Ali Baker:

My name is Ali Baker. I use she/her pronouns. I am here talking with Mirah on February- what is this- 16th, and I'm in Olympia, Washington and Mirah is in Brooklyn, New York. Mirah has been writing and playing music for over 20 years. She was born in Pennsylvania and made her way to the west coast to go to Evergreen State College. And I'm going to be speaking with her about her music while living in the Olympia area. Hi, Mirah!

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Mirah:

Hi. It’s finally happening! We're doing it. I know.

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Ali Baker:

Thank you so much for talking with me today. It's an honor. Initially, you're the first person I thought about interviewing for this project. Thank you. I feel like Olympia's hard rock scene is pretty well documented. Meanwhile, there's a sort of softer, more methodical and a little more intentional side of Olympia music that emerged in the 90s and early 2000s as well.  And you are the top of that genre for me not to embarrass you. So thank you so much for your invaluable contribution to music. To start off, can you tell me why you chose Evergreen State College in Olympia?

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Mirah:

Yeah. So I grew up right outside of Philadelphia and I went to public school, and it's like a really good school district. I was good at school. I also was just like, I wanted to be finished with school high school as soon as I could, my sister had graduated a semester early. And I was like, I'm gonna see if I can graduate a year early. And so I mean, my grades were fine. But I graduated high school in three years, not because my grades were good, and I got sent off to college, but because I just calculated how many credits I needed to actually graduate. And then I went to summer school, like, I just did the credits. And then I was done. It was only three years. So I was, I graduated high school when I was 16. And I didn't want to go to college right away. I spent the year traveling and doing some various things. So when it was time, my friends who are still in high school are applying to college, I think it's time. So I started looking into it. And at that time, you know, there were these books at the library, like, seems so old fashioned, but I went to the library. And they were like telephone books with really thin pages and very small font text that listed all the colleges and universities in the whole country. And I remember going and looking through and I was like, Well, this is overwhelming. So I, I actually wrote I had a friend, an adult friend who I had met, on, I had done these peace marches when I was younger. Like when I was 12, 13,  4, 15  around those ages, I had done anti nuclear peace marches as part of like the anti nuclear movement and the ‘80s and as a child. And so I had a lot of adult friends who I made on these marches, because it was mostly adults. And one of those friends whose name was Sarah Willner, who was really like, a lifelong activist and like she, you know, just done all this really amazing work. She was my pen pal also. So I remember writing to her and being like, “Sarah, do you have some recommendations for me for colleges, because I have to figure this out. I'd like to go to college and  there's just so many options.” And she sent me a few she had a filing cabinet for like, she was a mentor to a lot of younger people, I think and so she like kept track of a lot of information and and it really worked out for me, I'd be like, “Sarah, can you tell me what, you know, what college was I should apply to?” she was like “Well, the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.” You know, it's like a progressive alternative. This is history. This is like what the student body tends to be like, I could picture you there. And so I applied to three schools in total. All three of them were like weird alternative schools, Evergreen evergreen was the most normal of the three that I applied to. I applied to Evergreen, Prescott College, in Prescott, Arizona. And I think this just doesn't exist anymore. But it's called World College West, in Petaluma, California. And I think I got into all three and then I chose Evergreen after visiting. And like, I didn't know anything about the music scene in Olympia, before I started living there. And actually, I didn't, I didn't really start tuning into it until I think more like my second year.  My first year I lived on campus.  But I remember when I went to visit it, I was, you know, 17, I was on this trip with a friend, we took a Greyhound bus across the country. And I'd never been to Olympia before. And I remember getting out of the Greyhound bus station and like really being struck by the green and like the tree and this is downtown Olympia, you know, but it was just like, and it's right by Sylvester Park. So there's trees and it's sort of like this wet, green mossy world that, you know, to me, even downtown Olympia had that,  it was so distinct to me. I hadn't traveled in the Northwest before I was 17. And so I immediately just loved the sort of natural environment where the town is situated. And then I went up to campus and I must have done a tour or something or maybe I just walked around I can't even remember. But I remember checking out what the people were like, what they were wearing.  And I was like, I think maybe I was never very cool. I was like, I was not like, unpopular but I was like a well liked, slightly nerdy,  kind of peace marcher kid, you know?  I didn't like party,  I didn't even know how to drive, and like a little on the nerdy side. And Evergreen seemed cool to me. And  I think that actually what I was seeing was, oh, geez, this interview is gonna be like, three hours long. This is this, my answer to the question was like How  did I end up at Evergreen? I can reign it in!11:00

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Ali Baker:  

This is perfect. Because telling ya, it's telling the story of like, how you got in. I love that.

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Mirah:

Yeah. I think what I was sensing was actually the sort of like, creative energy of the student body and like, what kinds of things were possible there. And it definitely felt like a place where I could figure out what I wanted to do. I mean, I didn't, I didn't have a major in mind. And I don't have to pick one. Great! Um, so yeah, I was just, like, attracted to the feeling of the space and like, a feeling of possibility. And it seemed like I think these people are cool. I think this could be like a good move for me. I think I could learn some, I could figure out where I want to go from here. Yeah. Then I, like I got in with my weirdly terrible SATs scores. But, you know, all of my like impressive life experience. My good grades and terrible SAT scores.

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Ali Baker:  

Um, that's wonderful. I love that story. Thank you. What inspired you to initially start writing your own music and what was that like? Process?

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Mirah:

Um, well, it is true that the, the first song that I really wrote, I have like a song I wrote when I was four that I like I've found in a keepsakes box, like my mom wrote it down. And that's a nice story. But I don't even know what the melody was. And it's wonderful that all little children are always writing songs. But I considered the first song that I really wrote was an assignment for a class at Evergreen. My second year there so it was ‘93-’94. school year.  I was . . .  I think it was called “Introduction to Performing Arts” and there was theater, dance,  music, different sections. And so my team,  the music faculty, Andrew Buckman. One of the assignments was to write a song. And I didn't really play guitar at the time. I had taken some lessons in my life. But I actually always quit every lesson. Any instrument that I ever started, which I wish wasn't true. I wish I had stuck with violin. When I was in fourth and fifth grade, I played violin and read music and I sort of let those skills fade and stopped playing violin. But I  had a few chords that I knew how to play on the guitar. So okay, assignment, write a song. And I went home and I had my you know, three guitar chords and I wrote lyrics melody guitar, part very simple strummy guitar and are like palm muted, like “do-do-do” guitar and, and wrote the song and then I played it for the class the next day, and it was a big hit!  Everybody was like, “Wow!” And, you know, a lot can be said about the power of positive feedback, you know, on young people who are trying things out doing things for the first time. I mean, I was 18 - I wasn't like a kid, tiny kid, I was a young person. And yeah, it felt really good. And it felt easy like, or it felt like it just sort of was a natural thing for me to do. It was not a struggle, it was kind of just flowed, and felt fun. And I enjoyed it. And so I continued to write songs.  I think that was the only official class assignment that was to write a song with like, melody lyrics, and some kind of accompaniment. But then I just continued to write songs starting from that point. And I took some private guitar lessons later that year. I think that was like a two quarter program. And so then I did some individual study, the third quarter, some of which was guitar lessons. And yeah, it just sort of like, really lit the spark and became a thing that I was like, this is a thing I like to do. I'm good at it. I'm gonna keep doing it.

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Ali Baker:

Yes, I love that. She did with that song recorded then, that you wrote?

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Mirah:

It was recorded . . .it can be found on the ‘93-94. . . I think it's called like, Evergreen State College Student Music Compilation, it might have another title. It might be Little Green Things. Or that might have been the title of the one the year after. But it can be found. Yes. And I I know that like KAOS, the radio station,  I know they have a copy of this CD. It was a CD.

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Ali Baker:

All things were 90 CDs. Yeah. Um, that's great.

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Mirah:  

The song was called “Carved In It,”  It's very sweet.

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Ali Baker:

Oh, I need to hear this. I need to track it down, call Evergreen.

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Mirah  

Okay. Yes, request it.. Yeah, totally. Okay,

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Ali Baker:

All right. I will. I'm gonna dedicate it to you. Like call in and dedicate it to  my friend Mirah (laughs).

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Ali Baker:

So, um, music can be, you know, a highly personal process and has it always felt natural for you to overcome the vulnerability of putting yourself out there with deeply personal lyrics?

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Mirah:

I think the answer is, yes. What's interesting about that is when I started writing songs, and I  started performing them. Pretty soon after there were open mics in the community center, like where the Corner Cafe was.  I worked at the Corner Cafe on campus. And so there wasn't a lag time between starting to write songs.  I had been singing my whole life, my family was really into music. My dad loved music. So I was exposed to a lot of amazing, just really great, great music, my whole life. You know, record  collection and live music. My dad took us to see live music from the time I was little. And we always sang in my family. And so I was a very comfortable singer. I didn't have any shyness around singing. I know that's a hard leap for some people. I think if you don't grow up with that comfort, you can develop a little barrier.   I actually have a block around drawing. I mean, I was a kid who drew,  painted all kinds of things. And then there was a certain point when I just stopped doing that as much. And I think I started identifying other people, like, even my sister or my mom as people who could do that. And we're good at that. And I wasn't really so I just stopped doing it. And I still don't really draw, like, at all. And, and I have a kid now, you know, so it's something that I think about.   How and when blocks develop, because we start out without them. And, you know, especially like raising a kid now I'm like, I want my kid to have a sense of freedom around everything really. But you know, like creative things. So, anyway, I got off track, but I was very comfortable with singing. And when I started writing, it made sense to me to, to write from my personal experience.  I always listened to a lot of, in addition to, you know, just the whole world of music that I was exposed to, I personally gravitated towards either singer songwriters, or they weren't always called that.  I mean, like, like Sinead O'Connor, Tracy Chapman, when I was a kid, that was what I gravitated towards. And you know, both of them like Sinead O'connor super personal, vulnerable lyrics. Tracy Chapman, personal, vulnerable and also political. And you know, there are a lot of other people I could reference but those two pop out.   I remember reading a review of Sinead O'Connor is Lion and the Cobra when I was in, I think, seventh grade, or maybe, maybe it was an eighth grade already. And my dad used to deliver Rolling Stone magazine as a job like when I was little baby, that was his job. And so when they stopped using, like, I don't know what they call the kind of distributor that he was when they stopped when they I don't know, when they got when they turned into a glossy magazine from being newsprint. And then my dad didn't have that job anymore. They were like, well, you can have a lifetime subscription. So we always had Rolling Stone magazine, when I was a kid, although they actually did stop his subscription at a certain point. We were like, “What? They've really gone corporate now.” But, so we always had Rolling Stone magazines around. And I remember reading a review of Lion and the Cobra, I'd never heard of,  I couldn't pronounce her name.  I had never heard the music. And this is way pre internet. I couldn't just go  listen to it on my phone. Like that was not a thing. And I just read the review. I was like, I'm gonna go to Tower Records, and I'm gonna buy this tape. And so I went down and I and I bought myself that tape and I was like, really, really blown away.  And yeah, so that is, that's an example. It's also so specific to that era. She wasn't being played on the radio yet, you know. And so I like read a review, I was like, I'm gonna go get this tape. And I went and got it. So a lot of the examples of music that I listened to, they were, you know, female vocalists who wrote songs about their experiences, their feelings, their lives, their thoughts, their thoughts on their political views. And so that's just what made sense to me to do. And it seemed to come naturally. And like I said, there wasn't a big there was no gap. There was no pause between when I started writing and then when I started performing because there was these open mics at school.  And then within a few years  . . . there wasn't an open mic at the Capitol theater. Oh, Bulldog news,  like upstairs at Bulldog news.  I guess that was an open mic. I didn't remember that until just a second ago. So there were a few different opportunities. And yeah, it just, it actually kind of felt natural to me. And it wasn't only because of the music that I listened to growing up. Also, other people in Olympia were doing that.  There was definitely like, the scene of you know, like, bands were a little more like, like punk rock, or harder rock, or, you know, like, not a singer songwriter-y. But when Riot grrrl was just starting out, a lot of people were performing solo, you know, just solo accompanying themselves, or, just like, doing spoken word.  There were a lot of performances, and especially by, you know, female, queer, or gender non conforming people. And so both because of what made sense to me to be creating and also, like, because of listening to certain kinds of music my whole life. And then also seeing people do that around me and also having some pretty accessible opportunities, like, the open mic at the collectively run vegan Cafe on campus where I worked was, like, pretty accessible for me to just get up there with my guitar that I barely know how to play, you know?

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Ali Baker:  

Um, that's great.I love that answer in that story round. So I was doing some research, because I'm going to interview Rachel Carns and I'm going to interview Radio (Sloan) as well.  So I wasn't planning on asking this question. But what was it like to perform in the Transfused rock opera that they and Nomy Lamm wrote?

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Mirah:

Yeah, um, I mean, that was a big highlight of my time in Olympia.  Really, like, in a lot of ways, it was sort of a culmination of so many. I mean, it  still feels a little bit sad that beautiful creation, all that music, this incredible work of theater. You know, it's both magical that it happened in Olympia. It was like, I think two weekends of performances, people traveled to come see it. It was amazing. It's both magical, that it just happened and then is no longer and sad that there wasn't like a next step for it. Because I mean, the writing it's incredible. And I can't tell you how many sort of theater, literature, music creations that I've seen pop up, in years since that I'm like, Did these people watch The Transfused and they kind of like incorporated some of those themes? I mean, just like over and over again. Um, yeah, the music for The Transfused was, it was just, just so incredible. And all the writing, like the libretto.  Nomy is just . ..  are you interviewing Nomy?

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Ali Baker:  

I’m not.  I think that someone should. There's a lot of folks, I wouldn't like oh, we got to interview them. And then and then. Yeah, hopefully this keeps going, you know?

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Mirah:

Yeah. I mean, well, you know, like Nomy is a musician and recording artist and like she does exist in that space. But she also, like she has done so many different things that maybe she wasn't thought of because she kind of straddles a lot of different creative worlds. Like I'm like, I'm a singer songwriter. And that's like all I've ever done. So, I’m like easy to pick for a music focused project. But yeah, I mean, the writing that Nomy did is just like, so, so incredible. In general, and for that project, yeah, I loved,  I loved being in that performance.  I had done some theater as a kid. And so  it was somewhat familiar of a world to me to be like, oh, yeah, I'm going to be in a rock opera. But I hadn't actually done that in a number of years. No . . .  I was in another musical theater performance in The Midnight Sun that my friend Mara West wrote.  I think that was a year before or two years before The Transfused called The Sundowner. But anyway, yeah, I had, you know, here and there some theater experience. And, yeah, I loved being part of that.  My family came out to see it from the East Coast, and came to every single performance. And they still talk about it.I was dating the director at the time, Freddie Fagula. It was like the perfect combination of being involved with this incredible project with all of your friends, and maybe lovers too.  Everybody was so incredibly, truly talented. It wasn't just like We feel like doing this thing. We don't know how to do it. We're just gonna.  It seems like a bunch of friends getting together to put on a rock opera. It could like not really work out. But it just so happened that every single person involved was just like, incredibly, incredibly talented. And all the things came together. I think just so beautifully. Yeah, love, love being part of that.

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Ali Baker:  

So cool.  So, um, can you tell me about your first like, musical collaborations with other artists or? Or like your band The Drivers?

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Mirah:

Yeah. Which is so cool that you know.  I mean, we were kind of a short lived band. We weren't like a popular Olympia band. We did play some shows. I recently was just on a text thread with Sarah Reed and Molly Bergdorf, who were my bandmates at the time.  It was fun to be back in touch, it was actually a really good and important musical experience for me, to have to experience being in a band. What's funny is, it's something that I have craved a lot in years since but I like I ended up really mostly, I collaborated with tons of people. I've had a whole bunch of different formations of my band over the years since then, but all of those were me. It's like, my songs and then I bring people in to work on the recording with me or go on the tour with me. And there is a really special thing about writing together with people and having more a communal project. Not being like the name and the face and then like bringing people in who are sort of where everyone is like, I'm bringing 100% me to this project. And so you sort of make a certain shape together. Because everybody's 100%. And it's different if it's like “Mirah” and then I bring people in the shape it is, it's a good thing. Good things happen, it can be really beautiful. But the shape of being in a band together is just a unique experience. And honestly, being in The Drivers  was like, the only time I've really done that, because I ended up on this path as this sort of, you know, like, I'm a, I'm a solo project who very often collaborates with other people, but that's a different shape than the band shape. Never described it that way before, but it actually works for me. Um, yeah, that was a good experience. We recorded with Pat Maley. And I think we never, we never released like a Drivers  EP, but the songs are on some different Yo Yo compilations from those years.

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Ali Baker:

That's great. Um,with other collaborations, like, can you tell me a little bit about your experience in The Microphones?

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Mirah:

Yeah. So Phil moved to Olympia in. Let's see. He was so young. I think he was 17 or 18. Um, it was probably after I graduated in ‘96.  I bet it was like 1997 or ‘98 if you listen to his song from last year, like “The Microphones 2020” it's like a 45 minute song. And he actually tells us,  you can find out the whole history by listening to the song, but I can't remember what year it was. So I met Phil right when he first moved to Olympia and he became friends with my group of friends.  We already knew Calvin and would sometimes do . . .   like The Big Room was a familiar space to me already but I hadn't done any work there alone. I had recorded with Diana Arens there and you know for some project some years before.  When Phil arrived there was actually a lot of coalescing.   I feel like my sort of desire to record songs, which was my own goals, was a little diffuse.  I had been writing songs for a while,  I’d been performing for a little while. I had recorded with Pat Maley solo and had released an EP that came out on Yo Yo in I think ‘98 called Storageland. And it was a one sided 12 inch and the B side was an etching by Nikki McClure. And there were only 1000 ever made. They’re kind of rare, special thing. And that was my first official release. So I had already done that before Phil came to town. But he was really into recording like, really, I mean, the first Microphones songs on some of his earlier  tapes and definitely his first K LP. The songs are about recording.  And I mean, he became a songwriter who is extremely vulnerable and honest. And I mean just does not withhold anything his whole heart and every thought it's just out there. And when he first started writing songs, a lot of them were about microphones and about recording, which I love so much, you know.   And I remember listening to it. I mean, it's funny because I met him and was becoming friends with him at the same time as I was listening to his recordings. But I remember listening to the recordings and being like, What are these? Why does this sound so cool? I want to figure out how to record and how to put sounds together like this. It was really inspiring to me.  In terms of recording, when I was at Evergreen, I took the audio and media class with Ken Wilhelm.  I made a speaker and I'd done the Intro to Electronic music class with Terry Setter. And like, you know, ProTools wasn't around yet, but there was an earlier recording program computer recording program. There was like cool stuff and I had familiarized myself with it and was you know, doing projects in school and I'd gotten a four track, cassette four track, as my college graduation present from my dad. And, I mean, I used that a lot, actually, a number of recordings that are on You Think It's Like This which is my first K release, a number of those I recorded on my cassette four track.  The song that was on So You Think You Can Dance? I recorded that on my cassette four track. And so I had done some recording. But listening to Phil's recordings was very specifically inspiring to me to like, pay more attention and experiment more and focus more on recording. And Phil had a pretty expansive, he's such an interesting person because he's both like, has a very, like singular way about him,  of like,  meaning I use that word in a funny way. But like, he's very capable, he'll do every single thing himself, he can totally do it. But his ideal and also and especially at that time, was that The Microphones was not just him, is it The Microphones included his community and he wanted to be with people in that experience in particular in the performance setting.  So it's like it's both true and not true that a number of us who were his friends were like “in” The Microphones because  we performed as The Microphones together,  and recorded with Phil recorded Microphones songs together. But it was a very unique sort of combination of like solo project and communal, completely shared musical experience.

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Ali Baker:  

I love that. It's literally about, the name of Microphones is literally about microphones. When you first arrived, like in Olympia, were you influenced by anybody around?  Well, based on your story before you said that you kind of didn't really get into music. But let's say when you started getting into music and exploring that world, like, what was the vibe like at that time? And who were you influenced by?

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Mirah:

Yeah, I think, but my second year at Evergreen, so that was like ‘93-’94 school year, and I had moved off campus. And I must have gone to some shows my first year, but I can't remember.  My second year is when I remember  going downtown and seeing shows.  I have one funny memory about going with my friend Jen to the Red House to see Sleater Kinney. I think it was that here. . .No, no, no, I think it was Bikini Kill. That makes more sense. Um, and yeah, actually, at that time, I remember seeing Corin (Tucker)  perform solo at someone's house. It was like a Riot Girl party with performances. And I remember seeing Corin perform solo and which, you know, because I was in Olympia those years. I did get to see, like, you know, I saw Team Dresch  before they had their name,  they were calling themselves like Kaya, Jodie and Donna's Band. It was like all their names. And yeah, I mean all of those performances that I saw . . . The Bikini Kill story is funny. Sorry, I'm jumping around. This is not going to transcribe very well. Forgive me, transcriber. The Bikini Kill show at the Red House. I do remember, like walking up with my friend Jen. And definitely, like, taking note of how uncool I felt, and how like,  I wanted to come to the show and be part of the show and be part of the people at the show and I didn't feel like I fit in.  Which is sweet, now to think about it. Um, I mean, I wasn't a little kid. I was 19 or 18 maybe. So was probably everybody else.  But even the music that I didn't feel like was the music that would naturally come out of me, was inspiring to me was the sort of passion. There was a whole piece about, like, the passion. I remember Corin’s performance, partly because I don't think she had been playing guitar for very long yet, either. It wasn't like watching, you know, a guitar prodigy, like playing where I would feel intimidated to ever try to do anything like that myself. It was like watching someone who really had something to say, and really wanted to, like, express what she had for people and share that energy. And that was really inspiring to me. It made me feel like I don't really know how to play the guitar yet. I'm not loud. Can be loud. But that doesn't seem to be like the kinds of songs that I'm writing. Maybe that's okay. Because I can just share what I have to share. Like all of it was really inspiring.  Both performances that I saw,  was music that maybe sounded a little like mine and performances that I saw of music that sounded nothing like mine. I mean, one of the common threads was that I mean, you know, there were male performers and bands, all boys, and I went to those shows too.  But specifically for me, seeing women, women identified people, queer people, was very specifically inspiring to me, because I could see myself, I could see myself in them, even if the music wasn't like my music.

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Ali Baker:

that's a really, really, it just seems like such in a word like fertile time in Olympia.

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Mirah:

It totally was. Yeah. I certainly never planned to be an adult whose career is like, ‘Yeah, I'm a singer songwriter”  like that was not . . . I didn't know that's what I was going to end up doing. I thought I was going to do political science, environmental science and Evergreen did seem like a great place to go for that. And it turns out it was also a really great place to go for music.  And that was in large part because of the larger community and the support of the larger community and like the venues and the spaces and you know, Capitol Theater,  Midnight Sun or even that there was like a you know, open mic at Bulldog News.  All the things that there were in the larger community.  Part of what was fertile was like the soil and Evergreen really does attract amazing people. And, you know, not just Evergreen students, but just in the area of the Northwest. There's just like, I don't know, cool. A lot of people who have a lot to give.

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Ali Baker:  

Yeah, apparently. So, um, what was it like for you to record your LP You Think It's Like This, But Really It’s Like This, where did you record it? And how did you end up releasing it on K Records?

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Mirah:

Um, it's funny, I was looking at the questions, and I was like, wait, I should do my homework, just to get like, some of the details and the dates and things and I didn't do my homework.  But let's see if I can remember all the important details. So I had that cassette four track that I'd gotten as a graduation present. And I had started doing home recordings. And then Phil moved to town, and I was becoming friends with him and involved with some of, you know, his projects and Microphones, performances and recordings. And he and I started doing a little bit of recording together of my songs I recorded. I think the first project that Phil and I recorded together that was not a Microphones song was a cover of Yes, I'm Your Angel by Yoko Ono. And we recorded that for something which was released but I can't remember. . Anyway, we'll skip over that detail. I can't remember.  That was the first recording that we worked on together and it was really fun. We just had a good time recording and so we kept recording together. Sometimes Microphones things,  sometimes my songs,  other friends, sometimes it would be someone else's song. And after a little while between my four track recordings and the recordings that I had started to work on with Phil it just started seeming like maybe there were enough songs that there could be a record.  I wasn't intentionally recording, making a record. And I knew Calvin because I was there in The Big Room and working on things, and he'd seen me perform at different events around town. And I mean, it's probably known, there were/are a lot of informal practices at K records. And some of those worked out really well. And sometimes they get complicated. But in terms of an informal arrangement, it really ended up working out . The plan to put these songs that Phil and I had been recording together, and my four track recordings into one record and for K to release it.  It was really like an informal arrangement. As I recall, Calvin just kind of like suggested it when he was walking through The Big Room one day when Phil and I were there. Sometimes I chuckle now, when I hear people talk about  “getting signed” like younger people, and like “getting signed” with a small label and if that's what it feels like to them, and that's what feels exciting. And maybe that's literally what happened, and they actually signed a thing. That 's great, but what makes me chuckle is thinking about my own experience of “getting on a label.” And like, it was incredibly informal. And I mean, I think like for me at that time, that really worked for me, because I didn't have to decide that I was going to be a musician and that I was professional and that I was trying to do something, or make money off of songwriting. I could just remain focused on just making things and not thinking very much about what was going to happen with them. I didn't have to like shop things around. I didn't have to make a lot of decisions. I didn't have to make a lot of commitments. And that actually really worked for me. Because it allowed me to remain in a state of freedom around my craft, which I wasn't even calling a craft at that time. I was just having fun. How great is that?

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Ali Baker:  

So it just didn't really a natural process of evolution of like, Yeah, I'll put out a record here.

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Mirah:  

Yeah totally.

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Ali Baker:  

is that way. Why did you? Do you remember why you named the album You Think It's Like This, But  Really It’s Like This, is it something to do with that process? Or?

‍

Mirah:

It actually is just a phrase that popped into my head when we were swimming, I think, like, I think it was with Phil and maybe with Khaela [Maricich],  or Jen Kliese, or Ariana Jacob,  or like it was Phil and some other friends. And we'd gone swimming. Maybe we were at Ward lake or something like that.  Maybe we were in Anacortes. Um, I just remember swimming, and  like coming up from the water. And for some reason, that phrase was in my head, and I thought it was so funny. I thought it was so funny. And then I decided to name my record that.

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Ali Baker:  

I love that out of the water. With a lot of imagery right there.

‍

Mirah:

Yeah, like out of the water and there's the sky. And you think it's like this, but really, it's like this. I don't I still don't know. Maybe that was like my brain making a funny joke for me to laugh at. Like, that my brain said this and this. You know, it didn't say “this and that” it said “this and this”. You see this?

‍

Ali Baker:  

No, that's great. Because, yeah, I think it's relatable content.

‍

Mirah:

Yeah, I mean, like it, it was just sort of, it just popped into my head. But then I was like this is perfect. This is like, if I tried to come up with a perfect phrase to sort of like, encapsulate so many different experiences, I don't think I could have done a better job. Thank you subconscious for sending me this phrase.

‍

Ali Baker:

Very magical. Can you talk about the transition into your next album, Advisory Committee? And what was the writing process, had it changed? Was that more of a, like, focused record? Or what was your process?

‍

Mirah:

Yeah. There were a lot of moments around that record that I can remember.  Like, I remember Khaela and Phil noticing my songwriting and that there, they didn't use this word but when I listened to my first record, and then I listened to my second record, I think there was somewhat of a maturity in my songwriting capabilities. And I wasn't trying, but, you know, I was practicing doing the thing. I was writing, writing more, I was a little bit older, I had had some different experiences. And, you know, like, one more heartbreak on my notched into my, my, wherever I keep track of my heartbreaks. And yeah, I remember Khaela and Phil, noticing the songwriting. And I mean, similar to how my very first song in that class at Evergreen got a really positive response. And that helped encourage me to keep doing it and to feel like, This is something I'm legitimately good at. And I think it felt good too. I'm not sure if I would have noticed myself, that my songwriting was like maturing or improving, or whatever. But I remember getting that feedback from Khaela and Phil, and feeling like, That feels good. And what's funny about the second record is, it wasn't until years later that I even heard about the concept of writing a record as an activity unto itself. All through my first three solo records, still, my focus was on writing songs, and then recording them. And then at a certain point, it would become clear to me that there was an album. And either like, that still needed one or two more songs, or that was okay, now, we, “oh, all of a sudden we have it.” It wasn't there wasn't a sense of writing a record. And that's another way that actually that informal arrangement with K also worked for me, because there was no expectation about finishing a record, you know “we need another record this year.”   There was no contract that stated that I needed to fulfill some requirements about output.

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Mirah:

And that, at that time, that really worked well for me, obviously, because I put out you know, three, what I still think are pretty great records. Without even ever trying to write or trying to, like get something to happen. You know, all within, I think four or five years, those three records came out. And yeah, I got a little lost, we're talking about my second record. I do remember, when Phil and I were recording “Cold Cold Water", which I wish we had the chart that we made for how we were going to put this song together.   It was long, it had a bunch of different sections, we wanted to do a lot of different instrumentation. We were working with, you know, this amazing old mixing board and a two inch tape machine. And so there was no like comping of a vocal or instrument track.  I use Pro Tools Now, also, it's very useful. And it's a completely different way of working. It's very useful to be able to edit things and move things around. But when you're working with tape, I mean, it is possible to splice tape, we never did that. It's two inch tape, I mean, you have to have a really specific idea of what you're splicing. And you'd have to be really good at splicing. I've done it, I've spliced tape, I'm not really good at splicing tape. Unless you have a really good reason. So,  we had 16 tracks, not all the tracks on the board were working. We had to be, like “these things we're gonna bounce,”  “these things are going to be on the same track,” “the horns are over here on this track,” and “it’s organ over here.” We taped together many, many pieces of paper, it was like long, this long chart of how the song would go. And I remember after we finished it, listening to it on these big crazy speakers that Calvin had in the Big Room with the tweeters that he had were like these giant horns. They were crazy looking speakers, and the Big Rom was a very epic space to be working in. It was just like a wide open, no soundproofing, no sound booth, no vocal booth. The windows are just these warehouse windows that let in all the sounds of seagulls and everything that you can hear on all recordings from that time. Not just mine, or Phil's I mean, I don't maybe some people tried to press record after the seagulls flew by I don't know.  All of the ambulances and seagulls were just outside and their sounds came right into the windows. So it was a very epic and unusual recording space compared to most recording spaces. And I just remember listening to “Cold Cold Water” on those big speakers after we finished it and feeling like Wow, what did we do? Um, and you know, it's amazing also thinking about how if we were making that recording now, and were using Pro Tools it would be a lot more perfect. We probably would have like spent more time tuning things or if we noticed something's out of tune we would have you know, like, edited it out and done another thing and mean it and that's something I can hear in a lot of my old recordings that like and because I do use Pro Tools now I can hear oh, the old recordings they would have if I was making them them now using this technology, they would sound more perfect in this certain way. But what is lost by the perfection of the capability of some recording technology is the moment that is captured, it's like, you're putting air in a bottle of like this moment. And as imperfect as some of those captures are,  they’re  so authentic. And I think there's something really beautiful about that.

‍

Ali Baker:  

Another favorite musician of mine calls their music a “sonic fossil.”

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Mirah:

Totally, totally. And, I mean, what's also interesting to me about songwriting and the fact that my songs have always been really personal and I'm really sharing about a specific experience and feeling.  I still sing my old songs, I can picture it, it's either like a sonic fossil, or it's like, a video track that is recorded in my brain, it didn't get on the LP, because there's no space, you know, it wasn't a picture disc.   It was an LP. But in my brain, there's a video track, and I can see.   Whether it's being able to see the fur and blood  on the ground at the farm that I wrote about.  It's a song that I think is on C'mon, Miracle, and I can look it up to find the name of it, so that my reference makes sense.

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Mirah:

But like, I wasn't just choosing an interesting visual and just putting it in the song like I saw where that animal died and that lyric made it into the song. And I still have that visual memory. So when I sing the song, I have the video track also going in my head.I also just remembered something that I was going to say before when you asked me the question about, um, if it was hard for me to get used to sharing such personal things when I was performing my songs. And you know, my answer was, for some reason, it wasn't and it felt kind of natural. But what's funny is, this was all happening, as was this was all beginning in the ‘90s and mid ‘90s, when everybody else that I knew and didn't know, was making zines. And there's a really personal, incredible sharing going on in zines. And I never wanted to make a zine, like I read them, and it was amazing. Like, it was so amazing to me that people were sharing, like, such intimate things.  And it was so important for those things to be shared and for people to you know, feel like this was helping them build community and feel seen and all these really important things. And I was like, Oh, I could never do that. That’s like too intimate for me. Which is interesting for me to think about. Why was I able to write and share personal songs and singing is a very intimate thing. A voice is an intimate thing to share with people. And even though I grew up singing and didn't have a shyness around just starting to sing in the supermarket!  You know, like, I just never had a shyness around that,  but still like sharing my voice with people and wanting them to listen and wanting people to not be talking out there. And, you know, I'm singing, listen to me, that is intimate. But still, the zine format was not something that felt comfortable to me. It felt too exposing to me. And that's just interesting for me to think about. It was of the time, it  would have been completely expected for me to also write a zine like everybody I knew.

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Ali Baker:  

Yeah, yeah, it was very popular. Yeah. Can you? Okay, so, let's see, what do I do next here? I want to ask you all these questions. And I don't know if I'll get to all of them. But one o'clock already now. I mean, I want to keep talking a little. I don't know what your time

‍

Mirah:

I could go for a little longer. I don't have to pick up. . . I don't have to leave. Well, actually, he's in after school today. But I'd like to pick them up early. But I have some other things I need to get to, but maybe like, maybe like 15 or 20 more minutes.

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Ali Baker:  

Can you tell me about going to your next record, C'mon Miracle. I really discovered you for myself during that time.  I was actually living in Lacey. So I was like, not in the loop of what was going on, like a town over. And I'm like, you know, eventually moved to Olympia and discovered. A friend of mine, my friend Rhea, loves you very much. And she's like, “you gotta hear this record”. And so anyway, can you tell me a song that really sticks out to me is “Jerusalem.” And can you just talk about like, the story of writing that song or like a little bit about that?

‍

Mirah:

Yeah. So a couple things about that song. It  started, as actually a bit of an assignment. I was asked to contribute to a Hanukkah compilation. And I was like “ok!” you know, and this is so in the context of like, holiday albums, there's Christmas albums and then Hanukkah albums is not really a genre. I definitely got the feeling that this Hanukkah album project that I was asked to contribute to  was intended to be like, in that same world, a celebratory, fun, family fun, dreidel kind of project. And I was like “Sure, yeah, my name’s Yom Tov. I'm gonna write a fun Hanukkah song.” And I was tinkering around with things and like Okay, I don't know,  I'm not sure,  what am I gonna say? What's Hanukkah about again? And I remember having this conversation with my friend David [Scherer Water] he’s a close old friend who went to Evergreen at the same time as me and he actually still lives in Olympia. And he's also Jewish. And I remember him telling me -  the story of Hanukkah that we celebrate with your family, it's like this miracle and the oil lasted for eight days. But the thing that sort of glazed over in the holiday telling because that holiday happens to fall around Christmas, and everything's supposed to be happy and holiday joyful, is like, actually, there was a war going on. Like people were dying,  people were killing each other, and you know, like the temple was ransacked. So, actually the setting of the story of Hanukkah is like this traumatic, wartime, you know, like, death, killing, lots of loss. That's the setting. That's the scene we're in. I was like, okay, so what song am I writing here? And, you know, at that time as always, as in my whole life,  I've never been to that part of the world, but I am aware that  it's complicated being like an American Jewish person and having an awareness of like… history is just so there's so many layers in history, like, okay, the Holocaust happened. This horrible, horrible trauma should never have happened.   Should we have used the atomic bomb to incinerate two whole cities, and, you know, cause all of this generational trauma? And that decision was like, a totally racist choice.  That it was like, anyone thought that they're just going to experiment with this crazy weapon on civilians, you know? And that, like, so there's like, what, like trauma replaced with trauma replied to, , being responded to with trauma. And I mean, I always think about when people are like, then World War Two ended and the Jews were freed from concentration camps. And it's like that's how World War Two ended, like, atomic bombs were dropped, and the whole world was like, What the fuck? Pardon my language.  I guess we can't, like continue this ground war, because we don't even know what we're dealing with here. And, and they honestly didn't, they didn't even know that about radiation. And like, what that does. So, anyway, this is like a real big picture. But in thinking about what song am I going to write about the story of Hanukkah.  It's about how this story about war and violence being perpetrated on Jewish people in ancient times and the temple being ransacked, how does that turn into this cute story about the oil lasting for eight days, and now we like eat latkes and sufganiyot. When, like, actually, that trauma and that violence that was perpetrated on Jewish people, is part of what is reverberating in Palestine now and is just like a root cause of that violence. And that is something that happens in the world, that it's the most destructive force.  That humans are so susceptible to exactly that destructive force of like, being harmed. And then, instead of being able to heal, and then respond with peace, that harm turns into a further perpetuation of harm. And that is unacceptable to me. And I want that to stop. And I've wanted that to stop my whole life.   As a young person, my sort of political awakening was around the violence of nuclear weapons and not wanting, not wanting people to harm other people, and especially not wanting weapons capable of causing such extreme harm to all life to be in the hands of people who tend to perpetuate harm. So, then it was with those thoughts in mind and then I wrote the song and it actually came out really quickly. Not all of my songs are. . .I spent a lot of time tinkering with words with a lot of the songs. But every once in a while one is like, pretty fast. And that one was pretty fast. And it was rejected from the Hanukkah compilation because it didn't fit in with this  happy holiday album theme.   That was not explicitly stated, but became apparent when my song was rejected. And I was like “You know what, I'm glad my song was rejected from this project, because I'm gonna put the song on my album, and it's a good song.” Like somehow I boil down a lot of what’s actually has been bouncing around in my heart since I was a kid and first became aware of the cycles of harm and wanted somehow to just stop people from harming each other. Wanted, like, that cycle to just stop. So then I put it on the album.

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Ali Baker:  

I feel like I could go into like specifics about how you write your songs and how you like, choose, like, how do you choose? Like, what specific lyrics to put down? So think you're a great lyric writer. And how do you like, narrow down from what's going on in your head in your heart to like, these specific words? I feel like I could talk to you about that for a very long time.

‍

Mirah:

I mean, well, I will say, what's actually what was just coming to mind as you were, as you were formulating that question, was thinking about my kid.  And how my kid is really sensitive, very sensitive if there's too much noise or too much chaos.  And [he] is capable of being loud and creating chaos. And the thing that I noticed with him, which I think is somewhat like a self soothing mode, which is like, kind of talk singing, and that sounds and sometimes there are words. And it sometimes happens, like, if we've been out so there's been a lot of stimulation. And then there's a quiet moment where we just get home and home is a very quiet and comfortable space, or we've been out and then we're in the car, and there's a sort of like, comfortable, enclosed, safe feeling. And he'll do this sort of thing, singing and sounds. And I actually feel like there's some relationship between that and the way that songwriting happens for me.

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Mirah:

Where it’s not always happening on the conscious level. Sometimes it is, but there's a lot of like letting it write itself.

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Mirah:

And usually a period with every song that like, becomes a song and, and it gets completed. Sort of like,  gets to the state where I can pick it up and then I'm like, Okay now you're a song, because sometimes that doesn't happen. They're like, a little diffuse and then there's too much time passes.  Sometimes they're a little diffused and time passes, and then I come back to it. And it can sort of come together at a later date. But they're kind of like their own, they're their own beings. And there's like, a lot of allowing, that has to happen in order for them to form. This is like a very general, maybe vague way of describing it. But there are other ways also that once I get a basic idea, sometimes I end up running through,  like babble talking through some words that either have alliteration, or rhyme, or like a relationship and sound to the word. I'm just like, looking for the right word. To put in here, or put in there, but for like, an initial start of a song, there's something of what my kid is doing, that reminds me of it.  Where you're feeling the experience that you just had, you're going over it somehow in your like, somatic, your like mind, body and your heart. And you're kind of making sounds.

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Mirah:

I know, that sounded like not the end of a sentence, I think. I think describing an open ended process led me to it, just describing it with an open ended sentence that didn't sound like the end of a sentence.

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Ali Baker:

Perfect. I love that. There you go. That's how the songwriting happens. So I'm just, I have a couple of I got one more. I got three more questions for you. Um, I saw you perform at the Capitol theater with the Black Cat Orchestra. And I love that album. I wanted to talk a little bit about that, and how that come about.

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Mirah:

Yeah. Um, well, So Lori Goldston, and Kyle Hanson, who are just dear old friends at this point, we've known each other for decades.  We actually met,  I think at Pat Maley’s wedding. It must have been, you know, a year or two, prior to recording that record. And  we met and we really connected and we wanted to work on a project together.  I had seen the Black Cat Orchestra perform several times. I mean, they were like a Seattle institution. And I'd seen them in Olympia and in Seattle. And I mean, I am really a singer and a songwriter, more than I am a guitarist or instrumentalist.  I play guitar,  I tinker around on all kinds of instruments that I use when I record. I don't read music. And I'm not a musician, or like an instrument player in the same way that Lori Goldston is. She's just like, she can play many more instruments besides cello, but just cello in particular, she's just like, a genius cello player. And I've always loved playing with people who can just shred on their instruments, you know.  Like, I can play guitar, I can't shred. Probably if I spent, you know, any time being like, I am going to learn to shred then I could. But really, I just focus on singing and writing songs. And I'm like, you know what, I can accompany myself on guitar and that's great. I love it. And I'm going to work with all these other people who are just incredible on their instruments. And I've always loved  my friends who would play accordion or Cora or piano.  I just, I love singing, I love singing. And it's fun singing, I mean like singing with strings and like a string section. It's beautiful. It's such an amazing experience. Because strings are voices, they're so similar to the human voice, but they have this incredible range and if you're playing with a string section or even a quartet.  It's just like a beautiful experience of feeling like held and part of something. So any chance I've ever gotten to work with people who are just like masters at their instruments, I'm like “Yes, please!” and  jump at the chance. So when I met Lori and Kyle I was like, “I’d love to do something together” and they were equally excited. And we came up with the idea of doing a covers album, where the songs were chosen, because of an anti war statement. But we chose from kind of like a wide, we didn't want to just choose like the standard anti war record. I've listened to a lot of folk music. So I'm blanking right now. But um, but yeah…

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Ali Baker:  

Like “Give Peace A Chance”  or something like that?

‍

Mirah:

Yeah, exactly. Which is great, you know, but that's not what we were going for. And so we kind of like searched far and wide. And I think we chose “What Keeps Mankind Alive”, which is by Kurt Weill, Bertolt Brecht, which is a song I love to sing. And I've actually sung that acapella a number of times, at shows. I mean, it's just good lyrics. It's so incredibly incisive. And just one of those things every every time I sing that song, especially in a moment where I'm like choosing to put it on the setlist because people really need to hear this song right now. I can feel it when I'm singing those words. And, you know, “mankind is kept alive through bestial acts.” It's like, it's exactly what I was talking about, that's what I wrote “Jerusalem” about. And of course, that statement in the song, it's, I don't know if facetious is the right word, exactly. But I mean, it's saying the horrible thing. That sounds like it's true, but really, you're saying this should not be true. You know? And so, yeah, we chose the songs,  we recorded them with Pat. I weirdly remember we didn't record them at the Capitol Theatre. Not a good story, because I can't remember the details exactly. But yeah, that was our anti war album.  Which is like, it's all you know, it's like you write a song like “Jerusalem” or record an album of anti-war covers, and it's always like, so horribly relevant.

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Mirah:

Like, When will this stop being relevant? Please let this stop being relevant.

‍

Ali Baker:  

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's got to be like, a double edged sword of like, putting out something great that you stand behind, but like, it's really about, like this horrible, like, undercurrent of Yeah. going on in the world. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so that's an interesting dynamic. So a couple more questions. These are a little bit more random. A mutual friend of ours,  Themba [Lewis] told me that you made sauerkraut when you're on tour and sold it and called it Mirah Kraut.

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Mirah:

Called Come on Mirah Kraut. So actually, Alex Yusimov who is a good friend of mine for many, several decades. He made the sauerkraut, he makes amazing sauerkraut. I feel like at the time when I lived in Olympia and Portland, myself and a lot of people  that I knew were like, we were already making cultured foods and sauerkraut.  It definitely took off. We really started something. I mean, when I first started going on tour, getting like the local kraut at the health food store, and the town we were passing through, was not a thing. They weren't like, oh, yeah, this town there's these five different, you know, artisanal kraut makers, and they have all these cool flavors. Like, by the time, you know, five or 10 years after we brought Alex's kraut on tour, I would be like, I was sort of known for like “Uh oh, Mirah got kraut at the health food store. It's in the tour van. Make sure it doesn't tip over.” You know? It is really bad to spill that in the car. Alex Yusimov,  he made the kraut,  he does make an incredible, like basic but incredible sauerkraut. And yes, it was called C'mon Mirah Kraut. And, we just had it on this one tour. And I know that we toured in the southwest. And I think we sold out of the kraut pretty quickly. I'm trying to remember who made the label, I don't know if Themba made the label and it doesn't. . .  I can picture it, it doesn't look like a Themba design. Some friends made the label. It was very cute. Yes, true story. But I didn't make it. Alex made it.

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Ali Baker:  

All right. Was that the prelude to Oly Kraut? Maybe?

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Mirah:

Yes, Oly Kraut didn't exist, I don't think when I had Come on Mirah kraut made by Alex.

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Ali Baker:  

So the other question is, can you tell me a little bit about the cafe, the Red Horse cafe?

‍

Mirah:

Yeah. Um, I am not going to remember the exact year but it was actually before. . . it was probably around ‘97. Um, I had two friends,  one of the friends who was in the Driver's with me, Molly Bergdorf and our friend Christine Manu. I think one of them lived at the Track House. But they started the Secret Cafe that was like the first,  it was like The Secret Cafe. And it happened at the track house, it was once a week. And I helped do that with them a bunch of times. I was like involved with that project. And it was really fun. I was living with my close friend Ariana Jacob, in an apartment above, above the Olympia fireplace store, which I'm not sure if it's still that but right on Fourth Avenue.

So we lived in the apartment above there. And I, I think I think it was right around the time that I wanted to quit working at Dancing Goats and I wanted to focus on music. But I still had to pay rent, even though we lived in Olympia and it was 199, so rent was so cheap!  I think our rent for the apartment was like $400 total, or maybe less. It might have been $350 total. But for like a quite underemployed couple of best friends that was like money that we still had to come up with. And so we decided to have a weekly cafe in our apartment, and it was called the Red Horse cafe. And we ran it every Sunday for a year and a half. We got tables and chairs.  And so every Sunday, we would kind of push my bed and we had the screen, we'd like make the biggest,  I kind of lived in the living room but it pushed it aside. So it was sort of like a big living room,  dining room area filled with tables and chairs. And we had a different menu every week. And I mean, what's amazing about Olympia at that time also is like  . .  .  the actual red horse, it was a lamp that our friend Khaela Maricich, she's the band The Blow. She made this paper, it was a wireframe horse covered with red paper. And with a light bulb inside that was the red horse. So like Khaela made the horse, all of the menus. Different friends would make the menu every week. And they were beautiful that like, Forrest Martin, Kenneth Mroczek, Jen Kliese, Khaela Maricich, Amber Bell, like Nikki [McClure] might have made a menu like, you know, friends made these beautiful menus that we'd photocopy and then each table would have them. Different options every week.  We had like a tiny little kitchen with an electric stove. And somehow, I mean, we fed like, between 25 and 50 people.  Like 25 and 50 meals every Sunday. And we would go to the Olympia library to the cookbook shelf, because we were constantly looking for new recipes. We were always trying things that we've never even heard of before. Like, that's also something wonderful about like being in your 20s. Like, I can't even pronounce the name of this dish and I'm going to make it for 50 people right now. And I think the cost of a meal was $4.50. I think we charged $4.50.  Maybe it was $5. But you know, we were punks and we were like not going to charge, we had to be accessible and accessible amount of money. And it actually didn't pay our rent. And so then I was able to focus on music and you know, stop working at the cafe.

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Ali Baker :

I love that. I keep saying that. I love that. I love that. But I do. I remember hearing a lot about secret cafes back in the day when I first moved to Olympia. Like there's a lot of secret cafes going on.

‍

Mirah:

What's funny is that idea ended up, I mean, maybe it was a different thing. But you know that I feel like maybe in the last 10 years people have I think maybe it's like before the pandemic, probably a pretty negative impact on people having little restaurants and their houses. But, you know, along with kraut and some other things people, the ante sort of like the ante was up on people's food skills, food making skills.  You know, now it's like, if you're like, oh, yeah, I make sourdough bread at home.  It's like, you have the book and you follow all 200 pages of the instructions about how to make the world's best sourdough bread. I feel like when I was in my 20s, and in Olympia, we would go to the library and pick some dish that we never heard of and make it for 50 people. It was great. Everybody loved it. Everything worked out. No pressure. It didn't have to be Instagrammable.  There was no Instagram. It was a wonderful time. We had wonderful times and those times are over and we didn't Instagram about it. It's okay.

‍

Mirah:

Kanako Wynkoop made a short film. And there is footage of the Red Horse cafe, I think time lapse footage. And I don't have a copy of that. But I'm sure you're in Olympia. So you could find  that movie, if you want to.

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Ali Baker:  

Yeah, I know. Kanako is another person that would love to interview

‍

Mirah:

Oh, totally.

‍

Ali Baker:  

Yeah. There's just so many great things.

‍

Mirah:

Has she still? Is she in Olympia? I don’t know.

‍

Ali Baker:  

I'm not sure I'm in Tacoma now. So I'm not exactly sure who's in Olympia right now. Yeah. I think so. As far as I know.

‍

Mirah:

We, you know, at least stayed vaguely in touch for many years. But the pandemic really, you know, I used to travel through many places, like at least once a year, sometimes two or three times a year because of touring, playing shows, other travel. And so I wasn't always great at keeping in touch, like, over phone or email, or certainly not letters, but I kept in touch with people because I traveled, I saw people.   And not spending three years not really traveling has definitely impacted all of my relationships that kind of relied on that contact. It was like too many for me to figure out like, oh, now I'm gonna have like, email correspondence with all the hundreds of people I used to just like, see a couple times a year, and we'd hang out, and catch up and it was great, you know?

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Ali Baker:  

Um, well, I really want to thank you for, you know, sitting down with me for a couple hours today and sharing all of these amazing stories and you know, your art and, you know, thank you for all the music over the years. Is there anything that you're working on right now, and you want to talk about?

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Mirah:

I'm like, so slowly working on a new record. It's glacial. But, you know, there have been like, the, like, for me personally, the like, combined impact of like, having a kid and then, like, right at the time when it was like, oh, now I'm gonna start to have time again. Then it was the pandemic. So it's been a weird time for me. With my, around my work, for sure. And that's felt sad. And like, off, it feels off. But the truth is that I think the next record is, at least in terms of its, like my generation of it,  a little more similar to my first record, where there's no timeline, and I didn't know I was making a record. And then at some point, it was like, Oh, right. Ok,  these songs, let's put them together. Let people hear them. So, you know, like, that's gonna, that's the journey of this next project I've had. I've had only, I think, five. I haven't toured since the pandemic. I've played one off shows.

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Ali Baker:  

Yeah, you played with Lori Goldston recently, right? What was that?

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Mirah:

We had a great show, that was December. So at this point, it was a while ago. I have a show in DC in May. But that's what it's been like. It's like, you know, maybe they're just sort of sporadic one offs.

And yeah, really this time was disruptive and hard for people, certainly hard for my creativity.

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Ali Baker:  

Yeah. I'm gonna stop recording now. But yeah, thank you so much, Mirah. You are incredible. And I thank you for doing this interview with me.

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Mirah:

Yeah, thanks. It's been great. And I'm glad we finally did it.

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