So much has happened in so little time.
So much happens when i don't look at the time.
I have been encouraged to write about my life
i always had a motto , i don't have time to write
if i'am living my life. Due to recent events in my life
i must share with the world how i have gotten where
i am.
So where am i?
who am i?
I am currently in Austin Tx, I am a full time musician
I make music, perform and travel the world.
Currently i am a one woman band.
I play guitar, sing and play a kick drum.
The content of my music is writing about the struggles
i have been through and the struggles of others
i have always aimed to write about the hardest of struggles
of people that may have never gotten there voices heard.
I touch on subjects that are terrifying and i always take
the underdogs voice, or at least i try.
I am currently on my 15th album, yet again i have recorded
it and have put it out myself with no help of others such
as a record label , I book myself across the country solely
by friends or word of mouth.
I did have a manager for almost four years but like all
my contacts in music, have recently been told me i do not
generate enough money to have him concentrate on my career.
At first i was sad and took it personally but then i remembered
that i have been doing this ( music) for almost 21 years now.
I dont have alot to show for my life.
All i truely own is my songs and my experiences
they are worth to me more then fame and fortune
ever has and ever will.
My tools.
I own two guitars , a acoustic and a electric guitar.
A bass drum and kick pedal .
A computer and a car.
I currently don't have a telephone and do all my
work by email.
I have many illness's and take alot of medication
my chronic conditions
copd, asthma, ulcers, allergys, ovarian cysts, bi-polar, schizoaffective disorder, ptsd and manic depression.
I am 5,4 , and i am 37 years old.
I qualify for disabilty but due to my lifestyle i can not picture my self sitting in a room thinking about my
illness's .
When did i start playing music?
I started playing music when i was five years old.
When i was a little girl my parents sent me off to the salvation army
to play music and have a religious upbringing and also it was
the cheapest place to send me.
I started with singing and won a contest at five years old.
I remember singing a gospel number called "all things bright and beautiful"
looking into the audience, and seeing that my parents where not there
and feeling a familiar feeling of loneliness. When ever i felt that feeling
I would always act out. Wanting to be appreciated and loved has been
the cause of alot of my tribulations . Also a source of my musical content.
Music has always been my light at the end of a tunnel.
I started writing sheet music around the same time. Because of my behaviour
i was always put aside , this was a trait that i carried till i was 35 years old.
When ever i had gotten any form of appreciation i would freak out.
I was always afraid if i got any attention my father would find me and abuse me.
So even at five years old, i knew that music was and is still my salvation.
however the next year at musical camp i was asked to sing again
and i started ad libbing and that was the start of my song writing career.
When i improvised , the teachers at the camp promptly put me on horns till i was 10 years old.
I spent 5 days out of the week in the religous musical program.
And when i was in school i was always in choir or on a instrument.
The ages of 5- 11, i moved around with family all the time.
My father is a vietnam vet orginally from a rural town in east texas.
My mother is a first generation canadian armenien and grew up in montreal canada.
My childhood was terrible , my father at the time was a drug addict,schizophrenic and suffering from ptsd.
We moved around every couple of months, usually when the rent was over due. My father never paid rent.
For some reason no matter how much we moved i always was sent to the salvation army when we lived in montreal.
My father abused me constantly and growing up with him, was horrible.
When child protection services stepped in when i was five, I was constantly moved around and i was sent to texas to live with my grandmother when things got really heated.
When ever we moved due to not paying rent, i would be sent to a new school, i can count about 18 different schools i went to from the ages of 5-11 years of age.
Due to my fathers illness he believed the that the end was coming soon.
So my physical abuse was justifyed in his eyes.
He would make be run 2 miles a day and would kick me, resulting in broken ribs, and dislocated arms and broken noses.
He also believed he was being attacked and spied on, so music , television, and newspapers where not allowed in the house.
I was not allowed to have friend and toys where not allowed.
I remember my aunt giving me a little radio and when they where sleeping i would turn the radio on and sing and dance in the wee hours of the morning, i guess this is why i still have insomnia .
I knew at a very young age that i needed to run away from home. I needed to get away and my life depended on it.
So i started running away from home when i was eleven.
11 was the age i found punk rock, and i left home.
The first time i had taken drugs i was 11 years old, i ran off with some skinheads and they had proceeded to tattoe my hand and my head. When i had awoken from a drug haze i saw what had happened to me.
I kept returning home till i was 12 years of age.
My brother was born and i went back home to take him away, but i was to young
and had to think about myself.
I had changed my name and age and hung around some punkrockers and skinheads.
they where the only ones who accepted me at the time.
Seeing the uk subs , bad brains, black flag, and many other bands had been a religous experience
for me.
It was the first time i saw that i had a choice in life.
It was the first time that loneliness had dissipated for a moment.
Drugs had also been my salvation. I could fit in and not worry about my father.
I knew then and there i wanted to be on stage.
It was the light of my dark tunnel.
When i finally ran away from home for good.
I hid in the underbelly of society.
I knew my father would not find me if i was
constantly on the run.
I also had told my friends in montreal to say
that i had died in hopes my father would leave me alone.
So i ran away to toronto and hung out with the punkrockers there
but this also was the start of a very dark battle with drug addiction.
One night i had snorted some substance and started telling a group
of neo nazis that they where all idiots and proceeded to get beat up.
and now i had not only my dad looking for me but also a bunch of
skinheads.
So thats when i ran to the racetrack in toronto and got a job working
with racehorses.
This was a society that was very hidden and was the perfect place
for me to hide in.
My fictitious name at the time was alex mc donald spencer
I would tell people i was born in 1968 and my birthday was july 22.
For some reason people believed me and the drugs helped me keep my story straight.
The story i would tell people is i was a french girl, who could hardly speak english
and i was brought up in a orphanage , and was a stripper and prostitute.
I proceeded to speak in a french accent for the following four years.
My years at the racetrack where very hard.
I constantly had to keep this identity and had to constantly
be on the run.
worked 7 days a week with racehorses as a stable hand.
wanted to be a jockey but i had grown and no longer fit the bill.
had for about six months had learned to play guitar
however
I started using cocaine lsd and drank very heavly resulting
with about 11 overdose's in total from the age of 12 till i was 16.
The only thing that was keeping my real identity was now turning
its back on me.
Also to keep with my identity i slept with alot of men,
and had allowed men to take advantage of me just so
there would be no question of my age.
Also running away from home at such a young age and being
in a sheltered environment i did not know how woman got pregnant.
I thaught if i had sex with a man , that if i simply threw up after the act
i would not get pregnant. Obviously that did not work.
I had gotten pregnant at 13 years of age.
I went for a abortion and it had been a fake clinic so they had put a stint in me so i could not have the baby aborted and resulted in me being in the hospital for 6 months pregnant
under a assumed name, the baby stillborned
and i had to get a c section and had a blood infection and almost died.
When i recovered they released me, never knowing my real age or name .
I went where i always went to a punkrock venue and hung out with some folks.
I had no place to go so i went back to the racetrack.
I found a trainer and worked with him for the proceeding three years.
I had met a man and moved in with him, still under the false identity .
He was quite abusive and i found my solice in drugs once again.
I traveled canada and the usa with my outfit.
I was a hard worker but had a terrible fight with mental illness and drug addiction.
I even had a horse i groomed go to the kentucky derby.
There i was on national t.v and someone had recognized me.
Not long after i was taken in my police and they had found me.
Now i had to face a community i had lied to about every aspect of myself.
And it got really dark. I tried to kill myself with drugs only to wake up
in a mental institution. Being called by my real name Isabelle Cox.
They had injected me with so much thorzine , i had a stroke.
paralyzed on my left side, scared to death once again.
I may have been electric shocked as well but those months
are still very hazy.
Scared to death, was common in my earlier years.
But i really thought it was the end.
The people who had visited me was a drug dealer who had never
taken advantage of me, my common law husband, and a co worker.
I was starting to feel better.
The race track had banned me indefinitely due to my underage status
and the fact the last day on the racetrack i had released a bunch of racehorses
out of there stalls. Lucky none where hurt. But once you do something
like that they can never trust you again. I understood.
What was i going to do with my life?
I was 16 years of age now.
I have to stop now telling you about my life
i will continue the next time i blog.
Today is january 3 2012
Anyway i have to get ready for a show tonight.
Iam playing a tiki bar named Headhunters the
only one of its kind in texas.
I hope by writing this blog i can let go of
my past by writing about it, and tell you of
my life as a independent music maker.
I dont want people feeling sorry about
my hardships, i want to show people
that no matter where you come from
you can be any one you want to be.
till the next time, thank you ! :) xo
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