Ashleigh Still and Nick Salisbury

we met @ plum's in st. paul on an open mic sunday night. i wrote songs more often than i exercised and nearly as often as i ate. he listened, watched my left hand and played along. i wrote a song while experimenting with my guitar called "too bad". it was a simple bass line with some wood thumping and i tried it at plum's. nick joined in about midway through the song. it was fun. it worked. and when we finished i asked him if next time, he would play it and let me just sing. and so it began. ...

we met @ plum's in st. paul on an open mic sunday night. i wrote songs more often than i exercised and nearly as often as i ate. he listened, watched my left hand and played along. i wrote a song while experimenting with my guitar called "too bad". it was a simple bass line with some wood thumping and i tried it at plum's. nick joined in about midway through the song. it was fun. it worked. and when we finished i asked him if next time, he would play it and let me just sing. and so it began. then, my world turned upside down. inside out. like i was pushed off the edge a moment before i was ready to jump. i shamelessly became broken mess... all the while nick's brain was cranking out delightfully interesting bass-only arrangements for some of my songs. we started rehearsing a few times a month... the 10 minutes e/o week @ plum's always worked magically but we both recognized the potential experience that practice would reward us with... so i hauled my kids and he hauled his bass to a church in st. paul a few times a month. an hour or so, working on our "duo" songs. bada bing bada boom. we decided to make a record. 5 watt studios. caleb garn. i have "stillsbury & the girthquake" scribbled on a few of my notes from tracking sessions. we recorded some of them together, with only our intuition to guide the tempo. those were my favorite. to be honest, i couldn't bear to listen to any of the album while we were recording it. nick's bass parts blew me away... but my vox sounded like sub-par "she's a writer, not a singer" pathetic blather. it wasn't until a few weeks ago (when i received the freshly mastered copy from tom garneau) that i could actually listen. and i did. all the way through. it was like reading through an old diary. it hurt. i was able to step outside myself (for those 30.3 minutes) and realize that what was captured on the record is honest, accurately imperfect. i was barely breathing and you can tell :) torn utterances of a fragile voice being carried by the strength and brilliance of a bass guitar. it has been a wonderful experience and i lovelovelove the freedom that is bestowed upon me each time we play a show together... he plays that bass like a mo-fo and i can sing exactly what i feel. its dreamy and fulfilling. i'm grateful for nick salisbury. nick, write something. :)