Sick of Sarah on Tour: A Few of Abisha's Favorite Things

This is a monthly column by Sick of Sarah — whose music can be heard weekly on Brunch with Bridget, and on a recent episode of South of Nowhere — about their experiences as an up-and-coming band.

My name is Abisha Uhl, and before I tell you more about myself, there are some things you should know about my all-girl band, Sick of Sarah.

They let me write songs and sing lead, so I’m stoked.

Coming from humble and meager beginnings in a barren frozen land they refer to as Minnesota (Minneapolis to be exact), where extreme climate variations of -40 to freakin’ sweltering are the norm, they’ve been chosen to be the band to save the world — for with extreme weather comes extreme rocking and extreme extremeness.

I like things that are close by; shiny things are fun. Stuff to easily grab and play with, long drawn-out naps by firelight.

My Wii fit age is 47; however, I am nonetheless very flexible and have a healthy sex life.

That being said, Have you ever seen a ninja squirrel? I knew one once; a fat plump rodent at first glance who actually turned out to be a Ninja Squirrel well trained in the Bushido code, with a crossbow attached to his front paw and a tail that could split an elm with one fierce whip … but I digress.

Songwriting is a very personal experience at times, and at others, it’s a free-flowing accidental inspiration.

Either way, it is a process. Any good song takes time, takes changing, and takes different forms through out. But when it hits, and you know it hits, it’s like solid mutha f*&%in gold.

Sometimes personal experiences bleed through lyrics and songs unintentionally; often I’m not writing about any one particular someone or something, but the feeling still comes through in the song.

That’s what makes music what it is; everyone can relate some way or somehow and in some circumstance. No one can feel the exact same way about the same song, it’s totally unique to each listener. Some songs are simpler; they come from a much quicker, lighter inspiration, or something real simple you just have to get out.

Sometimes, you just got to sing a song where you yell a lot and jump around, and sometimes you just want to sit down and sing a sad song.

It’s like scratching an itch; you don’t know where it comes from, you just know what it takes to make it feel better. When things are rough (which they are for all of us) it pulls out some real deep emotions that can make for real good, fulfilling songs. Through a song, you can open your heart and cry, yell at the world, flirt with someone, or get someone back.

You can do whatever you want in a song and it’s nice to be able to express what’s inside trying to get out.

Playing shows is fun, setting up sucks, sound check at 3pm when you play at 11pm sucks, load in sucks, driving five, seven and 14-and-a- half hours crammed in a minivan with all your equipment sucks, getting free hats sucks, going on cruises sucks, getting free food to your door along with any Cuban cigar you may want sucks.

The fans are cool, watching bad movies that drag on forever sucks, seeing everyone enjoying themselves and smiling, singing and dancing is awesome, bar food sucks, pink socks are OK, playing music is fun, sound guys who are deaf sucks, having good management is cool, hangnails suck.

Your friend’s dog is cool, being broke sucks, rocking face with friends in front of ya and at your back is pretty amazing, lounging on the beach doing nothing but catching a tan and getting plastered sucks.

Free flights anywhere suck, getting paid millions to do what you love really sucks, Tony Danza is cool, free donuts when the kid at super America recognizes you and thinks you're cute sucks, comps suck, pools outside in Beverly Hills sucks, heartbreak is cool, and talk is cheap.

Oh, and don’t do drugs.

Learn more about SOS at MySpace.com/SickofSarah