Kira Small: Blog

(Before I start, here are links to where you'll find images of what's described below and more: brilliant video Ben Walker made, Steve's photos, my photos.)
I went to Thailand for 48 hours to entertain some people. It was completely insane and I loved every bit of it.
It started on Twitter with a series of DM’s (direct messages) from my friend Steve Lawson that I received while standing in a gas station in Monteagle, TN asking if I could be in London Feb 21st-24th to rehearse for a gig in Phuket on March 4th.
Uh…yes please! First, a bit about Steve: renaissance madman is the phrase that comes to mind. He’s a solo bassist, journalist, documentarian, commentarian, master of all things internet, champion of all things indie, husband to Lobelia, daddy to Baby Flapjack, and someone who somehow manages to be exceptionally opinionated and outspoken while simultaneously being extremely accepting and unflappably happy. Quite a remarkable feat of human beingness, just so you know [...]

“I wish you Oprah.” A friend of mine said that to me a few years back and it stuck with me. I liked the implication of that. Wishing me to live my best life…be the most authentic, shining, brilliant, true expression of myself. Yeah. I’ll take it. I’ve never been big on New Years resolutions, but this year something went pop and I made a rocking list that excites and inspires me to action. Near the top is this:
-   Get “I Will Raise My Voice” to Oprah
First I wrote down that I wanted one of my songs to be used by major media to empower, inspire and encourage people. I still want that. But that was just a fancy way of saying I. Want. To. Sing. That. Song. On. Oprah.
When the seed for my song “I Will Raise My Voice” first planted itself in me and began to germinate, I said to myself: “I want to write something Oprah-worthy – something she would have on her show.” Sometimes I even fantasized about it being her [...]

Well, y’all – I raised my voice. I raised it 22 times across 18 states and over 7800 miles. And here lies the day-by-day accounting of our month-long Raise My Voice Tour – starting in Nashville on Oct 14 and returning again on Nov 12. I tried to start this blog once about halfway through the tour…but when I realized I had barely scratched the surface after 30 minutes, I stopped. I spent about 9 hours yesterday and several more today going through each and every day trying to remember as much as I could. It might be boring as hell but there was no way I could sum it up in a few clever paragraphs. I'm not that good. And this thing was way too big. There were at least 100 times when I wished I’d had a camera strapped to my head so I could somehow live stream what I was seeing. There. Was. So. Much. So many little moments…I know I won’t get even half of them in here but I had to try because I spent the better part of 30 days looking out the window [...]

I have utterly failed in my "blog once a week" quest. Crap. Well, OK, not "utterly"...but in the "once a week" sense, yes. In the interest of preserving my mental health I am hereby forgiving myself and acknowledging that there are certainly more blog posts than there would have been had I not made that "once a week" declaration.
And now, in the interest of promoting my independent music career, I give you my most recent email about our upcoming tour. Cheating? Who cares. We're going on tour and we busted our asses to put it together. And there is important info I really want folks to know about how house concerts work.
Besides, this is your chance - if you're NOT on my mailing list, to see how hilarious and charming I am. There is also a picture of my cat. He's quite helpful. And by "helpful" I mean "not at all helpful, actually, but obnoxiously cute". Read please:
***sent 9/20/2010***
"My friends -
Holy frijole stromboli Jeff Spiccoli have we got a T-O-U-R coming up!! I'm not even gonna [...]

My dad and I started road-tripping together when I was in high school. We were really good at it too – traveled the same way and were great road companions. Not a whole lot of focus on the intended destination, whatever it was. We were far more interested in turning off the road to go investigate something we drove by that looked interesting. This would drive some people crazy I’m sure, but we loved it. We always had AAA books with us and while Dad drove I’d read out loud about towns or sites we were passing. Learned a lot that way. Our first road trip was out west – from Wisconsin to Calgary & Banff in Alberta, Canada. We saw an indoor water slide in the hotel in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, watched the building frenzy in anticipation of the Calgary Olympics, and trekked out to see “beautiful Lake Louise” which was entirely covered in snow and therefore indistinguishable from an empty parking lot. We also saw Wind Cave, a big bunch of buffalo, had [...]