Alaska Girls Finally Get Their Anthem

Maybe you’re stumbling through February starry-eyed as if the only thing to think about is love. Maybe you’re just relieved that it’s above zero for the first time in thirteen days. But it’s not a normal month at all. At least not around our house. It’s February Album Writing Month, and TJ is six songs deep.

The idea of FAWM is to write 14 songs in 28 days. Fawmers write lyrics and music, record their own demos, and then post them to the FAWM site for comments from other fawmers. It’s an online songwriting workshop with 1535 participants.

24 of those folks are from Fairbanks. If you check it out, it might just surprise you which of your co-workers is staying up until 2:30 in the morning every night playing guitar, mandolin, accordion, and kazoo into their laptop.

TJ joined for the first time last year. Now Solstice Complex plays many of those songs out around town. Two of them made an appearance at the Fairbanks Winter Folk Fest last weekend. Click here to check out his progress this time around.

My favorite so far this year is “Fairbanks Girls.” If you’re one of the many folks driving around with an “Alaska Girls Kick Ass” bumper sticker, it’s your anthem. Give it a listen. As one of those Fairbanks Girls, and the mom of two others, I can’t help but feel happy to hear lyrics like this:

Fairbanks girls, don’t need the sun to wake up
Fairbanks girls, knit their own hats
Fairbanks girls, don’t put on any make-up
Fairbanks girls, I like them like that.

tags technorati : FAWM, songwriting, Alaska girls, Alaska, Fairbanks