New CD, album release show, west coast tour

Great news! Today, I looked out onto my front porch and there had been delivered my brand new CDs. It's a good thing, too, because my CD release show is in 2 weeks. The new album is called "Wash U Clean". Here's the scoop...........

1. The CD release show is at Hotel Cafe on Sat., Feb. 6, @ 9pm. To get in for half price, just say the secret password, "nice monkey", and it's $5 instead of $10. We'll have an extra, extra large band that night.

2. The physical CDs will be available for the first time at the CD release show. After that, they'll be available on my website, and sometime in late Feb., the digital tracks will be available for download in all the usual places. Don't worry, I'll remind you. :-)

3. You can preview some of the songs from "Wash U Clean" at my new website. Go to the music page at http://www.beththornley.com/ and check 'em out. Every week I'll upload another one or two songs for you to hear.

4. And, I'll be doing a tour up the coast of California, opening for my good friend Michael Miller. I'm thrilled because his music is fantastic and so is he. His most recent album is getting some well deserved rave reviews. http://www.myspace.com/michaelmillercrusade

2/21 Lestat's in San Diego

2/25 Zoey's in Ventura

2/27 Gypsy Den in Santa Ana

3/2 SOhO in Santa Barbara
3/3 Last Stage West in San Luis Obispo

3/5 Red Rock in San Jose

3/7 Luna's in Sacramento

Thanks for reading this far. We'd love to see you at the show.

Hello wonderful people on my mailing list!
First of all, happy holidays. Thank goodness it's time for a collective break, eh? It's nice when the world slows down for just a minute of two.

And yes, as you can see from the subject of this email, I made it to the front page "feature" section of You Tube. Not as "beth thornley" but as a member (and a tear is coming to my eye as I say this because I'm so proud), as a member of the Bowen Beer Bottle Band. You can see it on You Tube before it's moved from the front page (it's up for only a few more hours). Or, if you want to see it AND get the scoop on how it all happened - check it out here --http://bowenbeerbottleband.wordpress.com/ (I pop up in the back row, 4th from the left.)

Thanks Matt and Summer Bowen, for putting it all together. It was so much fun. (btw - for those of you who see the Beth Thornley band play live, Matt is the violinist/guitarist/keyboardist/glockenspiel-ist that plays in my band.)

I have some album news for you. I sent everything off to be duplicated/replicated/printed, etc..... about 5 days ago. That means that in about 2 weeks I'll have CDs for you. I will send out an email in January letting you know where you can hear it and how you can buy it. I'm very excited about the album and I hope you will be, too.

The CD release show will be in Los Angeles at Hotel Cafe on Feb. 6, 2010. I'm also planning a west coast tour in March.

And in recent news, "You're Right Where" (from the My Glass Eye album) was heard in the television series "The Jacksons: A Family Dynasty". It is airing currently.

Thanks for reading this far. Thanks so much for your interest. Stay warm. Drink some hot apple cidar. And mostly, peace to you all.
Beth

Grand Canyon!

I promised a picture or two when I returned from the Grand Canyon! We had a great time and I wish I didn't have to get back to reality so soon. It's hard to get ready for a vacation - you know, getting someone to take care of the cats, doing enough laundry so that I can pack clean clothes, decided what books to take, unloading half of the makeup bag so that there's room for clothes in the suitcase, crossing fingers that the plants don't die while I'm gone, cleaning out the fridge so there are no surprises when I get home -- you know, all of that. And while I'm getting ready to go out of town I'm thinking it's too much trouble. But, then, when I finally go, it's so nice to not answer a phone, or water a plant or feed a cat (sorry kitties, but sometimes your meows can be annoying!) or make a bed or clean a bathtub. I'm really glad I left. I'm really glad I made it to the Grand Canyon because I had never seen it. And, oh yeah, we stopped by Vegas, too. Have I mentioned that I love playing black jack? Do you think it's all the extra oxygen they pump into the casinos? Can we go again now? Screw the plants, the cats, the fridge, the packing - let's just get in the car and go!

I promised a picture or two when I returned from the Grand Canyon! We had a great time and I wish I didn't have to get back to reality so soon. It's hard to get ready for a vacation - you know, getting someone to take care of the cats, doing enough laundry so that I can pack clean clothes, decided what books to take, unloading half of the makeup bag so that there's room for clothes in the suitcase, crossing fingers that the plants don't die while I'm gone, cleaning out the fridge so there are no surprises when I get home -- you know, all of that. And while I'm getting ready to go out of town I'm thinking it's too much trouble. But, then, when I finally go, it's so nice to not answer a phone, or water a plant or feed a cat (sorry kitties, but sometimes your meows can be annoying!) or make a bed or clean a bathtub. I'm really glad I left. I'm really glad I made it to the Grand Canyon because I had never seen it. And, oh yeah, we stopped by Vegas, too. Have I mentioned that I love playing black jack? Do you think it's all the extra oxygen they pump into the casinos? Can we go again now? Screw the plants, the cats, the fridge, the packing - let's just get in the car and go!

a couple o' things.......

I thought I'd let you know about a couple of cool things.

1. I made Esquire Magazine's "Ultimate Cover Song List" -- TWICE! Once for the Beatles "Eleanor Rigby" and again for Joe Jackson's "Got The Time". I'm one of many, but just being on that list is pretty cool. If you're curious about them, you can hear the full length versions at my website: www.beththornley.com/music. Both songs were on my last album, "My Glass Eye". You can see Esquire Magazine's article about cover songs and the ultimate list here: http://www.esquire.com/the-side/music/cover-songs-list-082009?src=rss

2. A song of mine, "I Will Lie", will be in an indie film that's coming out on August 28th. It's called "Play the Game". Paul Campbell will topline the cast of this movie. Andy Griffith, Doris Roberts and Marla Sokoloff also star in this romantic comedy. Marc Feinberg wrote and directed the film, which follows a single guy who teaches his widowed grandfather how to hit on girls.

3. Album news: The album will be ready in October. It will be available to anyone on this email list at that time. However, the official release date will be January 2010 and that's when the general public will be able to get it. I'm still very excited about it. I wish it weren't taking so long, but it's the way this business goes. Music and construction projects, I guess; always over time and over budget.

4. For those of you in the LA area, I will be playing a show at Hotel Cafe on October 6. That's a Tuesday and it's at 8pm. We're going to play old songs, new songs and maybe some covers. Think of it as a warm-up to the CD release in January.


I hope you're having a good summer! In a couple of weeks, I will be looking at the Grand Canyon for the first time ever. I can't wait. I'll take some pictures and send them to you.

Album Update

The new album will be finished in October. Not too far off my last prediction! But, because October starts pushing up against the holidays, I'm going to hold it until January '10. My publicist is very happy she's going to have a little more time with it before it's released. Also, there might be some exciting news attached to the album. I can't say anything about it now but as soon as I can, I'll let you know. I need a little time with that, too.

A bit of good news though, I plan on playing some shows this fall. We'll do old and new material. Then, in January, we'll have a CD release show.

And, finally, I decided to make the album title "Wash U Clean". At least that's what it is for today. ;-)

Thanks for reading this! Thanks for your interest! Rock on!

new album coming soon

Hellooooooo out there!

It's been awhile. My bad. I've been under the studio rock. It took longer than we thought. That's no surprise though. Albums are like construction projects -- they always go longer and cost more than anyone predicts.

But I'm writing to let you know that we're nearly done and I should have something in hand by July/Aug. '09. We will finish tracking this week and then it's mix and master time. The artwork is nearly finished, too. Here's an example of something we're thinking of using for one of the album pages:


I've also just started up over at Facebook. Come find me and write on the wall!

The Getty gig and 2008

I'm way overdue (again) in my blogging. Who knew it would be so difficult to do? I like typing. But I don't think I like editing. Takes too long. Makes me think too hard.

I wanted to tell you about the Getty experience. I had so much fun that I'm having a hard time removing my MySpace picture that advertises it. It was one of the most creatively satisfying things I’ve gotten to do as a songwriter. Once, I got to sing at Carnegie Hall in NYC, and it was great, but that was in a choir with, like, 100 other people and we were singing Mozart. But back to the Getty. I loved the event. It happened like this - I was asked to write a song about an exhibition they have going on there. There were 11 other songwriters that were also asked to write a song and so the Getty was able to turn it into a concert. Everyone played their one song. The concert hall there is amazing. I got to play a really nice 7 ft. grand piano. I LOVED it. Let me tell you, it's been a long time since I played an instrument that fine. I played the hell out of it. I was hoping to break a string on it but didn’t. It would not have been cool, anyway, so it was good that I didn't. Did you know it's actually really easy to break strings on grand pianos? It’s not hard. You just have to know how to do it. In the interest of grand pianos everywhere, I'm not going to tell you how.

My holidays were lovely and too short. I'm back to writing songs. I finished one right before the holidays and now I'm staring at a blank piece of paper. For me, that's always the hardest part. I've got an idea, though, that will hopefully turn into a song soon. At least I hope so. The blank paper is blinding.

I didn't send out a 2007 newsletter. But in case you’re interested, I played some shows, wrote some songs and placed a few things in a few TV shows. I almost have enough new material for the next album and I hope to have something by fall-ish of this year.

I already like 2008. It has all even numbers. It feels comfortable; like you could cozy up to it. It’s gonna be a good year.