Abi Tapia's warm, wide open smile on the cover is a real good clue. Abi is a singer-songwriter whose songs veer toward joyous and upbeat parts of life even when these aren't easy. The opener, "Another State Line," is a perfect introduction. It's an autobiographical account of her peripatetic life first as the mother who raised her solo frequently had to uproot for new possibilities, and then on her own as she went to college and eventually took up the traveling life of a solo performer.

Abi's joy singing her songs is palpable. Producer Chris Gage has crafted smart, sharp, uncluttered arrangements to illuminate the songs and put air under their wings. He's the album's musical MVP as well, playing guitars, keyboards, mandolin, Dobro and percussion. Drummer Bruce Logan, Buzz Evans on pedal steel and fiddler Eleanor Whitmore completed the band all playing brightly throughout.

Abi devises happy melodies. "Flying" soars giddily. "Let The Lover Be," a celebration of a song is buoyant and loaded with smiles. "How It All Started" relates a romance with a lifelong friend the summer they both graduated high school before college separated their paths in the fall. Even the more downbeat ones can pull you in deep. "My Miner" is a wife's prayer for her man's nightly safe return. "Beware" is cautionary.

The Beauty in the Ruin is Abi Tapia's third album, all produced by Chris Gage who clearly has great simpatico with Abi. It's the first I've heard, and I really like her song craft and the rich, confident tone in her voice. She has made a lovely record that makes me feel I've found a new friend. - MT

How apt is Abi Tapia's description of her music as 'wanderlusty'. Her new album, The Beauty in The Ruin, a mature collection exploring themes of sadness and frustration, is full of planes, trains, automobiles and Greyhound buses - travellin' light, travellin' hard. Difficult to believe she hasn't been picked up by on of Nashville's majors.

****
Well-executed country-flavoured Americana

Though she's been based in Austin for the past six years, Abi Tapia has spent much of her life on the move. Following college in Iowa, she moved to Portland, Maine, where she set out on her music career. Now lined up with Chris Gage and Christine Albert her music owes more to the Texas twang than a soft New England vibe. This is a real cohesive recording, with lots of songs full of southern imagery, and songs of love and life. Some seem to be autobiographical. Another State Line is a road song based on her nomadic childhood with a restless mother and Abi's current life as a troubadour singer~songwriter.Just Let Me Go is the time-honoured theme of a child grown-up and ready ta flee the nest, and Flying was written mainly on an airplane over Louisiana looking down at the infrastructure following the hurricane.

There's also a few heartbreaking love songs. My Miner is a real great song about a wife's love and understanding of her man risking death working below ground in order to feed his family. Though encased in a mid-tempo arrangement, The Easy Way is a dark song about sinking into depression. If you listen to her words, this is so inspired, as is Beware, which puts into context the problems of this modern world, especially for the fairer sex traversing America. Alongside Abi's own acoustic guitar, Chris Gage plays guitars, keyboards, mandolin, Dobro and percussion with the rhythm section of Glenn Fukunaga (bass), Bruce Logan (drums) and sweetening from Eleanor Whitmore (violin), Buzz Evans (pedal steel). It all adds up to very fine country-flavoured Americana. AC

  LeicesterBangs.co.uk

This is the second album from this modern day troubadour and it’s a CD that’s a record (pun intended) of her life to date. The opening track "Another State Line" tells of the nomadic existence of her early life, moving from state to state. "Beware" highlights the dangers of travelling alone, especially for women. However, the killer track is the uptempo "Get It and Go" with wonderful electric guitar playing reminiscent of Mark Knopfler that lifts the song, and is the outstanding track on the album. Her first CD hit the Americana Top 40, this strong set of songs should follow suit. www.abitapia.com />Steve O.

****  "This is the third release by transplanted Texican Tapia, and it consists of an even dozen self-penned originals songs performed with a veritable who’s who of the Austin scene. Her music ranges from pensive introspection, as in the opener, “Another State Line” to an upbeat perspective on life and love, “Let the Lover Be”, with a very nice violin line, (I’m such a sucker for that instrument), by Eleanor Whitmore. Produced by long time collaborator and multi-instrumentalist Chris Gage, The Beauty in the Rain lies somewhere in between country and folk, and her lyrics bring to mind some of Mary Chapin Carpenter’s better work. Tapia exhibits more confidence and poise than in 2005’s One Foot Out the Door; I think she knows where she’s going these days." -Don Grant

"There are twelve consistently strong songs on this third disc by this husky voiced Austin based singer in what might be called a Modern Folk or Country Rock sensibility. She might well be someone who has been flying under the radar of many outside of Austin, however this disc should get her much more notice. It is solid and complete from beginning to the end, there is not a throwaway cut on it. Tapia wrote all of the tunes and more than proves her mettle as a songwriter. There is a consistent bittersweet feeling that pervades the disc but never overwhelms it. There is a power in her voice that never lets you sink into melancholia, but consistently keeps you going.

A gathering of Austin All-Stars backs Tapia and provides some of the tastiest musical excursions around without ever taking away from either the lyrics or the vocals. Producer Chris Gage contributes the guitars, keyboards, mandolin, dobro, percussion, and background vocals. He is ably assisted by Glenn Fukunaga, who provides some of the best bass lines around, Bruce Logan on drums, Eleanor Whitmore on violin, Buzz Evans on some tasty pedal steel guitar and Christine Albert and Bill Small on background vocals. With sensitivity and directness in songs like Get It and Go, Just Let Me Go, and The Last Waltz, there is little doubt that Abi Tapia is heading towards far bigger stages. This is a disc my ears don't want removed from the rotation." -Bob Gottlieb

"Bittersweet is more than an undertone in Abi Tapia's latest CD, but that's not the prevailing emotion here. Beauty weaves strong Southern influences with an old-school 1970s country-folk sensibility, mastering the understatement in her songs and avoiding cutesy-rootsy overkill with intelligence and a fine tenor on this turning-point recording." -Margaret Moser

"What stands out throughout this album, her third, is Abi Tapia's effervescent performance. Her unrequited love for singing is palpable and album producer Chris Cage has captured that aspect of her music in spades." - Arthur Wood, read more at www.Folkwax.com

"Her newest album, "The Beauty in the Ruin," has less of the overt country influence of 2005's "One Foot Out the Door." Tapia has stuck to a rootsy feel, though, and now sounds like a performer completely confident of her voice, both as a writer and a singer." - Lawrence Specker, Mobile Press -Register

moors magazine

(the Netherlands. We're working on a better translation.)

Abi Tapia - The Beauty in the Ruin

Abi Tapia zingt in haar eerste liedje op deze cd dat ze op haar zevende al voor de zevende keer verhuisde om "another State line" over te gaan. Gelukkig is ze uiteindelijk in Austin, Texas terechtgekomen, waar ze nu muziek maakt die ook klinkt alsof hij uit Texas komt, maar die haar gegoten lijkt te zitten. Country, rock, blues, je hoort het allemaal terug in een gedreven vorm van Americana. Toch is Tapia vooral ook een uitstekende singer/songwriter, met persoonlijke, sterke liedjes. Die zingt ze bovendien zelfverzekerd, met een meer dan uitstekende backing band. Zeer uitstekend dus, met als enige opmerking dat ze niet echt een heel sterk eigen geluid heeft. Echt origineel klinkt ze niet, maar is dat een bezwaar als je recht voor zijn raap pure kwaliteit levert?
 
Google translation:
Abi Tapia sings in her first song on this CD to be on its seventh won for the seventh time moved to "another State line" to proceed. Fortunately, she eventually in Austin, Texas, where she now makes music that sounds as if he comes from Texas, but its cast seems to sit. Country, rock, blues, you hear it all back in a passionate form of Americana. But Tapia is also an excellent singer / songwriter, personal, strong songs. That she sings in addition confident, with a more than excellent backing band. Very good so, with the only comment that they are not really a very strong own sound. Genuine original sounds they do not, but is it an objection if you are right to pick pure quality?

****

"Tapia brims with confidence, her delivery of her country/folk/rock material both bold and nuanced." -John Conquest, 3rd Coast Music 

"In the sensitive singer-songwriters field, a little bit of charm and a knack for melody that goes beyond meditative brooding goes a long, long way. This bodes well for Austin newcomer (by way of New England) Abi Tapia, whose fine Texas debut (and second album to date) balances its quieter moments with a refreshing sparkle reminiscent of Terri Hendrix's Wilory Farm or Shawn Colvin at her most unguarded. Tapia definitely puts her best foot forward with the winsome, breezily catchy opener "Cried Wolf," but there's plenty more hummable tunes -- both sunny and melancholy -- here to keep the rest of the album afloat, too."

-Richard Skanse, Texas Music Magazine

"Abi Tapia also just released her sophomore album, One Foot out the Door. The dozen confidently written songs weave tales of a woman assessing life and love with an uncompromising eye and sometimes bittersweet results ("Calamine Lotion," "For a While"). Produced by Chris Gage, One Foot gives Tapia a head start."

-The Austin Chronicle 

"Buy her new album, One Foot out the Door. It's full of sweet-but-confident tunes, sounds kind of like Kathleen Edwards, and gives us the chills from time to time ."

The Portland Phoenix 

Folk singer Abi Tapia may be new to Texas, but she's got the sound of a Hill County Americana local. If I didn't know she recently arrived from Maine, I'd have thought she spent years studying Susan Gibson, Terri Hendrix, and Shelley King.

She's got some high-power help on instrumentation including Kym Warner and Eamon McLoughlin (The Greencards), Glen Fukunaga and Paul Pearcy (Terri Hendrix), and Mike Hardwick (Eliza Gilkyson). But the main focus of this album is Tapia's vocals and songwriting.

Tapia shines bright during a couple of songs that have minimal instrumentation. "The Way To My Heart" which features Tapia's acoustic guitar and McLoughlin's violin is a raw and honest track. The album closer with producer Chris Gage on Dobro, "Somewhere To Go," goes a long way to showcase Tapia's vocals.

The beautiful nomadic ballad "For A While" is one of the standouts with an Allison Kraus and Union Station feel to it. "Cause I was tired for a while / Then I was scared for a while / Then I was in love for a while / With One Foot Out The Door."

"Selective Memory" is one of the more interesting love songs I've heard in a while...with a little dooby dooby do in the middle. The harmonica and piano driven "Nothing to Hold Me Down" rocks along nicely. The obligatory in Texas song "Lone Star" is nice, but seems like an unnecessary addition in this collection of tunes.

Tapia's One Foot Out The Door is a wonderful addition to any CD collection. If you've ever heard of and enjoyed any of the people or bands I've mentioned above, you'll strike gold with this album.

Insite Austin 

Virginia's Reviews
by your humble Webmaster

Abi Tapia
One Foot Out the Door (2005)


If you are one of those people (or love one of those people) who are warm, enthusiastic, quick-to-love, yet keep one foot out the door, you will find this album completely honest and emotionally dead on the mark. Tapia has written songs that are solid anthems to what she calls "loving and leaving." This must surely be the definitive album on the topic, because Tapia a master storyteller on the subject.

The tunes are down-home country, acoustic and easy-going rather than slick and over-produced. Her voice is excellent, even while slightly flawed. The musicians backing her up are top notch and the combination really works.

Every song is worthy of mention on this album, but I want to point out some of the lyrics in particular. Take "Iowa," for example. She says,

I never want to be where I am
I always want to leave
For some greener pastures
Some bluer sea, and
I always have a smile on my face
While I'm driving away...
But I cried the night
That I left Iowa
At the border there's a river
Of my tears.

I've read whole books that make an effort to describe a personality type that Tapia has summed up in that simple lyric. In "Drive Away Slow" she says,

I wish that I could make it easier
I wish that I could make you happier
Oh, babe, I got to go
But I'm going to drive away slow

The album title comes from the song "For a While." The lyric is,

I tried for a while
I was scared for a while
Then I was in love for a while
With one foot out the door

Alejandro Escovedo wrote a lyric that says, "I like you better when you walk away." A similar emotional message, but Tapia's work here is a more complex development on the theme. There is more involved that just the push-pull of loving and leaving. There is also the habit of holding on to something even after it's over—staying friends with former lovers, staying loyal to friends who are far away. In "Big Front Porch," Tapia writes,

Tell me about that boat
The one that carries two
And tell me one more time
How I can always come home to you

You don't have to be interested in the subject of these songs to enjoy this album. The songs are appealing, well sung and performed, good old roots country style music that can be danced to, sung along with, or just played as a gentle and relaxing part of your day.
 

Word of the week:
"Wanderlusty" -- Stephen ("Truthiness") Colbert has nothing on Austin singer-songwriter Abi Tapia in the coined-words department. She calls herself a "wanderlusty songwriter," a great handle that suggests a nomadic life filled with music and sex.

Around the County

Supper ends up with entertaining evening at the Pernsteiners’ lovely home

Leesville & Belmont News

By SANDI GANDRE

Friday evening we enjoyed supper at Monthalia with the Men’s Brotherhood serving some delicious green beans, along with lasagna and salad. Different ladies made the cakes. Ellen Lancaster made one in lieu of Carolyn and Betty. I can only tell you about her carrot cake as it was the only one I got as a part of my meal. It was scrumptious. I did take a bite of an orange cake. It was good, too.

We were delighted to be able to go to Lisa and Bill Pernsteiner’s home after the supper. The county road to their home has some interesting trees planted in the fence line. Mr. Pernsteiner said that there were eucalyptus trees. They were interspersed with pine trees along the drive. They purchased the property of the late Cecil V. Hagen. Bill said that apparently Cecil had been in New Zealand with one of his oil ventures and brought them back to be planted on his property here in Texas.

Bill and Lisa have completely renovated Mr. Hagen’s home. Lisa did a great deal of this by herself and with the contractors she hired as Bill was back in Seattle, WA still settling the business transactions there. They have two children, Casey and Stuart who have settled into the schools and community as well. Lisa did such a magnificent job with the double fireplace that is between the kitchen and the dining room. There originally was a wood cook stove on the kitchen side where she now has a beautiful wood heater. The kitchen is completely updated and has a very efficient layout.

Lisa had made around fifteen to sixteen desserts from Strawberry Cheesecake, Pretzel Sticks, Ice Cream Roll Cake, to Lemon and Apple Tarts. There were also several chocolate concoctions for those who cannot live without chocolate. I am told that Lisa does not necessarily like to cook, but she does like to bake. It shows in her artistic confections.

We migrated back and forth from the house to the beautiful gazebo. It has a small stage on one end, with ceiling fans to help keep you cool on the hot Texas summers. It has a changing room/bathroom as the pool is right next to it. There are also small kitchen facilities available. We all brought lawn chairs to sit and listen to the main even of the evening.

Abi Tapia, a singer and songwriter living in Austin was engaged to bring the evening’s entertainment. She was joined by Bonnie Whitmore playing the bass guitar, and Jeff Tveraas playing the acoustic guitar along with the slide bottle. Bonnie and Jeff are both singer/songwriters and they have web sites giving their engagement dates and records. Abi’s web site is www.abitapia.com. />
I find it interesting that Abi was born in Alabama and lived there for fifteen years, but then claims to be from all over, but Maine, mostly. She went back to entertain there and nearly froze, stating that she would take the good old Texas heat any day. Abi is a one-person performer. She travels to dates across the United States living out of her car sometimes. Her car was robbed of its contents one time, taking a big notebook of songs she had written. I would have cried, too. That is indeed a great loss.

Abi’s songs mostly come from the heart. She has a fresh lovely voice with quite a range going from somewhat of a medium soprano voice to a few very high notes that blend perfectly. She also plays the harmonica interludes between her guitar playing and singing. The songs she sings are beautiful. You see this pert young girl with a somewhat freckled face, her curly hair tamed by putting it in braids, bouncing up and down, and making beautiful eye contact with the audience. She puts her whole heart into her playing, laughs at her mistakes, and hopes that she is not being bombarded by crickets or junebugs.

She has produced two CDs. The last one is entitled “One Foot Out the Door”. Abi settled on this title because she said that it seemed like she would get almost out of Maine but had to keep going back. However, she persisted and now loves her place in Austin among the other musical talents that Austin has developed. The song “For a While” somewhat describes Abi’s problem. “I guess this town was never where I wanted to be/chose the sea/It should’ve been the sky/I figured I was here, I might as well give it my best/So I made a nest/and I tried to fly/But all that trying never got me very far/It shouldn’t be this hard/Now I know why.”

Abi has been bitten by the country music bug and Texas. So she wrote the song, “Lone Star”. It says “I got no one to keep me warm in this cold weather/So I’m going back to Texas ‘cause if I have to be alone/Well at least I’ll be a Lone Star.” Now if Abi doesn’t get this one to be a hit, then someone like Gretchen Wilson needs to record it and make it a hit for her. It is snappy, bold, country and Texan. So we welcome Abi to Texas and remember if you need to learn more about Abi or like her music, go to her web site www.abitapia.com. It tells you all about her first CD, about how to obtain “One Foot Out the Door” and gives you an inside look at Abi from a journal she kept plus pictures, and upbeat anecdotes.

We are certainly glad that Lisa and Bill Pernsteiner engaged her to entertain for us and gladly paid our contribution to her income and bought her CD. We signed up for email at the desk manned by two beautiful young ladies, Erin Allen and Casey Pernsteiner. Then we all mingled, enjoyed each other’s company, and got to have items autographed and had a one-on-one chat with our entertainers. It was just a beautiful delightful evening

By Mark Rankin


Once upon a time there was a singer who wrote songs that included lyrics so personally attached to his mind, central nervous system, and body that he was horrified to sing these songs publicly... He did anyway and became a life long ''... wrangler of emotions...'' (Quote: Joe S. Harrington, The Edge, CBW, 2002)

In the Summer of 2001 I had just moved to Portland to share a home with my brother Dave. We partied this town down many a night... Ha! The memories... While Dave was on tour with 6gig, however, I found myself drawn to The Breakaway Lounge on my way home alone one hot night. I walked in to find The Maine Songwriters Showcase. The Maine Songwriters Association (MSA) was then in its infancy of 30 or so members. I like all kinds of music and wanted to check this out. I wanted to play too, having performed up and down the east coast of the U.S. over a twenty-three year span and being a Maine Native, I felt I might have found a place to hang my hat.

It was then as I ordered a beer that a young pretty woman stepped up on the stage and greeted her audience," ...I'm Abi Tapia, and this is The Maine Songwriters Showcase...'' She went on to explain that the event was a weekly happening put on by MSA and included all local singer songwriters and all original music. She started her set with Back to Back, and then with a liberating song, Calamine Lotion, that included the line," I've got a bullet here for you to bite..." These lyrics were so intimately personal I bought her CD straight-away and have enjoyed it ever since. Great talent in expressing music and clever lyrical content.

Now Hailing from Austin, Texas Abi Tapia is undoubtedly part of one of the richest music scenes in the world. She travels nationally still, and landed in Portland in June to play a show at Acoustic Coffee on Danforth St. for an MSA Showcase (Abi will always be considered local). She's still absolutely terrific.

Abi Tapia's new fully and tastefully produced CD, One Foot Out the Door is now released and available at Bull Moose Music, CD Baby, and at her site, abitapia.com. I'm unwrapping the CD... hehehe...the package is of big label quality and is hard to unwrap... rrrrrrrrrrrrr!...there!(relief)... the plastic wrapper hits the floor( this is better than sex! hmmmmm....well ...?) The CD is in the player! (The anticipation is making me crazy!)

Ah, sweet acoustic guitar that has obviously been produced by experienced hands and ears (Chris Cage at Moonhouse Studio for production, and Jim Wilson of Yes Mastering, both hailing from Austin Texas). Tapia sings, " I think Love is like employment at will/ anyone can leave at any time for any reason/when I said I quit I guess what I meant was/ I want a raise and another weeks vacation." and the chorus," I cried wolf you came runnin' I knew you cared for me..." Cried Wolf is a work to be enjoyed by listeners everywhere. The music on this song is of the best of quality... WOW!

Music lovers, you just have to hear these strong backbeats and melodies. Nothin' To Hold Me Down is a solid tune as well and speaks of Tapia's love of the road, and to hell with the run down house, life, and general confines most people conform to one way or another,"... I just like the feeling of drivin' to some place unknown where there's nothin' to hold me down." Iowa slows things down, and that's always a perfect moment for Tapia to use her pipes to blow the listener away... Where was I? Big Front Porch is Tapia beholding to a dreamer that spends the late afternoons with sunsets, stories, and music... Happiness. Then, Calamine Lotion, "I am here with my calamine lotion/you are there with your broken heart..."Later, the chorus," Baby, listen to me to me/ I know it's going to be all right/ You are strong despite the fact/ that you never learned how to fight/ I've got a bullet here for you to bite." What an intellectual approach to express the idea. Tapia really puts it out there with no shortness of cleverness. For a While is an example of the thematic rambling recurrences as Tapia's restless side moves this awesome tune into reality. Selective Memory is a song of dealing with hurt. The Way to My Heart is a cupid's arrow thing, and Hand Over Your Heart is confrontational. A girl can only take so much and the scene takes place in a bar. Tapia's character has been in a relationship with the bar tender and wants an answer... Now! " ... She fired off 2 more shots (whiskey no doubt)/ and told them all to get on the floor... Hand over you heart and no one gets hurt..." Drive Away, and Lone Star are Break up songs. Somewhere to Go speaks of her home. "...Got no devil tryin' to make me a deal... " Chorus," So come on inside I've got nothin to hide but I don't have much to show/ What there is to be seen it ain't pretty it ain't clean/ I'll admit that I've started slow/ But at least I've got some place to go.

''August 13th, at Acoustic Coffee, Abi Tapia comes back home again as part of her national tour (that never seems to end).
Thank you Abi Tapia for your inspiring dedication and talent from the,'' wrangler of emotions'' (aka Mahhhk!). One Foot Out the Door blows my hat completely off!

 

The Portland Phoenix
Volume 3, Number 43 | November 2, 2001

Carefree highway: Abi Tapia goes to look for America

By Josh Rogers

The police report reads something like this: Stolen - various clothing, backpack, portable CD player, 20 CDs (Lyle Lovett, Shelby Lynne, Allison Moorer, the Dixie Chicks), camera, French pottery, soft guitar case, 50 copies of the new Abi Tapia album, and one notebook (with two years of songs in it). The victim - A singer-songwriter on a six-week, self-booked tour.

"Gone," says Tapia sadly. The biggest loss, of course, the irreplaceable notebook chock-a-block full of lyrics. "I'm hoping it will be good in the end," she says. "Maybe always staring at those verses I didn't like was stopping me from writing new ones."

The songs that remain intact, the ones on her debut album proper, This Life Will be Mine, reveal a voice that knows all too well the value of change, of leaving the known behind in search of the open road or the blank page. In "I'm not Listening," Tapia explores the unhealthy impulse to bolt for the door when things get too close: "Oh, but your hands on my back/Oh, your lips on my neck/Your fingers in my curls," she moans, betraying her desire to stay before she steels her will and walks out the door. "Words in my ear/Telling every part of me that I should stay here/And I'm not listening."

"Precious Things" finds the singer cursed with wanderlust again. Contemplative djembe patterings buoy a somewhat melancholy song and give a slightly upbeat cast to lyrics resigned to goodbyes: "The sky is clearing up now/And the roads are, too/West wind blowin' at my back/This morning instead of your face I saw the dawn/I have nothing to fear/There is nothing to make me stay/I'll pack my precious things/And send 'em on home to you someday."

The songs on the disc are solid nuggets of songcraft - distinct, evocative, and at times sensual. On occasion they feel a bit bare (as opposed to nude). Recorded with Jeff Ciampa and a handful of session guys in Columbus, Ohio, the band more often than not lays back, letting Tapia's voice drive the mood. Occasionally, though, the band's too quiet and unmemorable.

Briefly ditching the boys for the intensely up-close "Bottom of Texas," Tapia uses only her voice and an absently strummed guitar to bring you inside her world. Suddenly, as if a nervous actor has been pushed into the spotlight from offstage, a reedy clarinet stumbles into the scene. From there, the singer and the clarinet weave around each other in a lonely embrace. Although Tapia writes in several distinct voices, instrumentation like this (and the Wurlitzer on the spitfire "Motion Sickness") allows them to breathe and come alive (and break out of the trad singer-songwriter girl ghetto - she thanks Sark, joy, and contra dancing in her liner notes).

The clarinetist? Tapia's mom - a classically trained musician (Abi had to cajole her into loosening up and improvising). Her mom even played a show with her when Abi rolled into Ohio Wesleyan, near Mom's current home of Delaware, Ohio (outside Columbus), on tour. "I'm trying to convince her to go on the road with me," says Tapia excitedly. "Because I never have any sort of embellishment."

She knows this sort of collaboration is good for her own songwriting process. One of the biggest things she got out of her latest cross-country jaunt was a network of like-minded musicians. Connecting to these other labels, booking agents, and singers was the whole point of attending the Nashville New Music Conference on the last leg of her trip. It's a bummer then, that that was precisely when someone smashed her car window and stole her press kits. She was literally handing out photocopies of the one business card in her back pocket, she laughs. But she met a lot of good people.

"Did I tell you about the exercise room in Nashville?" she smiles. "At the conference there wasn't much chance to do any song-swapping. So late at night we'd get together and play for each other. One night we were playing in the Ramada Inn lounge but the muzak was too loud.

"We knew that there was an exercise room that didn't have the muzak, so we convinced a security guard to let us in. But it was really cramped with equipment. So here we were in this tiny mirrored room, folky singer-songwriters sitting around on stationary bikes and stairmasters, playing songs for each other," she says.

The sleepover camaraderie continues, "We smuggled in a case of beer in a guitar case - totally mafia style - but then we spilled some, and we're like 'Oh no, what do we do!?' There were these towels, so we soaked it up with that, but then we were like [panicking] 'What do we do with the beer towels?!?' "

This is precisely the community that Tapia has been running around the country trying to find. Turns out, they're all doing the same thing. Traveling doesn't have to be about running away - in this case, it's bringing her closer to her peers. She says her time away is allowing her to look at Portland with "fresh eyes." Then again, she just wrote a song that starts off "I never want to be where I am."

Abi Tapia returns to town

Recent grad shares her music in an intimate show

By Sabrina Ross
Staff Writer

"House performances are my favorite, " Abi Tapia said to someone while chatting with audience members before the show started. A Grinnell alumni of 1998, Abi Tapia was back in Grinnell for a two-set performance in a friend's apartment on Wednesday night. This is her third house performance she's done in the three weeks of her tour so far. With candles scattered around the room for lighting, and several couches, two chairs, a bed and the floor providing the seating, the audience was prepared for a friendly, intimate show. The show play list included songs from her cd, This Life Will Be Mine, covers of Gillian Welch and Patti Griffin, and one of the songs from the country musical that she's in the process of writing.

Tapia currently lives in Maine, but she plans to move in the near future. "I want a bigger place, and I want to be around more musicians, for inspiration, and for community," explained Tapia. She's considering cities like New York, Boston, and Austin, where she hopes to be able to fully support herself by profits made from performing. When she's not touring, Tapia says that she "waits tables to play the bills."

Currently, Tapia is in the midst of her longest tour so far in her career, covering parts of the east coast, the Midwest, and the south. After a few more shows in Iowa, Tapia will be heading to Texas for the next leg of her tour.

Tapia began singing during 1996, her sophomore year here at Grinnell, and by her senior year, Tapia started taking off during her fall and spring breaks to tour. Today she plays mostly within her home state of Maine, and frequently goes on short tours around New England. "Right now I'm plugging away, writing songs, finding better venues…I'm not looking for a record contract or anything," Tapia said. Following the completion of her current tour, Tapia will attend a music conference in Nashville before returning home.

Many Grinnell students hope to make Tapia's visits to campus a yearly occasion.

A few townspeople and professors as well as students attended Wednesday's performance. Before the show began, Tapia's academic advisor from Grinnell, Kent McClelland, approached her and asked "You're doing what you've dreamed of doing?" and Tapia replied, smiling, "Exactly!"