I was always a Girl Gone Green… even early on.
In April of my 13th year, I used my hard earned money to buy Seventeen Magazine. It had an attractive, clean looking cover with lots of green for Earth Day (April 20th for those of you who don’t recycle and drive Hummers). I felt so cool and grown up reading all about natural exfoliants, using chamomile and lemon juice for natural highlights, and recycling…
…and a whole section on the truth about safe sex (gasp!).
Mama Bear did not feel that this was appropriate reading material for her tweenaged daughter so she took it away (as she did with baby Sarah’s Flashdance soundtrack and then later, teenaged Sarah’s spaghetti strap tank tops and shorty shorts). Extending an olive branch, she replaced my glossy conduit of Satan with a subscription to its much lamer, less worldly, little sister, Teen Magazine.
I think that I read Teen exactly once. So one might say that the consolation prize was a waste of money. Probably true, but the whole experience did serve two purposes:
1) I met my BFF (we’re celebrating our 20th anniversary this Autumn)
2) All the girls looking so suave and sophisticated (in Seventeen, not Teen) made me realize that I was totally destined to be a supermodel, for which the first step was to get a makeover and some photos at Glamour Shots to jumpstart my portfolio… obviously!
It’s not a real Glamour Shot, but I still have some key elements. Please note the cool accessories and a prop!
I’m not sure what the hold up was on Mama Bear’s part (probably telling Mister Elwood that we were going to shell out the big bucks for something as frivolous and vain as Glamour Shots). Regardless, she would not permit a trip to Glamour Shots. Much like her offer of a subscription to Teen, she set up a drape on our back porch, bought me a Caruso Molecular Hair Setter to make fancy makeover hair, and took pictures of me for my supermodel portfolio.
Although I am still quite bitter about the magazine switch-up, I will eternally praise my mother for her wisdom in preventing my modeling debut with Glamour Shots. Had I adorned myself with the bedazzled denim and cowboy hat of all of my peers, I might find myself twenty years later on a website such as this one (Seriously, you need to look at this stuff!). Instead, all photographic evidence of that phase in my teenagedom are locked up in a cedar chest in a remote location, guarded by expert markswoman Katniss Everdeen and three vicious wiener dogs.
One thing still remains… my desire for a makeover. I mean, I don’t think that I’d be okay about being on What Not To Wear, but the idea of people investing in making you beautiful is a fun idea. Give me some pretty hair and teach me how to do makeup (specifically how to rock the liquid eyeliner).
There are perks to being a rock star, though. Even if you don’t get a fancy makeover, sometimes PR companies get really excited about your music and your band and then decide to give your brand a makeover! We loved our old bird in tree logo (“Put a bird on it!”). So when they said, “a key marketing tool is visually distinguishing your brand,” I got all defensive about our little bird. They said, “No, this is cool, we can work with it.” We bit our fingernails and waited until the big reveal, which was met with jubilation and thanksgiving.
Our old bird in a dead tree got <GASP!!> a makeover! And not only that, but the new made over logo won an ADDY award for Taproot Creative because it’s so dang cool.
Here’s the funny thing, with the exception of the Purple Martins, Goldfinches, and such that Mister Elwood used to bring to the yard with his homemade peanut butter/birdseed treats, I don’t know a whole lot about birds. Since the bird is so prominent in our new logo, without fail, at every show we play, I am asked what type of bird it is. I always get so flustered because:
1) I have no idea
2) The guy who created it was an artist and not a bird enthusiast… so there is a really good chance that it’s just something that he made up, pulling together all of the things that he knows about birds to make one that was pleasing to the eye and fit all the rules of logo making
I admitted this to a gentleman at one of our recent shows in Asheville, NC and then two days later received this email.
Sarah,
I did a little research and determined that the bird in your logo is Veery Thrush. Just for fun: Hylocichla fuscescens. It summers in deciduous forests and nests on or near the ground. The Veery’s song is a loud, rolling series of rapid flute like notes, dropping down the scale, 8-14 per minute (kind of like a riff I guess).
We really enjoyed your show in Asheville.
Let it be known henceforth, that the Sarah Mac Band’s mascot is the mighty, Fighting Veery Thrush.
If you’re like me and your Mama Bear never let you go to Glamour Shots and get a makeover… put a bird on it (preferably a Sarah Mac Band Veery Thrush)! That’s just as cool.
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