juana molina's Blog
My story...
i wouldn't consider myself a shy person. at all. that's probably why, to be able to pay my rent and guitar lessons i decided to get a cool job: nice money, only a few hours a week. and i found it: a tv show. i started to act in a 7pm show. it was about making fun of the news broadcast and i my part was impersonating different characters. (i have to make a pause here to let you know i am from argentina and all this was happening in buenos aires and also that you may find huge english errors!!!)
it went very well and the biggest comedy star at the time called me to be part of his show. and that went even better, so two years later i ended up having my own show, called juana y sus hermanas (juana and her sisters), which was on the air for three years. it was a sketch-based format and i continued to impersonate the most popular kind of animals (meaning people) we have in in our society. it was something very local, because the people i was making fun of were very local.
time passed by and one day i met someone and got immediately pregnant. i had to stay in bed for two months. it was a blessing, because i had the time to think: "what am i doing?" i said to myself. "what about the guitar lessons and music?", then i decided to stop everything right away.
i started to listen to old cassettes with old songs i'd written before i started to act. i decided to make a record with them asap. so i did. and it was released in 1996. called RARA (which means weird, i was talking about the weird mood i was in).
people were stunned. they thought i was totally crazy. i had become the most important comedian in argentina and all of the sudden i decided to throw everythinmg through the window? no. people and press weren't going to accept that. i was just mis-behaving. and i had to be punished. so no one ever played one of my songs on the radio.
people used to come to my shows, but they wanted me to make them laugh, so the booed me (well, kind of) and left before the show was over. only a few stayed. and from these few people i started to build, very slowly, a new audience. it took a long time.
for a while people screamed at me: hey! make the valley girl (there are not valley girls in argentina, but just so you can figure).
again, time passed by and i moved to los angeles, because i knew there was one radio that was playing my songs, kcrw. i thougth i had to go where i was welcome. i called the radio to thank them and they invited me to play live!!!
i stayed in LA for one year and a half, learned the language and started to record SEGUNDO, my second record. then i had to leave because of immigration problems. i didn't want to be a prisoner in the states (if you don't have a visa you can't leave the country, otherwise you wouldn't be able to come back). so we decided to go back to argentina.
i finished the record there and self released it in 2000.
a friend told me to send a copy to a guy in japan "if he likes it, he might buy you a bunch", he said. so i did. and i sold al lot. i started to record another album: TRES COSAS. it was released in 2002. by then i had sold about 30,000 copies in japan. i couldn't believe what was happening.
one day i got an email from domino records asking if i was interested in licensing the records. i was. and that's it.
i'm playing in north america, europe, japan, argentina. i even have a huge audience in my own country now...what else could i want?
i'm happy
and very thankful.
I remember that day when you first played your songs on 89.9 KCRW here in Los Angeles. That was around the time when I was tired of the same old rock 'n roll I had been hearing on the radio. I had just become a supporter of KCRW and hearing you really helped me paddle my raft off the mainstream and have a look down the tributaries. I found that there is a whole other world of music and arts, people and places to be enjoyed. It is a little selfish of me to say this but, I am happy that there is a "mainstream" for music and everything else because it keeps all the commecialization, hype and mediocrity away from our eclectic little world and it is almost as if the word Eclectic is our own little protective atmosphere from the bombardment of the mainstream poo poo !
Juana , you turned your back on your television career to persue your dreams, and take the long road, the more difficult but interesting one I believe. I think that you are right on!! I'll always be there for you and bringing new friends.
See you at the next gig here in Los Angeles. Steve Scarcello
me encanta tu musica soy de peru, aun no se como se usa el myspace pero ahi estoy tratando de que me aceptes como amigo para poder dejar comentarios,
HolaSoy Azuki_de_Japon.
Soy una japonesa vivo en Sendai, Japon.
De momento
hablo un poco espanol
pero me gusta sus canciones mucho.
By the way, I've already known
that you were one of famous comedian in Argentina.
But... I didn't know the other stories
about the period you pregnant...
o una historia sobre de un hombre japones!
It was a big surprise to me, too!!!
But maybe because of your precios experience
sus canciones son something special!
They give me a power "to live my life again"...
Muchisimas gracias por todo.
Entonces, tengo novio en Bs.As, Argentina.
...and I'm going to move to Argentina next year.
I wish to see you there sooon!
with enough respect
y un abrazo grande desde Sendai,
Azu.
hi, some friends andi drove from Houston, Tx to Austin, Tx last year to see you and just wanted to say how great the show was. Thanks for your music. Hopefully, I'll see you again soon since i recently moved to the east coast. Take care.