Women Who Rock Day Three: Tamra Spivey of Lucid Nation!

Thank you to everyone who wished me a happy release day. (I'm kind overwhelmed right now, so please excuse my tardiness on personally replying to myspace messages and emails and such.) Your support really, sincerely means the world to me. Hearing from people who are excited about the book or who have already read it is probably the most thrilling thing on earth!

My friends and family made it a totally amazing day yesterday, too. My amazing CP Vanessa sent me flowers all the way from Australia (well the flowers prolly came from the US, but the fact that she did that!!!). At dinner with my dearests last night, Amber and Ryan brought me my favorite champagne and Katie C. brought me beautiful Irises. My best friend in the world Katie works at the restaurant we ate at (Gaetano's, hands down the best restaurant in Forest Park and one of the very best in all of Chicago IMHO) and she asked Gaetano to specially prepare something vegan for me and it was some of the best food I've had in my entire life and then for some reason it was not on the bill.... Um yeah did I mention that Katie is my best friend in the world? After dinner we stopped by the Beacon where my big release party will be held tomorrow and there were PBR banners all over the place announcing my book release. And there was an extra they let me have, which is really about as cool as it gets. It's gonna make my basement wall look awesome. I promise pictures of it after the Beacon party. And yes, I know, I owe you a pink hair pic. You will get it tomorrow when I guest blog over at Melissa Walker's blog!

Today I am visiting over at Teen Book Review blog. Again it is not up quite yet as I post this, but may be when you read this and either way you should check back for it because I wrote a very personal blog about road trips and runaways. Probably the guest blog that is closest to my heart this week. Oh and as extra incentive, she'll be giving away a signed copy of IWBYJR! Of course you also still have a chance to win IWBYJR at Jeri Smith-Ready's blog until 9 pm EST tonight. And Vanessa announced her winner today, so get over there.

But I also have a winner to announce. The winner of The Gits Movie DVD and poster is..... Brimfire from LiveJournal!!! Brimfire, please message me on LJ or email me at stephanie at stephaniekuehnert dot com with your addy, so I can pass it on to Jessy.

Now the amazing WOMAN WHO ROCKS that I'm interviewing today was also involved with The Gits Movie as a producer. TAMRA SPIVEY, of the band LUCID NATION has been one of my role models since I was sixteen and I met her on a Riot Grrrl forum on AOL in 1995. I was going through a very rough time back then and her words of advice and wisdom were some of the best I got and her brilliant music has been soothing my soul (soothing in that way that getting worked up sometimes soothes) for years. This weekend on my birthday, July 13, a dream come true thing is going to happen. Not only will I finally meet Tamra in person. I get to read at an event where Lucid Nation will be playing (headlining, really, though we are trying to be very egalitarian about the whole thing and not call anyone the headliner). The event, of course, is ROCK 'N' READ and I hope that if you are in Hollywood you will come out and listen to Tamra, me , and a bunch of other great folks.

But today, Tamra is here to do an interview:
Tamra, as you know I've been a huge fan of your band Lucid Nation since the mid-nineties. I want everyone to discover your music. You do an amazing thing offering downloads of your music for free. Where can people download your songs and which songs would you suggest they check out first?

Tamra: I can never predict what songs people will like. A good place to start is our MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/lucidnation
For the more daring there's the hundred song march an archive of all our songs with stories, we're improving it but right now it's a logistical nightmare, still, you can download all our songs free.

What are you up to lately? Anything new with Lucid Nation or any other amazing projects we should know about?

Tamra: We just recorded Second Skin with Steve Moriarty in honor of The Gits movie release, a documentary I associate produced. We've also got 26 new songs we'll be finishing once we tart them up then mix and master them.

Tell us about your ultimate rock 'n' roll moment. This could be a concert your performed, one you went to, a moment where you felt like you made the biggest impact as the musician, or just the time you just really felt like a rock star.

Tamra: My ultimate rock and roll moment was probably in Boston on a national tour when I first noticed the audience singing my songs with me. I don't ever feel like a rock star. Rock star is about fame. Artists rarely survive fame. I just want to make art not bore.


Thank you for visiting me, Tamra!!! And I urge everyone to go to Lucid Nation's myspace page and listen to their version of "Second Skin." It's sooooo good and I made it my profile song. Tamra is doing perhaps the most unique contest of the week (not that I would expect anything less from her) and she is giving one of her paintings to a lucky winner. Seriously, how cool is that? I'm gonna be jealous. So enter to win (unless you won something already this week) by leaving a comment before noon-ish tomorrow.

Okay, two last things. First of all, I have to say Happy Birthday to a woman who rocks that has long inspired me, Ms. Courtney Love. Secondly, I'm celebrating my book release tonight at one of my favorite book stores in Chicago, Women & Children First. I'll be there at 7:30. Come out if you can!