Los Angeles-based singer, songwriter and musician Pi Jacobs is amplifying the concert experience on Live From Memphis, an inventive new album and her first for the Blackbird Record Label that places eight original songs alongside the personal stories that shaped them.
Recorded with a full band, LIVE at the DittyTV studios in Memphis TN, the project offers a sincere and sometimes funny look at her formative years, her family relationships, and even a few lessons she’s learned along the way.
Includes unlimited streaming of Live From Memphis
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
In 2002 I moved to NYC and fell in deeply in love with the place. I had never left home before, but I had landed my first record deal with a French label, and signed with a manager who was based there, clearly, it was time to move to the big apple.
The first night I was there, I hit up the famous open mic at the Sidewalk Cafe’. This open mic has had MANY famous people come through it, Beck, Regina Specktor, Shakey Graves - so I was excited! The moving truck that had my clothes hadn’t arrived yet and I was running low on clean things, so I put on a pajama top that was almost clean, and almost looked like a real shirt, and rolled on down.
The open Mic was run by a guy named Latch. When I introduced myself saying “I just moved to town” Latch stopped me and said to the audience, “Let’s give her a BIG NYC welcome!”. As one, the entire audience all screamed “F-YOU!” Even though I was taken aback, I thought it was hilarious and after my one song, Latch booked me to play a regular show at the club. Man, I had arrived!
I loved the East Village songwriter scene, I felt like I was home, that all doors were opening for me, and I was a part of a beautiful, talented community. Having that high, New York City bar, made me get better fast, and I could tell I was growing as a singer songwriter. It was all I lived for.
The city itself seemed like some promised land I had been waiting for my entire life. Just walking up the street I saw so many things I had never seen before, the stimulation made me feel like a giddy little kid all over again.
Eventually, I got used to living in the city, and some of the sheen wore off. My record deal was going nowhere, and my manager, seemed pretty uninterested. The money I had saved to move had long since run out, and to make ends meet I was bartending, going thorough crappy gig after crappy gig. My man was also struggling to find a job, and ended up having to take one in CHICAGO, flying home on the weekends. My beloved city started to feel a little bit lonely
Then, it got worse:
I was feeling run down and went for a physical. My Dr. called me back and said, “Your platelet count is very low”, explaining that platelets are a part of your blood that is responsible for clotting. She thought I had an autoimmune disease called ITP. It was either that or Leukemia.
In the weeks that followed, I contemplated that I might have Leukemia. I was terrified, and my friends in NYC were new friends, people I partied and played music with. Not lifelong friends I felt comfortable leaning on. Life in NYC turned very dark for me.
After about a month of tests, it was determined that I did actually have ITP. My symptoms were getting worse. I had bleeding sores in my mouth, and bruises from just wearing my purse. I was tired all the time and very depressed. I began doing monthly IV treatments. I would take the subway alone, to an “Infusion Suite” where most were cancer patients. I felt an awful combination of fear and guilt. Fear, for the obvious reasons, and guilt because it was pretty unlikely that I would die from my ITP.
After 12 lonely months of this, and NO local job on the horizon, my man got an offer, in Los Angeles. Now, like all good northern Californians, I was raised to HATE LA, and I did. I had been there many times to play shows, and I hated the car culture, the strip malls, the lack of center to the city, and the shallow people. Hell NO, I did NOT want to go. I was an intellectual, a New Yorker, edgy, streetwise. But I DID need health insurance, so I went, kicking and screaming.
My new Drs wanted me to try a brand-new cutting-edge treatment. It would be twice a week in the infusion center for 2 months, and then…. Wait and see…
That new treatment gave me my first real remission from ITP, and I began to feel healthy again. I started to make some friends, and get involved with the LA songwriter scene. The weather was sublime, and the cost of living, so much less than New York City, that I even seemed to have a little money left over at the end of every month. One day, I realized, I actually LIKED it here.
I had convinced myself I could only be happy in NYC - and for a time I was, and then, I wasn’t. I was so sick, I had almost stopped doing music and I didn’t believe anything good would ever happen to me again. Ironically, the LAST place I would have chosen, Los Angeles, turned out to have a very different, but also great life for me. My years here have been full of music, friends, and good things.
Pi Jacobs is amplifying the concert experience on Live From Memphis, an inventive new album that places eight original
songs alongside the personal stories that shaped them. Recorded with a full band, live at DittyTV in Memphis, the project offers a sincere and sometimes funny look at her formative years, her family relationships, and even a few lessons she’s learned along the way....more
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