Sophia’s 2010 in Review

DNFMOMD on TOUR! photo by Kelly Davidson

The Prisoner- top still from our recreation- bottom

I’m breaking this up into groups – starting with my reason for justifying how I live my life, Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling. 2010 was an amazing year for us. We released our first 6-song EP – The New Number 2 – we had great response, including write-ups in the Boston Globe, Phoenix, the Weekly Dig, Ryan’s Smashing Life and beyond. I was audio-interviewed by two British publications on the influence of The Prisoner on our music: Sci-Fi Pulse and Sci-Fi London. In July I went on my first ever tour, which was an amazing experience and one I’d like to have a lot more often! In 2010 DNFMOMD played 27 shows in 8 states – we did extensive tour blogging – check it out. We’re nearly finished (after a year of pre-production, and 5 months of shooting across 11 days) with an epic (and I don’t toss that word around lightly) music video for our song “Arrival” which is a recreation of the opening sequence to The Prisoner (starring me as Number 6). It will be officially released in March (see our behind-the-scenes footage). We also began shooting a video for our Leonard Cohen cover, First We Take Manhattan with Glenn DiBenedetto of Killer Suit Media – a teaser is here. We have one more day of shooting planned for this video and we hope it will be released in the next month or two. On December 28th we began recording our second EP – 7 songs (6 more song-episodes and a cover song) with the estimable Mike Quinn at The Moontower (which recently relocated to inside of Q Division.) We hope to begin releasing those songs in March. 2011 is shaping up to be an even more exciting year for DNFMOMD than any previous.

Dramamine (top) photo by Kelly Davidson

2010 was also the year that The Motion Sick said goodbye. The Motion Sick has been a huge part of my life for the last 4ish years. I was on both of their album covers and in their music video, went on short tours with them and helped out whenever and wherever I could. In October, myself along with Leesa Coyne, Veronica Dale and Kelly Davidson (women that are close to the members of The Motion Sick) threw a roast of sorts for them where we dressed up as them and played their songs – we were called Dramamine – you can watch videos and read more about it here.

Last Summer, Michael and I started thinking about a new project to be the outlet for his songs. He came up with the name The Michael J. Epstein Memorial Library, decided it would be a band of all girls, and we started auditioning ladies. The band quickly swelled to 9 people, we started practicing in July and had our first show in September – it’s been a whirlwind! For me, I have enjoyed being able to step back and “just be the drummer” in a project, I’ve loved getting to know my new bandmates, and I’ve been very happy to work more intimately with Mike’s songs. Mike and I became friends because we admired each other’s songwriting and I’m glad to finally contribute in a more direct way. In October, I went into Moontower/Q Division to record drums for our debut full-length record. Since that time Mike (and I, but mostly Mike) have been tracking the rest of the album at home. It’s nearly done, we start mixing January 2. Our CD release is February 26th at The Middle East Downstairs- you can pre-buy the record and a ticket to the show for mad cheap – here’s the link to that info.

me with Bury Me Standing photo by Rachel Blumenthal

In other random music events, I was delighted to be asked to sing a System of a Down song with a group called Bury Me Standing in October – it was a awesome arrangement of marimba, horns, strings, back-up singers – and also resulted in one of my favorite photos of the year. VIDEO/BLOG link.

I also sang a Jonathan Richman duet with Ad Frank that I think came out quite lovely. (LINK) – In case you might have missed it, Mike and I were also extras in Ad Frank and The Fast Easy Women music video for the song, Winterthru.

I also participated in Boston Band Crush’s One Night Band (last year we helped organize). My band, 10 Hours of Chaos, was all about BRAAIIINS – yes we were Zombie themed – check out the song I sang, “oh no, you’re a zombie now”

I saw 137 local to Boston bands in 2010, that’s 29 more bands than I saw in 2009. Also, many of the bands on that list I saw more than once! I love Boston music and I love supporting it as much as I can. Coming soon will be a full list with links to youtube videos we took at the shows!

In March I went down to Austin for my first SXSW experience. It was awesome, and Mike and I are headed down again this year. Last year we went to learn more about music licensing for Launch Over (which I plan to get really off the ground in the coming months) and we’ll be doing that again this year and I also hope to play in some format too. We also submitted our music video for “Arrival” to the film portion and we’ll be overjoyed if it’s accepted.

In one of our oddest moments, just in case you missed it  – the story of Skippy the Mummified Squirrel.

All in all, 2010 was a pretty awesome year. The last six months was all about creating new music and videos and 2011 will be a very heavy release year for all of our projects. We hope you’re with us for the ride!

Finally, here are the makings of something else we’re hoping to launch in 2011:

coming soon…..