The Good Sister wants to wish Joey a safe and blessed journey to her new location on the coast of Maine. Lilac House will be the home base for Ephemera, and new music and projects to come. The East Coast welcomes back Jo Gabriel.
behave, the good sister Cleophas
New horror thiller by Canadian writer and friend Cliff Burns. Prolific Cliff Burns has just put out another dark and tense horror thriller So Dark The Night Available through Amazon and book stores everywhere!
“I’ve followed Cliff Burn’s career for 25 years and there isn’t a finer horror writer in this country.” – Robert Runte Canadian SF critic and Academic.
http://cliffjburns.wordpress.com/ This is Burn’s artist’s page Beautiful Desolation
http://vimeo.com/12633137 the trailer for the new novel !
On May 21st , we lost our very dear friend and musical companion Jeff Ladd, here is the link were M.Fazio has memorialized the man and his work. We will miss him, but know that he is looking upon us from the heavens
I will miss his gentleness and the profound contribution he made to my music with his rapturous heavenly voice. Heavy and Testify are all the more beautiful because of you.
Fly wild now fly free from harm, you’re where you’re supposed to be. We will see you again, for that I am sure.
And this gives me peace when I start to miss you.
Jo Gabriel
The good Sister Cleophas instructed me that confession is good for the soul. I believe that to be true. So I’ve decided to share a little personal bit of my recent journey with all of you, my dear friends, fans, fellow musicians and people who might be struggling with similar demons. To rip the mask off myself and let you in on what’s been going on with me for quite a while now.
There was a time when I could walk into a room and hear the whispers of people saying “oh, she’s really beautiful”. I moved freely in my own body, and had a strong sense of my sensual being. Now, I truly have shame around saying this. But this is significant. I have shame that it matters what I look like, when I’m supposed to know that beauty is something you earn. It comes from within. It is relative. It is sometimes given to you by the way others see you. I am certain that I am beautiful inside.
I am certain that I am a beautiful person. And I trust that some people still find me attractive in some way.
We’re taught not to value ourselves by how we look, but rather how we act, and the way we treat other people. I’m very inspired by the way I see the smallest beauty in the world. And it shames me to say, that I am not able to see it in myself outwardly. And that how I look should matter so much.
After all, I am not self absorbed to the exclusion of all else or anyone around me who might need comfort or companionship. I am highly empathetic. A great listener. I don’t turn situations into vehicles that become all about me. My narcissism is a very subtle appendage of my being an intuitive artist. So I don’t consider myself to be a flesh eating egotist that devours every moment as if it were food for my ego to be fed.
But I do crave a level of attention. I’d be disingenuous if I said that i didn’t care what people thought of my work, or how I look.This conflicting dichotomy is what I think makes me more optimistically harmless and reflexively unique from being a traditional Narcissist. Everyone is unique. I don’t hold myself up on a false pedestal. I just trust that I am my own person with my own variety of styles and ways of expressing them through my art as well as in my normal waking hours.
Still there is a certain pressure on performing artists, to have a “look” to be evocative, most usually qualified by their physical attributes. I never thought of myself as Drop Dead Gorgeous, or a Siren, but I certainly felt comfortable going out on stage and playing and singing with a sense of security that I had what it took to be noticed and admired.
Now, I have to say that I still love who I am as an artist, as a person, friend, human being.I don’t follow trends. I am totally out of the loop in terms of who’s big in the industry now, or what everyone else is listening to. I live by my instincts, I follow my own path, and if something doesn’t resonate with me, I abandon it. As an artist, part of that legacy is to inhabit the persona that is the most authentic expression of your instincts about yourself and the lens you see the world through. Then you thrust yourself out there and try and be as unselfconscious as possible. In fact it should come natural to forget yourself all the while you’re being conspicuous. It’s a form of acrobatics, to find the balance.
When I was beautiful, some people would hang on each word, each lyric like I was spouting some musical gospel. People would be moved by my supposed “angelic voice” And they could do so comfortably because my physical appearance fit the role of female recording artist. I do think to a large degree they hold men to a certain standard as well, but for women the standard is set much higher for the female artist to be beautiful first, and talented second.
In 1996 I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. It used to be considered an ambiguous disease that mostly women got and had to fight to convince their doctors, friends and family members that they had something they were suffering from. Not to make this comparison as anything nearly close to what women went through in the 1950’s, it wasn’t Francis Farmer having been lobotomized because she was perceived as hysterical or uppity. But, many of us who first got the disease a decade ago, were considered along the lines of either hypochondria, or hysteria, or mentally unbalanced.
It has been a long fought journey for me since my diagnosis. With many hills and valleys for me to navigate. There were times when it seemed to go into a quieter mode. Where the pain and various symptomology were managable.
I am writing about all this now, because in the past year and a half, I have become so debilitated by this invisible enemy that there are times, I can’t even raise my arms to put on a shirt. I can’t play a chord on the piano because my hands and wrists hurt so much and are so swollen from the inflammation that I can barely manage to pick up a coffee mug to my lips. It seems like i might have dropped off the radar screen of the music world, although I have released a few things during this time. I am a fighter, and so I have to push through. I haven’t been able to perform live. And something far worse has happened lately to me, and has spurred on this soliloquy of my shame.
My metabolism has completely shut down from the enormous pain cycle that I’ve endured over the past year or so. I’ve had two major surgeries and In a small span of time, I have gained so much weight that it’s hard for me to move easily without having to use a cane to walk. The weight gain goes hand in hand with inflammation. It’s a cycle that prohibits me from doing the things that I used to be able to do. Things that I’m passionate about. Things that need to get done.
And even though Fibromyalgia is taken much more seriously than in the past, there’s the evidence of it just by the myriad of commercials for the pharmaceutical companies, who tell you, you don’t have to lay there and be a pain sissy any more. It has finally been recognizws by the medical establishment.
Still, it’s something that falls under the catagory of ” But you don’t look sick”. The assumption for my weight gain by most people would be that I must not be getting enough physical activity. That I sit on the couch eating crispy cream donuts and gallons of soft drinks and alcohol. And while my dear friends look at me sympathetically trying to understand why i am not as engaged as they would hope, no one can truly understand what it’s like not to remember a day when your entire body didn’t feel like there was a war zone going on inside of you.
For me the pain is this stoic challange that i have to hang in there long enough for someone to come along and find a miracle cure that will find the root source, burn it out and relieve my agony. But, and, here’s the shame part.
I want to go hide myself away somewhere, because I do not recognize myself when I look in the mirror. I’ve thought of throwing sheets over all of them, as if I were a vampire. When I see myself, I cry. And I feel like I can’t go on this way, because i have lost myself. Somewhere there was a time When I was Beautiful. But that girl is missing.
I think she’s gone and never coming back. Who is going to go out there and sing her songs and play her piano? Obviously this new person, this Quasimodo can’t represent the girl I once was.And I want to be totally clear about one thing. I am not making a value judgement about people’s weight. I am not criticizing individuals who are of a certain size. That’s a very personal thing. I am referring to my own comfortability with my own body image. That’s again, where the shame plays a role in all this.
This invisible enemy that has taken over my body,and virtually changed the landscape of my total being,is interfering with my ability to function as an artist.
I’ve recently shot a live performance video of my song Mothlight from The Amber Sessions at Butch Vig’s historic Smart Studios here in Madison. Because it is closing it’s doors after many years, I was given the opportunity to participate in doing a video playing their amazing grand piano with Matt Turner, friend and world renown improvisational cellist. There is a documentary in the works being filmed currently that will feature a lot of the notable people that made that studio so historic. Nirvana’s Nevermind was recorded there. How could I say NO to performing there.
These days I hide myself away like a hermit in a cave, only coming out for sustenance or necessity.I was conflicted about doing the video because i knew that I would be immortalized for my performance in the current state of self perceived monstrosity.If I looked like Christina Aguilera or Beyoncé, I could chirp out chop sticks on the piano and the world would be thrilled. But I fear that no one will be able to look passed how I have recently metamorphsized into a Kafkaesque creature or my great aunt Edith from Kiev. I would love to release the video. But what ALL I see is how hard it was for me to struggle to reach the octaves because my hands are so painful and swollen. My elbows and wrists stiff with inflammation. And how from the angle that I was filmed from, I really do look like Chaney Sr’s Phantom of the Opera. Hulking over the keys: bloated face, amorphic body in a black suit that would otherwise be considered androgynous and chic.
If people could keep their eyes closed and listen to the interplay between my piano and Matt’s haunting cello the video would remain a stirring and evocative piece of work. Instead, I fear people will only see ME and think”wow she doesn’t look like she sounds” Where’s the little blond nymph who’s sensuality only synthesized her music and lyrics.
This is why I haven’t pursued playing live shows these days. This is why I haven’t put myself out there in the public domain. This is why perhaps when i’ve submitted recent photos to journalists to use for material to review, they seem to stick with the older promo shots. This shame I feel is perpetual. It has a life of it’s own.
And no matter what i’ve done to combat all this. And believe me I have tried every modality of healing. And I am not a lazy patient. Til recently I was boxing. I find it an art form. I was really good at it too. I was doing Yoga til all my joints seized up on me and I couldn’t even bend or lift or twist or walk. I’ve tried every kind of alternative treatment. I take supplements, filter my water through a special crock. No toxic chemicals in this house. Homeopathy, integrative medicine, Ortho Molecular treatments etc….
I don’t eat processed food. I eat very well. I don’t drink, smoke or binge on things that can be harmful. I am wheat and gluten free. I’ve done fasts and heavy metal testing. When I say, that I have fought hard. I mean that in the warrior sense. But still, no matter what I do, this illness has decided that I must be willing to allow my body to collapse for now. My body is fighting, and in the process, it has built up a shield in the form of extra poundage because it needs all the energy to fight itself. My body is at war with itself. And I am now a refugee from my former self. I want to come home, but I guess it’s just not time yet. I am in exile.
So what does the creative mind do who want’s to reach outward, trapped in a body that people won’t accept as embraceable? I don’t know the answer to that, and so I cry a little in spurts every day.
I am not a depressed person. I am an angry refugee. I see the joy in the smallest of things, honestly in the smallest detail. And still I cry every day. every day.
When I was beautiful, I moved so easily in my own skin. My life, the value of my work should be about the authenticity that I bring to my art. I’ve watched the video a few times now. And all I see is Quasimodo and The Phantom of the Opera. I want to share my music with all of you, and yet the shame is holding me hostage. I am at the mercy of the pain cycle. I am the so called Hyper Sensitive Person who suffers from Nerve damage because I take everything in so deep that it manifests on a physical level. I’m wearing a pain suit. I’m growing like Allyson Hayes in the 50 Foot Woman. And until they figure out how to help me jump start my metabolism again, so that when I work out, and when I eat well, and when I do all the right things for myself. It will count for something, and I’ll be that little blond girl again, who seems to move like liquid or skip like a child, who’s nerves are not in chaos.
I hope this explains a little bit of why I’m not always on the radar screen. And maybe give some of you an understanding of what it’s like to feel so deathly ill, when everyone else just thinks your lazy or doing something to cause your poor health. That it’s not in your head, Or something you can just change by doing xy and z. And that for particular people in the public’s eye, can’t always be beautiful on cue.
I really want to love myself again in total. I really want to release that performance I did the other week.
I just have to figure out how to muster up the courage to be proud of who I am as an artist, and stop looking through the lens of shame.
*the production and decay of strange particles” comes from a title episode of The Outer Limits
http://www.adequacy.net/2010/03/interview-with-jo-gabriel/
Jo’s very personal interview with Jen Delaney of Stratosphere Fanzine and Delusions of Adequacy was released today! It’s probably the most telling expose/interview yet. The good sister hopes you spend a little time with our little joey, getting to know her a little better.
We thank Jen for all the time and effort she put into this interview.
Be good brothers and sisters
The Good Sister Cleophas
The Good Sister wanted to share with some of Joey’s fans the beautifully evocative work of orchestramaxfieldparrish and the genius behind the ongoing project. Mike Fazio sets his dreamy sound work upon a visual landscape. Stunning!
Well Done Brother Fazio
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITjvkxraRRc&feature=related
This fantastic project underway is looking for submissions by creative women of all genres to add their input and speak their mind. It’s an alternative way for diverse women to express themselves. Featuring very notable women and promises to be a very engaging project for all participants and readers alike.
Visit the website and submit your own person thoughts ~I’ve already given some of my input!
Cheers from Joey
Sister Cleophas says, this time you don’t have to behave!
The land mark Smart Studios is closing here in Madison. Wendy Schneider is under way with her project highlighting the journey of the iconic studio and it’s historic musical contributions here in Madison.
The good sister wishes Ms Schneider all the energy and insight in putting this profoundly important documentary together.
Sister Cleophas
http://host.madison.com/entertainment/music/blog/article_a26af7cc-1cc2-11df-92c2-001cc4c002e0.html
The good sister Cleophas would like to announce that~
Trakwerx has updated their myspace page to include some of the material recorded for our Melies Project as well as a new photo collage with all 5 of the new Trakwerx releases
Lightwerx: Melies DVD- Featuring our lovely Joey opening with The Conjuror and Gods of Electricity!
Lightwerx: Tarzan DVD
Lightwerx: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari DVD
17 Pygmies: The Outlaw J.D. Ray http://www.myspace.com/17Pygmies
Smoldering Ashes: Songs in the Key of Mountain Birds Blue http://www.myspace.com/smoldering_ashes
The master is finished! The art is in the works. Chris at Sooper Dooper is just waiting on Joey to drop off the goods! Double album old style cardboard sleeves.
Blessings
Jo is very happy to have contributed her score Longer to this very poignant and relevant documentary.Cut continues to garner kudos and awareness to this very pressing issue that effects so many teens.
If you know someone who self injures or you yourself struggle with this yourself please seek out the info at the bottom. Be safe and let love in. You’re not alone….
Peace~ Joey
Media Contact: Dir.Wendy Schneider, 608.239.5771 or wendy@cutthemovie.com
Film previews: www.cutthemovie.com
This month, the award winning documentary, CUT: Teens and Self Injury featuring Shirley Manson, will begin its third year of screenings at colleges across the US.
Cornell University will host an event and panel discussion on September 17th with director Wendy Schneider and Janis Whitlock, director of the Cornell Research Program on Self-Injurious Behavior in Adolescents and Young Adults. Schneider’s screening events bring much needed awareness and education around the issue of self-injury at a time when incident rates are increasing and schools look for resources to disseminate.
“This is a subject that has long been swept under the carpet,” said Shirley Manson. “It needs to be talked about and it needs to be talked about now.”
Manson said she once used cutting to cope with feelings of loss and desperation, and only when she discovered a different outlet in music could she begin to recover. She’s not alone – it’s estimated that about one percent of Americans experience self-harm.
Several teens in various stages of recovery as well as mental health professionals dedicated to helping them join Manson in candid interviews in the shortsubject documentary.
The film also features professionals from S.A.F.E. Alternatives in Chicago, one of the nation’s leading providers dedicated to exclusively treating self harm. “Cut addresses an aspect of self-harm that is extremely prevalent,” says Karen Contrario of S.A.F.E. Alternatives. “No school, library or counselor should be without this provocative and educational film.”
CUT has screened over 100 times in the US and Canada since premiering at the Wisconsin Film Festival in 2007. It was also an official selection at last year’s annual American Psychologial Society convention in Boston, MA.
SYNOPSIS
CUT: Teens and Self Injury provides an intimate look at a largely unacknowledged problem that affects thousands of young people, their families and friends. Using the words, music and artwork of the teens themselves, director Wendy Schneider draws back the curtain on the sensationalism and secrecy surrounding the cycle of self-harm and brings this hidden issue into sharp, clear focus. As teens articulate their experience with self-injury, we see them begin to confront both their urges and their deepest feelings. Personal struggles are offset by interviews with parents and mental health professionals who address the problem from a broader context, and by rock icon Shirley Manson, who shares her own experience with self-injury. Compelling, incisive and profoundly moving, CUT issues a call to bring the problem of self-injury out of the shadows and reminds us that the first step towards healing is an honest acknowledgment of reality.
An emotional homage to the dear beast!
VÖ: 2009 label: Kalinkaland record
Category: Gothic, Pop, classical period
In the case of Kalinkaland the bent consumer shank may look forward record publications, which Harald Löwy (Chandeen) gives the light of the world, exclusively to extremely high-quality material, why Jo Gabriel gives the American multi-talent from the label repertoire, a successful conception with the CD “Fools and Orphans” after the Vorgängeroeuvre “Iceland” from 2005. Those new Yorkerin publishes actively clay/tone art, which offers a sensitive symbiosis from Gothic & Pop since 2003, which with classical element airs accentuation finds and itself fast embodied in the spirit.
Women are already amusing natures, otherwise they became their animals any longer do not love than their partners, to be why so some man wishes himself, a horse or a cat – no joke! The American Jo Gabriel seems to also belong these before described groups of women, otherwise “Fools and Orphans” would not be sentimental homage to its deceased cat Angeline (alias Victorine), which belonged to the race Abyssinian, which originally originates from Egypt. Also David Tibet (Current93) presented similar musical processings, where those likewise stood for consumer shank before the choice: “Kitsch – or no? ” might lie, with Jo Gabriel the answer also in the eye of the viewer, since it speaks the topic partially very daringly. To the better view a text quotation from the TRACK `How The Devils of case in Love’:
This is how the devil if
This is how he if into love
The devil if into love you lake
Oh Victorine, Oh Victorine,
You buried ME, alive
[…]
Wave I can’t breathe without you here
It’s NO good without you here
I don’t know why you’re emergency here…
Those, which favor moving like dragging along texts with emotions purely, get these from Jo Gabriel on “Fools and Orphans” kredenzt – very finely!
The Frontcover makes a fuss a photograph of the fig. “RK the Crossroads” (original title: Tienhaarassa) from the year 1896 of that Finnish exception painter Hugo Simberg (1873 – 1917), which in the Kunstmuseum Ateneum in Helsinki (Finland) hangs.
The one which can be heard the clay/tone art on the long player “Fools and Orphans”, might seem to European coined/shaped Gehörgängen first quite uncommonly, but after some hearing runs to more, into the spell to pull, since Jo Gabriel a extravagante Melange revealed, which arouses Gothic, Pop and classical period combined & the appearance, as if the Mr. matte Howden (seven) and Flavio Rivabella (the acquaintance post office manufacturer Trompeter) her fingers in the play would have had. This work brought the versatile musician in Jo Gabriel (piano, singing, key board, boat operator piano) with the following participants: Linda Mackley (Percussion), matt Turner (cello), Marks of Urness (bass) Stephanie Rearick (trumpet), Hannah Fury (singing) and Jeff Ladd (singing), whereby the synthesis of the arts lights up very variedly from the boxes & receives a special charm. Bent listener circles, which argue primarily with the fastidious releases as from matt Howden (seven), should test absolutely Jo Gabriel once, those in the special one by their emotional like gentle singing achievement and their varied compositions, which are based as far as possible on Pianopartituren, convinced.
“Fools and Orphans” represents a lining up of Anspieltipps, but the ear worm at all is the clay/tone document `Bulldozer’, which sensitive Pianospiel, which merges voice of Jo Gabriel and trumpet sounds of Stephanie the Rearick into a highlight – my absolute recommendation!
Result:
The dear beast (R.I.P.) does not stay unfortunately any longer among us and hunts in the eternal hunt reasons of mice in the abundance, but and Orphans” remains for us a melancholy dreamed publication of the top class with “Fools, which does not intend majorities for itself wins, but Musikfetischisten betört, which consumes fastidious clay/tone art, which swings between modern trend and classical period. Those, which estimate expression-strong woman voices, must test Jo Gabriel – my recommendation!
You find hearing examples and further information to Jo Gabriel under the following left:
http://www.myspace.com/jogabriel
http://www.jogabriel.com
http://www.myspace.com/kalinkaland
http://www.kalinkaland.de
This is the 5th book by notable music writer Mick Mercer who in this edition is covering Gothic artists all over the world. Jo is honored to have been included in this fabulous book.
Please visit the link below to purchase from Cherry Red Books Publishing.
http://www.myspace.com/musictodieforbymickmercer
http://www.zimbio.com/music/articles/1388/long+2008+most+read+features
So long, the most read features of 2008!
The good sister is very proud of her little joey. She made the wonderful Wears The Trousers most read features of 2008! Thank you Alan Pedder and Wears The Trousers Magazine.
Interesting what you find being sold on Amazon these days. I wonder if I’ll get a cut and where this rare gem hails from.
Thanks for the support bub~
jo gabriel
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/B000P02Z9Y
Jo has finally contributed some of her thoughts to her The Last Drive In blog as MonsterGirl... The name she was given as the little bullied girl who because of her love of horror, suspense and Sci-Fi found a way to escape the everyday madness of growing up a strange, sensitive and creative soul.
She’s written a series of essays most recently about Boris Karloff’s Television Anthology series Thriller. This is just the beginning of the various subjects MonsterGirl will cover in the weeks ahead.
Please stay tuned and journey to The Last Drive In if you should feel the urge!
SWEET DREAMS ALL…and don’t forget to look under the bed!
http://monstergirl.wordpress.com/
Monday, March 31, 2008
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This is a purrfect example of Felinaes Interruptus! Hail to the cat who will never allow us the task to be done great or small~ we love you despite the constant distractions and carefully guided acts of misdirection !!!! A Tribal Matron~
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It’s March 19th-Happy Birthday Pop
This would be Me and my “Pop”. May you always watch over me the way you did in life! Happy Birthday Pop~ I wish you peace I love you~ your joey
COMMENTS~ your pop would be very proud of ya, an’ your space ship joey! And now the hammers hit the strings, and so very precisely!
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Saturday, March 08, 2008
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They Might Be Poltergeists : It’s difficult enough when you find yourself besieged by insomnia, as I have been of late.. -The Tell Tale Heart-Edgar Allan Poe On that poignant note~to make the case of my insomnia worse there begins an onslaught of inextricable noises from indistinguishable regions of the house. And in my hyper state of restless madness I think “they might be poltergeists!” Ghastly fiends and forces at work that are causing crescendos of thuds and crashing objects flying off shelves and table tops! These nocturnal tirades are not welcome here, not when the slightest creek and wisp prolongs my agony, of tormented cognizance. Feverish, I cannot, no, I will not arise from this bed to investigate. Even if the siege continues on til daybreak. Smash, crack! Bang! Bang! again another bang! louder than the last! And then, sudden and utter ‘SILENCE”- A quiet falls over the house like a velvet blanket, a benediction to the sanctity of soundless exquisite nothingness~ And then I hear it~ the soft and lulling purring of Mishka my tumultuous, impetuous, I guess ” they weren’t poltergeists after all!”
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Thursday, March 06, 2008
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the last drive in
Jo Gabriel 
Mike Fazio/orchestramaxfiedlparrish-Crossing of Shadows
Posted in Commentary:Life, Credits/Musicians, miscellaneous songs, News with tags crossing of shadows faithstrange, mike fazio. orchestramaxfieldparrish on January 24, 2011 by Sister Cleophashttp://www.faithstrange.com/orchestramaxfieldparrishworks.html
Mike Fazio releases a most sacred work of art. Once again, Fazio creates a beautiful world for us to inhabit.
of special note: In memory of Jeff Ladd May 21st 2010.
Please visit Faithstrange and acquaint yourself with some musical mastery.
The Good Sister Blesses You…
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