December 2003 Journal...

It's almost Christmas, we still have no tree. But the two Blizzards on back-to-back weekends were incredible. We slogged up to the "Towne Crier" in the middle of the first one! Thanks to all of you who made the trek. Sorry to those of you who couldn't get there. The club decided to go forward as there were no dates available that would work to re-schedule. We goofed around Central Park like ten year olds during the second blizzard. You've gotta get out there in the middle of the storm or else you miss the pretty part, and get stuck in the brown slushy aftermath. It's terrifying watching some of the taxi drivers try to figure out how to maneuver in snow with bald tires and no experience of WINTER.

Other than that I've been busy with the final artwork decisions, the packaging, the posters, the images for the "Back in the Circus" onslaught. It's exciting and scary, like the night before the first day of school. It's still me and Bad Dog Records, but I've been lucky enough to make a new distribution and marketing deal with "Verve Records." Hopefully this will help me take "Back in the Circus" to a larger audience.

Other big news. We've been working hard at updating the web site. Most importantly the discussion board will be kind of streamlined and in order to make it work better for everyone, we'll all have to re-register. Please take the time to do it, it's easy and quick and I think it'll be a great new arena, and most importantly will allow us to notify you about gigs that come up in your specific area, so that we don't bug people in Oslo, Norway about the next Asheville, NC gig!! Tell your friends to get in, spread the word and I'll certainly try to be more active here myself.

Also, check out the new music section - you can stream all the albums (except the new one J) and have the lyrics alongside as well as a blurb about each song, or you can browse and keep listening, We're also making the first single from "Back in the Circus" available here. Hope you like it!!

I also just recorded four of the new songs in French. My Parisian soul sister Clemence Lhomme did the translations again and I learned, again, how incredibly different singing in French is. The sounds are so completely different, that notes that were comfortable in English are suddenly brand new beasts. I think they came out beautifully though. Hopefully we'll be able to release the record in Europe (if we can find the right distribution there) in the late spring, early summer.

You can get your tickets early here for the March run of dates in New York. They'll be exclusively available on the web site for the next couple of weeks. General Public tickets will go on sale January 23rd. You can also pre-order "Back in the Circus" here, and I'll sign it and get it to you (post office willing) by February 24th.

We're hoping that my Bad Dog catalogue will be available at the itunes store in the next couple of weeks. It's taken them much longer to get the independent records implemented. Too bad!!

So have a great holiday season. Get cosy with your loved ones, a book, the movies. Spread love and chocolate. See you all very soon.

Love
Jonatha