Garrison Bailey: finding the comic in the tragic.

“My last album was seven years ago, and money was always an issue,” says Garrison Bailey (Groove Kitties). “I also had moved to Pennsylvania for five years, and music was put on the back burner for a while. I work at UCSD and I oversee five morgues, plus all the fetal demise cases. It is not an easy job, and I needed to do something to lower my blood pressure and to get my mind out of grief for a while. I had enough money to have one song produced; instead, I decided I would buy the recording equipment and try to create an album on my own.”

The resulting album, Secret Superwoman, was created in a 250-square-foot apartment. “I emptied one side and made it my studio and the other half my ‘bedroom,’ and I sat down and started. I had never done this before and I had no preconceived notions about what kind of music would come out of me. I played, I sang, I wrote, I used loops, I Googled ‘how-to’ so much. I finally had ten songs finished and I put the CD in my car and drove all over the county listening, and I loved it.”

The Secret Superwoman album release party happens September 25 at Navajo Live in San Carlos. “Also in that seven years of no music, I wrote a book, Homo: A Memoir by Garrison Bailey. Took me 20 years to write it. Out of great tragedy can come great comedy, and that’s how I approached writing it. Raw honesty that is still sometimes hard for me to go back and read. I had a goal set of 20 five-star reviews, and I achieved that goal. That means that 20 people were moved enough to write amazing reviews. Can’t ask for more than the opportunity to move someone.”