LA LA LA, a snow storm and a bit of wander lust

Some of you know that I live in a very small town. In the middle of the prairies. It is where my family lives and I chose to be here once I started touring, in order to be with the people I love when at home. I'm sure some wonder why I haven't moved to a bigger city permanently, but if you could see the sun set, or hear my nephew laugh or swing on my tree swing, you might stop wondering. Or you might continue, depending on what suits your fancy. I don't really care.

I live 2 hours away from a small international airport. And by international, I mean that sometimes you have connecting flights in Minneapolis, Toronto, Denver, Chicago, Calgary etc.

Last Friday some friends of mine were moving furniture out to their new cottage in my town. So instead of driving into Winnipeg to get to the airport, I opted for catching a ride back in their moving van. All the way to Winnipeg I sat or laid on the flat empty floor of this big moving van.

The next morning I flew to Minneapolis where I waited and tweeted and got excited about my conference in LA. (I'm not cool enough to not get excited.)

When I arrived in LA, my cab driver kept telling me that he didn't like marriage and that even though he was old he had young eyes. "I may be old, but when a beautiful young woman such as yourself gets in my cab, I know beauty when I see it. Any man who is a man, knows beauty and enjoys it. But my wife? She keep sayingk to me... 'ah you are so old! stop beingk a creep! lookingk at those young girls!"

He showed me signed pictures of all the famous actors that had been in his cab and got me to sign his fame book because he found out I was playing the Viper Room.

I stayed at a cute bohemian hotel in West Hollywood that had a rooftop garden and saltwater pool. There I treated myself to dinner, enjoying the view of the hills, sipping wine - and was approached by a group of business men. They started making conversation and made the old 'Alanis' comparison to 'Alana'. I must note here that they were young business men and didn't know who Roy Orbison was. How incredibly unfortunate. Our future is in trouble!

I walked up the street to see the Viper Room and there were ridiculously hot people trying desperately to get in. I quietly observed all this with a slight hidden smirk, because I didn't even want to get in but would be playing there in two nights! Seriously, this town is funny. There was a guy that wasn't driving a cool enough car and wasn't allowed in the parking lot behind the club! Hilarious! He looked so dejected.

When I arrived back at my hotel, a bottle of wine had been sent to my room from one of the young business men with a card that read "Alana- call or text- Dan." So I read The Princess and Curdie by George MacDonald and enjoyed the wine without calling or texting.

The next day I rehearsed with some killer players. Ian Walker, Josh Grange, Sasha Smith and Mitch Marine. They are seriously great players and we had lots of fun telling dirty jokes and getting to know each other. These guys play with KD Lang, Dwight Yoakum, Everclear etc... really great blokes!

Monday, I picked up my J-165 Gibson from the Gibson Showroom and got familiar with it. (Ahem.. and the couple in the room next to me were keeping time to my tunes... for reals.)

Sound check went well once we were able to sound check, but because we were first on, we had barely any time to eat... so we went across the street and wolfed down some italian food. I was probably the only woman in that whole crazy town eating carbs, especially right before a show! Yikes. Cardinal rules being broken, baby:)

I'm happy I ate those carbs because it gave me the energy to ROCK!!! We had loads of fun up there and got the crowd going. Here is the REVIEW!

I'll keep you posted as to what will come of playing that show, but good things seem to be in the works!

I flew home with a connecting flight to Calgary where I was caught in a snow storm. Luckily, it wasn't snowing in Manitoba. Just a nice spring rain. So transitioning wasn't terribly hard.

Though I have a little fever to do some traveling just for the sake of traveling. So you may get a journal from somewhere else soon!

Much love- alana


PS- A few things I learned from the Musexpo conference-

1. you have to be willing to take your clothes off and do anything to be a tried and true pop star... anything to be different... which has been the case for awhile... but I think now with someone like Lady Gaga taking over the world, at least you have to have TALENT and be willing to take your clothes off. Of all the acts to come along in the last 10 years, I would say that if anyone is going to trump Madonna, its her. The trouble is that with such high demand for content, she will have to work even harder to remain in the limelight. No stopping. No breaks. But, my hunch is she is genuinely that insatiable.

2. I don't want to be a pop star:) Oh wait, look at the provocative photo below!

3. I love music and want to make money at creating it and I love rocking out, performing and giving a memorable experience to a crowd.



how shocking