I’ve had a hankering to try this one out and my bandmates have indulged me. This is us goofballs taking our first stab at Faith the other day down south.

This song has a surprising amount of lyrics.

Xx

T

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Starting to figure out how this song lives live in our four piece. Touring with sweet Lord Huron on the east coast now. More from me soon!

Xx

T

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Dear Friends:

I am so thrilled to share Fossils with you.

You may remember a call out asking for recordings of you singing along with me a few months back. Many thanks to all who sent - it was for this song, you are on at the end!

I wanted an ocean of voices, reckoning and revelling together, shouting Full embrace! Kiss that face! Don’t just handshake the body who loves you. Fossils is about the ongoing work of staying open to love, and moving away from self-protection. Thank you for helping remind me of what beauty and solace we have in each other. I can’t wait to sing this song with you live.

Thank you for listening and watching. Hope to see you soon!

xx

Thao

Summary: There Was a Crime!

Intro to cover:

Somebody’s Crying by Chris Isaak:

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I haven’t played When We Swam live in ages and ages. Was thinking about bringing it back for our June run with Lord Huron, but a tad slower and with me singing in a lower register, maybe a touch more wizened sounding. (Couldn’t help it if I wanted to ;)

If you can make it out to any of these shows in June let me know what I should try to include in the set.

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thank you as always for listening and supporting.

Sending all my dazed by the world befuddled best.

x

t

Hello and welcome to my version of multi media!

*In the above voice memo I forgot to tell you about the first time I got to open for Lucinda and the nervous bug I was when I spoke to her… was essentially me talking well above my indoor voice (extremely rare) greeting her repeatedly saying HI HELLO HI and then staring at the ground between our feet and mumbling variations of “ thankyousomuchforeverythingyou’veevermadeyouchangedmylife” and scurrying out of there before she could say anything because my system couldn’t sustain vibrating at that level one second longer.

The second time I opened for her we were in an elevator together after the show at the Lincoln Center and I tried to think of something the entire ride up to the roof after “hello great show!” but then the doors opened and that was it.

I left the kettle bell in the photo because I want you to know I’m getting jacked for tour.

ok fine it’s for midline stability.

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Hello all!

The last few weeks have been beautifully busy as I start gearing up for new album release and summer touring. We have shot two music videos, one of which entailed me dancing more than I ever have. I love dancing so much and every time I do something like this for work I wonder why I am not doing it more for general life enjoyment.

Dancers are incredible and I will always maintain that they as artists have the most direct line to the universe.

I am always a little nervous performing with professional dancers but I have found that it is the perfect amount of empowering and inspiring if your choreographer (bless them) can meet you were you’re at and you are allowed to just do what you can and then switch to whatever comes naturally while said dancers handle the actual choreography.

Just a snippet from one of our rehearsals:

AMAZING DANCERS I can’t wait for you to see them in action: Matty Barry, Zach Jot, Jin Lee Baobei, Mindy Ng.

Absolute dream creative team: Sarah Jaffe (cinematographer) Alana Lowe (producer) Linda Mai Green (director,also made the video for Marrow) Jas Lin (choreographer)

In between takes I asked the dancers to help me film a birthday video for my friend’s six year old. This is not the whole song as I wanted to keep it special for the kid, also you know how the rest goes.

Hair and make up with Carla Farjado. Hand tied top by one of my absolute favorite lines Kaarem.

photo by Romain Thomassin

my new greeting stance. will only be moving through the world with synced entourage from here on out.

xx

t

As it was originally conceived.

Hi friends I wanted to share a slowed down more introspective version of this song with you

1. Because that is how I’m feeling

2. Because I just remembered 2 weeks ago I very much enjoy playing slide guitar

3. Because I originally wrote Nobody Dies (from A Man Alive) on slide and remembered that two weeks ago as well

• safe to say pre- frontal cortex was poppin 2 weeks ago

Stay strong and together out there

Xx

t

Hello friends!

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* a photo I took of the East River the last time I was in NYC. Close to Brooklyn. Brooklyn—> Paul Simon.. etc.

Just came across this cover I recorded almost ten years ago.

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Hello all-

I wanted to hear more about what was happening in Minneapolis at length to help ground what I’m seeing in clips. Maybe you want or need that as well? I don’t know about you but when I’m panicked and heartsick it really helps me to listen to movement organizers and facilitators speak in calm even tones about what is truly happening on the ground, what we can do, what we definitely should not do, and what has already been happening for ages.

***

https://endoftheworldshow.org/episodes/an-emergency-dispatch-from-occupied-minneapolis-intense-frightening-surreal-and-inspiring

***

I have such love in my heart for Minneapolis, always a gift to get to visit and perform there. It has always been one of my favorite cities to tour through and learn from. Thinking of everyone there who is showing up and showing out regardless of the very real fear they feel. Such remarkable examples of community and organizing happening there and in so many other cities, showing us what it will take in every city.

Much gratitude to How to Survive the End of the World Podcast hosted by Autumn Brown and adrienne maree brown (you can support their work here) and my friend Merrill for bringing their voices into my life.

xx

t

Hi all-

Performing Temple is always emotional for me but to do so bolstered by such a beautifully expressive and emotive orchestra… whew boy

*arranged by Minna Choi

Sending my best hope you have a great weekend!

x

t

As always, thank you so much for your support, more soon.

xx

t

xx

t

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Hello all! A couple weeks ago I participated in SF’s annual Litquake festival via the Songwriter Podcast hosted by Ben Arthur. Author Viet Thanh Nguyen (The Sympathizer, The Committed, Refugees, Nothing Ever Dies, a lot of great books) was invited to invite a songwriter to write a song based on his latest release To Save and To Destroy: Writing As An Other and he asked if I would, which of course I would and did.

We were joined in discussion by Dr. Russell Jeung, a professor of Asian American Studies, and founder of Stop AAPI Hate. I so appreciate his work, and Viet’s as well.

The song is inspired by a mention of Viet’s mother having not yet appeared to him in his dreams in his last chapter, The Joy of Otherness.

“… I take comfort in Thích Nhất Hạnh’s words about his own mother’s death: “for the first four years after she died, I felt like an orphan. Then one night she came to me in a dream, and from that moment on, I no longer felt her death as a loss. My mother has visited my brother in a dream, bringing him comfort, but she has never come to me, another mystery I do not understand.”

I was imagining she does appear- but because I didn’t know her and I don’t know anything of their relationship I imbued the messaging with what I’d want my own mother (to clarify she is still with us on this earth and I am so lucky for it) to say to me. It’s the voice of a mother figure composite who has had time to reflect on what she taught and modeled by virtue of extreme calamity and necessity, versus what she wished for herself and her children beyond safety and security, and what else she might still wish for them, had they the luxury of being out from under the dragnet of geopolitical whim. I want this mother figure to say your inheritance is more than just wanting baseline rest and safety.

Viet’s explorations regarding the joy of otherness reminded of this passage from the book I’m working on. I’ve shared this before, because it is a memory to which I am always looking to return. I include references to this passage and imagery in the song because to me those dancing evenings epitomized the joy of otherness.

The dance halls. I’ll call them dance halls because they were so much more than a temporary sheet-vinyl dance floor in the Harvest Moon Restaurant or someone’s cleared
basement. However I can remember the dancing, I will. Sweet memories are not about
accuracy, they are about safe harbor. You keep them well maintained and embellished as
needed so you can steal away from time to time.
I remember being eye level with waists and torsos. Thin leather belts, fabric swishing.
Curves. Panty-hosed legs and low heels. Hips. Graceful, manicured fingers resting lightly onstrong, scrubbed hands. Strobe lights from Party City and disco ball refractions swinging through the room, catching sequins from dresses bought at Macy’s or Nordstrom’s or Filene’s Basement. Smiling, cackling, levity. Forlorn yet soaring notes, bright, resonant snares.

Stateless men and women with varying degrees of fight still left in them, whom I knew
personally, were free and joyful, out from under memory and worry for the evening.

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First:

The score for AMONGST THE DISQUIET (a project I’ve mentioned here before), my film collaboration with filmmaker/multi-media artist Tuan Andrew Nguyen (who just won a MacArthur last week bravo my friend!) and producer Marion Ngoc Hill — featuring songs and prose I wrote specifically for the film. AMONGST THE DISQUIET recounts the story of the bonds within a multi-generational Vietnamese family in New Orleans, exploring the intertwining of migration and memory, home and history, land and water. The film premiered at Prospect 6 New Orleans and is now globe trotting, currently in exhibit at the São Paulo Biennial.

Second:

The 15-year anniversary remastered edition of KNOW BETTER LEARN FASTER, via sweet and dear Kill Rock Stars. KBLF is to date my only heartbreak album. Included with the vinyl is a handwritten letter to you from me, dotted with reflection and seizing the opportunity to say now what I couldn’t say then, namely: it’s a heartbreak album about a woman!

I’m so happy to revisit it with you, and I’m so happy I’m still here.

You can pre-order these records as a bundle (or individually!) on my webstore, along with a limited selection of merch from the KBLF era.

As a thank you to Substack subscribers we are offering a 10% discount on everything besides the bundle through Sunday evening. Just use THAOSUB10 upon checking out.

Thank you for being open to this vinyl commercial.

More soon,

t

Friends we are near, very near the album finish line.

All I need is your help on a group vocal section, if I may be so bold and you might be so inclined.

I even recorded a video to explain:

And my mgmt (thanks Sean and Caleb!) even made a landing page on the website, so you know we are serious and your efforts will not be for naught.

CLICK HERE to intertwine our destinies:

As always, as ever, thank you for your support.

xx

t

see you in the streets

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Hello all-

I’m preparing for an event next week wherein I will share photos that inspired some of the lyrics to the song “Temple”- I know I alluded to them in April but I didn’t properly put lyric to photo. Actual photos (my mom working in Laos for the South Vietnamese embassy) directly inspiring literal lyrics hadn’t happened before and hasn’t happened since so let us mark the moment in time and take the win when we can.

Look at this one/ I want you to see/ fashion was high, my hair was so long /this was maybe 73

**ok actually maybe was ‘74 but I needed the rhyme

I lost my city in the prime of my time/ mud silk and the dust of life

I was a diamond of the embassy/ It doesn't matter what I meant to be

You know I have been adored by good and kind men/ they sent their love with poetry/By day I gave grand speeches/ At night like you/We danced to be free

**related/unrelated- my mom raised me to fear the sun as I should a righteous god and as I get older I’m trying to make her proud in this way as well, not just through my refusal to live in one place for over 2 years.

Hidden Girl Summer Re-Cap:

yours,

t

ps. Do you have a photo of your life you’d like to share with us in the comments? By ‘photo of your life’ I mean one that carries the gravity not only of the memory but the stubborn energy of something more to be done. These photos of my mom hovered and whirred in my consciousness for over twenty years before I found the right way to honor them. Perhaps sharing can help jog or activate the thing you need to mark/ create around.

Or if you just want to share how you protect from the sun that is also extremely welcome.

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I like to meander on the piano in the mornings and I wanted to share with you in case you found it meditative, as I do. I put a black and white filter on as though that would dull the edge of vulnerability. I should have also worn a hoodie! :)

I want to better formalize and strengthen my foundation on piano which means learning actual form and songs and practicing scales and building chords properly and learning more theory and noodling less. I could meander all day but then I don’t (as has been made clear to me) actually improve in the ways I want. As such I’m keeping my wanderings limited to the morning, because piano time is finite.

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