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entertaining u newspaper: your monthly guide to entertainment
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by bella chow
Local singer-songwriter Crystal Stafford recently moved to Los Angeles after years spent plying her trade in Hawaii and Jacksonville, bringing bassist Jared May along with her. Her first album, In through the Wires, brought her as far as New York, with good response all around. Her new album, Love Affair, is a collaboration with DJ Catharsis and Phil Greene from PC Synergy, and it is soon to be released. She can also be heard on the Om Chilled compilation CD. EU recently spoke with her about her move and her plans for the immediate future.
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EU: How long had you been planning your move? That is, when did you decide that you were definitely going?
Crystal Stafford: I decided that it was definitely time for me to move around December. I had a lot of places going through my head - Portland, New York, San Fran, Los Angeles. I decided it would definitely be LA in April.
EU: What, for you, is the specific appeal of LA, as opposed to NYC, where many of our friends are?
CS: There are a lot of reasons I chose LA. I have spent a lot of time in New York and I love it. It’s a great city. But it’s cold, dirty, and grey. For someone who has only lived in Hawaii and Florida, I think New York would have been a shock to my system. I love warm weather and I love to surf so LA was a better fit. I think LA is a much better scene for my music as well. My new album, Love Affair (coming out in the fall -with Jared, Jeremy, Zac doing instrumentation and Phil Greene of PC Synergy doing beats and lots of other stuff) is more upbeat, positive, electronic music.
Also, as you know, I love yoga and there’s a lot of great things happening in the yoga scene here AND there are vegetarian and vegan restaurants on every block! It’s paradise! Another reason—I didn’t know anyone here. I love moving to places where I don’t know anyone. I really wanted to focus on myself and it’s easiest to do that when there’s no one there expecting things of you. Plus I needed to make some west coast connections.
EU: Could you imagine ever making NE FL your home base again? If not, why?
CS: My family has been in Jacksonville for generations. It IS my home base. As far as living there full time again, not in the foreseeable future. I’ve spent most my life there. I like to see and experience new things. And I LOVE CALIFORNIA! It’s the perfect place for me right now.
EU: What could this region to do avoid losing people like you in the years to come?
CS: Jacksonville is beautiful and great. It’s just not a center for music and art. There’s a lot of great music coming out of the place and it’s definitely possible to make things happen from there, I just felt that it was time for me to move on personally. I wanted to be in a place where things were really moving and happening all around me.
EU: How are you enjoying LA? More importantly, how is LA enjoying you?
CS: It surprises me everyday how much I love LA. I live in Santa Monica, 3 blocks from the beach and walking distance to lots of healthy, conscious and sustainable businesses and restaurants. There’s a farmers market every Sunday a few blocks away from me that is going for zero waste. They compost and recycle almost every bit of trash they produce. It’s such a progressive community. They even have a Green Map displaying all the green businesses. I knew that LA was more health conscious and environmentally conscious, but I didn’t expect people to be as nice as they are. I have met some truly genuine great people here.
As far as how LA is enjoying me, I haven’t played live yet. I took a month off to do a lot of yoga and some reconnecting. But Jared [May] just arrived three days ago (I found out right before I left that he was moving out too. He wanted to surprise me but somebody leaked the info to me). So we’ve been working on getting the live performance of our new stuff tight. I’ll probably start booking gigs really soon.
However, I walked into my yoga studio and noticed that they sell the OM Chilled compilation that I’m featured on - I think that’s a good sign :)
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EU Critic’s Choice Awards
