EXCITING NEWS!!

Promise (EP) is being released May 30, 2008! CDs are available to pre-order, so send an email to annaluxion@yahoo.com to get on the waiting list!! A website where you'll be able to purchase CDs online is currently under construction, but once it's up and running a URL will be sent out to those on the waiting list.

(Cost of CD covers shipping and handling within the U.S.; a minimal extra cost may be applied to those being shipped outside the States, and CDs will take at least 3-5 business days to arrive post 5/30/08.)

Also feel free to send along a note if you want your copy to be autographed!

now that's what i call impressive

today is march 4th, 2008. thirty years ago exactly it was march 4th, 1978. thirty years ago exactly my parents got married. and they're still married to the same people! granted, it hasn't, you know always been the "perfect" marriage - there are always going to be differences and discrepancies and who knows what else, but the point is that i would like to hereby congratulate my parents for being so amazing and dedicated as to stay together for THREE DECADES. over a quarter of a century!

this is cool.

so, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!! :D

home

home
what is home?
where you hang your hat
where the heart is
but you can hang your hat anywhere
and your heart is in your chest
so home is...
the world?
but the world is not a safe place
at least, not always for me
then, home is...
i don't know where it is.
:(

i is famous?

i don't quite know if that's really true, but, well... let me begin at the beginning.

i went to neby this past weekend, and it was pretty much amazing. there were some definite ups and downs (for example, being in a highlander with three other people for 20 straight hours, only to end up in a giant hotel with over a thousand people milling about, lights blazing, music blaring around the general vicinity - talk about your sensory overload), but overall the weekend was really cool. i wish i'd gone to a bit more morning sessions, but well, that's a rather moot point, and not really the main point (moot or otherwise) of this post.

the main point (moot or otherwise) is that i seem to have gathered some kind of following from the citizens of this country and canada. it's quite interesting, actually, to have people come up to me (that i don't know, or have never seen IN MY LIFE) and ask me things like if i'm on facebook or myspace... it's definitely a different feeling. for one thing, i'm glad people like my music; that to me is the main goal - writing good songs that people can relate to (and are not about sex, drugs, women, partying, materialism, fakelovewhichisreallyjustmoresex, physical attributes, etc.), and maybe that help somebody who's having a bad day cheer up, or show someone who's tired that other people get tired too, and that it's okay to let those feelings show sometimes.

so yeah, that's really the point (moot or otherwise) of this post; is mainly to let people know that 1) i really appreciate the fact that people are open enough to sort of look past the words and see into the deeper meanings of the songs (which i try and make as clear as i can without blurting out the message blatantly, and spoiling the "poeticness" of it all), and 2) this music, whether i write it or not, is music from the soul, and in my opinion, that's really what we're lacking in today's society. - soul. and i'm not necessarily talking about "soul music", because to me that's different; no, i'm talking about music that rises up from the deepest point of your being to soar out of your mouth like sun rays through clouds (yes, those lovely crepuscular ones). - and even, to me, in some cases "from the heart" doesn't mean all that much, because the heart is a physical organ, and yes, it has emotions and feelings, but really (in my humble opinion), the soul is where it all happens. truly. eternally.

and so, on this note, i will leave you with a quote from a really great daily prayer/devotions/quote book called Reciting the Verses of God: "He that riseth to serve My Cause should manifest My wisdom, and bend every effort to banish ignorance from the earth." - (Tablets of Baha'u'llah, p. 138)

sad face. e_e *blogs about it* happy face. ^_^

i am disappointed. i was really looking forward to having my cd done by neby... well, neby is two days away, and i have two songs done - one i can't even get at, because it's on the school computer and in a file format that's not compatible with my own computer, and one that's okay, but not quite up to par... bah.

i have basically been working on making a cd ever since i started playing guitar and writing music. people always encouraged me, and that was great! except that i felt as if i was constantly letting people down every time the same old situation played out...

"anna! how are you? how's the cd going? do you know when you'll be done?"

"i'm good - busy... i still haven't found somewhere to record yet, so i'm still working on that..."

and that would be that. every public function, every Baha'i function, every time i saw anyone who knew that i play guitar and sing and write music and was trying (still am, obviously) to produce some kind of cd or album, every one of these situations would, without fail, bring this topic up. and i would still feel as bad every time i had to squirm in my shoes and answer the questions as honestly as i could bring myself to be. i always feel like i got these looks of "wow, you sure are taking your sweet time about this, huh?" whenever i would tell people i was "still working on it", and that would drive me even further into guilt-mode.

that's when i realized that i was still just sitting on my rear in my bedroom, strumming my guitar and waiting for an agent in a helicopter to zoom past my window, somehow hear what i was doing, and swoop through and carry me away to be famous in california.

dream on.

so then i really DID start working on it. i searched online for recording studios, i went to a couple recording studios (disastrous. never let them wake you up and make you sing early in the morning when you know your voice needs time to wake up too), and i called people. most recently i've been talking at (not to; they don't return my calls...) someone who works at a recording studio near me, hoping that i'd be able to get in there for some recording time and whatnot.

more dreaming, apparently.

so now i'm full-on going to do it myself, thankyouverymuch! - i am in a recording class, i get at least six hours of time in the studio every week, i know how to run the equipment, and i have an awesome friend who can improvise on the ukulele (how rockin' is that?!) for accompaniment and such, and i have improvisations of my own as well to go along with whatever else is in my head.

so sadly, my cd will not be done by neby. but look for it before Ayyam-i-Ha for sure!! (and, should something somehow delay its release even further, i am completely and entirely determined to birth this technological little baby of mine before we get too far into march!)

count on it!