I connected to music at an early age, through TV theme songs.  My sisters liked the Go-Go’s, my parents liked Simon and Garfunkel, but I loved the tunes for shows like “That’s Cat”.  My mind’s world began to constantly hum songs, both familiar and ones that I would make up.  It became a constant radio in my head.  But I kept the music mostly to myself, and I died of embarrassment when my sisters caught me dancing on the bed to one of “their” songs, Nick Gilder’s “Hot Child in the City”.    

I learned to play and read music a little bit with the recorder in elementary school. But it was not until junior high school that I began to ditch the shyness of liking rock.  We did not have cable TV, so I would stay up late and watch music videos on a show called Hit Video USA.  I recorded a few episodes on our VCR, which happened to feature the Psychedelic Furs.  I watched their videos over and over.  It began to influence my life, from what I wore to who I hung out with.   Eventually this idolatry went from not just looking the part, but wanting to be the part.  

So I begged my parents to let me play a rock n’ roll instrument.  Of course they wanted me to do something dorky with it, so they contacted the high school band director and found out that the high school band needed a bass player.  Yes!!  Now I can be just like Tim Butler of the Furs!  Part of this deal to learn bass was that I also had to take classical piano lessons.  Deal!  So I learned both.  But I was playing more modern music in the high school band with the bass and getting more practice with it, so it was with this instrument that I joined my first rock band.  And another.   And so it started.   

I played with a band called the Bedflowers, which later morphed into another band called Magpie.  I was the youngest member, and we played a few clubs here and there in Hollywood. 

As much as I loved playing in those bands as a teenager, I didn’t really contribute to arrangements or lyrics.  The songs were original, but not great.  Relying on other musicians for a future in the industry by playing songs that were so-so started to lose the appeal.  I began to consider that maybe music for me was going to be more of a side gig, not a career or major in college. 

So I accepted this role and continued to play in bands as “just the bass player” while I went to school.  There is no shortage of bands looking for bass players—garage bands are everywhere!  It wasn’t until I was in a band called the Modfathers in Athens GA during vet school that I started writing my own songs.  But guess what?  The band already had two songwriters.  There wasn’t room for a third.  And this is when and why I wrote Single Note Girl.  

Today, I no longer believe in the phrase “just the bass player”.  I still play in garage bands, but Single Note Girl became the name of my own project.    I don’t get bored with other people’s songs anymore, because I have my own outlet and can record my music at home exactly how I hear it in my head with all the other instruments.  The songs have become a diary of my personal journey, the “soul” part of my triangle.  

Meeting my idol Tim Butler of the Psychadelic Furs, 1990.