOUR 2009 EXTENSIVE FALL TOUR CONTINUES THROUGH NOVEMBER

E.I.Y. FEATURED ARTIST GAVIN CASTLETON LANDS OPENING SLOT ON TAKING BACK SUNDAY HEADLINING TOUR

WE THE LIVING JOIN GARDENING, NOT ARCHITECTURE FOR REMAINDER OF EIY TOUR DATES

GARDENING, NOT ARCHITECTURE FILMS VIDEO FOR "STOP, I GET IT" FROM DEBUT ALBUM ‘FIRST LP' OUT NOW

GARDENING, NON ARCHITECTURE--the nom de rock of Sarah Saturday--has announced that she'll be joined by WE THE LIVING for the last several dates of the inaugural E.I.Y FALL TOUR 2009, which kicked off early last month with co-headliner GAVIN CASTLETON. Sponsored by the revolutionary not-for-profit website EARNITYOURSELF.COM--which supports the independent music community, allowing musicians to trade shows, book tours, upload articles and information, stream and sell music, network with other musicians, promoters, venues and fans, as well as receive personal advice from music industry veterans--Saturday and CASTLETON have booked all of the dates themselves using tools on the site, including the "Tour Planning" and "Show Trading" features. Since launching in 2006, EARNITYOURSELF.COM has blossomed into a thriving community with over nine thousand participating members and, in the last year, has averaged 100,000 pageviews a month.

WE THE LIVING will be filling in for CASTLETON on the tour's final dates, as he's seen his grassroots approach to touring--supported by EarnItYourself.com--grow to the next level by being invited to open for Taking Back Sunday on several dates. Portland, OR-based CASTLETON has built his nearly 15-year career on innovation. He released his 14-song narrative "popera" Home (Five One Inc) in February 2009, lead by single "Coffeelocks" which received regular airplay on Los Angeles' influential NPR station KCRW. On October 13, GAVIN releases a new three-song EP Random Anthems via iTunes. Single "Hope is A Drug"--currently receiving regular airplay on KCRW's "Morning Becomes Eclectic"--can be downloaded for free at http://tinyurl.com/hopeisadrug.

GARDENING, NOT ARCHITECTURE's Sarah Saturday will bring her electronic-tinged ethereal power-pop to the tour, on the heels of Southern California shows with The Pixies frontman Black Francis and Jonah Matranga's (Far, Gratitude) onelinedrawing. G, NA's first full length album First LP comes out later this month digitally and will be available physically at shows. Recorded in May of 2009 at Chris Walla's (Death Cab For Cutie) Hall of Justice studio in Portland, OR, the album features all the recorded GARDENING, NOT ARCHITECTURE songs to-date including nine new tracks.

GARDENING, NOT ARCHITECTURE is a collaboration between Sarah Saturday and producer/engineer Beau Sorenson (Death Cab for Cutie, Tegan and Sara, Sparklehorse) who met in 2003 and recorded what would be the first GARDENING, NOT ARCHITECTURE demos in Beau's Madison, WI apartment. Beau and Sarah rejoined forces in 2007 at Butch Vig's Smart Studios in Madison, WI to record the band's first official release: a four-song EP entitled The First EP, which was released in the form of limited edition, numbered CDs with handmade packaging.

Get full details here...

*RE-POST!*

Become an official sponsor of Gardening, Not Architecture (that's me!)

2009-10-08T21:22:00.001-07:00

Dear Friends,

In an effort to off-set the cost of touring, and to offer my friends and fans another way to help support without necessarily having to buy merchandise or get stuff from iTunes (which would also be radical), I'm introducing the ability to DONATE to the Touring/Recording/Living fund for Gardening, Not Architecture.

I'm currently one month into a tour that doesn't have a set end date, and I'd like to stay on the road as much as I can for the next year, but (for example) I'm already about $1,200 in the hole, and about to start a 1,400 mile drive with about $10 left in cash.

I've had a lot of people ask how they can support the tour, so I came up with a way! Here's how it works:

Become a G,NA Official Sponsor
Donate to the tour / gas / food fund and help keep G,NA on the road and in the studio! Every penny counts and will be appreciated beyond words. Your name will be added to the list of contributors unless you ask to remain anonymous. Include your email address to receive a special thank you message from Sarah Saturday. Every time you donate, you'll get a new thank you message and a new asterisk next to your name on the list. Come back to donate often, and tell your friends! Thank you for supporting independent music!

Go to http://gardeningnotarchitecture.com and click the DONATE button!

Thank you for all your love and support.
xoxoSarah

Now streaming the new album in its entirety at Gardeningnotarchitecture.com!

2009-08-25T23:08:00.003-07:00

1. Go to http://gardeningnotarchitecture.com right now to listen to the new album, "First LP," from beginning to end!

2. Get your ass to Los Angeles this Sunday, August 30th, for the Gardening, Not Architecture CD release and tour kick-off house show with very special guest The Working Title!

3. Get the latest on the EIY TOUR featuring Gavin Castleton and Gardening, Not Architecture at EARNITYOURSELF.COM/TOUR! September 9th to November 14th with only a handful of days off. Help us book shows, promote the tour, or find a place to crash!

Love lots,
Sarah

August and Everything After

2009-08-05T16:57:00.004-07:00

It's amazing how quickly things move and change and develop. The tour is swiftly approaching, and has grown from 60 days to 70+ days and perhaps a trip to Alaska in November(?), plus a handful of new dates in the middle of the country.

For all the latest on the EIY TOUR, visit the TOUR EPK / PRESS RELEASE.

Meanwhile, I've been playing so many great shows in Los Angeles lately, and I keep getting invited to open the most amazing shows. I feel truly honored by the support and genuine interest I've been getting for Gardening, Not Architecture. Makes me think there's something good and true in what I'm doing, which is what I hoped for.

The shows I'm playing this month, leading up to the tour kick-off, are absolutely mind-boggling to me. I can't wait to experience these shows and I really hope all my friends in Southern/Central California can come out to be part of them!

SUNDAY, AUGUST 9, 2009

Black Francis (Frank Black from The Pixies)
Lucas Ohio & the Shamblers
Gardening Not Architecture

Downtown Brew
1119 Garden St
San Luis Obispo, CA 93401

ALL AGES! Tickets at Ticketweb.com (direct link to ticketing page)

THURSDAY - SATURDAY, AUGUST 13 - 15, 2009

onelinedrawing (Jonah Matranga)
iamani
Gardening, Not Architecture

Knitting Factory Hollywood
7021 Hollywood Blvd
Hollywood, CA 90028

ALL AGES! Tickets and Three-Day Passes at Knitting Factory website (direct link to ticketing page)

I'm still working out the details for an album release show for "First LP," which is being mastered as I type this! I'm thinking something fun and DIY like a house show. Check back soon for details! And yes, the lightwall will have all new choreographed lights for the new songs!

More soon...
Sarah

So now then.

2009-07-06T16:58:00.001-07:00

Here we are, halfway through 2009. It's been a ridiculous year (life?) for me so far, but I'm excited to finally have a plan that will take me through the rest of this year, and hopefully set up all of 2010, and beyond.

It's been a long time since I had a two-year plan, or even a six-month plan for that matter.

So here it is. If you want to get involved, let me know and I will find a place for you:

JULY:

Begin co-booking national Gardening, Not Architecture tour with Gavin Castleton
Finish mixing the new album with Beau
Play a bunch of shows
Co-host an amazing podcast every Monday night
Design and create the new handmade artwork for the upcoming G,NA release
Update my online store
Stop eating so much junk food
Avoid going on dates, or avoid boys in general
Take some photographs for the album with Beau, the secret other half of G,NA

AUGUST:

Begin promoting national tour, hopefully with your help
Design and create handmade CD and vinyl(?) sleeves
Find vans on the west coast and east coast to use on tour
Design and program a new light show
Finish mastering new record
Have a massive going-away party
Eat a lot of cupcakes
Listening party in Los Angeles when the album is done?

SEPTEMBER & OCTOBER & INTO NOVEMBER:

http://gavincastleton.com/promotional/falltour2009/

NOVEMBER:

Make more music videos with Coatwolf
Play fun shows
Make more stuff
Have dance parties
Sleep a lot
Start booking for 2010
Buy Christmas presents

DECEMBER:

Make some rad G,NA collectibles for Christmas presents
Start working on new songs
Eat some cake
Think about how awesome 2009 was, in comparison to 2008
Finalize early 2010 tour dates
Go into hiding at parents' house in the mountains of North Carolina

I know it sounds like a lot -- especially the parts about eating cake and sleeping -- but it's a group effort. Let me know if you want to be part of the cultivation! This is gardening, not architecture.

Love,
Sarah

blog blog blog

2007-10-14T17:02:00.000-07:00

this is my BLOG.

i like to write in my BLOG because BLOGGING is BLOG-O-LICIOUS.

BLOG BLOG BLOG

blog you!

eat a blog!

go blog yourself!

The Sarah Saturday Weblog

Gypsy Life: Volume Two

Bravely, Faithfully, Perhaps Successfully

10 Ways to Donate Without Spending Money

In case you missed it at www.gardeningnotarchitecture.com...

First, allow me to introduce the newest name on the list.

And this is where YOU come in. No, I'm not about to ask you for money... not yet anyway! *wink*

♥ I need you to help me make a video!♥

The End of the Affair...

Gypsy Life Update: A Year in Review

Gypsy Life Update: Seven-ish Month Mark

Fall Tour/Charity Fundraiser

The Results Are In

What would you buy for $20, $50, or $100 to help a band raise money for tour?

Any networking tips for a girl hoping to get touring experience?

RSVP for your local EIY Workshop & Scene Meet-Up!

Sarah Saturday Presents: The EIY Workshop & Scene Meetup on Vans Warped Tour 2010

Gypsy Life Update: Two Month Mark

Remix Contest Winners & Runner-Up Tracks

One order of "Remix EP" with a side of "G,NA Live at Hotel Cafe" - coming right up!

Welcome to my bubble: won't you stay a while?

Regret: An Ode

Fundraiser wrap-up and remix contest, oh my!

Help me raise money for the G,NA Light Wall and become a lifelong Official Sponsor! It's the G,NA FUN DRAZER!

Wear Sunscreen

A reminder of how it really is.

I suck at blogging.

Win 2 tix to Ernie Ball Showcase w/ Story Of The Year, plus VIP access to after-party w/ a performance by Gardening, Not Architecture!

DiNG your phone, iPod, computer, even your guitar, with Gardening, Not Architecture photos and artwork!

[Press Release] E.I.Y FALL TOUR 2009 EXTENSIVE FALL TOUR CONTINUES THROUGH NOVEMBER

Become an official sponsor of Gardening, Not Architecture (that's me!)

Now streaming the new album in its entirety at Gardeningnotarchitecture.com!

August and Everything After

So now then.

blog blog blog

And this is where YOU come in. No, I'm not about to ask you for money... not yet anyway! wink