New single, Hologram!! And a million other things…

XELLE in the Mojave Desert

Manomanomanoman,

This blog is becoming a lot like my real diary–one entry every three months! Yikes!

Definitely gonna try to be better about that–which is also exactly what I say when I write in my diary, haha.

Lemme try to recap the last few months.

So, after XELLE got back from all our crazy touring in June, it was time to actually take a moment to breathe and take in everything we’d done and how we could do it all even better. We took some time to tweak our choreography, stage show, outfits, look, etc. We’re always trying to find ways to do everything we do as well as possible.

Once we had reworked our live show and added a new song to it, we decided to put it up at Industry Bar in NYC to kick off the west coast tour we had booked for the end of October. As usual, we worked like maniacs for weeks to prepare for the show, and then once the show arrived, it seemed to be over within minutes. In reality, we have a full-on, 45 minute set ready to go, which is awesome.

XELLE performs live at Industry Bar 9.15.11

In true XELLE fashion, as soon as one huge endeavor (the Industry show) was over, it was time to focus on the next huge endeavor, our west coast tour. We played Las Vegas, St. Petersburg and San Jose, and in between it all we did an awesome photo shoot in the Mojave Desert. Talk about productivity. I didn’t sleep more than four hours in a night for about five nights in a row. That’s the ONLY part of touring I can live without. As soon as it was all over, it was straight to bed for me. Sleep is the love of my life.

Once we got home from our tour, it was time to start working on our performance at our label-mate Moses’ release party for his single, “I’m Your Man,” which features us. We borrowed these awesome zipper accessories from designer Autumn Lin and used small spherical LED lights on our hands as a special effect that looked amazing onstage and on film. In the same time period, we were gearing up for the Glammy Awards, where we closed the show with an explosive performance of one of our songs, Queen. That was another huge project, involving four stage hands, a cast of 12 people, confetti, props, costumes, choreography, and on and on. XELLE loves production value, that’s for sure.

XELLE backstage at the Moses single release party

And now, finally, finally, we have released our second single, Hologram. I am so glad to finally have more music out there for the fans to enjoy, and to show that we are not a one-song novelty act.

So now, it’s time for huge XELLE project number eleventyhundred and forty seven, the Hologram music video, which is going to be EPIC. So epic that I can’t even tell you why or how it will be epic, but when you see it, you’ll see what I mean. Look forward to it.

June was a super busy month!

Wow. I’ve not been so busy as I was over the last few months in a LONG time. Since I last wrote, XELLE hired our fabulous choreographer, Mila Jam, found a costume designer (Bobby Goodrich) for our tour costumes and got those made, conceived, rehearsed and debuted our first full tour show, and played in New Paltz, NY, Albany, NY, Philadelphia, PA, New York, NY, Milwaukee, WI, and Chicago, IL.

Touring is the most fun thing in the world, in my opinion. Nothing is better than having someone pay to fly you out and put you up somewhere so you can get paid to do a show in front of hundreds or thousands of people who then come up to you afterward and take pictures and want your autograph. I wish we could be on tour every day and I can’t wait till we are!

The first stop on the tour was Albany, NY, where we opened for C&C Music Factory, which was awesome. It was great to see their music performed live and to meet the man who actually rapped on the recordings of songs like “Gonna Make You Sweat.” He was just a regular guy from Brooklyn and totally sassy and nice. My mind is always blown by meeting early 90′s celebs. Love it. The next day, we performed in New Paltz, New York, at Hudson Valley Pride, and then again that night at Truman’s, a huge club. It was so good to get some of the new songs on their feet in front of an audience, and we and the new music were both very well received.

Next, it was off to Milwaukee Pridefest, where we played to a crowd of over 2000 on Friday night…

XELLE at the PUMP! Dance Pavillion at Milwaukee Pride 6.10.11. Photo: Abeni Garrett

…and then for a crowd of over 6,000 on Saturday night, when we opened for Salt n Pepa!

XELLE on the Miller Lite Mainstage 6.11.11 at Milwaukee Pridefest

Two weeks later, we were off to Chicago to play in front of this many:

The crowd was huge at Chicago Pride!

But before we could do that, Mya (yes, THE Mya!) OPENED FOR US and then we met her!

XELLE with Mya at Chicago Pride 6.25.11

Then we performed our full show…

The beginning of the XELLE show at Chicago Pride

Then, since we’re basing the theme of our show on royalty, we knighted one of our fans, who turned out to be one of our twitter followers!

XELLE knights a special fan at the Chicago Pride show

After the show, a huge crowd of fans rushed over to the merch table to meet us, buy merch, take photos and get their merch autographed. It was so awesome to meet everyone and see what a great reaction we got in Chicago.

Now, it’s back to the grind, with continued dance rehearsals, revisions to the show, booking as many promotional and full show dates as possible in as many places as we can, and beginning to dominate the tri-state area so we can start expanding from there. There’s a ton of work to do, and I’m excited to do it!

 

I’m back, finally!

Oyoyoyoyoy, I hope the stretches between blog posts start getting shorter. Can’t believe how few chances I’ve had to update y’all with everything that’s been going on.

Well, there’s our music video for Party Girl that we worked SO hard on. I’m so proud of and happy about it. AND we got it on LOGO TV starting last week! YES! Such a dream come true to have my music video on TV, FINALLY. Wow!

I had the funny experience of realizing how and why artists can have an awesome thing happen to them and still not be satisfied. Last week I was so excited to hear the video would be on TV, and so amazed when I actually watched it air live for the first time, and yet a few days later, I was having a mood slump, and the fact that my video was on TV wasn’t changing that. I always used to look at artists who were successful and yet still not happy as being semi-insane, but now I realize it can and will happen to me too if I’m not careful! It was another instance of me confirming that happiness simply doesn’t necessarily come from success, even though that’s what I mentally tie my happiness to all the time. Happiness is its own thing, period, and I could be at Madonna’s level and unhappy if I let myself, or I could be at my level and be ecstatic, if I remind myself.

I think the reason success and unhappiness can be concurrent is that when you’re an artist, you simply don’t see your career the way others see it. I know how much work and waiting and hoping and praying and time it took to get that video on the air, and all of that took a lot longer than the moment I spent watching it air on TV. I spend most of my time WORKING on my career and hoping and worrying and waiting, and very small parts of it actually getting to enjoy some small victory or new step upward. I’m definitely working on standing more in appreciation and gratitude about what I’ve accomplished and all the luck I’ve had and the great people I work with, but the ratio of time spent working to time spent chilling is still huge. Other people live their lives and then suddenly hear that I’m on TV, so all they think about when they think about how I’m doing is that I’m on TV and that must mean constant excitement and smooth sailing. But for the artist, every new step forward is more pressure to get to that next level of success. You’ve gotten a bit of confirmation that you’re worthy, and now you want more. The more successful we get, the more successful we feel we have to become. So, once you’re on TV, you want to be ALL OVER TV. Once you’ve got 50,000 views on YouTube, you want 1,000,000. If someone’s further along in their climb to the top, you want to beat them there. That’s just the way it is. But it keeps us working hard and improving constantly, and that’s the only way to live as a real artist.

More soon. For now, gotta work!

Here’s a little taste of what’s to come…

A collage of our subway adventure filming XELLE's Party Girl music video by Abeni Garrett

On the night of Wednesday February 16, 40 cast and crew members and XELLE boarded the subway in Queens to film the Party Girl music video. It was epic. Check out the photo collage above of the adventure. The video will be on the internet very soon…

So many new XELLE videos!

Wow, I can’t believe it, but time passes so fast and I’ve been so busy with XELLE stuff that I haven’t been able to stop and tell you about everything that’s been going on for two and a half weeks! Here are some awesome videos that will get you up to speed on what’s been going on with us:

Our song, Party Girl, played on MTV!

http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:uma:video:mtv.com:616133

MTV Shows

We did another huge club tour, hitting three spots in one night, including Quo, where we opened for Lil’ Kim! Check out the video below:

I made a webisode about how our dresses were made:

And we were photographed on the red carpet with Johnny Weir at his book release party!

Now, we’re REALLY hard at work putting our first music video together, so I gotta get back to work on that. We’re having a ton of fun!

Photos from XELLE’s first NYC club tour!

XELLE at Club 57

XELLE at Barracuda

XELLE at Barracuda

When we went on our club tour of Therapy, Barracuda, Club 57, Rush and The Cock last Saturday, the fabulous Santiago Felipe was right by our side to take our picture! Thanks Santi!

Check out XELLE’s first interview with Fab.com’s Keith Edwards!

Our first interview took place this past Saturday with the lovely Keith Edwards of Fab.com. It was a ton of fun to do, and even better, now it’s spreading all over the web and getting us more fans and interview requests! Love it!

Hear XELLE’s first single, Party Girl, right now!

Check our the first single from XELLE, Party Girl! What do you think??

XELLE is Xploding!

XELLE with Keith Edwards at Elmo

Wow, sorry for the lag in updates! Stuff with XELLE has been craaaazy! I finally understand what people mean when they say they have no time for a boyfriend, because now I really feel that way myself! I am sooooo busy working on XELLE stuff all the time, as are all of the girls.

Last night we did our first XELLE “blitzkrieg,” in which we hit 5 clubs in one night to perform our first single, Party Girl, and get the DJs to play it. We performed at Therapy, Barracuda, Club 57, Rush and The Cock. It was exhausting but SO much fun! People loved our performance and I am just so glad to be back on stage I can’t even tell you. I was feeling almost depressed about the fact that I hadn’t been on stage for real since our October performance at the Glammys, so it was great to get back into my element. Performing always reminds me that doing this is my destiny and the only way I can be truly happy.

We also had a huge entourage with us all night, so it felt really awesome and professional and chaotically fun. We had a photographer, videographer, Mimi’s manager, our producer, our designer, our publicist and a friend of ours who also took photos and videos the whole time. I’ll be editing some of that footage into webisodes for us to share on our YouTube channel very soon!

The whole night was just an avalanche of awesome falling on our heads from start to finish, so I’ll try to sum it up in random fun moments I remember:

-Getting interviewed by Keith Edwards for Fab.com

-Getting filmed as we drove around stuffed into little cars with very big outfits, ran down streets with no coats on in 25 degree weather, performed on stages and bars, met fans, and generally caused a scene

-Having the legendary Acid Betty introduce us on the balcony of Club 57

-Performing at Club 57 with hundreds and hundreds of people watching all around us

-Running into my friends Jay DiFeo and Lucas Mirvois at the Club 57 performance and seeing how excited they were about the performance

-The way the crowd went WILD for us at Rush and was singing along with us by the second chorus

-Deciding to get up on the bar at The Cock and perform last minute

-Feeling like we have arrived and this is all real and it’s only going to get bigger, better and crazier!

Watch for more VERY EXCITING news very soon!!

It took twenty years, but things came full circle!

Deee-Lite!

So, as you may be able to tell from the sound of my music, I love the early 90′s and early 90′s club music. I mean LOVE. I mean it makes me happy more easily than anything else I know of. For those of you who are under a rock, one of the best songs to come out of the early 90′s club music scene was “Groove is in the Heart” by Deee-Lite. This song is one of about 5 songs that was SO good that they still play it everywhere, at every party worth going to. It is just. So. Good. I used to see the music video for this song playing on MTV when I was 7 and MTV was all about music. And it was amazing. And it still is.

Earlier this year, I met Josh Dreisacker, AKA JJ Japanime, another dance-pop singer/songwriter/producer, as well as artist and fashion designer, in Brooklyn, and we became great pals. Josh went to his cousin’s art show recently and met none other than Lady Miss Kier, the lead singer of Deee-Lite, and the two of them became friends. He told me all about how she was still making music and DJing, and he played her our song, Ice Dick, and she loved it. This was enough to make me go crazy. I could not believe that 20 years after I first saw her dancing in the music video for one of my favorite songs ever, Lady Miss Kier herself was listening to MY song and calling it great. Holy CRAP. BUT THEN, a few weeks later, Josh told me something even more amazing: that Kier would be filming a video for which she needed extras, and I could be one! I jumped at the opportunity, and before I knew it I was getting all dressed up in neon clothes and dancing while Kier herself filmed me and the other extras. She was really nice and funny and it was great to see her still in action. The whole time, I couldn’t help but think about how surreal and amazing it was that twenty years after seeing her video on MTV, there I was, in one of her videos myself. And she dances the exact same way she did in the old video, today! It’s amazing. My friend Elijah, who loves the early 90′s as much as I do, would have just died to be there, and I couldn’t hold back a smile thinking about that as I cued up Kier’s music for her on HER laptop as she filmed a glamor shot. WOW. CRAZY. Hope there are more moments like that to come!!