Saturday June 2nd! Jess Hill and Tequila Mockingbird Orchestra!
A living room show at the Princess Haus!
Come help us warm the floorboards and cozy up with a whiskey sour while we kick up the dust with a little decadence and dance.
Feel free to dress up a little. Back porch formal.
Something you’d like to be caught in in the case of a surprise rapture.
9PM — DOORS
9:30PM — SHOW (seated)
11pm (onwards) — DANCE PARTY
Tickets here: https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/251450
Hello Dearies,
You might have noticed that all info about the once planned contest has been pulled.
In a bizarre act of the universe – the secret recordings that I had intended to add to the prize bundle are nowhere to be found.
Lost in a digital black hole below the eclipsing worlds of the tangible and the file based.
Nonetheless I want to share with you the photo’s inspired by the “Pockets” post inspired.
The following were taken by my dear friend Amanda Bullick of Brutally Beautiful (if you have yet to wander over to her site don’t hesitate, go now! …or well, after you have finished here 😉
Rest assured that as soon as I find those lost recordings I will post them for your enjoyment.
In the meantime, be a doll and tell me a story to ponder while I search.
xo
jess
“Sometimes i just hit the streets of east van with a Jess Hill cd in my back pocket…ya know?” Pete Schmitt
This photo comes in from a post party ramble of a run to the beach, on the industrial side of the city to watch the sunrise.
A moment that made me remember how good it feels to be absolutely silly.
Silly has been a theme of late.
Put me in your pocket and send me a photo! I wanna see where we’re headed! What’s the view from your rear!
Are we destined for the horizon together or are we lounging somewhere near your coziest spot.
I know there are a whole lot of creative dreamers out there in the dreamerie.
Show me your cheeky side! Put me in your pocket! Take me for a bike ride!
❤
As the days pass longer and brighter I see that my heart holds court
My wanderlust fuelled by the turns it chooses to make
My heart knows more about what I need than I could ever fathom
Sometimes it manifests itself in “the gut”
Sometimes it’s known in the moment the arm hairs rise and stand on end
Sometimes I find it in the wind as it swirls the cities debris as if making symbols,
Signs in the cherry blossoms, wrappers, cigarette butts and bus transfers
Direction is known
The heart is heard
The game is on
The stage is set
All that remains is to act
We pass in and out of phase just like the sounds we make
Today lends itself to alignment and reminds me what accountability and desire have in common
Today the beauty is deep and real and true just like you
xo
My weekly grind lands me in the world of wonder known commonly as childhood. I am a day to day Mary Poppins.
Building forts out of blankets, singing songs about the seasons, making dances up for all the animals, all the sounds, and all the feelings.
I have organized my life so that I may be at play with it, joyful and curious even in the dark corners of the randomness encountered. In doing so I am continually inspired by the small wonders, the vibrant realness.
My day job, for lack of a better word makes for a special and valuable counterpart to a songwriter who’s main impulse is to create a place of dreamy wakefulness. Hence my endeavour to dream vast and without doubt in a world that manufactures doubt even in it’s most privileged places and burdens all with its weight.
The documentary “The Eternal Children” by David Kleijwegt from The Netherlands, continues to be one of the most inspiring looks at artistry that I’ve seen in a long time.
I’ve watched it and revelled in the familiarity of the sentiments and desires displayed within. Each time I have viewed all or some of the film I have been reminded that these boisterous, curious, shameless ways of exploring life are possible in every moment and that I am of extreme fortune to live in a community that interacts and creates with such abandon at it’s best.
I am ever thankful to the dreamers and the belief makers! Thank you for painting your world into this one and by doing so changing the face of the day, for singing your saddest or sweetest songs under so many kinds of circumstance, for dancing the delight into the darkness with lights tied to your toes, for writing the words that remind us we have stories untold and precious in every breath.
Love!
: The above photo is of an art piece in the window of a gallery on College street in Toronto in June 2011. I never got the artists name. If you know it please message me so I may credit the work.
upon googling myself in the name of vanity the following turned up:
Jess Hill
Vancouver treasure singing dream-folk that captures you, takes you in rapture and flits away.
and this one
Self-proclaimed “quirky” Jess Hill is an attention grabbing songstress, as she explained the back-story to “Give Me Your Ghost” she mentioned other known “quirky” songwriters, and she just so happened to name my top favourite female musicians, I mean she mentioned Bjork, thats my girl. Jess Hill’s soft voice has the unique power to silence a room and have everyone waiting patiently, and feeling better about it than ever. You could almost feel the ghost that she claimed wrote the song through her, in a word, Breathtaking.
I am charmed, and blushing.
Merci.
At the end of March I left the lower rain lands and headed eastward to Toronto for CMW. CMW is a music industry event geared toward helping indie bands make the connections necessary to make it BIG! The entire concept of such a thing kind of makes me gag but alas I have really dear friends in Toronto, I love performing, I had just enough air miles for a flight and so I decided to go. Besides which, an industry event is only as industrious as you allow it to be and if socializing with otherwise lovely human beings in an environment that feels as though its sole purpose is to perpetuate the remnants of a money guzzling industry that seems less and less relevant seems uninteresting, then lucky me that I have lovely and amazing friends in Toronto! Truth be told aside from performing my showcase and checking in at the festivals reception I all but forgot CMW was happening and set to gallivanting around Toronto with some old bandmates and dear dearies. It was a spectacular blur of whiskey sours, good eats, performance art fundraisers, chronological dance parties, dub after hours scenes, late night diners, brunch and inspiring words between warm hugs below blue skies. I had a wonderful time!
The video at the onset of this blog comes from an event I performed at during CMW. “Live Near Bellwoods” was organized by the folks at Humble Empire and Young Lions Music Club. Their event “Live in Bellwoods” was the highlight of my NXNE experience and actually landed me the gig at good ol’ CMW so I was supremely pleased to be invited to perform in their afternoon series once again. “Live Near Bellwoods” took place across from Trinity Bellwoods Park in the charming Toronto Institute For The Enjoyment Of Music. The fellas at Humble Empire are just splendid and tirelessly captured and edited highlights from all the performances in the series. Check out their YOUTUBE.
Here are two more videos from my performance at the Toronto Institute For The Enjoyment Of Music:
After returning to Vancouver I finished loading all of my worldly possessions into boxes and moved a little further west. I have moved three times in the last year or so. I hope to not do it again for some time. Moving is such an incredibly emotional experience…I will share more on that topic at a later date…I really will, I’ve been reading all of Amanda Palmer’s blogs and I am suddenly remembering how unbelievably empowering it is to be spilling open and honest in a public forum. Here’sto sharing stories mundane or glorious!
Of more timely importance is this lovely little contest the CBC and Green Couch Sessions is having. Together they are creating a project called Tracks On Tracks. A modern day Festival Express (if we may be so bold as to put ourselves in the good company of some epic history) so to speak. A train full of musicians travelling across the country doing what musicians on a train are likely to do. Make music! If you follow this link CBC MUSIC TRACKS ON TRACKS you can have your say in what musicians fill the remaining three slots on the line-up. Just scroll down the list and choose your three favourites, spread the word and cross your fingers!
I already put my vote in. It’s a heck of an impressive list. I’m touched to be in the running along such a vast array of talent.
See you soon lovelies! Perhaps at The Railway Club on May 9th. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
xo
jess
Exactly a year to the release date ORCHARD gets some hometown love.
“as warm and achingly intimate as the best work of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings.”
John Lucas, The Georgia Straight
Jess Hill is clearly in no rush. She released her second album, Orchard, five years after her debut, Road. Her songs are equally unhurried affairs. They unfold slowly, deliberately, with Hill’s strong but vulnerable voice crystal-clear. On a couple of tracks—“Stagger” and “Orchard”—Hill kicks things up to mid-tempo, but she tends to favour slow, sad songs.
And sad they are: Hill often uses natural imagery (of birds and flowers, mostly) as metaphors for human relationships. That may be an obvious device, but she does it well, crafting lyrics that are evocative, if not exactly uplifting. “Clouds full of secrets dropping hints through the air/Loosening the sky’s tight grip on despair,” she sings on “Precariously”.
With the Hive’s Jesse Gander * in the producer’s chair, and boasting an all-star supporting cast (including former Black Rice drummer Juli Steemson and cellist Cris Derksen), the album’s sound matches its subject matter. Based largely around acoustic instruments, including Hill’s own guitar, the songs feel back-porch rustic and natural. A few numbers, such as the string-accompanied “In the Evening”, stretch out into orchestral-folk territory, but the sparer cuts are as warm and achingly intimate as the best work of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings.
*edited by me to chime in and remind the world that the record was masterminded and arranged by the incomparable Aaron Joyce who wore the badge of Producer for every song on the record. Jesse Gander engineered, mixed, and co-produced.
Post Toronto stories to come…soon. But first I gotta move!
Eaves dropping on the conversations of my fellow air travelers at the gate. The power is out and each of their faces is in silhouette. There are grumbles between them over the lack of coffee available at the Starbucks kiosk due to the power outage. A rare few of them huffing and puffing at the staff in green aprons. Caffeine is all powerful.
I will touch down in Tdot in time for dinner! I hear it’s warm and sunny there and I do take pleasure leaving Vancouver, where they’re calling for snow knowing I’ll have few days of massive musicality and vitamin D.
That being said I will miss my sweet East Vanistan and every crow and cherry blossom budding there. I’ll see if I can bring home some heat in my pockets.
Tomorrow I’ll be singing at The Toronto Institute For The Enjoyment Of Music at 3pm and The Free Times Cafe at 9pm.
Hope to see you there!
To the Maidens, the Mothers, the Warriors, the Witches, the Crones and all the graces in between, Thank you for the wisdom and the wonder. Today we celebrate! Happy International Women’s Day!
Jess Hill 
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