Once upon a time
in the land of Santa Barbarians there was a giant bunch of teenage songbirds known as Crew. Most every Sunday morning at 11AM, Crew girls would
gather together at their ringleader Lessia Bonn's home studio for a lively
singing party that included lots of chatter about everything important to
teenage girls.
Picture this:
a family of fun-loving teens,
mostly feline, overflowing in a room. Shy girls, loud
girls, sweet girls, bohemian girls...you get the picture; our crew was a
lively mish-mash of goth chicks, cheerleaders, hip hop girls and "other"--everyone getting along insanely well.
Lots of love just happened in that crew.
A few crew girls had blow-away
voices, a few were *sigh* a bit vocally challenged but nobody gave a flying fig
about all that--'cause Crew wasn't about all that. Crew was about having a
magical stress free
zone away from
high school where a girl could just relax, be herself, sing some cool songs
maybe and whatever..We were just there for the fun of it--for the magic--and
nobody got judged OMG, that's the truth. We were all best friends-with
everybody's voice considered special.
Come to think of it, that's probably why we ended up
knick-naming crew our "church", 'cause it was the opposite of high
school--yay! no drama! It was peaceful--and it was heavenly. We laughed a lot.
It was kind of spiritual actually.
haha some fun crew
trivia: One girl even used to bring her pet iguana to rehearsals. He behaved
surprisingly well except for that one time he scurried away. Long story.
The guys? OMG.
There were always a few guys in
crew too, you should know--and they were always undeniably super cute. Not
exaggerating here. So as you can well imagine, there were crushes. More details
later, we promise.
There was no written music, only
lyric sheets--we
pulled harmonies out of the air 'n we were not a choir, oh no! for your
information. We'd arrange a song
one week, then forget what we figured out by the next--haha--remember, it was a
Sunday morning! But that was okay--we'd just make up some more harmonies.
Now about
"perfect vocals"
*yawn*...
Our
Crew philosophy has always been to never try and sing
perfectly, you should know. We sincerely believe singing that's too perfect is a snore,
and we're way too chill to put
that kind of trying into our voices. Ugh! We believe, rather, in the
joy of singing--which is something else completely. It's not that we don't
ever practice to improve our voices, it's just is that our goal is to
sing from our hearts, not from some kind of rules inside our heads that say,
"you gotta sing perfectly" because seriously, that will never happen anyway.
Not
realistic. Voices can be quirky, as you know. And isn't it often the quirky
parts of our voices that make them the most unique and special? Why throw all
those special colors away?
Disclaimer:
...So at the start of every concert
we've ever put on, a crew girl always walks up to the microphone with this
announcement: "Welcome to our
singing party. Hope you have fun. Please
note: Our mistakes are all on purpose."
That pretty much covers
everything.
Attention please...
YAY for cool teen vocals!!!: For examples of imperfect singing that
will enchant you--wrapped around deep insightful tunes that will amaze you--
BUY OUR CD!
Magic and music intertwined! From one review "Fresh voices on universal
wisdom! Gotta love this stuff! Inspiring and original!"
The
following video explains how we feel when singers on American Idol get judged
too harshly by a certain person.
Side note: we have two versions of this song recorded. One is
Zoe's Version
--it's the original track that matches our video, and another is a
perfectly charming (a bit more sophisticated) version by
crew girl Katja.
Check 'em
out--tell us what you think!
The Truth About Voices
Please don't ever tell another
person they don't "have a voice." OUCH. Maybe they just need singing
lessons--so they don't sound
that great yet, who knows, but when you tell a person they "don't have a
voice"--and person's voice is so a reflection of their soul, it squishes their
spirit totally! Bad form. So don't ever do that PALEEZ. Not nice! And also, not accurate. A
lot of a time, a person just needs some vocal coaching to discover where their most
fabulous
singing voice actually is. That's the real truth.
For some great songs to practice on ('cause they're SOOOOOOO melodic!)
BUY OUR CD!
Scribble me a tune please, oh
ringleader...
Hand your great big dilemma to
Lessia Bonn, our ringleader, (that nutty lady in the cap), and she'll just scribble you out a tune
that solves your problem in no time! She has this talent, you see..she'll deeply understand your
heart, then offer you lots of wisdom wrapped in whimsy--then mold a melody, tailor-make it to your voice so you end up sounding so
good and feeling so good--and the lyrics are so good that...woah! dah dah dah dah!!!
Problem solved! "Sing the tune = get a clue!" Haha teenage music
therapy! Awesome.
Is there anything as cool as an awesome teen singer sharing the wisdom she's
found through a song?
Deep Lyrics attached to cool
tunes:
WHATEVER: forgive your mom,
she's probably just hormonal
MONKEY: best to just ignore all
that blah blah in your head
MESSY: what's wrong with a
little disorganization?
FEARLESS: brave
is
better
GIFT: be grateful
SPECIAL: everyone's different.
that's what makes the world interesting
ENOUGH GOD: peace song penned
in Jerusalem
BELIEVE THAT: the world isn't
flat. hello
BARN BURN: barn's burnt down...now I can see the moon!
...please hand Me that Microphone!
Question: What happens when a group of
fun-loving teenage singers (and a couple cute guys) just wanna have fun on stage?
Well....a whole lot of sold-out shows,
for one thing---standing-room-only parties, oops, we mean concerts that were
always more fun than you can ever imagine. We became a local phenom in
the end, written up a lot in newspapers. Our
clippings are fun if you have the time
to read them. They have details and reviews and that kind of thing.
Telethons Rock...
OMG--all those telethons were a
hoot. Once we sang right after Clint Black, the country singer, and right
before Olivia Newton-John from Grease who is btw seriously gorgeous. And
another time, right after
we sang, Jon Cleese from Monty Python walked over and in the cutest
English accent told us "love your music!" Now that was extraordinary. Yep,
telethons were great fun to be a part of. And they were for a good cause
too.
We seem to attract surfer musicians--maybe 'cause our town's by the ocean.
Crew guy Ben, one of our surfer dudes, is a car guy too. He recently re-built an
old Mustang from scratch--painted it forest green. Quite impressive. There used
to be a guy named Josh in crew (name changed to protect the innocent) who was
quite ADD and absolutely endearing. He used to always follow Missy around like a
sweet puppy. Too cute. And there was Jaan, still around (see above),
with his cool hip hop street tunes. Jaan writes dark very deep tunes which are
mostly always hopeful in the end--just like Jaan.
btw Ben has a recording studio in his bedroom we use sometimes as our
"alternate" place to record crew tracks and tunes. Details below on
this page. Ben and Jaan met in Crew and now there's talk of them starting a band
together. There are so many friendships that have started in crew...YAY for all
that! And wish we had time to tell you all about Travis but we don't--so just
imagine: preppy, holding a bass.
Well, lately we've taken everything to
another level--a "we've got to record" level--and changed our name to underline the fact. sooooooooooooo...........
Vocals By Locals
is quite specifically, a whole lot of teenage singers recording informally now as solo
teen artists under the
name "Vocals By Locals", or for short, "VBL". By hey, we're
still Crew.
Wise, whimsical and wonderful tunes recorded in a
shack...
Be sure to check out
FEARLESS
OMG--you will So love it! Everyone does..'cause
who
doesn't want to be fearless???
&
MESSY
Seriously...Viva is SO great--a real original... &
SPECIAL
OMG! again.
Special is really special, & then there's our song
CRUMBLE
If you have a crush on a boy--it could
make you brave enough to talk to him--&
for sure you'll probably love ENOUGH GOD
for some serious peace on earth!
and GIFT is a gift!
Also GIRL 4U
is great because Janna is adorable--and GOT YOUR BACK
is
cool--all 'bout friendship, &
WHATEVER
haha. Well, whatever... :-)
And you may also just notice that our songs are all recorded in reasonable
keys--which means you can sing along easily. We thought of that.
D
etails on our recording
adventures etc.
We record in
a
shack using Justin
Timberlake's drummer, Bucket--a really sweet guy. And also, sometimes, we use a
barn studio
for recording
when we need a
bit more room. Another option is--once in a while, we go over to crew boy
Ben's house--he has recording equipment at his home-spun recording studio (sound
booth in his closet) right by the ocean in
the place where he lives. Ben's a surfer btw. So's our other main crew guy. Such fun to record
at an actual crew guy's house, don't you think? Kind of keeps it in the
family...
One of our girls has a movie star dad.
He played "The Dude" in a famous movie and we think that's really cool--to have
a fan and a dad who was the official "Dude" since most of us girls are
happy slackers at heart to tell the truth :-) We love to sing but we also love
to slack...we're chill, as we mentioned. Chill musicians, that's us.
Another girl has a famous
musician dad who is so sweet and never misses his daughter's concerts, even
though he's on the road so much himself. Another one of our dads plays sax
for us, and btw he played for a Beatle once too--isn't that 2cute? A crew dad
who played for Paul McCartney himself. What a coo.
Another dad is a rocket
scientist. Pretty impressive. The guy worked on the Mars project! Woo hoo! Last thing--one of our girls shares a manager
with Hillary Duff--but honestly, she's more interested in boys and tennis.
***********************************
btw:
Alternate recording studio is in Ben's closet
We recorded
DO YOU WONDER
at Ben's house just for a change of pace. Ben has people sing in his closet--too
cute! And his house is right by the ocean so it's a fun environment--very chill.
We also put down the basic music tracks to WHATEVER in Ben's bedroom recording
studio.
Also: you may notice there
are cello tracks on both of the tunes mentioned. That happens to be our
ringleader's brother, Misha, playing on the tracks. He's a cool
punk/rock/classical cellist with a band called
Bela Lugosi.
*************************************************
Lots
of voices--a whole lotta
choices!
If more than one girl really likes
a tune, we just share the song. Anyone who wants to can record their own lead
vocal track. We have a zillion or so Fearless tracks, you may notice. We also have three Crumbles and a couple of Scary Guys.
Three Monkeys
so far--and a zillion Specials 'cause Special has
proven to be such a meaningful song to so many.So
please pay
attention
when you're purchasing single tracks. Be sure to double check you've
got the right girl on lead vocal.
We also have a
karaoke page.
Feel free to grab one of our
tracks
minus lead singer and sing or record the song yourself! People do that a lot.
If more than one girl really likes
a tune, we just share the song. Anyone who wants to can record their own lead
vocal track. We have a zillion or so Fearless tracks, you may notice. We also have three Crumbles and a couple of Scary Guys.
Three Monkeys
so far--and a zillion Specials 'cause Special has
proven to be such a meaningful song to so many. So
please pay
attention
when you're purchasing single tracks. Be sure to double check you've
got the right girl on lead vocal.