folk/americana + lots of fan interaction

To those of you who have submitted song titles, (last year, this year, both years) offered encouragement during this crazy month of never ending songwriting, and been faithfully following the tweets, blogs, etc., centering around FAWM, I really want to say, thank you.

Thank you for submitting titles, encouraging me and playing along as I worked furiously to make my goal of 14 songs by the end of February.

When I took on my first FAWM challenge in ‘09, I was mostly trying to come up with a way to interact more with my fans since the past couple of years had been full of babies and diapers and not so much touring, or playing live.

I LOVE playing live. I’m an extrovert, and a people person, and I love to sit and listen to people’s stories. The thing I love the most about FAWM, is that it is the one time (outside of a live show) where I can have that direct fan interaction.

Instead of it being just me in a studio making a product, and selling it to you, we get to feel that connection over music, or over a story, and then actually create something together. That excitement, that energy adds SO much to the creative process - an energy that is definitely necessary for me as a songwriter.

I had NO idea it would be so fulfilling, so much fun, and such rewarding work to collaborate creatively with the public.

This year was incredibly challenging.
I think I was pickier and harder on myself this year, but also had less time, as I was homeschooling a Kindergartner, and didn’t have Saturdays to work on music this go around.
That said, I believe at least 4-5 of the songs are some of my favorite I’ve ever written, which regardless of what happens with them, is a personal triumph.

After my 2nd FAWM, I am hooked, so start collecting your song titles for next year!

We’ll start posting demos to my blog this week, so PLEASE come back and listen!

If you want to know the minute they’re online, you can follow me on twitter at @floparisoakes or become a Flo Paris fan on Facebook.

Hope you enjoy the FAWM songs:)
-FP

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Last year I participated (for the first time ever) in FAWM -February Album Writing Month.

You picked the titles, I wrote the songs - 14 songs to be exact.

One of those songs was chosen to be on the FAWM compilation album!

Can we do this again?

C’mon people-I need your song titles. Let’s do it.

You Make Up a Good Song Title

It can be anything, but keeping it under 10 words will probably help.

Post It In The Comments

If you want to include suggestions, elaboration, whatever that’s fine. If you want to “second” someone else’s title, that’s OK too. Comments will close on January 31st at midnight because…

February 1st I’ll Pick My Faves

And start writing and recording songs based on submitted titles!

*All submitted content will become the property of Flo Paris Music, and by submitting a song title, you agree to those terms.

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I had a break for a week between the last two shows, which was nice because I got to spend it with Josh and our families, but kind of weird to be out of the groove for a few days.

I realized I really liked playing shows every night, as tiring as it was, because there was a certain amount of energy that remained constant and I definitely felt like I really had to work to get it back for the last show.

I got to play at my brother Marty’s church (where I went growing up) and see a lot of my old friends in the crowd!

He organized the whole thing, even getting a band together to back me up. It’s always SO great to play with a whole band!

My brother Mary played additional acoustic guitar, Bryan Baldwin played bass, Kelly Powers played mandolin and electric guitar (you may remember him by his amazing mando/fiddle/banjo skills at my last CD Release show) and my old classmate (who I haven’t seen in many years) Jesse Hesch, played drums.

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There are a couple of people I consider worthy of “best friend” status… Erin, who has been THE best friend for almost 23 years… Skylana, who I got to know, because she married…my best friend from high school-Seth.

Seth is like family to me. We’ve known each other since we were kids. During high school, we went everywhere together.. we made big plans.. we sat at the picnic tables during lunch and played all the songs we knew or that we’d written.
Back then it was Frente and Kenny Loggins and all kinds of sappy stuff we came up with ourselves.

Seth has been in bands and played music for over a decade now, and I’ve always been SO proud of the music he makes and how good he is at what he does. It only seemed natural that he should record and help produce “Coming Around”.

Despite both of us being musicians, and even working on the album together, we had never, EVER done anything together live. (Well, besides high school choir:)

The best moments of the Hotel Cafe show were the times we were on stage together.
I had so much fun.

I even got to sit in and sing with Lakes (his amazing band) and join the stage with more old friends, people who played on my record, my good friend Jeremy…it was a blast!

THE SHOW:

Before the show…

I had Skylana style me and my hair. I don’t trust myself to do that in Hollywood.

The girlies wanted a picture with mama:

Is that a child? No, it’s me.

Me and Seth. Love the pic. Also love that Jacob is looking at us like a crazy person.

Josh and Seth, having missed each other immensely over the last year…sitting REAL close in the back seat:

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Saturday we drove in to my home state.

Josh flew in that afternoon, and our good friend, Chris (he was our best man in our wedding) picked him up and we all met at Gabe and Cheri’s house in Anaheim.

Gabe and Cheri are the kind of people we can pick right back up with again, no matter how long it’s been. I know no matter where we are in the country, or in our lives, we will always stay in touch.  We were in each other’s weddings and they are woven into our history.

Gabe and Josh hung out at the house with the kiddos, Kyla had the night off from kid duty and got to go to Disneyland (woo hoo!) and Chris, Cheri and I went to the show. Cheri brought a friend and nearly ALL my good friends from college (I went to school in Fullerton 10 years ago) showed up!

The temp leaving AZ:

The sign at the first rest stop leaving AZ:

Sera thought it was a good time for goggles:

California!

Angel City Cafe:

Me and Cheri:

The Fullerton College crowd:

Tour Day Five - SoCal from flo Oakes on Vimeo.

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I knew going into this that every tour has a crazy story, and Phoenix was definitely the one for me.

Weeks ago, I set up a show at a gallery/coffee shop in the artsy district that seemed cool.

They warned me that I’d be playing outside and that it would be HOT, but the real trouble began when I tried to follow up and solidify a start time for the show and couldn’t get a single person to return an email or a phonecall.

SO…my first follow up with them was the night of the show. We pulled up and I ran in to double check my start time.

1. The girl working there at the time didn’t know there was music on the schedule that night.

2. They had loaned out their sound system to someone else.

So I proceeded on to my niece Brittany’s house where we’d be staying, the whole time wondering if I should just cancel the show, since “the show” might just be me on the porch playing a guitar.

Aaaaand, that’s pretty much exactly what happened.  I got there around 9pm (the start time I had emailed them) and was informed by another barista (who was super sweet and apologetic) that she also had no idea I was on their schedule but that I could set up outside.

Uh, by “set up” I mean, take my guitar out of the case and hold it.

The 6 people I knew in Phoenix came to “the show” and we sat on a picnic bench and hung out until they convinced me to play something.

It was super fun to see old friends, and also super awkward to sit on a park bench and play them my songs.

It was also about 110 degrees.

The guy trying to give people rides around the block in his rickshaw whilst blaring old school Michael Jackson, only added to the aweseomeness and awkwardness of it all.

A very cool discovery, was that my babysitter actually knew one of my Phoenix friends, and we realized it halfway through the road trip so they got to reconnect there.  My friend is from California, and my babysitter was from Nebraska and they  had only met once during a high school singing group/tour 11 years ago. SO crazy.

We all went out for coffee the next morning - it was so great to be able to have a leisurely morning before driving to L.A.

The drive from Albuquerque to Arizona was the PRETTIEST of the entire trip. The landscape changed SO much. I’ll probably post later just with scenery pics. For now, I’ll stick to the tour details.

The girls were SO excited to see cactus.

The outside of the venue.

Chelsea and Kyla:

My niece Brittany and her husband Jonathan, and the girlies.

The following video is probably only really interesting to the grandparents.

The girls seeing cactus for the first time:

Cactus from flo Oakes on Vimeo.

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When I was planning out the tour, I made sure to line up all our stops with places I knew people.

Turns out every stop we made we got to see old friends, and it felt like a mini reunion every night.

The third night of the tour, we stayed with Sarah and Garrett Hamner, dear friends of ours and folks who were around in the beginning, when Josh and I went from being “just friends” to engaged.  The only bummer is that Josh was still in Nashville at this point, and missed out on beautiful Santa Fe and our sweet friends.

Arriving in Santa Fe:

The Hamner Abode:

Garret and Sarah and their sweet little pixie girl, Rowan and us:

Kyla with Rowan, Sarah, me and the girlies:

Between Santa Fe and Albuquerque:

The girls fell asleep on the way to the show:

At Southwest Gift Baskets and Coffee Shop:

Post show pizza and fun!

I didn’t get much video that day, except for the giant cross we passed somewhere in TX, which fortunately for you, we captured in full:

Tour Day Three - ABQ from flo Oakes on Vimeo.

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