Natalie Stovall Newsletter #2 (Now with Free Song Downloads) ; )

Happy Mother's Day!!!

I sure hope all the mothers out there, conventional and unconventional, had a wonderful day. We spent it driving home from Michigan. Though I didn't get to spend the day with Mamma, she held up the phone so I could "be in a picture" with her and Granny and my sister. :)

Next Week

5/16 The Country Club - Augusta, GA : Show 9PM

If you are in the area for this, we would love to see you! For more information about this show or any others you can see my full calendar by clicking here!

Home

Did I mention that we are HOME?? We've been on the road since Jan 13!!! We've had a few stops here in Nashville, but for the most part, we've spent our time elsewhere. We have 1 more show this weekend in Augusta Ga at The Country Club, which is our final show for the Winter/Spring Tour of 2009. I sure didn't think it would go by this fast. What a whirlwind of zigzagging all over this beautiful country! We've gone through snow storms and sunburns, ski lodges and spring flings; I've tried scrapple (and spit it out) Chacarero's and empanadas, and I've gotten to sing at the Boston Garden, open for Josh Gracin, AND the Los Lonely Boys!

What a ride :)

And now... we're gearing up for the summer tour. We're constantly updating the summer calendar, so keep an eye out. We have some really exciting shows and venues coming up!!

 

Last Week

Picture Of the Week (I <3 Miguel)

Other fun stuff:

We found Bear Poop in our Hotel Lobby :) It was pretty exciting... and not nearly as gross as it sounds! (Click HERE to learn more)

We learned that they still don't even have leaves on the trees up in Northern Michigan!!!

We spent 4 days in Reading, PA

The whole band got to sign a script of "The Office"

We played shows at colleges with punk bands and ska bands and I got in touch with my inner "indie rock chick" by sporting a Valencia Hoodie all week. :)

Some great blogs showed up online about some of the shows. This one is from a fantastic photographer and it is filled with tons of great pics of one of our shows:

http://www.bardenphotography.com/blog/2009/natalie-stovall-2/

And this one is from the same show, but includes some video of the crazy rock medley we do:

http://www.jaredbarden.com/blog/categories/natalie-stovall/

Free Song Downloads!!

As promised... finally... the song demos for "Silly Kid" and "Best Years" are the first two songs available for download EXCLUSIVELY for people on my email list! YAY!! There will be plenty more where that came from, don't worry!!

To download the songs head to www.reverbnation.com/nataliestovall

CDs

Wanna know something that blows my mind and makes me so happy? We've SOLD OUT of another batch of "Late Night Conversations"!!! It's time to reorder cds! I knew we were getting close, but I had no idea we would be OUT by the end of this trip. We didn't even have enough at our show last night. Thank goodness for itunes!

Internetin'

For anyone who doesn't know.... I add ALL the pics we take at shows to my facebook page and myspace/website slide show. And I write a blog every day where I include pictures and stories of our crazy adventures :) Twitter is all the rave now, and I am proud to say that I am a full blown addict. Can't hide it and wouldn't try. And of course the Youtube page has had a few additions as new videos keep popping up online!

Peace, Love, Fiddle,

~natalie

College of Staten Island & Delaware Valley College

AHHH. OK. I unintentionally lied yesterday in the blog. I slept the first couple of hours in the Suburban this morning, and then I drove the rest of the way. Sooooo.... I didn't finish the rest of the blog today "in the car" like I said I would. But no worries... I'm blogging from a comfort Inn. :) Wow. I have 3 shows to catch you up on. We'll start with the 2 from yesterday. :)

We have the tv on, and Tina Fey was just on Jimmy Fallon. I LOVE her. I think she is one of the funniest women EVER. She was talking about how "you know you're a mom when.... you have to put underpants on someone who's dancing"
I'm still laughing about that.

Yesterday's show at the College of Staten Island:
Well.... I cried constantly out of my right eye when in Texas at the Los Lonely Boys show. Yesterday, I evened out the playing field. I guess coming up north helped me balance out the scales a bit. I cried out of my left eye non-stop. Why is it that I only cry out of one eye at a time on stage? I don't think anyone noticed except for me. Well... and James. Poor James.... every time something like that happens, I am constantly turning around to him, lifting up my sunglasses and asking "Am I ok?" Which he knows translates to "Is there black mascara running all over my face?"

So you know when you see a band member walk over to another one onstage, and you wonder what they are talking about? In my case - it is usually me being paranoid that my face is messed up....

The show started out a little slow. They had set up a great stage for us out on the quad and had an awesome sound crew there, too. But there weren't other activities surrounding our show... it was just a concert. So students just looked confused when we started playing. They kept looking at the stage like, "What IS this?" But they quickly realized that we were there for THEM and not just some random band that decided to jam on school property. :) Students started to gather around the area and by the end of the show there were 50 or so people hanging out.

As I mentioned on yesterday's blog... I got to sign my first skaeboard :) Hehe. That was COOL.

I saw this girl in the audience.... yeah... not intimidating AT ALL to have a classical violinist at the show. It immediately makes me more aware of my intonation.


Connie bought the first cd of the day - she bought it during the show (which I LOVE), but of course we didn't have anyone to work the merch table.... so she ended up finding the sound guys, giving them the money, found a sharpie, and then I signed it during the intro of "Fancy" :) Connie is resourceful! And THEN after the show she bought another one for her friend in Oklahoma, too!


Our self-proclaimed #1 Staten Island fan. Y'all, if I ever needed a "hype man" like they have in rap groups.... like if I ever need my own Flava Flav... this woman would be the first person I would call! She was telling people who were AT the show about how awesome the show was :) It was so great. She was SOOO excited. And she got called to go to a car accident in the middle and was really frustrated about it. She was cracking me up talking about it. We took tons of pictures, and she actually bought the last small brown t-shirt. I'm gonna have to get more!!!


Our awesome crew for the day.


Their campus has an extremely diverse student population. I met so many kids from other countries. It reminded me of Berklee.

So we quickly packed up... grabbed some lunch in the cafeteria and headed to Delaware Valley College in Doylestown PA. It took us about 2 hours to get there, and we arrived right on time. Well... we missed the exit on the turnpike so we were a few minutes late, but no big deal.

They have the most GORGEOUS little campus. It's a small agricultural school, and they were having a huge pig roast on the lawn before the show. The stage they had set up was SO great. It made me happy. Plus their entire campus was lined with beautiful blossoming trees. And the stage was between 2 huge gingko trees (which are my favorite).

These kids were on TOP of it, especially Kristen. Kristen was my "right hand woman" the whole day. She hopped into the Suburban when we first got on campus to guide us to the stage. (We're always having to drive up on sidewalks and pull through narrow passageways to get to the stages) She was CONSTANTLY asking what she could do to help and even when I didn't give her something to do, she would find something to help out with. Greatest girl EVER. We love you!!!!

This is the Student Activities Council - everyone that put on the show and helped out! Kristen is down front in the red shirt. :)


An of course our awesome sound crew! They got there at 11am to start setting up - the show started at 9. They worked so hard all day and it DEFINITELY paid off!!!


This was one of the best shows we've had in a while. The students packed the lawn in front of the stage - we were guessing there were about 250 kids there. And not 1 but 2 different people brought their couches out to the lawn! We saw two guys carrying a couch with a girl sitting ON the couch! It was so great!!! And there was a beach ball being thrown around the whole show. The dancing started on "Fancy" :) And by the end of the night everyone was on their feet. They were chanting for "1 more song" at the end, so of course we had to do a little Journey. Don't Stop Believin baby!!! Hold on to that feeeeeeeeeeeeling!

Yeah. I loved this show.



These guys were hysterical! One of the guys kept screaming "I Love You Natalie" during the show. Actually, it wasn't just the show... he continued the whole time I was signing autographs. You can't tell, but the guys have me completely lifted off the ground here.


These girls were hilarious. We had talked for a bit and had taken pictures earlier, but then they came back later and said "We brought you a fiddle player!" They had gone and gotten their friend who plays the violin to come back and talk to me.


Don't mess with these guys...


And Columbia, Tn was even represented :) A friend, Jeff Smith, who used to come to Sam Hill's to see us play, lives up here now, so he came to the show. It was great to see him and his girlfriend and so fun to have them in the audience. It took me almost the whole show to spot them in the audience, but I knew they were there :) We didn't get to talk afterwards in all the chaos, but I was so happy to have them there!

So yeah. Tomorrow we are playing at 3, so we have to leave at 7am. Another early morning. And of course... it's 3am... again. So I'm gonna try that whole "going to bed now" thing. It would probably help to have a voice for the show tomorrow :)

Peace. Love. Fiddle.
~natalie

UT Tyler and Tyler Junior College opening for the Los Lonely Boys!

Y'all. I think I am allergic to Texas. That is NOT cool. I don't even sound like "me" anymore. The schedule hasn't helped... but LORD! I've got the whole itchy eye / crazy head cold thing going BAD. Tonight - at the second show, I felt like such a dufus. My right eye was watering uncontrollably. I REALLY wish I had worn my sunglasses - just to cover it up. But I had no way of knowing that would happen. I kept having to wipe it when I could get a long enough spot where I wasn't playing and singing both... But I figured I was smearing my eyeliner all over my face... luckily I wasn't :) Whew. I didn't look like I had a black eye. Thank goodness for waterproof mascera!!! Right girls?

We arrived at our hotel in Tyler this morning at 6:15am. We had to leave around 9:30 so we didn't get much sleep.... but those couple of hours of laying down... man, that was good stuff.

But once we were up - we were right back to it! We played an outdoor show at University of Texas, Tyler at noon. It was a gorgeous day AGAIN. They had a stage set up in front of their brand new student center. The volleyball nets were next to us and a scenic lake was behind us. Beautiful.

This is Jenn :) She was our coordinator and the girl who made stuff HAPPEN! She was awesome and took great care of us!
We love you!


And this is Samantha. Girlfriend did her research before she came to this show!!! First thing she asked - "Will you PLEASE do the baby cry for me?" SO FUNNY she knew about that! I was quite impressed. And THEN she asked me if I would sign her Red Bull can :) That was a first!


And of course John - our hard working sound dude!


So we quickly got packed up, grabbed some Subway on campus and then headed on over to our Los Lonely Boys show. :) We were really excited. The stage was a monster.... and apparently... that thing is a SEMI truck unfolded. Not sure how that works exactly, but the wheels were underneath and everything. I think the cover is part of it too... or maybe a separate one? Who knows. What I do know is that I was impressed!


The show was awesome. Well... minus the whole crying profusely from my right eye thing. But it is always such a treat to play on such an enormous stage. The fun part is that I feel like we have done these types of shows more often lately. It's really encouraging! And it's the only time Miguel really gets to crank his amp the way he wants to. :) Which makes him happy which in turn makes ME happy!

It was funny though - there was a building at the opposite side of the field... maybe 100 yards away. And WOW! The sound would hit that and bounce back a half second later. At parts of the show I had to concentrate like I was back in an arena or football stadium singing. The closer the crowd was to the stage - the less THEY heard that. But it definitely called for some extra concentration. (Although, I will admit that MOST of this show I was concerned with how black my face look due to mascara running....)

We went on at 5:30 and were asked to play a 45 min set. And then the Los Lonely Boys were supposed to go on right after us... They were supposed to have soundchecked by the time we got there at 3. But the whole day everyone was really nervous because they weren't sure where the Lonely Boys were. The school was on a time crunch since there's an early city noise ordinance around 8:00pm. But the Boys didn't arrive until 7:30. They were still playing when we were packing up at 8:10, so who knows what happened with the noise restrictions. They were really good, and I wanted to get to meet them, but we HAD to go eat. We were all about to keel over.

But I hope everything worked out for all parties involved. That is a rough situation for ALL SIDES. It was pretty educational to watch the event staff. Some things can't be avoided. But it is a wonderful thing to be able to observe and learn from every experience. I have gotten such an incredible education (and continue to every day) by just listening to what the college students and staffs have to say about the acts they have worked with.

As always I met tons of amazing people after the show. I took a BUNCH of pics before I could make it to the merch table to get my own copies of them! But I still snagged a whole bunch of my own :)

Talk about getting thrust into a new position as President! What a "first event"!


This kid was CUTTIN a RUG on "Devil Went Down To Georgia" I could see him from stage and was SO happy he came over to meet the guys and me!


I signed quite a few shirts on my way over to the booth, but this guy came back to get it re-traced. The first time was with a pretty thin sharpie, so I went back over it with a normal one after this pic for him to make it show up better :)


I could go on and on, but I must stop here. We have another very early morning, and it is already 1am... where does the time go?! 1 more show in Texas! So sad. I love Texas. But I love PA too, and that is where we are headed next.

Peace. Love. Fiddle.
~natalie

7 shows in 5 days

Today?

We have been driving to Texas! We found a Jimmy Johns in Jackson, Tn which made us all very happy. That makes 3 days in a row for me + Jimmy Johns. Yesterday, I had Jimmy Johns DELIVERED! That's the best :) The +avocado is KEY to any sandwich at JJ's.

This week we have 7 shows in 5 days. Whoa. That's craziness. But the GOOD kind of craziness. I am excited. We have this week jam-packed. Tomorrow we have an afternoon show at Texas A&M in Commerce, TX. And then afterwards we are heading over to Frozen Fire Films in Dallas to do a photo shoot!!! FINALLY! I am getting new photos done :) Plus on Friday, we open for the LOS LONELY BOYS. YAY! That is one of our two-fer days :) We play two shows on Wed & Fri.

Whoa. Hootie just laid down on the floor... and I was REALLY confused. Turns out, he's doing stretches for his back. But I thought he was just opting NOT to sleep in the bed! The other day when we arrived in Providence at 7am, we had 1 room with 1 King size bed.... We had to leave at 9 so we weren't gonna get to sleep for all that long.... but we all wanted to nap a bit. Hootie and Miguel immediately took the floor :( Made me feel bad. And James just left! The man who had been driving the ENTIRE night.... just disappeared... we all thought he would come back and get in bed, so the guys just stayed on the floor. But nope. James went and got caffeinated and walked around downtown Providence. He figured sleeping for an hour and a half was much worse than not sleeping at all. I completely understand, but.... I just wanted to sleep. So I ended up sleeping in that big ole bed by myself. I would have slept just as well on the floor though, too. We were all pretty out of it!

Thankfully, by the time we got back from our show, we were all able to check into our separate rooms. And whew. That was one of the best night's of sleep I had in a looong while.

I saw this: in the bin at the gas station today!!!
(For anyone who may not know... "If I Run To You Now" is played in this movie.)

It made m so happy! I think it is the first time I have seen it without looking for it!


We've been watching the Sopranos in the Suburban... and we only have 1 1/2 episodes left in the whole series. I can't wait to see what happens!!! I've heard mixed reviews about the ending.... either you HATE it or you LOVE it... apparently there's very few "in betweens". I'm sure I'll have more to say on that later. But I just love how well written that show is. I NEVER thought I would like it. I figured it was all about killing and beatin people up. But there's SO much character development that I can tolerate the violence. I mean, it IS the mafia... so there violence has to be there... but it's not ABOUT the violence. I have to look away.... A LOT... but the rest of it... well, it's so good.

See you tomorrow from Texas!

Peace, Love, Fiddle,
~natalie

Josh Gracin, Los Lonely Boys, and Singing for the President

Still in Syracuse! Very nice. :) We are back in Dunkin Donuts land!!! :) LOVE me some of those flatbreads.

Got some bad news and some GREAT news.

Bad news first... which isn't THAT bad.
We had a show cancel on us today. This is the first college show that has had to cancel, which I think is pretty amazing. It just makes me thankful for how lucky we have been so far. I know a lot of school's have gone through major budget cuts in thi crazy economy. And considering how much we have been working - well, we have been very blessed so far. We had one club that closed their doors after we played and never paid us. We were actually the last band that played there. But other than that.... well... and that one club in Dallas that just blatantly stiffed us (but that was a character thing.... not a "we are really hurting" thing)... I am just thankful!

Now on to the good news. Which is TWO different items!

We are opening for Josh Gracin again!!!!

AND

We are opening for Los Lonely Boys, too!!!


I had all the information written out, and then I realized I better keep it hush hush as to where both of these events are happening. I am not sure if they have been announced yet, but I am SOOOO excited to be opening for these 2 artists. We have gotten to open for Josh before and he puts on such an incredible live show, and I feel like we have come so far since the last time we opened for him. That was in Elmira, New York and Miguel didn't get to play in that show, so now he will get to! He was in Chile visiting family - that was a bit of a last minute show - but Charlie was still in the band, so he went with us on that trip.

Ahh. I remember that so well. The night after the show was where I got the email in the Suburban on my cell phone about the President gig. I got an email asking if anyone was interested in singing at this "White House" thing. I was SO excited and I remember emailing my agent at 1 in the morning saying YES! Of COURSE I am interested.


I sent in an mp3 of singing the "National Anthem" and the next thing I knew - I had an invitation to sing at the White House.

I actually have a couple of pics from that I have never put up online. They sent these to me after the event, and it took me this long to scan them onto my computer. :)- (Thanks for that scanner for Christmas James!)

This is one of my favorite stories....
I was in a VIP reception before the event started. There were 50 people in this room and it was mostly A-listers :) I got to meet Charlie Gibson, Katie Couric, Tiki Barber, Condolezza Rice, and of course The President and First Lady. After about 30 minutes of schmoozing, it was time for the event to start.
They escorted everyone out of the room except me, President Bush, The First Lady, some photographers and Secret Service. The President would walk out first and then I would be introduced to sing "God Bless America". We had a few minutes alone in the room.... you can imagine how I was feeling!!! Someone asked me if we had gotten an official picture yet.

Right before we took the picture, Mrs. Bush took my arm and said, "Georgie, Natalie is singing The National Anthem tonight". President Bush said, "No she's not. She's singing "America the Beautiful". We smiled and posed for a picture



Then I looked at them both, put my hand on my chest, smiled and said "God Bless America" : )- It was so funny. We all 3 busted out laughing. I'm so glad they thought it was funny – I didn't want it to look like I was "correcting" them, but it seemed to me to be more awkward NOT to say anything….


I thought it was SO cool they captured us laughing right after all of that happened.

If you are interested... I just posted my entire blog on here so you could read the whole thing.... Previously it has only been on myspace.... but I can't "link" you to that one :)

Singing For the President Blog


Peace, Love, Fiddle,
~nat