Rain.

I want to dance in it.
The drops fall
Heavy
Like children's pitter patter
Suddenly I only listen to you
When I hear you.
Smells so brisk
Salty like the ocean
You have traveled far,
I breath calmer
Inhale deeper
When I smell you.
Stained droplets scatter
When you stop
I can only pray you will
One
Day
Return
So I can dance again.

When I Left.

I had to go
I couldn't stay
My feet began to move
Before my mind caught up
I knew it then
I would hurt you
Deeply
It's not a natural thing
For me
When I went
I felt alone
Deeply
My only companion being
The crunch of ice under my toes
It's the only thing I felt
Cold
Like the frozen rain
The falling chrystals
The melted snow
The shoes that didn't fit
I ended up on a street
I didn't recognize
It became clear then
What I was running from
I had to go
I couldn't stay
When my feet began to move
It was from myself
And not from you.

Life.

Done
seen
FELT
Full body in
Only to this thing we CALL
life?

Compromise.

It will always be a compromise
Never a demand
It will stay
Always in
Thus I promise
Sweet the dreams
We have given
Shattered our thoughts
Because when two becomes one
It's slightly tragic
Because a lives destiny
Can exist with both a dream
And a compromise.

I'll be Seeing You.

When I'm alone
That's when I see him
He doesn't know I exist
Maybe he does
Like a bird in the night
With my thoughts of you
I wonder if it reaches him
Delivered nicely
Wrapped with a bow
Did he receive it?
Will he know it's from me?
Often I see him
He doesn't know of my deepest
I know what it's like to kiss him
He's imagined what my lips feel like
That's not enough
For me
In the dark
I see your face
When I'm alone
That's when I see you.

To Dream

Pain to your chest
Feeling that it could be
Everything you always hated
It can't be
Everything you always saw
No
Beautiful life we live
To know
We always knew
A feeling
A pain if you don't do it
It will disapear
A beautiful passion
That will never go away

When you come here.

1. Family is the most important
2. If you see it in your mind it can happen.
3. Paper money doesn't matter.
4. You don't need make up.
5. The person on the subway may be helpful.
6. Don't judge.
7. Walk in a Prospect Park. alone.
8. Meditate
9. Be thankful
10. Give people a year
11. Eat by yourself in a resturant you have never been.
12. Go to Paris
13. Always love Pasta, like the real kind.
14. Write
15. Learn poetry
16. Be brave
17. Surrender to your family, they alway know who you truly are.
18. Write anything.
19. Become comfortable with fear.
20. Don't get too tough
21. Travel outside of anywhere.
22. Don't compromise just because.
23. Find your voice.
24. Read Dr. Suess, oh the places you will go.
25. Call mom. First.

You are Love

When you ask me about it, I say I don't believe it
I have seen
I have tasted
I have witnessed it
Can it be?
its a thing called love
when you are on the out
how can you get back in
when you have seen the thick
Love
I say...
has to be here
deep within
it starts from a seed
grows like a weed
how can one be sure?
with some much excessive greed
this world we love in
it just grows
when you ask me about it I say
this I have seen.
its been sown.
Grows
In a baby
In a child
In you, I see
You are love
We are
this I know this I believe.
Where are you love?
Have you gone away from me?
I still see you
I still believe
it will always lead you back to me.
Because you are love
I just know it
It can only be
however flighty
however tested
however tired
When you ask me about it I say
you are love.
Its the only thing I believe.
anymore.

The Second Album.

Nice time to turn the page. Many pages, close a chapter of my life.  As we wrap up our first album, I couldn't be more excited to start on the next album.  In one word, eager.  We started writing for the second album which is unnamed. I created it this way so it would welcome all ideas, nothing is written   in stone.  I wanted the question to be, where could it go?  I think its important to be open.  If I learned one thing about lyrics it is that you must go there.  Really be and go there.  Those around me helping me along will be allow to be them.  It opens it up to the creative being.

Im excited for this second album even though the first isn't even complete. Im so grateful for this experience and now I'm ready for the next.

Heres to the second album and the first to come.

The Secret to Money.

Its a lonely road.  Many turns ahead and no map.  You will be without family, although they are never far away but they won't be there in the ways you so desperately need.  You will lose friends, you will be broke.  It will bring you to tears.  It will be the biggest challenge of your life.  You will be the only one passionate at times and many people will come and most will leave.  You will feel crazy. You will be tired.  You will have to juggle a lot. Ego's, opinions and motives get used to them.  Only you hold the light, only you hold within the secrets you have always known.  You will have to try over. You will be let down.  You will continue to cry.  Get used to struggle because within it there is a beautiful lesson, it hides like the dark of the night and then one day you will finally understand.  Its there to make you richer and no one can take this away from you. No one.

I write this today for you as a summary of my last 2 years and things I have learned and am still learning.  One may wonder what the point of all this is.  It is the most alive I have ever felt.  It allows me to have a choice.  Not be put into a cookie cutter and told what I should expect out of life, or not living at all.  Its created from within, all the things I have wanted I have made for myself.  The true lesson in life is figuring out how this works in your own.  Its not a secret.  Its as simple as being aware of the thoughts you think.  The feelings you have about the world.  What you want is always an inner thing, lets not confuse this.  We are told what to wear and what we should eat. We are told how to make money and that lots of it will make you happy.  That doesn't work for everyone.  One lesson I have gained is that I had to learn how to be happy now.  I had to be happy when I had zero in my bank account and the truth is that I had no money.  Not a penny to my name.  I had to look at the world and define beauty for myself.  What made me happy wasn't checking a number in an account that had my name on it (thats not who I am) what made me happy was sitting on a park bench watching a child try to fly a kite.  Life is very simple. When I leave this world I will not care about the money I have, I will remember the inner joy I created from nothing when I didn't have societies value of everything.  It is a very hard lesson to learn.  I panicked at first and it got me down.  I cried. Alone. A lot.  You will have it and then you won't, money is fluid.  But the way you think about it changes how you feel about it.

That day I watched a child play in the sun wanting so badly to get a kite off the ground.  I saw how golden the sun made earth that day.  I sat under a tree that was about to turn colors and on that day I could of had nothing or a million dollars and would have still felt the same way, happy.

When Its Beautiful.

Perhaps its not what it seems, at first. Just a glimmering light amidst all the darkness. You can only think it, and never in your wildest will you fully see it's potential.  Only you know what it took to get here. Only you felt all the emotions of choosing a different path. A path without a plan, a path without a map.  It is then you have found the secret, that you are responsible for your own life.

Its been such a journey. From leaving the love I thought would have lasted.  Broke, down, without things.  It was then I picked a mic up to feel, something.  But I didn't have an instrument, no musicians in sight but I began in that moment to sing. Solo.  From time to time I still listen to those recordings, I find simple joy in knowing that I went back to what I knew. But the truth is that I knew nothing. Nothing that special. It started glimmering, but never did I think I would create a album.  I hadn't even started yet.  What did I know?  Enough.

The next 2 years until present day I would have survived depression from a heartache, sometimes I still feel down.  I have learned to channel it into music now.  My mantra for the next 2 years was make something that once was ugly, beautiful and then share it.

We are about to release a record of 10 of the best songs that came from a chapter I am so happy to close.  Joyful to start another go.  In truth many songs came from this chapter of my life but these are my most profound moments. The ones good enough to write an album over.

I would be lying if I said that the greatest gift was him all along.  He gave me such a crash that if I wouldn't have gone through it I wouldn't be the writer I am now.  I learned to forgive which allowed me to heal and in doing so I saw the situation much clearer.  I never wrote songs from anger only from a place of healing, when it reaches ears I hope they hear this.  It was ugly at times, I remember crying my way through many of the songs I wrote. I used to feel silly and now I feel honored. To have been involved in something tragic and yet beautiful is a life lesson I take with me and wear like the gray hairs this breakup gave me.

These 10 songs represent a life. All different and equally transformative.  The situations were private and real.  All perfect ways to start an adventure of my life.  When stripped of everything, I took a look at music and began to heal and grow.

This is your life.  Never care what others will think if your intentions are good.  We need brave art. Stand tall and know you will be hated and loved, thats life. Its so worth it.  Then share it, all of it. I wonder if he thinks I hate him, if I saw him I would hug him and say thank you for being a chapter in my life that I am now ready to close but only when each song is beautiful. I'm finally ready.

I Have A Dream

You cannot wait as waiting
makes it stay exactly where you left it.
You must pursue,
You will see many
If not already
Bumps.
They are never bigger than you couldnt handle.
Perhaps the second time around
Well that does not seem to matter
Passion is not shy
To Question
To Relish
To Reflect
To Thrill
To feel alone.
It knows it all too well
But thats what makes it
Marvelous.
Because it is your own.
No One else is you.

To Be Sown

The road parted and I came back to New York City, alone.  I only had one idea and it was to be something.  I held onto this belief through all the changes and all the ups and plenty of downs.  I kept the road open and continued to dream while always taking on and facing everything head on. Not in my wildest did I think I would write and compose the music that came from my wild adventure.  It happened.  From one failed musician to the next somedays I had had enough but then I remember what it took to get here. A disastrous heartbreak and crazy changes I had ended up in a place that once made me happy.  Now I could decide my road, I no longer was held captive by him.  Years later I would understand more clearly what this actually meant.  I was a free bird, soaring with a deep connection to a passion that needed nurturing.  I was curious from the jump.  It wasn't enough to say, I had to do.

When I was low I said I wanted a beautiful product to come from this hardship.  As we wrap up our first album entitled "To Be Sown" I couldn't be more proud.  The title comes from the start of a beautiful flower, first you must drop a seed into the ground.  With proper care, watch it grow.   Very much represents the journey I have been on.  It didn't happen overnight, however frustrating that is I planted my seed and I continue to watch it bloom. No one said it was easy and it most certainly is not but this shouldn't discourage you.  Make peace with how familiar this feeling feels when you yourself continue to grow.

I love that people get an idea (seed) however outrageous it may seem to others.  Life I believe is one big adventure and the more you water and give light to the seed things will continue to bloom. You watch it unfold before your eyes.  People didn't evolve by sitting in complete comfort and routine. They used the imagination that they had as a child and believed in something.  Its very powerful the thoughts you keep.

To Be Sown is my first album released under Dani Erin and the final product is beyond any hope I could have had.  All 10 songs were done in under 3 takes and preserved to reflect our current ability musically.  No Autotune.  In a world full of highly produced music I am proud to say that the talent on this record really shines because its real and because its honest.

 

Album #1

Next week marks the recording of the first album.  I wasn't proud enough to record an album until it was perfect.  I wanted to record music I would want to listen to and its finally ready.  In under 2 years I went from saying I was a musician to being a real one.  I remember recording vocal clips without a band and what it felt like to sing alone.  Now its more beautiful then I could have ever hoped, it is time to put to rest songs that represent such a tragic yet transformative stage in my life.  

I can finally say that every song on this album brings me such joy and pride.  I have yet to feel that until now. I had a lot of musician leave never understanding where I wanted to take my music.  I felt heartbreak to the harshest degree and yet decided even then to take something ugly and make it beautiful. Every word, every note more pretty then the next.  I passionately believe that when you continue on through hardship you will eventually come to a clearing.  You will be given such a gift as long as you still believe.  Never wavering in the sight of hopelessness.  Continuing on even though you will at times feel like you stand alone.  You will always stand alone when it comes to the art of believing.   No one cares as much as you do. 

With the album to be recorded next week and released to the world soon I am hopeful and excited.  It has been a journey of many ups and downs but I wouldn't change not one thing.  I have learned lessons along the way.  I have been shown many truths and for that I am forever thankful. 

Heres to the first album and having it be recorded without smoke and mirrors.  The Ray Charles way of recording live and in under 3 takes per song. 

From Dani and The Mad Men to Dani Erin featuring The Jimmy Valentin Trio where it was once a idea to an actual thing.  

-Dani    

danierinmusic.com Bringing back real original music.  

live rehearsal-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ctp5G3y-6Dw 

live session-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awQJ8f3N7DM

The Little Drummer Boy

I remember when I didn't even have a drum, only the inner thump of my heart seem to make my voice sing.  I never did sing from the mind always from deep within.  I do music today for that only reason. How could you sing a note if your heart isn't the conductor?  This is the most basic idea, an idea that is missing in modern music.  Really in any profession.  The easiness is the easy part but the deeper hidden message takes years of searching.

The drum beats and it wants you.  Although I love all instruments my love affair is very wild with the drums.  If I don't have that element it all falls apart.  I learned this lesson very early on when I studied music intimately at a jazz club for months on end.  I dazzled in how I never could in a million years play them, I admired whomever could take on such an instrument.  The heartbeat.  Steady like the rhythm yours has right now.   So contagious is makes you move.  Music should always move you. Drums move the music so much that it will make you tap your toes without your mind knowing.  The energy it vibrates makes you feel like your chest cavity is about to find another heart. A beautiful thing.

Its underrated and rare when you find a solid one.  I have been in the moment with many and none do what I have now felt. In fact that is beyond what is missing, musicians that feel what they are playing. So many technical musicians nowadays, "I went to NYU School of Music." I say who cares you just spent a lot of money on something they can't teach you.  You know how to play an E Minor but do you know how to feel truly like deep in your soul what an E Minor feels like.  Don't get me wrong there is a technical side that is needed but its not everything.  When you have been around all types of musicians this you get to understand.  More importantly it is something you can not teach.  It comes from your favorite record, it comes from a deep inner pain and it comes from study.  Then you hear it, then you feel it and then it changes who you are as a musician.

To me it all goes back to the drums, even playing your inner beat and listening to it.  We aren't robots, we are emotionally invested.  Lesson learned, I choose to only play with cats like that. I have been with them both and I rather feel the drums play and to have the feel something kinda music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=dc3JKUw_GrQ

-Dani Erin

Next Chapter

I continue to treat music as a progress.  All great things,unfold.  It changes and you love it enough to continue with it even when it brings you to your knees.  Evolution of music is a constant and I believe this next chapter is pretty epic.  I started out singing into a mic with no instruments, just my voice and now I have a pretty badass band behind me. Couldn't really ask for more. Hope you enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3F7No0PckrQ&feature=youtu.be

And my personal favorite

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dc3JKUw_GrQ&feature=youtu.be

-Dani Erin

I know it.

I know it

For it is coming

The way it flipped my life down

I thought then it could only go up

The only truth you could have gotten

was in me

You have a relationship with false

Ins't shocking

Now the day almost fall upon you

You think you will see me 

I think I could even remember what yours looks like

The way you wore your Black Keys t-shirt

You silently remember me

How could you forget?
The lessons you gave me 

Would't make me love you even if I could.

The directions  

Our paths crossed 

Only roads to change us

Be better

Stronger

More full of light

More hungry for love 

Sometimes it did, most times it did not. 

I would change nothing about it

For I know one thing and one thing only

For it is coming 

that I know

The Moment.

I think its all about the tiny little moments, they all add up.  Being present completely and not anticipating the moment but being there as it happens.  Watch it unfold because it was the first time and your only time.  Routine and time work to control but how much of life actually can be under that.  I see moments, these tiny little moments and without them my story would be different.

Meditation being the strongest force that holds me true to reality, it allows me to only see the moment.  Sparkly and clear, brand new.  Our life is made of this.  Tiny dots waiting for you to connect.  This might be easier said then done but let me tell you, its worth it.  Theres a lesson in everything, you wont know unless you do.  Its not enough to say you want something.

Moments, down to the second.  Make sure in your life you stop and smell the roses.  You realize what you have done and in that moment it was your best.  Your very best, so there is no regret and no need to do it any differently.  You always knew.

And then you get to learn something new!

-D

danierinmusic.com

Persistance.

Persistance.  A word I have used, not just said but felt.  We use words all the time but to apply it to your life is different.  Its climbing up an imaginary mountain, with many drops along the way.  If you hold dear to this word it will pull you along especially when the doubt sets in.  Doubt will challenge, fear will inevitably set in.  Am I doing the right thing?  Am I following the right path?  Should I turn around to grounds that are more familiar?  Fear brought on by doubt is persistance's welcomed enemy.  Both are trying to prove something very important.  They are both trying to see if this is what you really want.  You need both in order to be genuin.

Persistance lessens the blow that fear can have in your life.  Fear can take your hand and lead you into what feels like circles.  It has a deathlike grip.  I have felt it and no matter how I breathe I still feel like Im suffocating.  I have learned to make friends with it though.  No matter how hard it gets sometimes I feel the fear and know its there because thats what makes me human.  Makes us all human.  For it is not sad but it is life and fear makes us authentic.  We are still that 3 year old scared that there might be monsters under the bed.  Its something that visits me often.  I think too often we glamorize a life's  journey and rarely speak of the moments that make us realize persistance.  Because where there is fear, there is fear's alter ego, persistance.  And thats the difference between letting fear control you and you making friends with fear and carrying on.  The bigger the risk, the stronger the fear.  The more genuin the life story the stronger the persistance. And they play a beautiful dance.  I have seen it.  They both know each others part, both understand why they are there.  I know persistance will always win so fears short stay is not something I fight.

We have become a society of fast things, instant everything. I have seen that authenticity is something that grows like a seed in the ground. The real things take time.  All the time they may need.  Nothing good happens overnight.  I think its persistance that keeps that seed in the ground, continuing to grow not trading the process in for something faster.  I know that if you have persistance on your side you can do it all.  If you feel it, like truly feel it you can continue on and when something like fear comes in you take it by the hand and show it perseverance, the sister to persistance.

My Parents Dock.

I remember sitting on my parents dock, right at the very end of it.  The melting colors of a days work slowly getting swallowed by the night.  I had at this point of my life, nothing.  Even though I felt like I wasn't empty where it mattered.  It was on my last few days of living in Minnesota right before I moved by myself to Manhattan for a second time.  I looked to the sky and said these fateful words "I surrender to any experience you are willing to show me, I give in to your direction and I trust what you have in store for me."  We all have moments in our life that become game changers, this was one of mine.  I can close my eyes and remember it as if it happened yesterday.  I wasn't talking to god, but something changed that day that forever released me from conformity or routine.  My life had just begun, I started living. This is not always going to be easy nor will it be instant.

Forward 2 years later from my time on my parents dock.  Such beautiful moments of constant life lessons, most not all that pretty and some sparkle forever in my memory.  Isn't that worth living?  Life is a combination of all sorts. Its phase by phase.  Its riding with all the chaos and not fighting it. Embracing fear and then letting it go.  Laughing when your heart aches because you realize how much you truly love your family and hate being away from them.  If you choose to go down a path that comes without a drivers manual, you most certainly will fail more times then you win.  But then you will win little lessons along the way, the failing isn't all that bad.  You get good at that too.  I couldn't go back now even if I tried.  When you trust in something and declare it, you see all the many ways in which it helped and protected you.

I am not saying this is for everyone.  Im not saying its glamorous in any way but when you get to express art that is genuin it feeds something bigger then yourself.  When you get to have these very rare moments, you know that life is one big rubix's cube.  We aren't cookie cutter, we are not one size fits all.  Some venture, some stay and each are beautiful and tragic at times.

Im still excited as I was on my parents dock.  I like creating something from nothing and I hope if you are sitting at a crossroads that you will trust in your direction.  Like a captain on a ship.  You got this. We need more people willing to follow their own path, not one that was decided by someone else.  

I close my eyes and remember what it looks like and feels like to be on the edge of my parents dock.

Ego.

Strange times
Lead by ego minds
No heart
Hardly a Soul
Do they know they have already lost?
A lot already
I know nothing of it
The Good prevails
but often will fall
Only to get back to it
The thing that makes one burn
When you know its honest
You except no other kind
Small children
They become
A fight for the next word
The dust will settle
it always does
And when it calms
The Good will prevail
The Ego will coward
What will be
Will be.

The fight is always
Worth the victory.

Music

danierinmusic.com

2 years, a bad heartbreak, the journey of my life and this is what I found.  ACTUALLY this is what transformed.

The Three Angels

I remember how I felt when I first heard Ray Charles. Like the real Ray, not the most popular songs but the real ones.  The tracks when he was new at Atlantic Records.  The ones where if you listen, like really listen you can hear pages turn.  If you listen, really become the song you could hear his voice break.  Break just a little, the pain ever so bending his vocal chords.  And the best part was you could feel it.  Every bit of it.  Thats what I love.  I would put on my headphones and become lost in a world of no time.   Its a beautiful time when there is no time at all.  I would stay up and be shocked that I went so long without him.  I remember the day, I remember smoking pot on the porch of my old place in Minnesota nursing a bruised heart and the biggest life hangover no pill could cure and then I had Ray.  Not only did I have Ray but I also had pot and a giant marker.  Oh and giant paper boards.  I must have looked like a crazy because for awhile there I would have headphones on and be writing on these giant boards, high.  And they were pink of all colors.  I would sit and be consumed with such creative energy I thought I knew it all.   I took my beat up heart and it fell in love with this man.  It started then.  

Then Ray somehow lead me to Billie Holiday and I remember hearing her voice on vinyl and thats when I knew.  It was so completely heartbreaking and honest it it it..changed me.  It wasn't the most perfect voice but it told a story.  When a man teaches you that your heart can in fact break, Billie came in at the most perfect of times.  It was the moment my heart shattered and my reality then switched.   All the pain, emotion that overwhelmed a swelling heart was somehow soothed by a voice that had seen and heard it all.  I always want more, but when you come out of depression from a heartache then Billie isn't the pill you take.  If you swallow to much of her greatness it keeps a dark cloud a tad too close. I also know my voice better, it needs some no nonsense wont be taken your shit kind of approach.  I did in fact leave a man in London after all.  I packed my 2 suitcases up and left his poor pathetic soul across the pond.  I needed Etta.  Etta could now suit how pissed I was allowing the power to come in.  Either way I learned punctuality and quality of lyrics from both.

https://soundcloud.com/daniellemueller/billie-holiday-ill-be-seeing

The way Etta hangs on every note, I just melt every song to every word to every switch.  The blues, but the biggest thing is the power.  The complete power.  I never do want a song to end.  You feel every word, she makes you listen to every fucking word.  Instead of buying one or two songs from this woman you buy a whole record.  None stands before or really after this woman.  Its exactly what you need when your ready and if you can handle it.  Its exactly what you need when your ready, a true blessing that I got and more importantly understood her. Its a blessing.

https://soundcloud.com/daniellemueller/blues-to-the-one-only-ms-etta

To all 3, my greats.  The angels from 2 years ago that open up doors to me.  That have made seasoned New York musicians understand my style.  That has developed Dani, that has made me well me.  A more honest me.  In order to become a musician you do need to understand the greats.  I am lucky to have been touched by these 3 and many more.  But the books, vinyle and CD's (yes I still play CD's) overflow after all this time with them.  I am grateful.

Art.

I am so close to giving up.  Theres these strange times when you have been afar from everything you have ever known in search of you that nothing feels like anything really.  Unless you see, kids. The pull they have is well, nothing.  I think you are blessed with a sensitivity towards children, maybe its Ellia, Issac, Logan and Hartlee.  It very well is.  Im ok with sticking with that.  You see New York takes from you.  All the sensitive attributes that makes you, you it wants.   Most will fade, others will kill themselves and then theres those who know.

know.

Knowing.

Study,

Steal,

Be,

Live,

ARe.

Study,

Steal,
Be
Live
ARE.

Wait!

"Such"

I see you coming

Hot

I see the heat

But you dont know

Know one thing I see

For sure

Hot

You see me

and your coming

Deep and stealth 

like a razor 

your breathe 

I feel

hot

soo 

Hot 

on me like blades

But I want em' 

Otherwise how could I.

But when it stings

A mighty ring

throughout

Is heard

Times are fragile.

I walk on things thinner then

eggs. 

I see and believe still..

Feel still..

Am still..

AND 

You 

SOMETIMES

Take

IT

Away.

If u continue then you will be such.  

SXSW

Although its not my first trip to Austin, TX this one is by far the most memorable.  Keep Austin weird is the slogan and the saying holds truth as you walk the crowded streets of Austin.  You aren't in Kansas anymore and the town drips art from its seams everywhere you look.  A definite slower pace then New York and the suns more then I am used to (insert sunburn here).   This festival is for the art hungry and creative souls looking to be heard.  Music rings from unknown places, its everywhere.

Best part: The food trucks.  I have missed what Mexican food actually tastes like.  Tacos, BBQ, soba noodles, ice cream and my personal favorite The Guac and Roll food truck.  This town is filled with flavors that will dance on your tastes buds while music rings in your ears.  They set up shop, lines form and before you know it you are stuffing your face, curbside.

I want to remember this experience.  For the art hungry I do suggest visiting SXSW.  If not for the art go for the food and also for what keeps Austin weird.  

9/11 Memorial

Today I took an old 3 train into lower Manhattan.  About 6 subway stops from me leads me to a site that brings back a somber heavy mood.  The new 911 memorial opened up recently and something from deep within said go.  I have been here before perhaps a year and a half before when it wasn't finished and it still provokes the same feelings.  Today was different, first you navigate through a maze of shallow side streets in lower Manhattan.  I asked a policeman if he knew where Thames street was and even he gave me the wrong directions.  You must reserve a ticket online where they ask you for a great deal of personal information before claiming your memorial site ticket.  You enter and its as if you are boarding a plane.  Coats, belts and laptops in tiny plastic containers.  You get the security clearance and move in a single file line towards unfinished 911 gift-shops.  I wish I was kidding when I say that, sadly there are perfectly branded mugs and sweatshirts waiting in stacks to be purchased.  Who buys this shit?

The lump in my throat grows.  Everyone has their cameras out and I start to loss faith in humanity.  This isn't disney world.  Completely still I take it all in.  I walk to the south pool with its edges covered in names of bodies that have been swallowed into these grounds.  The recycling pools of water going deep into the earth.  It really is peaceful and traffic all at the same time.  People are taking pictures by the memorial, smiling and its so confusing.  This is a grave, a memorial and people are smiling taking pictures of themselves and it makes me sick.  I walked very far away from this and end up on the north pool. My hands following the letters from all the names written into the edge, 3,000 names.  I walk to the corner and watch the water be engulfed by the ground.  It sounds like the ocean.  All day it has been raining and the rain has ceased.  

When you stand in lower Manhattan the slivers between the buildings are far and few.  I was alone on the edge and I said with the most intense sigh that "I was sorry."  With no intent of hearing a response and I wasn't stating this to anyone in general but still felt this need to do so.  These 3,000 lives ended here because of war, because of difference.  Fellow humans that cant see past differences taking lives.  Money, greed and power.  All to prove a point but the point is that as my fingers followed David Silvers name and it was there that I was reminded that he was a person with a family.  Maybe he was a dad but he was someones son.  Then I trace Scott Thomas Coleman and with a voice inside as loud as if I spoke it said "What happened that day wasn't your fault."  I wondered in that moment what had happened and sat very still and became as present as I could.  This next part of the story I wish I was making up only because at first it freaked me out.  A beam of light opened through the clouds and fell directly on where I was standing.  The ray left the sun and found a tiny sliver between the buildings and landed directly on me.  With a feeling of awe and shock droplets of rain came pouring down my cheeks.  The stark space and how empty it felt when I first walked in didn't feel that way anymore.  I don't believe I was alone.  Just because you cant see something doesn't mean its not there.  It was a beautiful moment and it made me see things a little differently.  

This is a huge moment within our society as a human race not just as Americans and Im not one to be controversial or hypothetical but there is and was more to 911 then we will probably ever know.  When people search for answers they are called whistleblowers or conspiracy theorists.  I think there is always a bigger picture always a motive that wont appear until you start asking questions.    Its easy to be sheep but when you put your iphone down and turn off the Kardashians you will find that all the distractions are what separates you from this truth.  We will look back at this and one day see it for what it really was and what it was not.  Just start seeking.  

Dani Erin & Billy Grant

Do

Music

This

Way..

danierinmusic.com

My Art.

This is what I call ART

www.danierinmusic.com

Caity

I wish I could tell you what its like

To be alone.

In BIG New York City.

I wish you could see what it feels like to be without you.

As my sister by my side for as long as I could remember.

In order for me to write the music I do, I have to feel that weight.

To be without something.

That something is you.

My better half...

Everything I wish I was,  however this universe chose differently

For

Me.

If I dont speak to you...

I will never be ok.

You must know that.

Deep down you know.

If you dont, New York WILL change me.

Change me in the way you already see.

I cannot preform without you.

You are my first fan.

My top 3.

Remember I dont have much to begin with.

Dont think I forgot who got me here.

It was you.

All along

The Art of a Songbird.

You have to fully love every word.
Feel it to its core then let it be.
It must shatter all bravery.
It must let go of pride.
Bare naked bones.
It must be sung, that message must be heard.
Every word jumping off every taste bud.
Every time the first time.
Flighting emotional Lillypads.
For only a moment.
So brief.
So present.
You have to fully love every word.
Otherwise quit now.

www.danierinmusic.com

A Trip to the Amazon.

There are many things I don't know.  Things I may not understand but certain truths I know within the core of my being to be true.  Like when theres something in the air, a hypersensitive instinct that foreshadows a change in the tide.  The lessons of life will continue to hit you until you learn and graduate to the next stage, the problem?  It usually comes all at once.  Job, family, money..crash.  Out of balance, everything.  I sense that living in New York has a lot to do with it, its tricky to explain but I feel the lessons come to you here harder, more abrupt and at a faster rate.  It has an intense power.  Like a bully in the playground, she points out the zit on your nose.  Teases you about your freckles and calls you four-eyes.  The energy you sense, you feel and you take on.

There is stunning beauty in this mess.  In this downfall.  You repair what needs the most mending, what shattered into a million pieces right before your eyes.  New York kicks up the dust in your life.  Its more then just a bad day, the shadow it casts makes me feel as if I may never see the sun again.  When you take risks, when you leave what you know behind in search of truth within yourself you often feel like your ground is as thick as cotton candy.  You don't know of bravery or courage, when your New York lesson is about to hit.  People around you will leave, just wont understand and thats the hardest truth yet.  So your constantly justifying what you adventured to do while they judge themselves for things they didn't.  Then you remember what it took to get where you currently are.  This many will never understand.  In order to be an artist, you sign up for the highs and the lows.  And a true one NEVER happen overnight.

The lows are very deep and muddy.  I always see myself at a slow crawl.  Feels like I'm in the Amazon or something.  Mud thick to my thighs, salt dripping into the cuts from thick brush.  Each limb covered in the thickest of muck.  For miles there is no path, no clearing.  It has consumed me.  All I see is the slightest hint of pink and orange so far off in the distance I feel my mind is playing tricks on me.  The more I lift each limb, the closer I become even though its still so faint.  I have been here so many damn times, that the trees are marked by a red X.  Then I know I will find myself out of all of this.  Im used to this feeling and most things get much worst before they get better.  You get very used to being alone within your journey when you are brave enough to shed yourself of everything familiar.   There are many things I don't know, but this I know for sure.

Venice Beach

I live in Brooklyn and when things feel out of place I often go to Coney Island to see my biggest inspiration, the ocean.  Now Coney Island reminds me of  a bad 80's movie.  I find myself dodging shards of glass and every square inch is covered with a pasty white dude wearing a forbidden speedo.   The upkeep of this beach is embarrassing but its the ocean so I am willing to overlook it.  My greatest ideas, my most internal conversation happens to be between the ocean and I.

I could smell the salt the moment I landed in LA.  I have never been to the West coast.  It is beautiful, perhaps everything that New York isn't. Crisp air shocked my lungs and the peaceful non ego souls were a welcomed surprise.  I wasn't in New York anymore.  The boardwalk, the endless sand and then there was the ocean.  My dear friend.  I have missed you everyday of my life.  Blue, crashing waves and the mist of salt water to my face and the kiss of the sun.  I become still, I take in every moment.  It is here when I fall into the most peaceful meditative permeant frame of mind without effort.  I am one with everything around me, the world becomes so vast and endless.  It unlocks my mind.   Now this may seem as if I am smoking the best organic did I mention LEGAL marijuana here, but there is no need for that when you are in the presence of something truly breathtaking.  The vibe here is already trippy.  Although someone gave us a pot cookie within an hour of arriving here, that story to come later.  

This makes me want to travel everywhere.  To experience, to eat to go.  New York may be the mecca of many things but its bias and massive.  Its always taking, its rarely simple.  The ocean is what it is.  The waves flirt with your eyes like a flicking flame.  Mysterious, constant and unruly.  If what you want in this world are answers quiet yourself by something beautiful so you can hear the bigger picture.  So you can reflect on what is and what was.  I am grateful for my time here in Venice, for my time here with my dear friend the ocean.  I have missed you.

  

Dani Erin

Danierinmusic.com has become a evolution of the first idea I had steaming from Dani & The Mad Men.    It starts from an idea and starts to change and evolve always keeping the fundamental core love for really great classic music.  The footage is live and I couldn't be more happy and excited for it.

The real fact remains that there was 3 months where I didn't write, in those dark times I wanted to give up most days.  The real truth is that I still had an amber in my heart, it wasnt completely dead. The fire was still there just had to evolve the next idea.  Its in those times that many do call it quits and then you never see where it may have gone.  You will always wonder.  The train slowly gets back on track and I am excited to represent original art.  My ideas, my voice, my music and I only hope to inspire in others a bravery I hold close to my heart.

So go to danierinmusic.com, support art and take it for what it is.  Sometimes the greatest gifts are simple, not mass-produced.  No smoke and mirrors.  Just honest, what I have been saying all along.

The New Chapter

Want to see what this gal has been up to?

Then go to danierinmusic.com

Hope u enjoy..