Hobart's Exquisite Voice

Source: www.lainicolman.com. Singer/Songwriter: Laini Colman. Photographer: Dan Cripps. I want to thank Laini for permission to use photos from her website for  this blog entry. 

Dear Fellow Blogger:

I hope this blog entry finds you well.

Previously, I wrote about Kath McLean’s wonderful online boutique business  called www.misspeachy.com. I also wrote about Steven Miller’s  fashion line, discussing his “Spider Web” collection. You can find his fashion collection at: http://www.orendacreations.com.au. It is very cool! Both are creative fashion adventurists. I always enjoy our exchange of notes on fashion and fashion photography. It’s an honor to know them.  For this blog entry, I would like to tell you about another great friend of mine – Laini Colman. She is a singer/songwriter, residing in Hobart, Tasmania (Australia). Like the late Gia Carangi – a lovely American model -- Laini “was always a bit of a tomboy” and “a bit zany” in her attire. I like that Laini enjoys “trawling second hand clothes shops” and is enchanted with “simple styling – … elegant and casual.” Some of her latest recordings include “Dreams Come” and “Somewhere.” For me, Laini is Hobart’s exquisite voice. Her enchanting recordings can be found at her website  http://www.lainicolman.com  

Source: Laini Colman. Hobart, Tasmania (Australia) 

Laini’s early years impressed me. My childhood was pretty much like Laini’s childhood. I enjoyed bike rides and welcomed those serendipitous moments of the summer months. My family and I used to live by a lake called Walnut Lake . There were lots of things to do such as boating and, of course,  cat fishing.  Ah, the cat fish: those nefarious entities – or at least that’s how I saw them at the age of seven – lurking near the boat dock.  I always found them a wee bit scary. “I loved the outdoors,” Laini wrote about her early years in rural England, “and spent hours roaming around the countryside with my friends having glorious adventures in our make-believe worlds.”  Laini and I also grew up with the beautiful sounds of rock and roll. (I also grew up with classical music and jazz, which I enjoy). Laini’s parents purchased for her the music of Sandie Shaw. My parents purchased for me the music of the Beatles. “I can remember,” Laini remarked, “when I played [her music] for hour after hour, day after day, driving my parents batty!” Like Laini, I pretty much did the  same thing – listening to Beatles music all day long. I wonder if I drove Mom and Dad berserk?

Source: www.lainicolman.com Photographer: Dan Cripps

Laini and I also enjoyed a creative bent when growing up. In Laini’s case, her creative bent was singing. In my case, drawing. “Some of my earliest musical memories,” Laini notes, “are of singing on car journeys with my Mum – she loved singing (as did her parents).” Later on, Laini learned how to play the guitar and the piano. “My cousin,” she writes “introduced me to the guitar when I was probably around … 7 years old.” Laini goes on to write the two of them going over “three simple chords … to play” childhood melodies “like Old Mac Donald Had a Farm and Three Blind Mice.” As a prelude to her own musical career,  Laini’s taste in rock music ranged from that of Queen to “Blondie being just a few of the many that I listen to and love.” When she was a university student, Laini noted how much she lauded the artistry of David Bowie. Laini writes how she admired “his ability … to create his own unique image –always head of the game, always experimenting with his music and his looks, keeping true to what he believed in.” Laini wonderfully observes: “It’s so much harder to be unique than it is to follow, but that is what I strive to do with my music.”

It was in Australia where she commenced her song-writing career. When she lived in Adelaide,  Laini and her guitar teacher worked together in composing music. “From that moment on,” Laini wrote to me, “I can’t remember when I was not writing songs, although I never had much confidence in my singing voice at the time.”  In Hobart, Laini met two special people in the music world: Jimmy Reece and Mike Raine.  While Laini grew confident in her  vocal abilities, Jimmy’s creativeness provided Laini with assistance in recording “13 tracks for my self-titled album ‘Laini Colman’, which fused many different styles to create a sort of dark, cinematic pop.”

Source: www.lainicolman.com. Photo from video "Human Behavior" (2017)

In addition to his work on “Laini Colman,” Mike’s labors with Laini led to the creation of music videos  (such as “Human  Behavior”) and to the writing of  a novel assortment  of imaginative pieces of music.  “It’s a very productive relationship,” comments Laini,  “which I really enjoy as we work well together, which is very important.”

Her remarks about songwriting also impressed me. First, Laini described songwriting as a therapeutic enterprise. “It was a means,” Laini observes, “of expressing and exploring my emotions and feelings onto paper the things I heard and saw.” Her remark reminded me of something that Gia Carangi observed about modeling: “A model has to create moods” (Quoted in http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/gia-the-tragic-tale-of-the-worlds-first-supermodel-311535.html)   Francesco Scavullo, who was a fashion photographer, observed that Gia “strikes sparks, not poses.” He noted: “I have never known anyone so excitingly free and spontaneous, constantly changing, moving (which drove me crazy until I got smart and learnt to focus the camera faster) - she's like photographing a stream of consciousness” (Quoted in ibid).  Second, Laini described songwriting as a form of empathy.  Unlike Gia’s, however, Laini’s “life is not that colorful!” Like the great authors, Laini takes  her cue “from the world around” her. “I role play,” she wrote to me, “in my head (for example putting myself in someone else’s shoes and trying to imagine how they would feel or react in a certain situation) …” Like a passage out of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s American Notebooks, Laini writes about how she allows her “eyes and ears to soak up sights and sounds around” her “and see what thoughts/feelings they evoke.” 

Source: www.lainicolman.com Photographer: Dan Cripps. Laini writes: "I'll start with a melody and then I just sit and try to imagine what sort of feelings/thoughts/words/ that melody evokes" 

I hope that you will take an opportunity to visit Laini’s website at http://www.lainicolman.com. I find her music delightful, and I am thankful to be able to call her a friend.