Anna Coogan: Home

Just got a nice review from UK based music reviewer Allan Wilkinson. For the full review, see the "press" section, or check out Allan's site here:

http://www.allanwilkinson.co.uk/node/675
Here's a highlight:

"The songs here are deeply personal, especially So Long Summertime which together with all the other songs on the album, almost provides an epitaph for a lost friend.
With an impressive forthcoming tour schedule, the songs comprising THE NOCTURNAL AMONG US will no doubt serve Anna well, whether you catch her at a concert hall in San Francisco, a folk club in Falkirk or the smallest house concert in the back of a van. I certainly look forward to catching her at one of those soon."

I'm excited that my song "Crooked Sea" from "The Nocturnal Among Us" was selected to be featured on a compilation CD that will be used to raise money for the Indiegrrl Music and Arts Camp for children. Killer cause, and it is gonna be a hell of a good CD. I'll post links to the finished product in a few months.

I will be the first to admit that playing music is not always fun. In fact, there are long stretches where it is no fun at all, and I scratch my head and wonder what the hell I am doing. The job of being your own booker, manager, promoter, and networker can feel (and, indeed, can be) impossible. I've got something like 10 social network sites that I try to maintain, my own 10-headed online avatar re-creation of myself. It's so easy to lose your way out there, to start feeling bitter.

And then, every once in a while, something happens.("just when I thought I was out....they pull me back in!") It can be any number of things: a show, a recording experience, a new song that comes out of nowhere, even just a positive email. And you remember why you are doing it.

Last night was one of those moments. After 6 months of solid work of booking the tour and finishing the record, with a credit card bending under the weight of each new purchase, I was feeling rather burnt out. I was starting to feel like a broken record, like a copy-and-paste email gone bad. I did not know what to expect out of my international band, who arrived 2 days before the show having never met eachother,let alone played together. All I could do was cross my fingers and hope for the best.

And I got it. Last night at the Fremont Abbey was one of the best shows of my life. Everything clicked into place. The house was packed and the audience was quiet (wow!). The sound was beautiful and the acoustics of the former-church were almost holy. The band, all 5 of us, played like we had been playing together for years. For the first time in what seemed like years, I felt every word I was singing. For the first time in what seemed like years, I remembered exactly why we do what we do.

After the show, we drank the last bottle of our wedding champagne and danced to 80's hip hop at the local dive. I woke up way too early today ( not yet on a tour schedule!) and am hung over, yet I feel better today than I have in a long time. We're starting the tour in earnest next week, and I know it will be a roller coaster. Goods, bads, drunks, and everything in between. But for now, it's just me and my coffee (the boys are all still asleep, lucky them) and a brief moment of clarity. This is why I do it.