Countdown to Spinning & Shining: Jessica Sun Lee of The Sun Lee Sunbeam

First a bit of Spinning And Shining news... 


* Boston Band Crush is giving away free tix + a CD and/or t-shirt from each of the 6 bands playing the EP release show THIS SATURDAY NIGHT AT MIDDLE EAST UPSTAIRS.  All you have to do to enter is send an email to bandcrush@googlegroups.com with subject "SPINNING AND SHINING" before Friday morning!  A winner will be drawn at random that afternoon.

* The ENTIRE Spinning and Shining EP is now available for streaming at http://thisblueheaven.bandcamp.com...  We would love to hear your feedback!  Oh - and please do not forget to learn the chorus to A Serious Mistake for our big sing-a-long!!! 

* If you haven't already voted for "Generous Soul" in this week's Boston Emissions New Fave Local Song Poll, please hop on over there and give us your love!  We promise to love you back!

...and now for the good stuff.  I want to introduce Jess by saying that she's someone I admire a great deal - not only for her many great talents and the fierceness of her creativity, but also (and especially) for her emotional honesty and willingness to dive under the surface of things that most people are content to ignore.  My high school English teacher told me that the world couldn't afford to lose people like me (which is where "this world needs who you are" from the Generous Soul chorus comes from, by the way), and though I'm still struggling to understand how those words apply to me and how I can live up to them, I can say with absolute conviction that they apply to Ms. Sun Lee.  The world needs her not-looking-away courage and expression.  Lucky for us, she's generous with both!

JESSICA SUN LEE, THE SUN LEE SUNBEAM

What about a career path you haven't pursued, but might later or would if you had time or even another lifetime?

My goal is to die writing–mostly fiction novels, but I don’t want to limit it to that.

Do you ever have pre-show moments when you wish you didn't have to perform?  What would you rather be doing on those occasions?  

I seriously think a pre-show quicky would be the best way to quel my anxiety, but that’s usually not possible due to the logistics of what needs to be done on those nights.

What do you believe in?

Seeking the truth and understanding within myself and others, as difficult as that can be.

What's one thing you don't know but wish you did?

What it’s like to be fully and unconditionally loved and understood because of who I am, and because who I am is a undoubtedly a part of something bigger. Being abandoned as a baby has surfaced some emotions I repressed until recently because I felt it’d be ungrateful or wrong to feel them. It’s like I shut off a big part of myself because of what I didn’t know. Those unanswered questions, I’ve discovered, are all intertwined with the rest of what I do, think, and feel. The good news is: it supplies a nevereneding stream of longing and the desire to belong to something important. And that fuels all of my art, writing, and music.

Upcoming stuff?

As The Sun Lee Sunbeam is wrapping up our last couple of shows and recording our final EP, I’ve been working on a different style of music, forming songs from the bass instead of the guitar. I feel like I’m going through musical puberty all over again. It’s both liberating and exciting to shape a new sound, as it’s a totally different approach for me to write this way. I’m constantly buzzing from it and look forward to playing it live when it’s ready.




(I love this track from The Sun Lee Sunbeam and they are STELLAR live, so do NOT miss their ***second-to-last show ever*** this Saturday at Middle East Upstairs - they go on at 10:15 - right before This Blue Heaven!)