ancaz thoughts

I have been in LA for almost a week now. Turns out to be the best week I have had in…. years. Have met an extraordinary bunch of people, been seeing sights, done some [easy] hiking, enjoyed the sun on Zuma Beach and taken loads of photos.

Yesterday I had the most amazing time. After a brekkie at Lulu’s Café with Miki Turner and some of the mayhem crowd (loved those cinnamon, walnut, banana pancakes, btw!!), followed by a walk in Venice Beach, chilling at Starbucks late afternoon with a hot choc, the end of the day couldn’t have been better.

That’s all thanks to Samantha Stollenwerck, one of the most down to earth musicians I have ever had the chance to meet.

Everything started – again – through social networking. Her friend, Laurel Holloman (“The L Word”) recommended her music through twitter. Samantha launched her latest CD “Carefree” in November last year and since then she’s been promoting it all around US or, in her words, she’s been “running like a refugee”. And she just finished shooting two new videos, for “Carefree” and “Japanese Single”.

I simply friend requested her on Facebook. Request accepted. Her openess was amazing. Early this year I wished her good luck before one of her shows and she replied almost immediately. Seeing that I was living in Germany and given her last name [Stollen - pronounced ‘shtollen’- is the traditional Christmas cake in Germany] she said she would have to come down there one day. Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined I would be meeting her in LA!

[Lange Rede, kurzer Sinn or] long story short, once I knew for sure the details of my trip to LA alongside the other mayhemers I sent her a message and asked if she had any gigs planned here during our stay. She said she didn’t have any, but would try her best to meet us. Knowing how busy she was, I tried not to keep my hopes up too much.  But boy, was I surprised! She came up with all possible alternatives to meet with us all, until a definite show was set in stone in LA last night at the Waterfront.

We met her there. She looked great, despite a long and exhausting drive back the previous day with no air con from Wanderlust Festival in Lake Tahoe. Open, friendly, the kind of person who gives you the feeling you’ve known her for ages, she grabbed her guitar and being accompanied by her drummer she delivered a fantastic performance.

Among the songs she played: “Icicles”, “Carefree”, “Oblivious”, “Is this my life”, “Knock on wood”, “Write his name in the sky” ending the show with an “electric” cover of Eddie Grant's “Electric Avenue” together with Tom Freund. She didn’t forget to give a special shout-out to our multinational TMC who crossed oceans and continents to be here in LA, at her show!

Class act, Samantha!

‘Carefree’ [SoCal acoustic version]

via youtube.com