Settling into the new norm: travel stories, recording update, Homegrown Fest Recap, and Upcoming Creativity + Yoga Retreat in Bali

PermalinkUncategorized, , , , , , Leave a comment

Hello friends! This is gonna be a kind of long blog – a synthesis / digest of the last few email newsletters (please sign up for the newsletter here if you’d like an email from me once a month or so)! Feel free to skim to what interests you!!!

I spent the month of March 2019 traveling in Bali, Indonesia and a few cities in India.  I’d been home just a weeks when I wrote this … and honestly felt a bit in a cloud.  So much to process.  This was not a “vacation” per se,  but kind of an adventure travel,  cultural experience,  spiritual pilgrimage, and most definitely an escape from winter.  

Gaelynn Lea’s Learning How to Stay cuts through the fog – album review

Permalinkcreativity, Music, recording, songwriting, , , , Leave a comment

Gaelynn Lea’s Learning How to Stay cuts through the fog

It’s the eve of the fall equinox and my self-diagnosed SAD is kicking in. The past week has been all rain and thunder and bluster. More chances to stay inside with the tea kettle and contemplate the cold cruel world. I keep returning to a song, over an over, and it is Gaelynn Lea’s Moment of Bliss.

Mary Bue Patreon Minneapolis Singer Songwriter

The New Frontier, The Wild West

Permalinkcreativity, indie, Music, songwriting, , , , Leave a comment

The New Frontier,
The Wild West

Hello dear music friend,

Last weekend I took a trip out west with my new beau.  It wasn’t super far west,  but a good 9 hours from Minneapolis to Western North Dakota where the landscape changes to plateaus and buttes and miles and grasslands.  Majestic beast roam:  Bison,  Elk, Wild Horse,  and Coyote howls.  The moon switched to new,  and a full day was spent walking to get water from a spring and then walking back to camp.  For some people,  this is their life …

Mary Bue hiking Devisadero trail during Artist in Residence

Thoughts on Devisadero

Permalinkcreativity, indie, Mindfulness, Music, recording, songwriting, , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Thoughts on the trail during my artist residency …

I just crested staying over two months in Taos, New Mexico as an Artist in Residence at the Wurlitzer Foundation.  A few days after I arrived here I sought out the Devisadero Loop Trail,  a section / foothill of the Sangre de Cristo mountains.  It begins around 7,000 feet above sea level and makes its way to 8,300 feet.  Needless to say,  my Minnesota lungs were winded.  I was such a PILE on the first hike.  Took me 2.5-3 hours and I was exhausted on those early days of being here.  Now I’m run/hiking it,  and just had my best time at 1:10.

“Devisadero” has a few searchable meanings – could be from the Spanish word for ‘division.’ The forest service says it means “lookout place” and that “the peak had once been used by the Taos Pueblo Indians to stand guard against the Apaches who would come down Taos Canyon to raid the Pueblo.” Or it might be from the word divisar, meaning similarly ‘to gaze at something from a distance.’

Two weeks into what seems like two years in Taos

Permalinkcreativity, Music, recording, songwriting, yoga, , , , , Leave a comment

I haven’t been in Taos for two weeks just yet – Tuesday eve it will be so – but time moves slow here –  I’ve made it as such.  Imposed solitude.  Turning down invites to chill with the other artists,  to go to a Bob Marley dance party at a gallery,  and right now I could be drinking and watching the Superbowl with some passionate intellectuals … but no,  I am in my casita … blogging … what a DORK!

A quick update on how I am spending my artist residency – the spiral nature of my time thus far.  First – motivation,  enthusiasm,  excitement spiraled to overwhelm,  exhaustion,  lethargy and then back around slowly to productivity,  awe,  creative bliss … Emotions; they are always shifting,  changing like clouds in the sky or waves in the sea.  The thing is,  underneath all of that emotional stormage and weather there’s a clear blue space.  And I work with that.  I try to work with that.

Find your voice: throat chakra talk

Permalinkcreativity, Mindfulness, Music, yoga, , , , , View all 4 comments

Small talk,  deep talk,  chit chat,  white lies,  subversion,  “elephants in the room,”  exuberance,  speaking your truth,  singing,  clearing your throat — when it comes to living “authentically” it’s all about your voice.  And well beyond words,  it’s about finding your truth and expressing it.

Tweet: When it comes to living authentically it's all about your voice. Beyond words, it's about finding your truth & expressing it. @marybuemusic

Click to tweet: When it comes to living authentically it’s all about your voice. Beyond words, it’s about finding your truth & expressing it. @marybuemusic

The 5th chakra is called the Visuddha chakra,  located at the throat and basking in the color blue.  In my last four blog posts I’ve been veering towards the self-help,  self-reflection section of the book store rather than music business tips + news.  In my other life I’m a yoga instructor and have been teaching a series on the chakras to child and family therapists at a community health center.   Chakras,  to those of you wondering WTF,  are energy centers/wheels in our emotional/spiritual bodies and according to yogic,  buddhist and new age belief,  hold keys to our attitudes,  imbalances,  and spiritual growth.  You might find it total BS,  but maybe you’re into self reflection and some of the following may ring true.

How many bands are you in?! Let’s talk about side projects

Permalinkcreativity, indie, Music, songwriting, , , , , , , View all 2 comments

Photo by Scott “Starfire” Lunt

My teenage self always thought musicians that had side projects were the coooooooolest. I still do, because I still feel like a teenager.

In this blog I’m going to talk a little bit about some famous and/or regionally known local bands and their side projects (as well as my own!) and how these projects give participating musicians voice to the other, perhaps more wild, sides of their personalities.