Heather Jacks was raised on
Indian reservation in southeastern Oregon, until age fifteen, at which time;
she was chosen to be an ‘experimental exchange student’ to Australia.
She went down under, with an organization called YFU, Youth for Understanding,
and spent 10.5 months turning16 in the Outback.
When she returned, she attended college, and received an FCC license,
followed by completing a B.A. from USF and two years of study at UC Davis.
During her twenties, she
traveled extensively, worked in the music industry in various capacities;
radio, production, A&R, booking and eventually, landed at a new and young
company, called Starbucks, where she worked on a Star Team and opened new
stores in remote markets.
Music has always been her
passion and during her tenure at Starbucks, she helped launch Hear Music,
which today is Starbucks Music Label. Eventually, she returned to the business
side of music at a major indie label, where she had a number of roles, from
concert production to glorified babysitter.
An avid TV Junkie, die-hard SF
Giants fiend and unapologetic Twitter practitioner, she recently won a Book of
the Year Award for her multi-media project, The Noise Beneath the Apple®; A
Celebration of Busking in New York City, which was inspired by her love for
street music, busking and the people who make it.
She currently hangs her hat in
San Francisco and am is working on the Bay Area version of the TNBTA® busker
project.
For
More Information
- Visit Heather Jacks’ website.
- Connect with Heather on Facebook and Twitter.
- Find out more about Heather at Goodreads.
- Visit Heather’s blog.
Title:
The Noise Beneath the Apple: A Celebration of Busking in the Bay Area
Author: Heather Jacks
Publisher: TNBTA Media
Pages: 200
Genre: Media & Performing Arts
Author: Heather Jacks
Publisher: TNBTA Media
Pages: 200
Genre: Media & Performing Arts
The Noise Beneath the Apple® is a hardcover, Limited
Edition Art-Style/Coffee Table book, presented in an elegant slipcase. It
measures 12″ x 12″ and celebrates buskers and street music in New York City. It
includes a history, evolution and culture of busking, photos, interviews and
commentary with 35 of NYC’s prominent street musicians. A cherry red vinyl
record, of 11 tracks of original music, mastered by Grammy and Academy Award
winning Reuben Cohen, (Slumdog Millionaire, Frozen), is page 200. At the
culmination of the project, 30 participants went to Grand Street Recording in
Brooklyn, where they covered Billy Joel's hit song, New York State of Mind. A
12 minute short film and music video were created from that day and are
included with the book, making this project, truly multi-media. The project won
a Book of the Year Award in the category of Performing Arts & Music.
For More Information
- The Noise Beneath the Apple: A Celebration of Busking in the Bay Area is available at Amazon.
- Pick up your copy at her website for less!
- Discuss this book at PUYB Virtual Book Club at Goodreads.
Thank you for this
interview! I’d like to know more about
you as a person first. What do you do when
you’re not writing?
Aloha! Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate
it. What do I do when I am not writing? Oh my Gosh. Since the type of writing I
do, requires so much in the way of research, interviews, scouting locations—I
tend to ‘take a lot of meetings’! I’m
always reaching out to people, asking them to get together for a glass of wine
or a beer, and basically making friends. It’s a great side benefit of this
work. I also work at Papyrus, the amazing card/stationary store. It’s terrific.
I’m always surrounded by beautiful things and wonderful people celebrating
life’s milestones and events. I also have a small business called, Rock A
Record, in which I make one of a kind, messenger style bags and writing
journals, from rescued vinyl records! If interested, here is a quick 2 two
minute video of that project: https://vimeo.com/134807188
I’m also perpetual tourist in my own city of San
Francisco. I have tons of books—(and am always acquiring new ones)—about the hidden treasures in
this city; staircases, speakeasy’s, architectural wonders, wildlife—(yes, we have buffalo in the city!)—and I
am forever creating self-guided walking tours and discovering what San
Francisco has to offer.
When did you start
writing?
I’ve been writing since a very early age. My poems and
essays first got ‘published’ in the
little country newspaper, where I grew up and appeared on Armentrout’s bulletin
board— once I entered white school. Armentrout’s was a white man store on
Indian land, so seeing my neatly scrawled Odes
to a Cow and Barnyard Surprise,
appear there, was quite a thrill.
Growing up in the country, with no electricity—(hence, no TV); my only friends were
books and animals. My pet cow, Pepper—(named
because of her speckled nose)—was the gracious recipient and audience to
many of the tales that sprang from my imagination.
In college, I studied journalism and radio broadcast,
eventually landing in the role of writing band bios, press releases, radio
PSA’s and such in the music industry. That was loads of fun.
In my thirties, I wrote an advice column for Match.com. It
was more a humor column, which I wasn’t intending, but, that’s how it worked
out. Apparently I have a skewed perception of romance and reality.
As a published
author, what would you say was the most pivotal point of your writing life?
For me, my ‘pivotal
point’ had little to do with writing, but more about discovering an
inalienable truth. Backing up for a moment; along this writing journey, I have
been promised ‘big breaks’, a lot;
we’ll get you on a television show, we’ll get you in this magazine or on that
radio, or in the studio with that personality, etc... Sometimes it happens,
many times it doesn’t. But either way, what I have come to discover is that,
they are breaks, but in the long run, they’re not that big. Breaks give us a
chance to do more, to continue showing up and moving the needle forward, and
that’s the important part. You just can’t spend too much time chasing that ‘big break’, because that chase, gets in
the way of doing your best work, the stuff that is really important.
If you could go
anywhere in the world to start writing your next book, where would that be and
why?
To be honest, I am actually writing my next book, exactly
where I want to be. I came to San Francisco
as a naïve country girl during that wonderful time of oblivion and excess,
known as the eighties. San Francisco
promptly handed me my ass on a platter. I was not ready for her, but, I vowed
to return one day, and tackle her again. So, here I am…and I LOVE every minute
of it. My current project is a book about the San Francisco Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and it’s going to be
AMAZING. The Sisters are a 21st century order of Queer Nuns that
started here in 1979, and are today an international charity/activist
organization. This project is absolutely revolutionizing the way I see the
world. Everything I thought I knew, I am finding out, I didn’t. It’s fantastic.
If you are interested in who The Sisters are, here is a 5 minute short film, by
Fred Gebhardt, called Sisterhood. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9Er6GiWZkw).
Fred is creating a ‘behind the scenes’
video of my next book; from inception to fruition. I think people are going to
dig seeing and learning, how a book like this comes together, meeting the faces
behind the paper—so to speak.
If you had 4 hours of
extra time today, what would you do?
Hahaha! That’s a great question, but the truth is; I
schedule my days in such a way, that I always have time for myself. I make a
point every day, to connect with a friend, have a beer or wine, take a walk,
peruse record stores, talk to my City and tell her how much I love her and be
present in the moment. I have a box, with San Francisco
walks, neighborhoods, restaurants, cocktails, and all kinds of miscellany in it
and I have a day planner on my desk. Each day, I draw something random from my
box of discovery, and then I go do it! It might be going to a Taqueria in the Mission
or for oysters or age barreled whiskey or to a staircase…but, each day, I do
something for myself, and only myself, that gets me away from the blinking
screen of the computer. I take a moment to break on through to the other side. J
Back to your present
book, The Noise Beneath the Appe®,
how did you publish it?
As you know, publishing has changed a LOT! People aren’t
making art books anymore. To be frank, there’s no money in it, so the interest
level is not too great. I really wanted to create something that would last;
that would have longevity and would bring people together to collaborate, to
throw their talents into the mix. I did and ended up with a big, multi-media
project. That is pretty cool. 100% of these funds were raised independently, by
me! I used crowdfunding, hosted events, did auctions, hit Twitter hard and was
successful. I had lots of donations and it was amazing. The project couldn’t
have happened without the support of such a fantastic tribe. Not all superheroes
wear capes, but if I could send out two, they would go to my Patrons, Gaines
Coleman and John Seiter, who came forward with supersized gifts, and helped
deliver all the pieces of the project over the finish line. They=Awesome!
Me=Grateful.
The real work begins AFTER publishing. How do you get it out
there? How do you sell it? A cool thing that just happened for me is I just
shipped my books to the NIQUEA.D boutiques in NYC! They will arrive in time for
the holidays. Now my physical books can be
found at both NIQUEA.D Boutiques in NYC: Meatpacking District and 3rd
Avenue.
This is amazing, as indie artists, like me, rely on
supporters--like my newly extended Papyrus/NIQUEA.D family. This is a truly
amazing feeling of accomplishment and support.
In writing your book,
did you travel anywhere for research?
In writing TNBTA®,
I was able to write from my own ‘back
stoop’, so to speak. The book is a NYC book and I lived in NYC. Everything
you could need, dream or desire…exists in that city. New
York is AMAZING.
For my current book about the SF Sisters, I will be
traveling, and that is going to be great. With modern technology, one could use
Skype to conduct interviews, but then you miss out on too much. When writing
the histories and personal stories of people, you have to break bread—(and brew) with them. So, this book is
taking me to Seattle (cocktails), New
Orleans (cajun)
and Tennessee (barbeque), which are all cities that I
know and love.
Why was writing The Noise Beneath the Apple® so
important to you?
I really like history and culture, which is why my books
focus on those things, however niche and obscure they might be. I feel like I am capturing a piece of time,
before it is gone, or has changed into something different. We’ve all heard great quotes and clichés
about history, but, I think understanding the links between past and present is
a basic necessity for understanding the human condition; the how and why of
things—and so I think knowing history is not just useful, but that it’s essential.
I love having my fingerprint, however small it may be, in that pie of
understanding.
Where do you get your
best ideas and why do you think that is?
My best ideas come from the things that interest me in
everyday life; things that I will stop and participate in. For example; TNBTA®, came from walking the streets,
stopping, taking a moment to listen and hear street music/buskers, which was
naturally followed by wondering why these musicians were here? I don’t
typically jump to assumptions, I usually ask; i.e.: instead of assuming buskers
are playing the streets because they can’t get ‘real’ gigs, I ask them.
I tend to be a very direct, unfiltered person—(as is pointed out to me on a regular basis).
My philosophy is always that, I can ask whatever I would like to know—and the
other person can answer or tell me it’s none of my business. Either way is OK.
So, I ask a lot of questions. I come from a very sincere space and people get
that on an energetic level, and more often than not, they feel comfortable sharing
really great stories with me. 9 times out of 10, people are not offended or put
off; they find my ‘level of honesty,
refreshing.’ But let me tell you…that tenth time can be a doozy. J
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