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Mia Doi Todd autobiographical notes (continued)...

I fell out of choral groups and theater

and into late night songwriting somewhere in 1994.

I played in bands:

a year of electric guitar, distortion pedals, and inaudible vocals,

a year of standing behind a drumset, dancing with sticks.

And I played alone. That seems to be what sticks.

I performed often,

sometimes in a bar,

sometimes in a club,

sometimes in a coffeeshop,

sometimes in a chapel,

sometimes in a subterranean squash court,

sometimes in a parade,

sometimes in a play,

sometimes in a movie,

sometimes in costume,

sometimes in tattoos,

sometimes incognito.

On Halloween of 1996, I released a vinyl single, "digging and planting."

And in March of 1997, Xmas records, an indie label in L.A.,

issued my first album, "the ewe and the eye."

I graduated from Yale a couple months later.

I had spent one semester an astronomy major,

but finished in East Asian Studies with a focus on Japan.

I wrote my senior thesis on an esoteric Japanese modern dance,

Ankoku Butoh, and its founder, Hijikata Tatsumi,

and received a fellowship to go to Japan for 1998

to continue my research.

I moved to New York City for six months,

playing shows all over the place

with Lou Barlow and John Davis

and the Mountain Goats and Elliott Smith.

I recorded my second album, "come out of your mine,"

that fall in a chapel in New Haven.

On New Year's Eve, I was in Tokyo

and would be for the next nine months.

I studied dance and performance art

with Kazuo Ohno and Min Tanaka.

I sat in subway stations watching the people and the trains go by.

I went to clubs where the music sounded different from what I knew.

I met interesting people.

I made drawings.

I performed.

I wrote many songs.

Now I live in Los Angeles again.

Lately I've been sewing, making all my own clothes,

and playing music.

I recently sang some backup vocals

on the Folk Implosion album due out this year.

"come out of your mine" comes out this May on the Communion label.

I hope you enjoy it.

I'll be performing,

perhaps somewhere near you.

Please come.

Mia Doi Todd

February 13, 1999

solo performances/discography / lyrics and drawings from "Come Out Of Your Mine"

back to the Communion label homepage / back to page one of Mia's autobiographical notes