rock and americana melding chrissie hynde sass with tom petty twang

i'm a singer/songwriter, musician, and bass player for the modeens and the cordials living in tucson, az. and now I'm finding a new voice as a blogger and writer spewing out stories real and imagined - thanks to an inner world fed on isabel allende, tolkien and faulkner. some of it spills through this blog.
re-releasing humboldt sessions: legend of bigfoot

re-releasing humboldt sessions: legend of bigfoot

Yes, I’m re-releasing an album that I did with Jamie and good buddy Phil Williams a few years back and some of you are already familiar with the material. Then I felt compelled to explain why, which led to this monster post. Warning: there is a bit of sadness here....
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my time as: a shangri-la

my time as: a shangri-la

Let me start by assuring you I was not in fact a Shangri-La. Not in the sense of being one of the original Shangri-La’s from the iconic sixties girl-group made famous by the motorcycle-bad-boy hit “Leader of the Pack”. That would make me faaaar older than I already am and who needs that? I wasn’t...
the slightly autistic person's guide to old compost

the slightly autistic person’s guide to old compost

So here is a weird post I warned you about recently. I started it at the end of November but thought it was too weird to post publicly, so I sat on it for a while. It’s actually more about how my lil ol brain works. Which isn’t really interesting except that we all live...
fascination

fascination

I’ve started a new resolution of reading bits from certain books that inspire me first thing in the morning. One of the books I’ve had the longest is “Affirmations for Artists” given to me by my dear, old friend Jamison Vaughn years ago when I was about to move from Jacksonville, FL to big ol’...
hello 2012!

hello 2012!

Happy New Year everyone! Hope your holidays were as crazy or as serene as you wanted. We had some tastes of both here at Chez Williams-Laboz : a cozy Christmas Eve BBQ, a very quiet and tender Christmas Day, then a raucous New Year’s Eve with a gaggle of friends in Bisbee. If you don’t...
christmas 2011

christmas 2011

Wow, it’s been a while since my last post – but even without kids (though our cat, Massimo, is definitely our ‘little boy’) I have somehow been transformed into a jeans-wearing June Cleaver and been baking and cooking up a storm! But without a string of pearls, so I do get one little demerit. It’s...
local love for the holidaze

local love for the holidaze

Hoo-boy – here we are in the thick of the holiday buying season – where emails and commercials urge us to buy, buy, buy at every corner, nook and cranny – while the Occupy protests are still calling on us to consider the gulf between 1% of the US population (mostly made of tycoons in...
attack of the killer kabocha

attack of the killer kabocha

One thing I haven’t really gotten to talking about on this blog is food and cooking. I love to eat, which eventually led me to cooking so I could eat more of the things I love (which usually involves pasta – though I try to keep it under control *burp*). Since moving to Tucson, I’ve...
how my grandparents met

how my grandparents met

I think I’ve mentioned before that my mother was born in Cuba. Considering the political climate between the US and Cuba in the last 50-odd years, it’s always been an island of mysterious beauty to me – a place family members would speak of breathlessly, hot and heavy like a long lost lover. Even though...
warrior angel

warrior angel

My brother, Thomas Halley Williams, who we all call “Hal.” I was 13 when he was born. Mami got sick after having him and I had to learn how to take care of a newborn baby very quickly (hint: it was really really hard!) So in high school I didn’t get to do a lot...
the tales of three scars

the tales of three scars

Yes, I’m late again. And boy has it been busy here in Tucson. The Modeens had been working on a cool gig last Saturday at the Tucson Museum of Art to help open their awesome Who Shot Rock & Roll exhibit (amazing photos of rock and rollers from 1955 til now). We had to learn...
my time as: a singing telegram performer

my time as: a singing telegram performer

Zoiks, I missed a week! Sorry about that – busy, in a tizzy, etc. Plus I’m supremely annoyed that I can’t find any old photos from this period of my life and there were some good ones (like of the green taffeta dress). But that’s life and I’ve finally decided to suck it up, find...
meet me on 17th street

meet me on 17th street

Oh my goodness. Jamie and I just got back from lunch at the 17th Street Grill and I’m STUFFED on the Catfish Po-boy. I could easily just drape myself over the couch and take a nice food-induced nap, but instead I decided to rhapsodize a bit about this great new addition to our lunch repertoire....