We need some donations to make this thing fly!

First of all, we must extend our praise and gratitude to all of you who have been donating to our project.  Your money has made it possible to record this amazing music, and for that, we thank you.

play to listen

Our musical journey continues as we enter the next phase of the production.  Now, it’s time for our dedicated music maestro, Chris Shepard, to wave his magic wand and make it all come together.

It’s called “mixing and malting,” (no, not at the soda shoppe), and it takes lots of time and money to make it happen.  It’s what will take this album over the top, and we need that to happen.  After all, we’re honoring a pretty over the top human being, so it’s gotta be good.

Therefore, please donate a few bucks to get this portion complete.  Just click on the Donate button and give whatever you can.  (It’s tax deductible!!!)  Hey, two bucks can’t buy you a cup of coffee these days, but it can make you a rock star. In our band, anyway.

When you think it’s all done, look around you

La Guardia International, Saturday night

So, as Jean and I hoofed it through the airport, I felt like we had accomplished quite a lot. After all, we came to New York to record some music, and that, in fact, was what we had done.  It was awesome.

However, as I briskly walked through the terminal, I had a pang in my stomach knowing that I had to leave a sick child on Thursday in order to make it to New York for this recording.  I left my husband in sole charge of taking care of Maris, Lucy, and Bridget, and it was killing me to have left when fever was striking high.  So, feeling guilty and anxious to get home, I headed towards my gate.

But then, to my right, who do I see, but the great Lou Brock, of baseball hall of fame, with his wife, ready to board a flight headed for St. Louis. Right then, I knew that I had one chance to put my pride aside and ask for an autograph to give to my sweet Sean as a last minute Valentine’s gift.  After all, I left him with loads of directions and bottles of medicines, but had nothing to give him upon returning that would symbolize my gratitude for all of his support through this project.

So, upon deplaning in St. Louis, I went for it.  I grabbed a book mark out of my purse, cleared my throat, and went right up to him and asked. Now, Sean is the proud owner of a Valentine from Sweet Lou.  Who says angels aren’t at work even in the airports?

Teresa’s Tribute album. Take Two.

A sneak peak at our New York session.

Have a listen to Goodbye. It’s a cover of a Patty Griffin tune, from her album, Flaming Red.

Teresa loved Patty. And if you knew Teresa, you know she didn’t just like something. She LOVED it.  It’s fair to say she was pretty nuts about Patty’s music. In fact, just three week’s before her death, she attended a Patty Griffin concert with her partner and her brother, Norb, who was in Seattle performing in a new play. (That’s him above.)

At our recording session in New York last Friday, Norb told me that when he sat down to write a farewell song to Teresa, he realized Patty Griffin had already written what he wanted to say. So Norb wrote to Patty. After a few weeks with no response, he received an email from Patty’s manager saying they would donate the rights to the song. Thank you Patty!

And thanks to everyone who has been gracious enough to make a donation. This is where your money went. Have a listen. If you like what you hear, help us finish the album by making another donation.

I’m not going to lie to you. It’s a tear-jerker. But then again, who doesn’t feel better after a good cry?

The importance of creating art in the wake of violence.

Anne Ream, Founder of The Voices & Faces Project.

The exiled Russian poet Joseph Brodsky, a survivor of the Siege of   Leningrad, was reportedly once asked, “With all (of the horrors) occurring in the world today, how can you write poetry?”  To which Brodsky replied simply, “How do you eat breakfast?”

His response seems to have been part challenge, part statement of fact.  The creation of art in the wake of loss and trauma was, for this esteemed poet, essential as air:  the way that he made sense of his own painful history, the means by which he confronted the  damage still being inflicted on citizens all around the world.

I had not thought about that Brodsky statement for years.  Yet when I first learned about Teresa Butz’s story, and as I have watched her family and friends begin to create something beautiful in the wake of a loss so terrible, his words suddenly came back to me.  The Angel Band Project, the glorious tribute album that is being recorded in Teresa’s honor, has – like Brodsky’s poetry- the feel of the essential.  This is an album that must be made, to honor Teresa and to challenge the rest of us to fight for  a world in which violence in all its forms finally ends.

“Closure” and “Moving On” are catchphrases that bubble up daily in self-help guides and on talk show TV.  We are told that we must look forward, never back.  Yet for those who have lived through or lost someone to violence, it is not quite so easy.  The past can seem ever-present (and perhaps it should be).  The gift of music or art is not that it helps us to forget, but that it allows us endure.

Sometimes, what we are left with is our stories and the will to tell them.  And sometimes,  that is enough.

Anne K. Ream

The Voices and Faces Project

Rockin’ out for Teresa

This one goes to eleven.

Things took a radical shift, musically speaking, when we recorded Adam Butz and his band, the Wifflers, at Chicago Recording Company yesterday. If anyone over 60 (Mr. & Mrs. Butz, my dad, etc.) is actually reading this blog, this one aint for you.

Their energetic track, A Kind Heart on Rose Street, is everything our Saint Louis recording was not. It’s loud. Fast. Noisy. And electric. Your basic punk rock.

The man behind the curtain

Meet Chris Shepard. This is the guy driving the bus. On top of handling all the technical aspects of the recordings (he actually knows what every one of those buttons are for), Chris has been guiding and coordinating this project from the get go.

In fact, I think it was in this very studio that I arrived five months ago with a sad story and a crazy idea. That I blurted out between sobs. Aside from lending his considerable talent, Chris also donated yesterday’s session. What else can I say?  The guy’s a total mensch.

Speaking of talented and generous people, Chicago-based photographer, Heidi Peters, spent the day with us yesterday and made us all look very rock’n'roll.

Heidi will  be joining us for our recording session in New York in two week’s time.

Check out the rest of the photos on Flickr. Heidi, you rock.