College Times

Issue date: 2/25/10 Section: Calendar

Media Credit: River Jones Music

Local folkie Michelle Blades is a painter of sorts. Not that she's painting on any sort of concrete canvas. Her canvas is your ear.

Blues and yellows and greens combine in her head to make something beautiful, but it isn't visible. Her beachy folk sound is completely improvisational and, really, it's a form of live art. The Miamian by way of Panama could have ended up anywhere and yet the 19-year-old ended up in Phoenix, strictly by a game of chance.

We talked to Blades about her new album, Oh, Nostalgia!, and how the hell she lays down an actual album when everything she does is improvisational.

College Times: I know you grew up mostly in Miami. What led you to Phoenix?

Blades: I was kind of tired of being in Miami. I was a journalism student there and there was a journalist … he would throw a dart at a map and that is where he'd go find his next story, so I thought that was cool. That's where I got the idea. My dart landed in Arizona and I moved here.

Would you say it was a good move?

Yeah, I think it's the best thing I've ever done.

How did you get started playing music?

My family is full of musicians. My grandpa is a musician and my dad is a musician, so there were always guitars around the house. I'd always fiddle with this little Yamaha keyboard that I had. It was always just something that I've done. It's just been there, kind of like family.

You said there were guitars around the house, but you play ukulele. Were there ukuleles around the house?

No, there weren't any. There were guitars around the house and I'd kind of fiddle with them and learn a couple chords, but I never got into it. It never really satisfied. When I was 16, I moved out of my house and moved into my grandparents' house and one day I was playing the guitar and I didn't really have many instruments at all, but I decided it would be good to have a ukulele because I could bring it with me anywhere. So I got one!

Much of what you do on stage is improvisational. How do you officially go about writing an album when improv is your thing?

Well, I didn't really write any of the songs down. Most of the songs on my album were, like, say I had something on my uke and River [Jones] hit record and I'd record whatever came out of my mouth. Then we'd build a song on top of that. Every song I've ever made is improvised and then I'd memorize them later.

What goes on in your head when you're improvising on stage? How do lyrics and melodies come to you?

Okay, I know this is weird. So when I hear a sound, I see a color. I know that's really weird, but I'd just follow the colors and, you know, this color would look good with yellow. A is green for me, so A looks good with yellow and I don't know. I just blend all of the sounds together. With words, I just kind of sing whatever is coming into my mind. I just dig into the corners of my mind. Every time I'm on stage, I learn something about myself up there.

Local music writers have described your sound a number of ways, but how do you describe it?

Not crafted. [Laughs] I can't really think of any other way to describe it. Yeah, not crafted.

Michelle Blades CD Release, Trunk Space, February 26, 7 p.m., $6

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