Ok, so I failed miserably at posting regular blogs for the rest of this tour, but hopefully, you guys were following along on my Ayria (FB/Twitter/MySpace status updates – yeah, they are all connected so I only have to post once! Thank God for that! ) Because I was posting short updates as much as I could. Also, Peter from Project Pitchfork was posting almost daily video reports that got funnier and funnier as the tour went on and we were all becoming one crazy tour family. If you didn’t see them on his channel the Fork Force, it’s Tour Report # 1 through 25 and is a pretty honest showing of how being on the road is. Not much glamour, long drives, but exciting nights and great shows.

Ok so, after Washington, we had a few van (aka “Donkey”) adventures and mishaps but we made it to all the shows. A bit late (sorry Richmond for loading in at 10:00 PM, but thanks to all the helpers that got us set up in no time at all! That was when the battery and alternator went and we were stuck at the mechanics for a few hours) but anyways, we made it through and instead of trying to remember every city, I’m going to go over the highlights of the second half of the tour:

TOUR HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE SECOND HALF (CITY BY CITY):
• Richmond – had a swing in the backstage! Yep. Lots of fun came of that
• Nashville – small show, smallest on the whole tour actually, but met some amazing fans, had a swank backstage and enjoyed the intimate show. Thanks to Tammy for baking the world’s BEST brownies! We all enjoyed them for the next few days (ok, mostly Kevin and I.. but we were the biggest sugar freaks!)
• Tulsa – Amazing crowd! This is my third time playing in Tulsa and it keeps getting better and better. Which is what’s supposed to happen I guess Thanks to David 950 and crew, Suzi (Slick V 4 life) and everyone involved in that night. This was Peter’s birthday (tour report #15) and we came out onstage to bring him cake and sing Happy Birthday. He said no one had done that for him before!
• Dallas – Ah, Dallas! Possibly one of our biggest shows on the tour. The Church is such a cool venue, the backstage is bright pink, Kami & Krystal of K2 productions treated us so great, what can I say. This is the city I got the MOST pictures taken with fans. There was a Jenn line-up! (I’m blushing thinking about it). The awesome thing about Texas shows is, 1) Fans are absolutely insane and energetic, never reserved and 2) Fans follow you from city to city to go to all the shows. Seems to be a very supportive scene in Texas. Just my observations, but this is why we play 3-4 shows in this one state. That, and the fact that this state is HUGE!  I <3 Texas!
• Texas continued: Austin & San Antonio were amazing shows too. Thanks to Alan & Diana & Klifford, and others (?) for following to all 3 shows! I got to eat at Koriente, my favourite little Asian Fusion restaurant a block away from the Elysium venue.
• Texas part 3 – Ate soooo much amazing Mexican food! Guacamole bowls the size of my head and loved it so much! One thing Canada does not have, and it’s great Mexican food (we have mostly everything else, I’m not knocking the T.Dot) but I love indulging in Mexican when I’m in Texas!
• Phoenix – Club Mardi Gras was a great little venue decorated all with Christmas lights! (My favourite. you should see my apartment!) Too bad the AC was being difficult. I always tell people that Phoenix is the hottest place on this planet that I’ve ever experienced. Every time I’m there, it continues to live up to this reputation! Still, had a blast, met amazing people after the show. Also, I want to apologize to our sound technician, the amazing Axxl, for bringing him to that BBQ styled restaurant, “Coopers BBQ – It’s what’s for dinner” also known as the house of murder. Axxl was the only vegetarian on tour and this little place we decided to eat at not only had nothing but MEAT, but it also had all the taxidermied heads of the animals on the wall as well as all the killing tools used as instruments of death. It was so creepy once we actually looked around… but delicious… sorry to the veggies out there! (as seen in video report number 18)
• L.A. – Always a highlight on a tour! Played an outdoor show at Bar Sinister and had fun. Thanks to John & Trish and all involved in this show. By the way, Bar Sinister has the most amazing deep fried mac and cheese & nachos! I know, sounds horrible, but it’s really, really good… especially at 2:00 AM when you are starving!! Also, the Break Up (a Seattle band) joined us from L.A. onwards for the last 4 shows. Check them out! They are fabulous!
• San Fran – Ahhhh, I feel like this is somehow my city. I have claimed it and made it my own, ok? Thanks to: David King (fishing buddies 4 life!), Peter (noisescape TV), Melanie Blau, Eric G., Devon, umm… plus so many more who I’m forgetting but it’s always amazing to see you guys and you always show me a great time. Thanks to all the fans that were there & who were able to tune into the live web cast (anyone? Let me know how it looked. Remember, it’s never a great representation of how a show actually sounds or looked since the mix comes right from the board (usually) and sounds weird.
• San Francisco continued: Had my ONLY sushi dinner of the tour here at Sushi Groove. Mmmmmm (sushi of course being my favourite food)
• Seattle – Mikey’s hometown!! Another place that feels like home to me, as it’s where the first ever Ayria show took place and where Ayria kind of started… Stayed with my friend Michael & roomies, got to see Shaun F. (my Debris partner in crime), my friend Amy, and so many faces I hadn’t seen for far too long!
• Portland- Yeah, I know, back down south to Portland, but that’s just how the routing works sometimes! This was our FINAL show of the month long tour and we couldn’t have chosen a better spot to end it off. The energy of the crowd was crazy fun; my “Portland Crew” brought me an Ayria cake!!! (Picture below) yeah, that’s right, a CAKE!!!! It was so delicious. I think the word had spread about how people had brought me treats and that I love cake/cupcakes/baked goodness. And so they wanted to blow us all away with the ULTIMATE BAKED GOODS!! Much love to you guys for making us feel so special that night! Thanks to Derek, I love how getting coffee has become our tradition!
• Post Tour – We dropped everyone off at the Portland airport but I went back with Mike and Sarah to chill in Seattle for one extra day before my flight home. On the Tuesday, Sarah and I went shopping on Broadway on the Tuesday, as well as tried out a delicious place called cupcake Royale! The “Holly Hobby’s Dance Party” cup cake was the best! Then we went back because I needed time to sort out merch, repack my suitcase(s) and chill for an early morning flight home. Since being back, I always spend the first 2 days resting and getting over the sheer exhaustion of travelling and doing shows constantly. Your body reaches this level of constant adrenaline while you’re on tour that gets you through it, then when it’s done, you have no control but to crash… hard. But I’m back to normal now! Looking ahead to new music & plans.

FUN TOUR FACTS:

• Longest drive from one show to the next: San Antonio to Phoenix – took us 19 hours.
• Most popular American restaurants we ate at for Breakfast on this tour: IHOP, Denny’s and the classic American diners that we could find
• Most popular American restaurants we ate at for Dinner on this tour: APPLEBEES!! I had never been to one before; their sizzling shrimp stir-fry thing was yummy! This place was guaranteed to be playing the World Cup Football games so for the German’s sake; it was imperative we ate here
• Number of times people brought me cupcakes, cakes, brownies, etc: 5
• Pounds gained on this tour: 5! Not bad for eating everything listed above!
• Drink of the tour: Vodka Cranberry! Apparently Cranberry juice is not that common or popular in Germany so they wanted to have it when they could! I wasn’t complaining!
• Number of times Mike got “naked” on tour: 3 Dallas (on a weird dare by Peter), Austin (what is it with Texas & naked), San Francisco (but he was wearing a flesh coloured thong.. uh-huh Video evidence on Report #17
• Number of packs of gum Kevin went through… I’d say at least 25. That boy is addicted to chewing gum!
• First tour EVER that I did NOT get sick or catch a virus of any kind! YAY! Maybe it was all the nutrients I was getting from IHOP, Denny’s, Applebee’s, cranberry juice, and the cupcakes!? I’ll never know.
• Hotel chain we always stayed at: Best Westerns
• Number of times I saw Peter sleeping in the van: ZERO! That man is a machine! He was always working on his tour report videos during the drive
• Number of times I slept in the van: every chance I got! I had the entire back bench to myself, complete with pillows, blankets and we dubbed it “The Girlie Parlour”
• Number of times Donkey had trouble and we ended up at a garage: at least 4. But that was part of the whole adventure!
• My Tour Nickname: “The Queen”, Kevin’s: “Wolfgang hans helmut”, the van’s: “Donkey”
• My Second tour in a row where I’ve celebrated both Canada Day, and The 4th of July (aka “America Day”) in the US! <3
• Funniest Tour video that I’m not in video #22 Titled “The Jenn Files” look for the riveting conclusion in  video #23, yeah, our videos started having real plot develop!!  Hahaha!

Here are some pictures from the second half of the tour, mainly from our last show due to me being horrible at remembering to take pictures until it’s the end!  So here were the ones I had, although many of you have been posting awesome ones on the Ayria FB page (thanks!!)

:

Thanks to Mike and Kevin for being live members of Ayria on this tour.  You guys were awesome & I had so much fun with you both! Thanks to  Project Pitchfork (Peter, Jurgen, Achim & Axxl) for inviting us to be part of this tour! We love them, miss them and had a wonderful time with them. We will actually get to reunite as we are both booked to play INFEST this August on the same night as them in the UK! Complete coincidence!
Thank YOU guys! Thanks to everyone that bought tickets, came to the shows, bought merch, said hi to us, took pics, danced your butts off, brought gifts (very unexpected), promoted the shows, told your friends to go, and overall, supported events in your city therefore, supporting our ability to continue touring like this! I love you all and appreciate everything I’ve been able to do. It’s always a musician’s dream to be able to get out there and connect with the people who enjoy your music. I love meeting you all and hearing your stories about how a song has affected you, empowered you, got you through your tough times because it reminds me of why I do this, why I sacrifice almost everything else in my normal life to keep doing this. God knows it is NOT for the money so please, stay with me. Xox

If you were at any of the shows, please post here! I’d love to know, and to hear your memories & stories!
Sincerely,
Jennifer

Here’s the very last video report from Portland, OR, everyone saying goodbye at the airport:

Photo Credit: LostFish

Clip of the Blue Alice:
 

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Interesting Tid Bits about this song

1. This is the song that got me an “explicit” warning for the Hearts For Bullets CD since it has swearing in it.  I thought this was a GOOD use of the “F” bomb.

2. This song was a collaboration and is the only song on Hearts For Bullets that I didn’t do the majority of programming and writing for.

3. I occasionally get tagged as “rap” on some sites. I think it’s because of this song, and The Gun Song.  Despite the fact that I hate when people try and categorize my genre of music, I DID think it was very entertaining to be called a rapper!

4. The tempo of this song is 101 BPM.  Which is such an awesome speed that’s rarely done these days.  This tempo used to be more common in Industrial (think Nitzer Ebb’s Belief album and NIN songs) but with club music that’s taken over, DJ’s and/or artists seem to think that if a song goes under 130 BPM, they might explode… or something.

5. The original working title for this song was “I look better from the floor”.

6. The lyrics for this song were inspired by a movie I saw and it was NOT Alice In Wonderland

7. This was the very last of all songs to be finished in production for Hearts For Bullets around mid June 2008.  After which, I had a glass of red wine to celebrate!

The Dissection:

This song is a collaboration between me and my amazing friend Jeremy Pfohl who happens to run Storming The Base in Toronto.  I actually love collaborating with other people. Some amazing vocal ideas have come out of collaborations since I’m free to concentrate just on the vocals which has always been my number one passion. Jeremy had started writing this loop that eventually became the first verse of “Blue Alice”.  He played it for me, and I thought the synths were just amazing, and it had such a cool groove and such a rawness to it, that I asked him to pass the loop on to me so I could play around with ideas since he tends to just start loops just for fun.  I then recorded vocals over top of it, that ended up staying in the sonng as the first verse.  I had started chanting about fairy tales through a distortion effect, and he loved it so we decided to develop it further and complete it as a full song.

The Chorus

Writing the chorus came next but we found it really difficult to transition into something big and powerful.  Both the music and the vocals in our first draft, neither of us liked completely. The first draft of the song, I had kept chanting in the chorus but it really needed some vocal melody to change the chorus completely.  Then one day, the “Hey You Black and Blue” came to me and it was a line that instantly stuck in my head and forced Jeremy to program percussion around that new idea. It’s like everything clicked once a powerful chorus was created.

The Bridge

Jeremy  ended up working on a bridge “synth solo” that comes in after the lyrics: “Little Pig Little Pig Put Her Down!” that  he was having so much fun with, it would have gone on for another 5 minutes if it were up to him.  But me, usually forgetting to take a pause in a song to STOP singing for a bit, found the synths leading a nice refreshing break and change.  And that synth solo part is so ridiculously sick! Seb enhanced it in production by adding breaks, and adding really amazing percussion in that part and in the chorus.  Here is the bridge synth solo in all it’s glory:

 

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This week  I’m changing things up again, instead of isolating the raw vocals, I wanted to isolate the raw synths before production so you can admire their sick beauty and what they added to this song:

Here’s the Verse Synth:

 

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2 Chorus Synths that layer together for a thick sound:

 

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Finally the Bridge Synth “solo”!

 

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The Lyrics:  This Is One F*cked Up Fairy Tale..

The song is whimsical with dark fairy tale concepts running throughout in a sick and twisted, somewhat modernized way.  Here are the lyrics:

I hope I’m dreaming because this can’t be awake
I hope I’m dead just for my sake
Who knew all this would come from a dirty gun
Son of a Bitch who thought he was a cowboy
The mad hatter Bashes your face again
Look into his eyes to see where evil lives
Bullet through window and down the rabbit hole
This is one f*cked up fairy tale

Hey You! Black and blue
Watch out, you’ll end up like Alice
Hey You! Black and blue
Watch out, don’t end up like Alice

You’ll get what’s coming, you and your children
The wicked witch has OD’ed on pills again
And the Dragon, lights up a cigarette
He’s blowing smoke right into your face again
It’s off with her head
Her snakes are seething
The big bad wolf is rabid and teething
Bullets through windows and down the rabbit hole
This is one f*cked up fairy tale

Little Pig little pig put her down
Slapped around choked and drown

I was inspired to start writing the lyrics to this song after watching a movie called “Running Scared” directed by Wayne Kramer. It’s not uncommon that a book, an article, a show, the news, or a movie sparks my mind to start writing lyrics. It doesn’t mean the whole song is completely about this movie, it just started my imagination down this dark fairy tale lyrical path.  This movie is a bloody, violent, cowboy, mob, fairy tale with a pretty gruesome UV lit hockey torture scene like no one has done before! It had all of these characters throughout the story that were modernized version of classic Grimm Fairy Tale characters. I debated explaining here which parts specifically from this movie I used in my lyrics, but if you’re that interested, you can just watch the film yourself and try and figure it all out. I’m not saying it’s the best movie ever, it’s quite over the top, a strange plot and violent, but you might enjoy that

Don’t End Up Like Alice: The rest of the lyrics, I took from other favourite childhood stories, like Alice In Wonderland of course, which became the premise of the chorus and tied the whole song together, matching the tone of the verses by portraying a bit of a battered Alice who ends up black and blue and slapped around. I was already writting these dark lyrics, so there was no turning back and I created this image of an abused Alice that you have to be careful not to end up like.  A bit unnerving, but striking.

I recently purchased this Alice in Wonderland book and was thrilled with the illustrations in this version done by Camille Rose Garcia.  They are so wonderfully creepy!

The Little Pig reference was obviously a nod to the childhood nursery rhymes only mutilated to be about the pigs being nasty masochists, beating and choking Alice.  The “Off with her head, Snakes are seething” is a reference to Greek Mythology’s Medusa, but also tying it in with the Queen Of Hearts from Alice In Wonderland, linking the fabled beheading of Medusa with the Red Queen’s constant cry of ‘off with their heads!”.   Medusa is one of my favourite “villains” in stories.. although, arguably, not a villain at all, but that’s another discussion..

I also really liked the anachronistic images of the characters.  Like the wicked witch overdosing on pills. Taking a fantasy character and giving her more modern qualities.  Same with the image of the dragon, except in his case, he’s also a creature not a person, so having those modern qualities is even stranger.  Instead of breathing fire, he takes a drag of a cigarette and blows the smoke into your face.  Almost more insulting since you know he can breath fire, but is instead taunting you.  And that being both anachronistic and anthropomorphic (yes, I looked that word up, I learned something from this blog too!) was interesting to me.

To end the disscetion, I like sharing interesting youtube videos I stumble accross!  This one is a slide show created by fearandloathinggirl,  it uses a lot of Alice Pictures that I’ve never seen before!

Have a great week! I’m not going to post a new dissection this Friday and we’ll see how crazy things get, but this might be the last one before the upcoming tour. I will instead be tour blogging from the road! The Song Dissections will resume when I’m back of course! In the meantime, tell me what your favourite fairy tale, fairytale related movie, or childhood fable is?

xo
Jenn

Previous Song Dissections:
1000 Transmissions
Bad List
Invisible
Analog Trash
Suck It Up
Insect Calm

If you’ve enjoyed reading this and wish to own this song and want to support me directly, please either check out my shop (I personally ship & sign anything you want), or you can purchase the mp3 of Blue Alice from iTunes for a mere dollar:

From the CD: Hearts For Bullets
Music, lyrics & vocals: Jennifer Parkin
Production, mixing, mastering: Sebastian Komor

Lyrics:

I’m withered inside. I’ve never wanted something so blindly.
How does one comprehend dissatisfaction with the unknown.
I’ve been bound too long to this confining shell, like a tiny hell that can’t calm this wrestless mind.
My blood pulses, fuels desire.

I’ve left all behind. These winds have changed and there is no way back.
Why can’t you see this all will fall, this microcosm is not eternal.
My thirst will not subside. I’d rather face the storm and get ripped open wide.
Then my insect eyes will see this wretched world for all it hides.

Insect Calm.
My limbs are numb.
Resistance gone, I’m shedding skin.
To feed and breathe in.

Insect Calm
The fear is gone.
Itching and feeling with my new skin
Inhale this world in.

The Dissection

So the surprise for this week’s song dissection is that I made a little video to change it up a bit! The video doesn’t get as detailed as the write ups can though, so it’s a bit more brief than other dissections but, it includes the visual element of me in my appartment, and some impromtu live singing by me just for you!  I’m sorry for the quality of the built in MacBook camera, but it’s the best I can do for now so please be kind with your comments, and enjoy!

AYRIA – Song Dissection #6 – INSECT CALM from Ayria on Vimeo.

One additional thing that I didn’t have time to touch on in the video was this amazing and very old and very rough clip I found that was the original idea for the song Insect Calm.  This audio clip is from back in the days when I was working on the Flicker CD.  I sometimes start loops with a vocal idea but have no idea where to take them, so they sit on the “idea shelf”.  You can tell this one is a rough idea since the vocals aren’t really cohesive between the layers and I was in the brainstorming phase.  This idea loop sat there for several years until I revisited it while writing Hearts For Bullets.  This demo clip comes accross sounding pretty gothy with the reverbed synths and vocals, and from here, it was obviously re-worked into a full demo, that  was more bass and percussion driven, glitchier and sparser, before being passed to Seb for his never less than amazing production.

 

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I’ll try and come up with more surprises for next week.  There are 2 songs that I know people are specifically waiting for and I’m getting excited to dissect them! This week was a bit crazy for me, having just returned from Montreal but I was glad I could pull this video together in time for today for you guys! ♥ I know the video is brief and doesn’t get into too much detail, so if you want me to answer further questions on the lyrics or concept behind this song, post it here and I’ll reply!

xoxo
Jenn

If you’re a new reader, make sure you check out previous week’s Song Dissections:

1000 Transmissions
Bad List
Invisible
Analog Trash
Suck It Up

First off, Happy New Year to everyone!  Here’s a few pics of me kicking off 2010 in Dusseldorf, Germany having just ended the “Quick Silver” European tour with the Cruxshadows with my keyboardist for the European tour, Justin Pogue (who has also played live with me at DragonCon and a few dates on the 2008 U.S. tour). But I’ll write more about that tour in part 2!

I’m going to break the year up a bit and start with the first 6 months. After a 3 month long tour of the U.S.A. with the Cruxshadows finishing up the last quarter of 2008, in comparison, 2009 started relatively quiet, I went back to my “real” life and full time job in Toronto and basically hibernated for the winter. I made the time to catch up with friends (I had been out of the country for 3 months!), go clubbing and go to shows that came through. Not a lot happened on the Ayria front until April when we played Toronto at the DarkRave on April 4th. So, here’s a timeline of my 2009 to recap some of the highlights and some memories of my year.

January/February/March 2009:
- fairly low key period. Went back to work, recovered from the three months of solid touring the U.S.A., had a Battlestar Galactica party for the series finale.. yep.
- Recorded a cover version of Depeche Mode’s “In Your Room”. I did a full write up about this last winter and how my actual room inspired me . The write up is complete with pictures of me in my room (sample below), and an mp3 clip of the cover (read here): http://kittenflug.livejournal.com/58788.html

- hung out with friends, went clubbing and went to some shows (Combichrist and The Presets):

Meeting fans at Savage Garden – Out Clubbing (January, 2009) YAY! Renata

Meeting fans while attending the Combichrist show @ the Operahouse in February (hi Lazarus!)

Hanging out before going out to Basement club with my friends (Steph, Alana, Joe & I – January)

April 2009
- Ayria’s first show of 2009 and it’s a hometown show in Toronto at the Dark Rave:

- There’s a link to several great shots from this show linked here (credit: Dylar Pillar):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dylerpillar/sets/72157616306825539/

Here’s some pics after the show with friends (left to right: Steph, Matt and Lukas)

May 2009
- My birthday kicks off this month, my favourite of all months. I had a Hello Kitty themed party with custom made hello kitty cupcakes, kitty décor and temporary tattoos and grab boxes (sigh, I will never grow up!)

Went for drinks, me showing off my new pink sharpies

me styling it up with some kind of kitty-tini beverage

- Kinetik Festival (May 14th): My drummer Mike had made the trip up to Toronto and from there, we (complete with both keyboard players Joe and Jeff) made the trip to Montreal for our appearance at the Kinetik Festival. Saw tons of friends old and new and as always, I love hanging out in Montreal! My friend Stephanie “Blepharisma” put together an awesome promotional video for me to promote our performance at Kinetik.  I’m attempting some kind of dance in it…

- I also did a promotional photo shoot with the talented Alas Vera showing off my Plastik Wrap clothing, new pink hair with a hint of New Orleans.  Here’s a link to all 10 shots:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=117946&id=14321604993

• 

I really wish I had pictures of the perfomance showing all 4 members up on stage but sadly I don’t. I also wish I had more pics of just haning out with friends from that weekend but I’m horrible at remembering to take pictures while on tours and at shows so I’m often relying on others to take pictures and share them with me!

- Kicked off the Ayria Canadian tour hitting London, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Edmonton & Calgary taking us into June:

• My photo gallery of the Canadian tour of Mike, Jeff, Jeremy and I hanging out with the Moose, Polar Bear’s and Beavers can be seen here! : http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=117033&id=14321604993
  
  

Hanging out in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan on a beautiful day in early June.

Me with a polar bear in Winnepeg, Manitoba

June 2009
- Returned from the Canadian tour on June 8th, had to work for 2 weeks while simultaneously preparing for departure to Los Angeles to start the VNV Nation – Faith Power and Glory Tour as a support act.. much fun ensued.. but that will be in Part 2.

PART 2: COMING NEXT WEEK
If you have any decent pictures from July-December 2009 you want to share, or to be included in the upcoming blog, please send pics or a link to jennifer@ayria.com