The Bruise of Rock...

Tonight I sang backup for Artichoke and played the Tambourine. That may sound like a walk in the park... HOWEVER... the way *I* play the tambourine is a full contact sport! Check out the battle wounds:


You can imagine how messed up I look after playing the tambourine on Gasoline with the Evangenitals... with my groin. Youch!

After the Artichoke show I ran off to Hollywood and performed Improv at the iO WEST, then I ate a Vegan burrito from Cinnamon in Highland Park. Now I'm going to bed. I think I've earned it. :-)

Love,
Me

Life is full. Full full full! Almost done moving into my new place, the car broke down (but I've got a big tax return coming in that will pay for it!), LOTS of rehearsals for plays and gigs and music and improv.... and now, on Monday I'm going to be driving down to San Diego with Georgie to audition to be the June Carter for the best-ever Johnny Cash cover band "Cash'd Out". Anyone that knows me seems to think that this is the "day job" I was BORN to have... it's only a question of me not freaking out and dazzlin' them in the audition. Heck, it would be awesome to be in ANOTHER band with George Bernardo, that's for sure. :-)

Before that big day, though, I've got two shows in one night (Friday the 28th) -- Artichoke at La Casa Blue (9:30pm) and Hammerspace (my Improv team) at iO WEST (Andy Dick Experimental Black Box at 11pm)-- to get through. It's a lot, and I'm loving it.

Saturday and Sunday we have to officially finish moving, clean out the old apartment (throw a couple of rehearsals and a class show for our Improv class on Sunday) and turn in the keys Monday morning. Then, at around 1pm I'm jumping in a car with Georgie to head down to San Diego... and DESTINY! In the meantime, I've got all my Johnny and June tunes on repeat play and I'm getting ready for greatness.

Say a prayer for me. :-)

- Juli

Moving and Shaking.

Something is happening in my world...

Charles Francis Richter would be impressed with the momentous shifts, some detectable by the human eye, and some not, that are going on in the life of one Reverend Juli Crockett of the Evangenitals! To list but a few, I've suddenly decided to move from my (way too expensive) South Pasadena apartment that I have loved and lived in for over 2 years into a place that is WAY less expensive (literally half the price), bigger, and I love even more. Huzzah! And I'm going to be roommates with one of the Evangenitals' biggest fans, which is awesome. And perhaps a little weird, but more awesome than it is weird.

Patrick and I will be packing up our joyful, art-filled, vegan lives and our joyful, energy-filled vegan dog and taking this show on the road... just 5 miles away, but it makes all the difference in the world when I don't have to sweat about the rent payments and can focus on a life dedicated to making art -- outside of any semblance of a 9 to 5 job. I LOVE IT!!!

We're skipping school tomorrow to pack. :-)

Last Friday night Lisa Dee, myself, (that's Evangina!), guitarist Henry Bermudez, and Timothy Sellers of Artichoke all jumped in a car and drove to Austin to catch a taste of SXSW and play a day show on Sunday. It was a much-need breaking out and breaking away from the day to day, and also a grand display of willingness and mild insanity. The whole thing made me indescribably happy.

Brian and Jerimi, a WONDERFUL couple who restore any lagging faith that any of us could have in humanity and the generosity of the spirit, put us up in Austin and took great care of us. I barely know these folks, and yet they opened their hearts, ears, home, and fridge to us... for fun and for free. Incredible. I also discovered that Austin has free health insurance for musicians and the audiences actually TIP... what am I doing here? I love LA. It's twisted.

It was great to play with Izzy Cox. I've missed her. She is a powerful performer and I look forward to doing more shows with her when she comes out to LA again. We also DEFINITELY plan to return to Austin next year, if not sooner. Now that Henry is going to be playing with us, we are indeed a road-hungry band... we want to play play PLAY and bring the Evangenital joy to every pair of ears that will listen.

I'm going to be posting the photo-journal from the Austin trip on Flickr real soon. I'll post links here when I do.

Tonight we played a fundraiser show with Veruca Salt in downtown LA and we debuted a never-before-seen/heard Evangenitals lineup featuring Joey Ninja of Ninja Academy on bass and the aforementioned Henry Bermudez on lead guitar. It rocked my socks off! I am excited to be revisiting our old tunes with new energy and explore and reinterpret them -- stretch 'em to the snapping point and see what their spine looks like. Constantly changing, exploring, questioning, enjoying, refreshing... I dig it. "The Hole" almost burst into a Reggae jam tonight, people. It was AWESOME!!!

So, the short version is: the flow is flowing once again, the universe is giving me the green light on all things, it seems, and I am revved up and ready to GROW! The party is about to get started, and you're all always invited.

Love, always and already,
Juli

i can't believe i'm taking off for Austin in just a few hours! this is CRAZY!!!

SXSW, here we come!

I friggin' LOVE my apartment in South Pasadena, but they keep raising the rent!! Arrrgh! So, I'm now looking for something affordable anywhere betwixt Hollywood and Pasadena (as in under $900, and the more under the better)

It would be for myself, my man, and our vegan dog Wookie.

Any ideas?

i stay up way too late... it's ridiculous. my internal clock is all wacko. i get cookin' at 2am and i gotta ride that wave and keep working while the creative juices are flowing, so i don't get to bed till 5am. it's not practical... but creativity ain't often practical, i've found.

i'm excited as hell about the History of Water piece, as i've had some mini-breakthroughs in my mind and i'm seeing things clearly.

perhaps i should count my blessings and call it a night.

I am busy as hell... and I've brought it on myself! I have an appetite for more more more and I am certainly getting my fill.

Technically, I'm a full time student working on my PhD dissertation for The European Graduate Shcool. On top of that, I've recently started being an "almost" full time student at PCC, taking 11 credits of performance classes including Choreography, Modern Dance, Voice & Movement, Mime, Musical Theater, and Improv. On top of THAT... I'm enrolled in the improv training program at iO WEST and I start Level 4 on Thursday, which includes student shows in addition to classes every other Sunday. Oh yeah, and my Improv group Hammerspace starts performing shows on Saturday night. On top of THAT... I'm creating a new theater piece for the 24th Street Theater in my "spare time" about the History of Water.

And in the midst of all that, Lisa Dee and I are heading down to Austin for an Evangenitals gig on the fringe of the SXSW madness on March 16th at Thunderbird Coffee along with Timothy Sellers from Artichoke and Henry Bermudez from Unpopable.

With the artistic life in overdrive, I can't seem to find any time to WORK! Hopefully my big 'ol Evangenitals Radio Play Push will pay off soon and we'll start selling a bunch of albums.

There's been a few interesting new developments that I'm excited about, such as, over on Last.fm, enough folks have listened to Evangenitals tunes to merit our own station. That's right, you can just type in "Evangenitals" and they'll play you an awesome station of related muzak. I've been especially enjoying listening to our tunes up against "Iron & Wine" and "Bonnie "Prince" Billy"... good stuff and an honor to be played in their fine company.

If you're not down with Last.fm yet, I highly recommend downloading the player. It's free custom radio, folks!

And finally... George Bernardo is Awesome. Need Proof? Watch this:

Frank Zappa meets the Marimba

Alright you Diggers out there... Digg this! It's Evangenitals drummer George Bernardo playing Frank Zappa on Marimba and it's friggin' awesome!!!

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