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
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People often ask me about my name. The name itself is another story, but I’d like to tell you why I love my name, and the new identity that came with it.
When I was just 19, a well-meaning friend strongly suggested I needed Therapy. After my initial shock and indignation, I had to admit I was struggling, so I went. The very first session, my therapist asked about my absent father, and I said what I had been saying my whole life: “You can’t miss what you never had”. Luckily, the therapist saw right through that, and after some time with her, I decided to go find this dad who had skipped out on me.
I tracked him down in Alaska, wrote him a letter, and said that I was coming. I might mention here that I had barely ever traveled, had no money, and was scared stiff, but off I went on a plane. When I landed, I went to the address I had, and there he was, walking down the sloped driveway from an old rundown ranch-style house. I had been afraid I wouldn’t recognize him, but he was as familiar to me as my own face.
His living situation was…. Sketchy. He lived in the basement of the dilapidated house. It was dark and cold. The first night there, I slept on the pool table, and was up all night, freezing and listening to animal sounds all around outside.
The next day, I went into town, and in with an outrageous stroke of luck, met a woman who had been through the EXACT thing I was going through. She had been adopted but had found and reunited with her birth parents! I can’t say exactly why she wanted to help me, but she had a daughter my age, and must have seen how scared I was. She invited me on the spot to stay with her family.
So, I spent my days with my Dad, driving around listening to music and talking about movies. It turned out we liked all of the same stuff. I learned a little bit more about his life. He didn’t have a lot of money, or any job it seemed. He would talk about winter, when “things got tough” and they had to kill a bear just to eat. Being Filipino, he looked like the Inuit in the area, and had assimilated into their community. He even had his own talisman. Besides his living situation in the basement, there were a few other things that were… ‘off’ about my dad. He introduced me to his girlfriend, an Inuit about my age named “Angel”. My Dad told me that he had “rescued” her from the street when she was just 14. I had no idea how to deal with this, so I put it in the WAY back of my mind.
Luckily, every evening I went “home” to my saintly friend, her husband and daughter. They were wealthy and spoiled us: inviting us to come to dinner, go fishing, even fly in their small plane to see a glacier. My Dad told me “I haven’t been in a white person’s house in 20 years” but I guess having me there, was enough for him to make an exception, and we did all of these activities with my new friends. It was awkward, but in the small minutes, it was the Father fairytale I had wanted my whole life. When it came time to leave, he cried and told me that he thought of me every year on my birthday.
When I got home, we sent occasional letters to each other, but I felt like I had accomplished my mission. Then one day my dad showed up unannounced at my door. He had returned to California to see my grandpa who was very sick. He had one shirt, and no money, so he stayed with us for a night, borrowed my boyfriend’s shirt, and drove us both, in my car, to go see Grandpa.
After a sad visit in the hospital, my dad was restless. We drove around San Francisco aimlessly, and at nightfall ended up at Ocean Beach. The highway cuts over the dunes at this beach, and to get to the water, you have to park and walk through a tunnel that goes underneath it. When I looked into the tunnels, I could see fires in trash cans, homeless people and addicts milling around and I didn’t want to go. My dad got angry and insisted we should go see the water, but I stood my ground. When we finally we got back in my car, my dad pulled a handgun from his jacket, put it under the driver’s seat and said “well, I guess I won’t need that anymore”.
Whoa… Questions shot through my brain like ticker tape: Was he trying to endanger me? Did he WANT a fight? Did he WANT to shoot someone? WHY did he want ME involved? At that point, all I wanted was to go home and so I left my dad at my grandma’s and drove away.
Later that year, when I transferred colleges, I didn’t give him my new address. I hadn’t formed a plan really, I just knew I didn’t want guns in my life, and that there were a lot of aspects about my dad that scared me. I didn’t know if this was for “forever” or just for now, but I definitely didn’t want to be found by him.
That first year at State I became depressed like I had never been before. I had terrifying, murky dreams and walked around campus afraid of everything and everyone. While most were partying and making lifelong memories, I was driving around the city, looking at concrete abutments, and thinking, “what if I drove into that?”. I had to start therapy again, and with help, I realized that I didn’t have to define every fear, I just had to accept the facts: My dad was a criminal. He carried concealed handguns, had no visible means of income, liked lying to and controlling people. He did NOT like white people, which while understandable, really sucked for me as his daughter. With regards to women, He was at best a creep, and at worst, a pedophile. As terrible as these conclusions were, once they were defined, I started to feel better, and even enjoy my last few years of college.
One day, about a year before graduation, I was in my dorm room, and I got an outside phone call. It was him. He told me that he had become a Police officer?! and that my school wasn’t supposed to give out my number, but he had “cop talked” them into it. I didn’t confront him. I just tried to and get him off the phone. When I hung up, I panicked, I cried, and then I wrote a letter. I told him truthfully, I was forever changed, and better for re-meeting him, but I didn’t want to have a relationship, or frankly, ever see him again. I said nothing of his underage “girlfriend”, his scary gun-toting behavior, or even the bit about finding me by “cop-talking” to my school. I didn’t want to give him anything to argue about, and I’m sure he knew all of this.
For a few years, I was afraid he would find me. When I was told I needed to adopt a stage name, I was all for it, thrilled to have a reason to drop my ‘real’ name. When I got married, I couldn’t wait to change my last name. Without realizing it I had created my own sort of “witness protection program”. These days, I no longer fear that he’ll show up in my life. I’m a new me. And that my friends, is the story of why I LOVE being Pi Jacobs.
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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