Brooke Parrott

On Monday, I played a show with John Parish at Monto Water Rats in London - definitely one of my favorite gigs in London to date.  Not only did loads of my lovely friends and fans come out to support me, but it was just a great atmosphere in general; everyone seemed to be out for the enjoyment of it all.  In a scene that can sometimes be filled with I’ve-seen-it-all-nothing-impresses-me types, it was so refreshing to have such an enthusiastic and musically-appreciative crowd.  I truly enjoyed playing the show and talking to everyone afterwards!

Thanks to Devin Hunt for snapping the photos.

In other exciting news, today I got my copy of Maverick Magazine in the mail!  Inherently enough exciting by itself, this one happens to contain a two page feature on me.  It’s really nicely written, and I’m so pleased that they chose to write about me and my music.  Some quotes, as written by Laura Bethell:

“A devastatingly gorgeous debut”

“A warm passionate voice that is soft in approach and straight to the point in tone”

“Another song on the album, Rest, shoots sparks through the soul with its sentimentality and a story that is stirring”

If you’d like to get your own copy of the article, just go to Maverick’s website and use the code MAV971 to get a discount.

Hello!  You may or may not know that I have been playing gigs like crazy around London.  Last week, I played at the legendary Jazz Cafe, opening for the equally legendary Robert Forster from the Go-Betweens.  When I first arrived at the venue for soundcheck, keyboard in tow, imagine my surprise and delight to see a Steinway grand piano on stage!  When I asked the sound engineer, “is it easier for me to just play the real piano?”, he responded with the caveat, “but it hasn’t been tuned since yesterday”, to which I responded, “I think it’ll be okay”.  Perhaps I should start building up a rider (backstage and show requirements) similar to Rihanna’s.  ”Must have daily tuned Steinway grand piano.”

Now, it’s nearly time to hit the road in the Pacific Northwest!!  I’ll be on tour at the following places:

• Eugene: 11 Aug, Sam Bond’s Garage, 8:30pm
• Portland: 16 Aug, Atlantis Lounge @ Mississippi Pizza Pub, 7:30pm
• Seattle: 17 Aug, JewelBox Theater, 6pm

And as if that weren’t enough already, I’ll be playing as a showcased artist at the Cutting Edge Music Conference in New Orleans at the end of August… exciting stuff!  I’ll leave you with a recent photo from my show with Lauren Pritchard at Hoxton Underbelly:

Hey!  Just to say “thank you” for voting for me to play at Green Man Festival like it was your job, I’ve posted some exclusive songs for you - old ones, new ones, and covers as well.

Don’t forget, you’ve got 24 hours left to vote for me! http://bit.ly/cBukIb

In case you missed it, I’m reposting the exclusive goodies here for a limited time:

• Elliott Smith - Between the Bars cover
• Brooke Parrott - Give Me A Something
• Sarah Siskind - Lovin’s For Fools (video)
• Brooke Parrott - Sweet & Kinda Crazy (old co-write!)
• Brooke Parrott - Can’t Because I Won’t

Thank you so much for your continued support!

Hello!  If you haven’t heard yet (welcome back to civilization!), I’m in a competition to play at the Green Man Festival in the UK.  There are only a few more days left on the ticker, and you can vote every 24 hours, so sign up now!  It’s a bit of a confusing site, so follow these instructions:

1. Go to http://www.greenman.net/user/register and fill out your info.
2. Check your email address, and click the link in the confirmation email they send you.
3. Click “MY ACCOUNT” at the top of the page
4. Change your password and click the “Save” button
5. Go to my page (http://bit.ly/cBukIb) and click “vote for this band”!

I’m up to #19 right now, but I need your help to get to the top 5!  Thanks for the support

This coming Wednesday I’m playing a gig that I’m really excited about at the Hoxton Underbelly in London!  If you want to come down, leave a comment on this post with your name and I’ll add you to the cheap entry list.  Thats…

Wednesday, 21 April 2010 :: Hoxton Underbelly :: London w/ Orlando Vaughan

You can say “I’m going” here: http://www.songkick.com/concerts/4672991-brooke-parrott-at-underbelly-hoxton

Secondly, I thought you might want to see some photos from recent gigs at the Regal Room and Old Queen’s Head.  You can even see the progression that my haircuts are taking :)  Photos were taken by Andy Sheard:

Brooke Parrott live at Regal Room London

Brooke Parrott live at Old Queen's Head London

I keep getting messages from people asking me for the lyrics to ‘Maybe She Just Doesn’t Love You’, so I figured I’d post them here for you.  I wrote this song when I was living in Boston around 2006, and I remember walking one day in the city, and getting the image of a person on the street seeing the car of someone they love but knowing that person doesn’t feel the same way.  That stomach-dropping feeling when you know that person is nearby.  The chorus was the best kind of chorus to write - it was one of those that came suddenly and just made sense for the song, like it couldn’t have been any other way.  Here ’tis, thanks for asking for it!  You can listen to the song for free over at my Facebook or MySpace pages.

You see her car on Maple Street, a parking ticket there / Neon green on rusted blue, a violating flair / You think for a moment you might leave a note, just to say “how are you, dear” / But you don’t have a pen, and you can’t bear to hear if there’s…

Someone beside her she can’t wait to wake, the unstated promise of a love yet to make / Every woman loves like she chooses to, maybe she just doesn’t love you / Maybe she just doesn’t love you

At the grocery store she fills her cart, more than is enough / Picks things up and puts them down, wondering ‘was it love?’ / No way to know if the right thing was done, or if she was too naive / All she knows and can feel is the depth of her need for…

Someone beside her she can’t wait to wake, the unstated promise of a love yet to make / Every woman loves like she chooses to, maybe she just doesn’t love you

You could tell her she renders you undone / You could kiss her and plead til she sees / But it looks likely, you’re just not meant to be, the…

Someone beside her she can’t wait to wake, the unstated promise of a love yet to make / Every woman loves like she chooses to, maybe she just doesn’t love you / Every woman loves like she chooses to, maybe she just doesn’t love you / Maybe she just doesn’t love you

What a great week for music!  I had a lovely gig at The Elgin in Notting Hill last Wednesday, where I got to play a real baby grand piano, and it’s been far too long since I’ve done that.  After playing a keyboard pretty much constantly for the last 2 years, my fingers have lost some of the strength that they used to have.  Luckily, I knew the soundman at the gig, so he let me play the piano for about an hour before the doors opened!

Here’s a photo that the very talented Brad (his website is here) took at the gig:

This week I also had a co-write with a songwriter named Paul McKendrick who I met at an ASCAP workshop a few months ago.  It’s always a bit of a strange process to write with someone that you haven’t spent time with before, but this one turned out really great.  Paul came to my gig on Wednesday as well, and while sitting at the table looking at the venue’s flyer (with my name on it), Paul asked me “Do you keep these?”.  I said that no, I don’t usually, but sometimes I take a photo of them.  From there we developed the idea of a song about someone who doesn’t have the space to collect mementos from their life, since they move around a lot (read: me), and have to collect photos of these memories instead of the real thing.  I’ll post it here when it’s done!

This week my album was finally analyzed and posted on Pandora - you can now listen to “Brooke Parrott radio” here…!

Time goes too quickly these days!  London’s been treating me quite well (and I say things like “quite” now), and I am definitely enjoying my time here.  It has so much to offer!

If you haven’t made it out to any of my gigs yet, there are more coming up, you can always check my Songkick or MySpace pages to see what’s coming up.  For those that are not in London, you can watch a live stream of my recent gig at the lovely Regal Room at http://bit.ly/9todyC .  Just click the clock and enter Feb 5, 2010 around 9:25pm, and watch from there.  I play 2 different sets, so it’s worth checking out the other acts that played in between - they were great!

I just finished a new song called “Can’t Because I Won’t”, which you can check out on my Facebook page here.  It’s just a rough demo, but I figured you guys needed a treat after waiting so long for new material to get posted!  Speaking of that, I have been writing pretty much constantly these days, and I feel like I’m starting to fall back into old (good) habits.  You should be seeing lots more stuff getting posted soon.

Thanks for your support!  I’ll leave you with a review from Maverick’s March issue:

For all of you Europeans and American expats, I have a little treat for you!

Recently, my debut album “Another City” was added to Spotify’s catalogue, so you can now listen to it for FREE if you are in the UK, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Spain or France.  For those that are unfamiliar (if you live in Europe, I’m not sure how that would be possible) Spotify is a music streaming service which allows you to listen to anything on demand without having to download mp3s or pay any money.  Great, right?

Go here to download Spotify and then here to listen to my album.

Happy listening!

Brooke

At the end of last year, international cell phone manufacturer HTC licensed the song “Maybe She Just Doesn’t Love You” from my debut album “Another City” to go on up to a million cell phones worldwide.  It was very exciting when it all happened, but enough time has lapsed since then that I actually forgot about it!

Now, to my delight, the song has finally been released on a T-Mobile phone.  No, it’s not a sythensizer version of my song, not a truncated cell phone ring, but an actual full version of the song that goes out as one of 10 pre-loaded songs on the phone.  Not only that, but everytime they play the song, my album cover shows on the screen.  How cool!  Thanks again to Ben for making it all happen.

Now I just have to go track down a T-Mobile store to see for myself!

Brooke