Moonlighting: Reporter/Violinist (aka Me!)

My bio on Twitter says I’m an arts reporter by day (and sometimes night), violinist by night (and sometimes day). It’s a complicated balance sometimes, but it’s a really fun, if occasionally sleep-deprived, life.

For the next couple of weeks, I’ll be tipping that balance toward the violin end. My band, The Tree Ring, is hitting the road for a tour up the West Coast of Oregon, Washington and into British Columbia (where I grew up) before winding our way back down through the Bay Area, L.A. and home to San Diego.

I love playing in this band. I can’t wait to play this music for more people, among the trees in the part of the country(ies) we grew up in.

This blog will be pretty quiet while I’m gone, but I will drop in with a few updates from the road. This is our band’s first real tour and the longest I’ve been on the road specifically for music. So I’m a bit of a novice myself, but if you’ve got questions about something related to an independent band taking its music on the road, leave ’em below and I’ll try to answer them.

If this post is the first you’ve heard about my avocation, here’s a little history of our last few months:

Last September, soon after launching this arts blog, I wrote a bit about the record we made in a cabin in Idyllwild. We released that record, Generous Shadows, in February, at a show that the veteran music venue, the Casbah, put on for us at the San Diego Woman’s Club. And we put out a video of another performance in the attic of the Golden Hill house known as the Habitat that, as KPBS’s Angela Carone pointed out, involved a ton of talented local artists, who, I’m thankful to say, are friends of mine.

First stop: Oregon. I’ll have an update from the road soon. (You can also follow our updates on Facebook.)

Meanwhile, here’s the video from that attic if you’re curious to hear what we sound like:

Wore It Deep (The Tree Ring) from Destin Daniel Cretton on Vimeo.

I am the arts editor for VOSD. You can reach me directly at kelly.bennett@voiceofsandiego.org or 619.325.0531. Or you can keep up with me on Twitter @kellyrbennett or on Facebook.