that rosebud girl

anthem audition = minor disaster!

so today i went to raley field for a river cats national anthem open audition. did it a couple of years ago and missed last year’s, so of course i wanted to do it again.

i go, despite the fact i’ve had both a cold and nagging cough all week. i figured i had at least one good one in me. i get there, wait my turn, step on the field and start to sing … and right after the first verse, my worst nightmare happens …

… i forgot the words!!!!

i forgot “whose broad stripes and bright stars … ”

i stood there in dead silence for about 15 seconds.

i finally said, rather sheepishly, “um, line?” and the river cats staff on hand had to tell me the line.

i was mortified.

i couldn’t believe i forgot the words.

i then recovered and finished rather well.

but i can’t believe i forgot the words to the national anthem!

i had joked with ed the day before that i should put the words on a post-it and put it on my hand. he joked that i should get one of those quarterback wristbands and put the lyrics there. whooops.

i told lisa about the flub later, and she says, “too bad maurice cheeks wasn’t around.”

(if you peek at that mo cheeks video from youtube, you’ll notice that the poor girl singing the anthem there forgot the words in the same place i did.)

i had also started a key too low. but that was the least of my worries, of course.

dang, i wish i could have a do-over.

blast from the past!

some folks know this about me, some don’t: once upon a time, in another life, i was part of an all-female a cappella group. the usc sirens.

anyhow, i was a charter member. way back in 1997 (my freshman year). we’re having a 10-year reunion concert event in april, and i was just listening to some tracks from our very first album, voicebox.

holy cow! what a difference 10 years makes! we all sounded so fresh-voiced. and of course, an a cappella album recorded back then sounds totally different than it does now. (shoot, the second album the group recorded just two years later has a totally different quality about it … it’s like night and day!)

that first album sounds so …. organic. (for lack of a better word.)

i have fond memories of recording that first album. we did it at bovard auditorium on campus. borrowed the joint for a whole sunday. set up mics and recorded right on stage. recorded some of the percussion and solo tracks at a group member’s apartment down the street from campus (we closed off a bedroom, threw a mic in there and basically told everyone that they better keep quiet while recording or we’d hurt them). it was guerrilla recording at its finest.

it was fun.

i can’t wait to see what we do with these totally old-school tracks. they’re going to sound so different and awesome.

btw, that first album contains a version of “2 Become 1″ we did. yes, that song of spice girls fame. it was the very first song we learned! listening to it now just cracks me up to no end.