Homegrown plans are coming along nicely. Everyone in the band is officially committed and knows what day we’re playing, which is a bigger deal than you might think. We have a practice scheduled, which is also a bigger deal than you might think.
Being involved with this music festival is really an honor. In fact, I was sitting in Dunn Brothers coffee shop as I wrote this, and I ran into an old friend. He said to me, “I heard you got into Homegrown. That is such an honor!”
And it’s true.
As a songwriter and musician I’ve always been hesitant to put myself and my music out there, so I haven’t done much in the local music scene. Just this semester I decided to make it a priority to connect with the music community here in Duluth. I tried to do open mic nights but I kept missing them or was too late to sign up. So getting into Homegrown was really perfect timing.
A couple of days after I received my acceptance into the festival, something funny happened. I woke up one morning to an e-mail from my professor, Chris Julin, and my fellow LakeVoicer, Abby Schoenecker, both saying some rubbish about me being on Perfect Duluth Day. I followed their links and found this post by Paul Lundgren. Turns out he found my MySpace (which I created, by the way, specifically to apply for the festival) and was telling people to check out my music, particularly my first attempt at an electronic song. At the time this was the second play on the song. I signed in to MySpace and I had gotten a few hundred hits in one day. A testament to Paul Lundgren’s musical credibility in this town. Props, Mr. Lundgren. You are certainly no n00b.
Needless to say I was a little embarrassed. Let’s all remember that I am someone who doesn’t like putting herself out there. I was also secretly very excited, of course, because we all write these songs hoping someday someone will actually listen to them. I think the thing I’ve gotten out of all of this, even before playing the festival, is how great our community here really is. Ever since I started sharing my music here in Duluth people have been welcoming me, encouraging me, and promoting me. My cousin even made a Facebook event for my show. So thank you to all my lovely friends here at school, not at school, Mr. Paul Lundgren and the others who have checked out my music and taken the time to talk to me about it, and to the great Homegrown chicken for letting me play someplace as cool as Teatro Zuccone. Speaking of Teatro Zuccone, that’s where my show is on Friday, May 6, at 7 p.m.! You should come.
Are you playing at Homegrown? Are you excited for the event? Let us know in the comments. Also, you may have noticed that we changed the spelling of “noob” to “n00b”, the official urban dictionary spelling. We did this to appear more “hip.” Any feedback is welcomed.