Not Bad For a Girl - Katie Marie

By PRSD, on Thursday, January 15, 2009

It’s exciting times here at the People’s Republic of South Devon, and here’s why – tea-glugging tunester Katie Marie, who’s preparing to hot foot it to Germany for the next leg on her road to European domination, will be providing a regular Thursday feature entitled Not Bad For a Girl. Over to you, Katie.

It’s wonderful to be here, thanks again to Lee for asking me to write some blogs for the People’s Republic of South Devon. I hope you enjoy my rather random rambles about everything from tea to music.

A little bit about me just in case you don’t know. I’m a singer/songwriter from the little town of Totnes and I’ve been pretty obsessed with music since I was about six years old, and 22 years on I’m now a full-time penniless musician with a stupid amount of passion for what I do – and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The last couple of years though I’ve really felt like there’s been a breakthrough in my music in terms of my playing and more importantly who I’m playing to (ie, people who *actually* want to hear what I’m singing about!! Which when you’ve been playing for many years to people who aren’t bothered about you being there or not is a real buzz!).

I managed to play in some amazing venues throughout 2008, but the highlight for me was getting the chance to do my first tour outside of the UK. I had four dates in Germany and for a little unknown singer/songwriter like me was pretty exciting, even more so when I think about how it all came about in the first place.

A lovely lady by the name of Sandra accidentally came across a video of me busking in Totnes and playing ‘The Weakness in Me’ which a friend of mine had uploaded to Youtube. Sandra got in touch with me and asked if I’d be interested in gigging in Germany and it all went from there.

So this Friday I will once again be heading off to Germany to do my second tour. This time with six gig dates, the last of which I’m really excited about, as I’ll be sharing the stage with Elli Erl (who won German Idol a couple of seasons ago), how kewl is that?

I’ve tried very hard to brush up on my German after last time, but I struggle enough with English never mind a foreign language! lol But one very important lesson I learnt from my previous trip is never to say ‘Ja Ja’ to anyone ever again! I’d spent two whole days answering people’s questions such as ‘how are you Katie?’ with ‘Ja Ja gut danke’. It wasn’t until I had my second gig that someone in a bar asked me the same question and I replied with ‘Ja Ja’. He looked at me rather worried and then said: ‘Katie, you know that ‘Ja, Ja’ is slang for lick my arse?’

Yep, my face was a picture lol

On that note I’d best get on with some packing. Thanks a lot for reading this far and please feel free to get in touch, even if it’s just to say hi – I’m always keen to hob-nob with anyone about tea drinking and music.