Potentially Interesting Places #11

...I think I've decided that this next set of SiPIP videos will be on keyboard or piano. We'll see how that goes. This experiment, I wish I'd have realized how quiet the keyboard was to the camera. Bummerville. Oh well. It's my song, "DXO" played at Odle Middle School in Bellevue, WA. I think Heart went to middle school here. For me, this song is about how sometimes, even with the best intentions, it just doesn't make any sense to be with a person.

Songs in Potentially Interesting Places #11 from Cristina Bautista on Vimeo.

SiPIP #10: This Never Happened

This week's SiPIP takes place in the tunnel at Golden Gardens in Seattle, WA and is a song called "This Never Happened" which I wrote just a few hours before filming today. For me it's primarily about friendship, discovering a landsman and the way home - whether or not you can get there.


Songs in Potentially Interesting Places #10 from Cristina Bautista on Vimeo.

Potentially Interesting Places #9

I am in California right now. Again. Rachel and I are here for a couple of Visqueen shows. (We get back Thursday afternoon, at which point I will dress up in something Madonnaesque and party at Havana in Seattle!)

I lived here a couple of years ago. I went to school in Hollywood. I think at the time most of my friends didn't believe I'd leave Seattle, they would talk to me often about how horrible LA is. When I left, I remember feeling like it was the least cool thing you could do in Seattle to be forthright about having ambition as a musician. The idea that Los Angeles was the exact opposite of that, that everyone else was insane enough to follow their ambition away from home and that this isn't a place you come to hide that... it was enough to call me down here. That's when I wrote this song:


Songs in Potentially Interesting Places #9 from Cristina Bautista on Vimeo.

The thing is, I'm moving back down in November.

Potentially Interesting Places #8

(Soooo.... This video has been up since Tuesday, but since Adam's computer kind of 'sploded when I tried to blog about it, this part is later than I hoped it would be. Sorry.)

I think some version of this idea appears in the book and film High Fidelity: pop music traditionally champions the unreasonable. I don't look at it in quite the same guaranteed heartbreak kind of way Rob discusses ("Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or, was I miserable because I listened to pop music?" Something like that, right?), though. I see it as a celebration, documentation and maybe immortalization of some of the coolest parts of the teenage experience... at least as I knew it (parts like the unshakable certainty that the person who is obviously not meant to be the person you spend the rest of your life with is; that kind of young confidence in your gut feeling. Nevermind that it probably wasn't your gut and that it was probably hormones, you knew).

This week I played "Fool" in an alley in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle, around the corner from where the original Sonic Boom Records used to be. It's a pho restaurant now, but it used to be my playground. "Fool" is a song I wrote when I was 14 or 15 and I knew I was right. Nine years later, I like the song even though I definitely wasn't.

Songs in Potentially Interesting Places #8 from Cristina Bautista on Vimeo.

Potentially Interesting Places #7

Today is my friend Matt Garman's birthday! A year ago today, we were trekking across the country in a rented Suburban. He was Connecticut Four's wingman for that tour, and now the midwest has a hold of him. He's all the way in Chicago now, so I decided to push this cover song ahead in the SiPIP line since he asked for a recording of it some time ago. So, here's my version of Lauryn Hill's "Doo Wop (That Thing)" performed on a rock in the lake at Robinswood Park in Bellevue, WA. I was a little nervous between the passing children and the couple of times the word fuck appears in the first verse (it's the Eastside; I'm sure some parents still censor at home here), but I did change it so I don't sing the n-word... so... that's probably okay, right? At least the ducks didn't seem too bothered.

On that note, happy birthday, Matt! Seattle misses you so much it even let summer in today.


Songs in Potentially Interesting Places #7 from Cristina Bautista on Vimeo.

Potentially Interesting Places #6

I don't know how, but I think the PIP day has moved to Wednesday. Or it's trying to. Bugger.

This week, at my friend Valerie Brogden's request, I sang "I Don't Want You" at Casa Que Pasa in Bellingham. For those who don't know, that's her in the black jacket at the table behind me:


Songs in Potentially Interesting Places #6 from Cristina Bautista on Vimeo.

This song was one of of a few written stream-of-consciousness style on a train between Barcelona and Paris about three years ago. There was a month or so that I spent traveling alone, I think to explore the world outside of me after the one in my head had been shaken up. Paris to Barcelona was the last train ride of that trip, and by that point, cliche as I know this seems, there was a sense of perspective, fire and looming liberation... if that makes any sense.

Regarding Casa Que Pasa, if you've never been and are ever in Bellingham, it's one of my favorites. Jackson (of BOAT and Two Sticks Audio) introduced me to Casa when I was 14 and we played in a band called Paxil Rose together. In fact, he introduced me to Bellingham... I remain attached in many ways. Those are some of my B'ham friends - Fiona, Joe (of So Adult) and Valerie (Connecticut Four, Mechanical Dolls, general badassery all over the place) - at the table behind me. I love them and we had just stuffed our faces together. Valerie and I split a rancho burrito that she requested have "so much sauce that it's borderline disgusting." Yum!

OH! Also! Since I did five videos on the ukulele, I'm now doing five on the guitar. Let me know if there's anything you'd like to see or hear!

Potentially Interesting Places #5

Oh man. Technical difficulties were all over the place yesterday. Finally got the video up today! Jeeeeeez.

I've decided that every 5th video will be a cover. I'm making up all kinds of fun additional challenges here. Every 5 videos, maybe a new theme or instrument or something! What do you think? This being my fifth, I chose to cover my favorite song in the whole world,  Modern English's "I Melt With You." No matter where I am or what I'm doing, I'll stop if the song comes on. I mean, I'll even pull my car over half the time. So... here's my version of "I Melt With You" performed in the Georgetown P-Patch in Seattle, WA. It doesn't have the rolling toms I love in the original version, but it is dedicated to Adam Smith (who encouraged me to sing in an IHoP at midnight). "You've seen the difference..."

Songs in Potentially Interesting Places #5 from Cristina Bautista on Vimeo.