The Ilya Faire (which was on August 16th in LA to promote Tara Vanflower's new illustrated novel, Lives of Ilya) was - well, annoying that all these women got together in one place and hardly anyone came. "When will they play live?" then they do and no one comes,"I missed it due to this and that, when will they play live?..."

Dark Muse was so very, very cool, layers upon layers of sound and voice... Tara Vanflower was in her classic doll self (there are live vids on her link), and she brought Mike (Lycia) on stage with her - signature sounds, so good to see them. Jarboe was intense and beautiful, she did mainly spoken word, with Kris Force on electronics and instrument. People talking through these first three sets - not realizing what was before them but surely they will say "Oh, I was there" to others who missed out. For my quick set, William and Geoff, (AM/new F&TM drummer) played tribal drums (nice and loud to blast out the place), and Crispin (AM/new F&TM bassist) played bass. I blasted through "In Answer", "Death..." and "I Am Warrior" and then hopped back down. Eva O. came on with acoustic guitar, classic! Then we were forced to go, we had a 2 hour drive to make, and missed out on Veronika's Siouxsie Tribute, but Geoff and Crispin stayed and said it was so awesome! I wished I had seen it.

Great to see old friends and hang out, fun to do some InfraWarrior live, in that I am satisfied. Photos by Vincent.

New F&TM Songs in my head, we begin work at the end of this year... We plan to play live next year, Europe, UK and the U.S.! Meanwhile, Anafae Book 2 is almost done, and we can release the series in color!

There is a terrible place out in the Mojave desert of California, where Animal Acres and others have just rescued tons of animals. The place was run by a serious scoundrel from Hell who hoarded ruthlessly (he has since disappeared though someone came by the night before and poured gasoline in the dogs' water tank) - farm animals and dogs were paired male to female, thus keeping them all pregnant, though where the babies went who knows??? Today we rescued one of the 200 dogs they found, a very tired and frightened girl. She seems to be a Chorgi - Chow and Corgi.

So here she is, Zendra, with Geoff, Anima Mundi's drummer, (who is the main coordinator of the dog part of the rescue) - bringing her out of the hell of this place into our arms, and a photo of her neck wounds - her collar had been fused to her neck as it was on so tight and for too long. She's at the vet for a few days getting checked out and spayed though it is clear she has had a few litters! We named her Zendra because she was quite Zen in the hour and a half car drive to the vet.

Here is a news article on the story.

More info on the farm animals, which included over 50 sheep and goats, as well as pigs, a pregnant horse, ducks and geese, chickens - (many of the birds found dead in dog runs) and even more:
Animal Acres (click on Emergency Rescue):

and from Gentle Barn, who is also involved in rescuing the farm animals and dogs.

Many people have seen this painting on the cover of the "Annwyn, Beneath the Waves" CD, but most have never noticed the cat in the picture... The cat is Tish.

I am writing this right now while Tish still lives, having made the excruciating decision to take her in tomorrow and let her go... I am writing this now as I won't have the strength after she is gone... She is 20 years old now, has kidney failure, hypothyroid, and the fluids that we are giving her every night are now pooling into her feet, signifying the beginning of heart failure. She is a tiny little bag of bones now and can barely walk. She is tired and has had enough of all the poking and prodding we've had to do over the last few months. I am hoping it will warm up enough today to let her go and sit in the grass for a bit...

There are cats and there are furry people. Those who know cats well know what I mean...

I received Tish and her brother on December 7th, 1987. They were about 5 to 6 weeks of age. I named them Morticia and Gomez. We had 2 cats at the time, and while Gomez sat trembling on the bed as the adults hissed at them, Tish merely looked at them dryly and went to sleep. She knew who she was from day one. Tish had been given a mohawk and had all her whiskers cut off by her previous owner, hence why I took the kittens right away. Even with those things done to her, she had no fear of anything or anyone. She was unlike any other cat I had known, or have known since.

Tish, also known as Mish, Mishy-wish, Tishy-fish and all words ending with '-ish', grew up to be an amazingly beautiful cat. She was very independent, but she and I were very connected. She was queen of all she surveyed, and leader of the cats. She came and curled up with me the night my sister died, this was the first night she did that, and she slept with me every night afterwards. She would wait for me every morning, kiss me on the lips before I left, and always greeted me as soon as I walked through the door. When I moved to California in 1993, I was forced to deal with giving my other cats away, but Tish I could not part with. She and her brother weren't close at all anymore, so I didn't feel badly about breaking them up. Gomez lived happily with a new owner, as did the others. I took Tish on the plane, and she fought tooth and nail in her 'flight-sized certified' tiny carrier, the sedative given to me by the vet hardly took effect. Angry businessmen turned and glared at me throughout the flight as she hollered to be let out. By the time we landed in LA, her paws were bloody from the ordeal, but as soon as I got her to her new home, she curled up on the couch and went to sleep as if nothing happened. She was totally fearless of new situations, new places and very open to meeting people. Tish is actually personally responsible for turning William's mother and sisters onto just how cool cats are. The previously dog-only family all now have cats as well as dogs and adore them.

Tish's first meeting with a dog went quite well, in fact she figured dogs out quickly, and had no fear of them. Even now, weak and unstable, she doesn't even fear our Basset Hound sniffing her down. She's actually enjoyed messing with them over the years, which I illustrated in a little book I started for her. In fact, Tish was the reason I started drawing cats in the first place, and was the inspiration for The Cat Queen and the style of folk art drawing that I love to do...

While we recorded Annwyn, we stayed at our engineer's place, who was allergic to cats, so I was forced to board Tish in a great free-roaming kennel called The Cat House. When we came to visit her, we learned that Tish had made herself queen of the place, and the woman who owned the facility told us that Tish was the reincarnation of an old movie star. I couldn't agree more. The Faith and the Muse song, "In Dreams of Mine" was written for Tish, which is a big favorite of our fans. I currently have that on my Myspace page... To the left, Tish has loved to rub against this stone kitty candle-holder, like a goddess blessing her people. It's one of my favorite pix of her.

Over the years, we have rescued many more cats and kittens, and Tish, who hated to have others around at first, has still been Queen of them all. And Sugar, our reformed cat-killer dog, once got locked up in her den with Tish by mistake (Tish had gone in there to take a nap), and when we got home, Sugar and Tish stood happily side by side, waiting to be let out. She was Queen. I know everyone in the house understands how weak she is now, no one gets in her way as she tries to get through her days.

December 3rd: It's morning now and she made it through another night - barely. I did get her to spend a couple nice hours outside and took a few photos. We're on the way, but I know she is more than ready. I thought last night about her life, when she was younger, she used to love to lie in my arms on her back next to me in the mornings, purring away - much like how she is in the Annwyn Painting. I also remembered the 20" shoe lace she ate when she was about 3 months old, and we had to carefully tug it out the other end! (That was before I knew only a vet should do that!) I also thought of the period when she was addicted to Animal Planet and we had to put a special chair in front of the TV for her so she could watch her shows.

I want to thank Dr. Habib, Dr. Massenzio, Claudia Silva and everyone at Best Friends Animal Hospital for all the love and care they've given Tish over the years.

What can I say? The problem between "I want to hear your beautiful music and don't want to be preached to" was at the forefront of our minds throughout the Ars Terra tour. William and I are overall in writing mode, and we hope to take F&TM out of the 'old era' and into something new. At the moment, we seem to be a jukebox for romantic goth sentiment, and speaking to goths overall about ecology - and animals - we had very down and very up moments. From a man at one show more unhappy that I wore a suit "instead of the beautiful gowns, I came all this way and wanted to see the beauty along with the music, and this suit does not fit with the beauty of the music..." to a young girl telling me "I had no idea you lived your life this way and it makes me love you all the more..." - The biggest reaction has been "I just never thought about how my choices in my own life mattered to the world," but they do. Every store you choose to spend money in, every fast food order you make, every choice in goods you make brings money to those receiving it. Try to buy your food at local markets, buy your goods at local stores, not national chains, try to feed your local economy, and let those you give your money know what you want.

We both spent much of the evening talking to fans, and of course the main question is "when will you do a new CD???" - but are they ready for a new CD? Are they ready for us to speak our minds more, to try to wake people up? Meanwhile, I am working on the DVD, so we will see what happens over the next few months.

We had many incredible experiences, here are just a few:

Amsterdam... The ship and such a cool area! We performed on the MS Stubnitz, which has been a roaming nightclub for over 15 years. It docks throughout Europe and then opens its doors to touring bands. The boat has been remade for this, stage and backstage, bars on 2 floors, and we had our rooms there as well. They made us fantastic Vegan food, overall it was one of the neatest placest we've played. The current dock in Amsterdam was taken over by DIY eco-artists, the night before we got there they had had an international industrial art show, so the place was deserted, remnants of art pieces everywhere. There were pubs made out of old cargo units and found materials, people had made homes out of old train cars and an entire row of apartments under the launch ramp. And in the middle of it all, an alternative energy station, one side is Veggie Oil, the other for Electric Car recharge. Wow!

Beatrice of Crockmore... One of the very coolest people on this tour was the lovely Beatrice, who owns a little club, Crockmore, in Perpignan, France. She owns it, she runs the sound and lights, she runs the bar, cooks the food and has the greatest attitude. She is also a big vegetarian, which we found to be very unusual in France - (at one point, we ended up at a Texas steakhouse in Lyon when nothing else was open, and they told us they 'had not the freedom' to make us a special meal, so we ate dried out baked potatoes and corn salad) - and we talked a great deal about this. But the biggest thing for us was her old dog, Pitu, who she rescued out of an abusive home. We saw in her a kindred spirit and someone we will know for years. She donated to Ars Terra, and we will name an animal after her when we get the sanctuary going. Left to Right, William, Patty of Mother Dance, Beatrice, and me.

Lithuania - With numerous fly dates, we had the closest call of our lives landing in Lithuania in terrible weather late at night, winds blasting and full fog. The plane knocked back and forth at full angles dipping left then right then left and was unable to land - instead it picked up pace and went back up in the sky. My knees were knocking and hands shaking, and a young stewardess ran freaking out through the plane as one person had a heart attack in the back of the plane and one person threw up all over their seat in the front. It took three tries before we landed, and the actual landing was torturous. Once down, we had to sit in our seats and wait for the ambulances to arrive - which was fine as I was unable to walk right away. As we finally did leave the plane, I hugged the pilot, he said "Eh, it is nothing." I wrote a song during that ordeal, we'll see how it expands...

Somehow, we brought in a cold North wind into the country, and it was too cold to even be able to walk through Vilnius the next day, though we could see it was a gorgeous town. Our promoters were wonderful, they took us to a Veggie restaurant built in a medieval cave - full of students and alternative people. We performed at a pub that completely packed out for our set, and everyone was so warm and friendly. Great love and thanks to Tadas, Dominykas and the Decadentia crew!

Here are some random things.

We stopped as often as we could at the Marché Market autobahn stops, as they serve organic food and veggie choices. We even drove all day through France to get to the Marché just over the border! To the right is a great meal I had, with a home-made veg burger. A perfect image to answer the constant question :"What do you guys eat???"

In some countries, you can choose whether you'd like a traditional toilet seat or a hole in the floor with a chain! Yay!!! A nice compost toilet would smell much better!! (Seriously...)

Chemtrails everywhere... I took quite a few photos of the sky while we were out, and the chemtrails were over every country we visited. I was most surprised to see them over Zurich, they were terribly thick there and I wondered why Switzerand allowed military planes to cover their skies... Whatever the reasoning behind them, they are indeed worldwide and no one but no one notices them, or cares when you point them out. "Oh, those are from planes, they are nothing..."

Our love and thanks to Patty of Mother Dance, she takes care of every detail and looks after us, we would never be able to do this without her!!! And love and thanks also to Sean, our driver and merch guy, who made us laugh hard at all the silliness
around us every night! Also love to all of our promoters, from DJ Psyche in London, who made us fantastic Vegan food, to Dina and the crew in Madrid, to everyone who came out to the shows - we thank you for having us!

Ars Terra... Having received word that the land we had been hoping for is being sold to another buyer has been beyond disappointing. The owner was very interested in our plans, but it is always down to money, and we were nowhere near the funds we need to put down on land. BUT, what this has done is put the fire under us for Ars Terra, and do the fundraising FIRST so that when the land comes to us, we are ready. The land in Gorman is a Significant Ecological Area, and we did find out that it was home to cougars and black bears - thus it may be best in the end for the sanctuary not to be there... Luckily, as an SEA, Walmart and the like will not be able to build there, and we hope the buyers will take care of the land... We have fully updated the Ars Terra site to reflect our hopes and ideas for the land when we find it, (such as the visual I made at the left of the kind of barns and surroundings we will have) including examples from the Farm in Tennessee. We've met a number of people who are so beyond enthused for this project, especially about our merging of animal rescue and the eco-movement, well for us, these movements need to get to know each other. I will be singing "Like Animals" at the Animal Acres Gala on the 25th!

The ARS TERRA European Acoustic Tour

We'll be touring Europe this Fall to promote Ars Terra. We hope to raise awareness for the work we are doing, and money towards land. Poster photo by Circle 23 Photography. This will be a crazy and fun tour, and depending on the audience and mood of the evening, we plan to let them choose which songs they want to hear ('Freebird' is the one most often yelled, of course, and I have sung it!) We will hopeully come home with enough good tapings to release a live Cd from this. Dates are below:
Sept 21 ~ Zwischenfall, BOCHUM
Sep 22 ~ De Profundis, MADRID
Sep 23 ~ Sala Be Cool, BARCELONA
Sep 24 ~ Nachtleben, FRANKFURT
Sep 25 ~ M.S. Stubnitz, AMSTERDAM
Sep 28 ~ Le Romandie, LAUSANNE
Sep 29 ~ Velvet, RIMINI
Sep 30 ~ Cafe’ Atlantik, FREIBURG
Oct 2 ~ Le Crockmore, PERPIGNAN
Oct 3 ~ X-Tra, ZURICH
Oct 4 ~ Loupika, LYON
Oct 5 ~ La Scene Bastaille, PARIS
Oct 6 ~ Les Caves Lechapelais, PARIS
Oct 7 ~ The Steeple, WAREGEM
Oct 9 ~ K17, BERLIN
Oct 13 ~ Artistai, VILNIUS
Oct 14 ~ The Bull and the Gate, LONDON

It's been a very long while since I posted...

InfraWarrior is ALMOST out in the U.s. (chomping at the bit here!)

But todays news is: ANAFAE has been reviewed by a very cool comic news source!!

Writer Beth Davies-Stofka with www.brokenfrontier.com
has posted a very cool review of ANAFAE "Book One" in "The Library of Babble"

Here is the link if you'd like to see the article: http://www.brokenfrontier.com/columns/details.php?id=598


Thanks for all the support we've been getting!!

Monica and Jim