Tuesday, March 31, 2009

The LA Music Community

Los Angeles can feel like a vast, overwhelming city with very little sense of community. There are so many people coming and going--it is known as a very transient place. One of the toughest things about living here for me has been that I have never felt a part of the music community...until now. I recently went to Austin for South by Southwest, and while I was there I spent most of my time seeing LA-based bands and hangin' out with LA-based industry peeps. I started to realize that the music community gets smaller and smaller the longer you remain a part of it. I realized just how many wonderful, talented people I know in Los Angeles. There is a community here, you just have to fight a little bit harder to feel like you're a part of it.

Austin was amazing. It is a city built for live music, and it is my favorite city in the US. I go there a lot--it is kind of like my second home. It was really nice to feel a connection between my life there, and my life here. It made the world, and the music community in particular, seem a little bit smaller.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

PRESS RELEASE!

For Immediate Release

March 5, 2009


LOS ANGELES INDIE POP SINGER/SONGWRITER

LISA DONNELLY

FINDS HER VOICE ON SOLO DEBUT

WE HAD A THING, OUT 6/2

Los Angeles Residency Begins in March/April With
CD Release
Party on May 29 at The Roxy


LOS ANGELES, CALIF. – "When I look back I realize: I’m a writer who sings," declares Los Angeles via Kansas singer/songwriter Lisa Donnelly. On her debut We Had A Thing, Donnelly teams with co-writer/producer/multi-instrumentalist Rob Giles (The Rescues) & Rich Jacques, alongside songwriter Kevin Hunter, engineers John Morrical (Rancid) & John Fields (Jonas Brothers). Chris Bellman put the finishing touches in mastering at Bernie Grundman Studios. The disc is due June 2, 2009 on indie Sound/B-Team Media.

Excelling at dance and theater, Lisa was a late bloomer when it came to music. “All my life I couldn’t figure out what my biggest passion was,” she recalls. “It never occurred to me to sing in bands until I was a freshman in college in San Diego.”

After fronting several bands – including L.A outfit A.M. Pacific – Donnelly embarked on a solo career and found a kindred spirits in Rob Giles and Rick Jacques. She recalls, “In all of my time in L.A. no one had ever asked me the right questions,” she further explains “they wanted to know who I was and what I wanted to say and then from there we could figure out how to say it together.”

Donnelly has crafted ten smoldering tracks that Grammy.com in a recent “Indie Artist Spotlight” feature declares, “will take you on a ride.” On the opener “Laugh,” Donnelly proclaims, “sex and money make the world go around,” in the words of an 83-year old clairvoyant who reads her future, backpacks through the cobblestone streets of Spain with the guitar-toting troubadour, “Julian,” and sizes up an interest of lust on “Little Devil.”

Grammy.com further praised the debut, “rooted in folk/pop, she crosses genres and sounds, weaving Indian sitar for eastern flavor in "Blue," while gravitating to the blues with the ballad "Stuck In A Rut," and showcasing her fresh, sharp wit in the pop single "Laugh."

In 2008, Lisa co-headlined the Roxy in Los Angeles with Rooney and Brett Dennen, was a featured indie artist on the “AFL Music – The Cause” compilation alongside talent such as Joshua James and Priscilla Ahn and earned a spot on the MTV “Choose or Lose” tour performing in her hometown of Lawrence. Prepping for her debut, Donnelly recently previewed songs to a packed house at the Hotel Café in her adopted hometown of Los Angeles.

Lisa Donnelly will begin a Sunday night residency in Los Angeles at The Hotel Café April 5, 19, 26 & May 3 before celebrating the release of We Had A Thing at the Roxy on May 29.

For more information on Lisa Donnelly, please contact THINK PRESS:

Monica Hopman / (818) 291-9513 / monica@thinkpress.net