Vanessa Lively- guitar and vocals
Jason Lively- charango, guitar and bass
Mark Wochner - bass and trumpet
Sick- fiddle and mandolin
Adam Freeborg- drums
Jeanette Ladores- world percussion
Recording Artists (A Chain Unbroken):
Stefan Pope, Dave Pope, Jason Lively, Phil Considine, Zac Sargent, Stuart Moritimore, Christian Dyson, Ben Knott, Sick
Recording Artists (Let Me Rise):
Stefan Pope, Dave Pope, Jason Lively, Bryan Schatz, Annabel Pinker, Micheline Ferreira, Alvaro Revelo, Dan Dixon
BUY A CHAIN UNBROKEN!
Hello friends, family, & community!
We have some very exciting news to share with you...Jason and I are about to record a Latin EP, which will pay tribute to Latin American singers & songwriters. There will be six tracks on the album and will include songs from the following artists: Mercedes Sosa, Violeta Parra, Leon Geico, Victor Jara & Silvio Rodriguez. Most of these songs were introduced to us while we were living in Bolivia, and we continued to sing them everywhere we traveled in South America. The stories behind these songs are incredible, and we hope to share them with everyone who hears this album.
We are both very passionate about this upcoming project, but what we need right now is help funding it. If any of you are able to help us bring this idea to life, we welcome whatever you are willing to contribute. It looks like our project budget will be around $5000 which includes recording, mixing, mastering and CD replication.
Various Sponsorship Levels:
$25: Advance SIGNED copy of CD
$50: Advance SIGNED copy of CD and T-shirt
$100: 3 signed CD's and T-shirt
$250: 5 signed CD's, T-shirt and acknowledgment in liner notes
$500: 5 signed CD's, T-shirt and acknowledgment in liner notes + Fine Art Print of a Vanessa Lively painting of choice
$1,000: 5 signed CD's, T-shirt and acknowledgment in liner notes + We will be the live entertainment at your next party
$MORE: All of the above + whatever you want!
We gladly accept any contribution amount. Every little bit helps!
Thank you so much!!
Vanessa & Jason Lively
Influences
Sounds Like
Vanessa's new album A Chain Unbroken is available in Austin, TX at Waterloo Records, Antone's Records, and End of an Ear. Don't live in Austin? You can buy it online at CD Baby!
UMWA Feature Vanessa Lively on their Website!
"For the Miners" is a song that evocatively depicts the suffering of the friends and families of the victims of the Sago disaster is included in Let Me Rise, the debut release of singer/songwriter Vanessa Lively.
- United Mine Workers of America, UMWA.org
"San Antonio-born, Austin-based Lively crafts acoustic music with strong lyrics and world-music underpinnings."
- Jim Beal, San Antonio Express News
"Vanessa hails from San Antonio, is bilingual and bicultural -- and beautiful inside and out. Her concerts are a spiritual experience...the music is beautiful!"
- Duggan Flanakin, Flanfire.com
"A Chain Unbroken is San Antonio-born-and-bred Vanessa Lively's sophomore recording. Strange to relate, particularly for an Austin-based musician, Lively's second album was recorded over a two-month period during the winter of 2007 in a studio in Mossley, a suburb of the city of Manchester, in North West England. Stefan Pope, an Englishman that Lively befriended in Ecuador while recording her debut, Let Me Rise, assisted Lively to produce both releases. A Chain Unbroken features ten Lively-penned originals, plus a cover of Oaxaca, Mexico-born, Lila Downs' hypnotic, Latin-flavoured "Dignificada" (translates as "Dignified"). The latter lyric relates how Digna Ochoa, a human rights lawyer, was assassinated in her Mexico City office during October 2001. Released earlier this year, highlights on A Chain Unbroken include "The Only Day There Is," "Before Her Time," and the saxophone-propelled album closer "Alleluia."
- Arthur Wood, founding editor of FolkWax
------ BIOGRAPHY ------
From a very early age, it was clear that the Texas-born gypsy folk songwriter Vanessa Lively wasn’t going to be content staying stateside.
“I lived in Laredo when I was little and moved to San Antonio at a young age,” the 28-year old songwriter remembers, “but I spent lots of time in Brownsville and Laredo growing up. I was always going back and forth because we had family close to the border.”
It was there that Lively discovered her love for world music. Though she now finds herself most allegiant to reggae and African music, her time spent in Texas’ border towns was filled with Mexican culture, songs on the radio that helped shape the way Vanessa would one day make music.
Vanessa started to sing in junior high school, when her school would gather on Fridays for church. “I’d sing occasionally there, on Fridays, but I wasn’t a big choirgirl or anything. When I became a bit older, I started to get more involved in the choir. We were kind of like a cool, rock choir. And it was great, but it only lasted a little while.”
The torch had been lit, and Lively was setting her roots in a world of music she’d soon call one of the driving forces in her life. At about the same time as her choir years were coming to a close, she joined her first band, as a backup singer and dancer. Like most college bands, Bucketfunk never quite took off. Still, the experience was Vanessa’s first glimpse into what it was like to make her own music. She picked up her first guitar a year later.
After graduating from high school, Vanessa traveled around Europe, and when she came back got involved with E Serenes, a Greek band in San Antonio. “I had a friend who really wanted to start a Greek band, and a good friend of mine – who’s now my husband [Jason] – played guitar really well. So they got together and asked me to be their singer and percussion player. And then we added a fourth person to play bass. We’d play Greek restaurants and concerts around town. We were pretty popular among the Greek community in San Antonio.”
Jason and Vanessa got married in 2001, and, with their attention focused elsewhere, the band went on without them. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as it allowed for Lively to finally focus on her own songwriting.
Fulfilling a long tenured dream of theirs, the two moved to South America in 2005, spending time in Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador. It was in Ecuador that Vanessa and Jason met Dave and Stefan Pope, a British father and son who would prove instrumental in their lives. The Popes were also musicians, and they would stay up late with Vanessa and Jason almost nightly, swapping songs and opening each other’s minds to the music of the world.
After a year in Ecuador, Lively took to the studio to record 2007’s Let Me Rise, an album that serves as one of the principle artifacts of Vanessa’s time in Ecuador. Recorded in a studio that had never recorded folk music before, Vanessa harnessed the album’s feel by bringing in friends she had met around the country to record with her. Their company made the album all the more personal, all the more alive.
The two moved back to America after finishing the album, and in 2007 found themselves in Austin. It was a city they’d always planned on living in, though their initial stay didn’t last long. After setting herself up with a series of regular gigs, one of which was at Austin’s famed Momo’s Club, Jason and Vanessa took to travel once again, this time going to live with the Popes in England.
The product of their stay is 2008’s A Chain Unbroken, a delicately put together, personal album that haunts in certain places and delights in others. Lively considers that particular recording process to be one of the most satisfying and exhilarating periods of her life. “We recorded the album in a bedroom and would have all [the Pope’s] friends come in and play on songs,” she remembers. “We went all the way up to the wire, finishing the recording the day before we had to leave.”
The Livelys came back to Austin to mix the album and released it at Momo’s on February 17, 2008. Since, Vanessa has been focusing her efforts on establishing a rapport with Austin venues and the local community, but she is most certainly not ready to settle in Texas’ Capital quite yet.
“I’m really excited to see where music can take us,” she points out. “I’m just a creative person who’s always looking for new ways to express myself. Music’s beautiful in that it brings people together and can change lives. That, to me, is the most important thing.”
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They don't follow the fashion Latest trend, no reaction State of the world's affairs Seem indifferent, but really care Self-reliance what its all about Don't need it, you do without In the balance of the universe Doesn't matter could be worse ....."Exceptionally Cool".....
We are getting geared up for the 6th St Smokeout, and it's now just a week away!
We'll have plenty of pizza, from the Mellow Mushroom, to take care of your munchies, and we'll also have a psychedellic multimedia light show for your viewing pleasure!!
Also, if you have just a couple minutes to spare, go by Do512 and vote "I Like" on the event page there; it'll keep the Smokeout near the top of the list of events for that day, and the "Higher" we are on the list the better!!!! The Do512 event page is here: http://do512.com/event/2009/10/17/texas-normls-4th-annual-6th-street-smokeout
Thanks for meeting with us the other day! That was really cool of you! Hope all is well...and thanks again! Btw, this thing below is a widget. (what I was telling you about)
Hello. My Name Is Alyosha Het. I Think You're Fantastic & Would Like To Shake Your Intangible Hand. I Think The Intangible Quasi-Hug Would Be A Bit Forward Of Me At This Juncture.
"Spinning Chain" Live in Concert !! @ Clicks Sat. Aug.22nd show starts @ 10 pm W/ Drowning Mona 410 & Evers San Antonio,Tx.
"Spinning Chain Live in Concet !! @ The Scout Bar Sun. Aug. 23rd doors open @ 8:00pm Follow us to Fackbook @ Budurl.com/spinningchain 99.5 KISS Texxas Traxx show Catch two shows this coming weekend in San Antonio,.Tx.
(what I was telling you about)
