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A fan of her fans
YouTube fave Terra Naomi plays at Black Box
Friday, Nov. 6, 2009
 Click here to enlarge this photo Photos courtesy of TERRA NAOMI
Terra Naomi earned a 2006 YouTube award for best music video. She will play at the Black Box Theatre in Indian Head on Sunday
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On her Web site, is a scribbled timeline of Terra Naomi's life.
In "The story so far …" she details her childhood as an overweight "nerd" who loved opera and played the French horn, who was a member of drama clubs and participated in community theater.
She headed to college in Michigan where she studied opera and started a drug habit.
She quit drugs and opera, hung out with her parents in upstate New York before heading to the Big Apple to wait tables and give music another go.
It was in the city where she picked up a guitar and started to sing again; this time it wasn't arias but lullaby-sweet,self-penned songs.
Along the way was a move to Los Angeles, which she initially found "soulless" but now loves — it must be the sunshine, Naomi was signed to different labels, but nothing really worked out.
Either the fit was wrong or she was wrong for the fit, but by 2006 she would find her audience. It was anyone with a computer, if you read her timeline.
Naomi won the 2006 YouTube award for the best music video for her song, "Say it's possible," a tune inspired by the Al Gore documentary "An Inconvenient Truth." She posted it in June 2006 and by October of that year she was playing for major labels and signed with Island Records in 2007. One high point of 2007 was playing at Wembley Stadium at the Live Earth concert — invited to perform by Gore after a chance meeting between the songwriter and the former vice president.
While living in London, Naomi made an album, "Under the Influence," she toured with The Fray and Martha Wainwright but the disc was a disappointment, Naomi wasn't happy with it — it wasn't the record she wanted to make.
"The album ... would define everything I did not want to be and was one of the biggest lessons of my life," Naomi writes on her Web site, www.terranaomi.com. "Be true to myself."
If you haven't heard the album, don't worry. Naomi blocked it from debuting in the states. She was ready to re-record it the way she wanted.
The head of the label was backing her all the way … and then he left the label.
"... being true to myself is very important," said Naomi, via e-mail.
"At the same time, I need to support myself, as do most of the artists I know. There are always compromises, in every career. Unfortunately, it's a lot harder to reconcile when the commodity in question is someone's art. Art and monetization do not always go together and only in recent times have we created the expectation that they should. This makes things like artistic purity and integrity kind of tricky at times."
By 2008, she practiced what she preached and she and her record company parted ways.
But she wasn't walking out alone.
With more than 15 million views of her videos, more than 35,000 subscribers to her YouTube channel and interactive dialogue with fans, Naomi is making her own path in the music world, one that links her directly to the fans, making the music she — and apparently her fans — wants.
"She's been a real pioneer," said Holly Gray, a fan-turned-friend who works in marketing and is helping spread the word about the tour.
Naomi's expertise in using social networking sites to connect with fans literally paid off.
Over a two-week span she collected $5,000 in fan donations during the "tour support fund drive" to hit the road –— one stop is Sunday at the Black Box Theatre in Indian Head.
The intimate venue was suggested to Naomi and her tour manager, Arlan Hamilton by Season Price, the theater's executive director and Hamilton's friend.
"The whole thing is sort of fan-driven," Gray said of the tour. "Her fans are always willing to help her out."
The Indian Head stop is one of many gigs Naomi's headlining to promote her just released EP "You for Me."
A full-length album is expected to be done by next year.
The Black Box, a theater that in it's former life was an auto shop garage, is new to hosting concerts like Naomi's, said Therese Thiedeman, a spokeswoman for the theater.
"It's a great thing and different from what has been done here before," she said.
Price suggested the venue after learning Naomi and Hamilton were preparing a tour.
"I was turned on to [Naomi's] music about six, seven months ago," she said. "They asked me about the area in general."
She saw the opportunity to plug the Black Box.
While the theater is usually home to stage productions, the intimacy and versatility of the space lends itself to many forms of entertainment.
Including fan-propelled rock shows.
"I'm grateful to be able to bring my show to people around the world," Naomi e-mailed. "Audiences are always shocked by the power of my live performances. They are used to seeing me on YouTube and it's just a whole different level of emotional connection and musicality when I'm singing right in front of someone.
"So I know it's important for both audiences and for me, too. But it's also difficult, exhausting, draining at times, especially this particular tour," she continued. "It's intense to play 25 shows and drive 10,000 miles in one month. That being said, I love touring and want to continue to tour for many years."
If you go
Terra Naomi will perform at the Black Box Theatre from 8-10 p.m. Nov. 8. Tickets are $10 at the door. The theater is at 4185 Indian Head Highway in Indian Head.
Find out more about Naomi at her Web site, www.terranaomi.com.
