Diana (the truncated name for Diana Thale) was the first singer up at a recent WFNM showcase at Hotel Ziggy. She left a lasting impression with her songwriting skills and ability to seamlessly innovate her music. The recent LAAMP alumni is spending her last few months in Los Angeles before moving to Nashville and her friends packed the venue to support one of her final sets in the city.
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| Diana at Hotel Ziggy |
The night opened up with "Friend of a Friend." She told the audience, "It's a dance track though and that second verse is a rap." The version played on this particular night was a singer-songwriter tune that still incorporated those rap influences. Yes, a singer-songwriter - rap mashup.
For her back end of the set, she brought up Megan Winsor who is also a LAAMP alumni. The two of them are in a band called Girlstupid. There was an interesting interaction between the two prior to Winsor joining Thale on stage. For one of the songs, Thale forgot how the song started off. She looked over to Winsor, asking for a clue on how the song started off. Winsor responded with a shrug. If I recall correctly, the problem was a simple one, she was started off in the wrong key and once she fixed it the muscle memory came back.
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| Diana at Hotel Ziggy |
In terms of those songwriting talents, her song "Showbiz" had a story about meeting a showbiz guy in a suit who bought her an expensive drink and promised the world. She mentioned to the audience that, "it isn't easy in this business when you're independent."
"Stressed & Bored" had the introduction, "I moved here last summer. I up and moved my entire life and I'm about to do it again this summer. And this song is about enjoying the stress of it all over being bored doing nothing."
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| Diana at Hotel Ziggy |
Per her bio, she grew up in San Diego. If my timeline works out, she moved to New York just before the pandemic blew up the world. She spent five years there before living the last year in Los Angeles. Now she's off to Nashville in a couple months. That's the context for the opening lyrics:
Sitting on the floor with the green suitcase.Dreaming about tomorrow in an unknown place.
A semi-vagabond who loves the thrill of exploring a new city? This isn't necessarily my lifestyle, but it is fun to experience this through the music of another individual. I'm a person who has spent most of my life living within a three mile drive north or south of Los Angeles. There is a brief two year period that was spent 41-ish hours away from Los Angeles (hey, I kept relatively close track of how many hours I drove each day so yeah, it was around 41 hours). To be honest, I guess technically I spent time in San Francisco working, but I was still flying back to Los Angeles on the weekends so I don't think that really counts as living beyond a 3 hour drive of Los Angeles. Will I never leave Los Angeles or the surrounding area? I remember catching a Little Miss set where she talked about spending time on Zillow looking at cheaper houses in cities across the United States. Am I guilty of that? Las Vegas. Nashville. Orlando. Winston Salem. Ha ha, yeah.
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| Diana at Hotel Ziggy |
Setlist: Friend of a Friend, Stressed & Bored, Sober (Mahalia cover), Everything, Emily, Tweet Tweet, Showbiz, Crazy Is My Baby.
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