thedrifter
02-17-07, 08:38 AM
Marine musician to give last show before Iraq
By Beth Zimmerman - Staff Writer
Posted : Friday Feb 16, 2007 21:30:15 EST
A budding musician and female Marine will perform Saturday in San Diego for the last time before starting what she’s dubbed her “Sandbox Tour.”
Cpl. Ethni Valdez, a flight equipment technician with Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, Calif.-based Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron 16, performs under the stage name Ethni Jamin — pronounced “jay-min,” rather than “jammin’.” Jamin is her middle name, she said.
Valdez’s last local show before deployment is scheduled for Saturday at Hot Java Café, according to her MySpace Music profile.
The performance is listed under Valdez’s “upcoming shows” directly above the “Sandbox Tour” — described by the musician as “my voice and guitar, accompanied by various sandstorms and booms for approximately half a year.” In other words, a seven-month Iraq deployment.
Valdez describes her sound as a “dame and her guitar … telling you my secrets.”
Her musical inspiration is life, she said.
“Everything and everyone around me has made contribution to my total state of being, and life is what inspires me,” Valdez states in her profile. “Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad ... either way — you can always write about it.”
“A hero’s lady,” one of four songs on Valdez’s MySpace page, takes the listener on a six-minute acoustic tale of a deploying Marine. It was something Valdez saw when her shop deployed four Marines last year, while their wives stayed behind.
“I wrote the song as kind of a thank you” to those women, Valdez said. She wanted them to know that Marines “see what they go through .... and that we appreciate what they do, as well.”
Valdez, 23, performs with her guitar, which she picked up about two years ago — but has yet to actually take lessons, according to her profile, which had been viewed 1,621 times as of Friday.
Valdez said Marines make up a big part of her fan base, and the Corps has opened doors for her musical career. She performed the national anthem in her dress blues at SeaWorld in San Diego and opened the UFC Fight Night at MCAS Miramar earlier this year.
Singing the national anthem for fellow leathernecks is an “immensely powerful” experience, Valdez said. “I don’t know any group who feels the impact of that song greater than those who live it.”
Valdez leaves for her first deployment to Iraq within a week or two, she said. When she returns, she plans on pursuing her music “much more seriously than time allows for right now.”
Meanwhile, she’s “looking forward to the different perspective and experiences to write about” during her sandbox tour.
Ellie
By Beth Zimmerman - Staff Writer
Posted : Friday Feb 16, 2007 21:30:15 EST
A budding musician and female Marine will perform Saturday in San Diego for the last time before starting what she’s dubbed her “Sandbox Tour.”
Cpl. Ethni Valdez, a flight equipment technician with Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, Calif.-based Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron 16, performs under the stage name Ethni Jamin — pronounced “jay-min,” rather than “jammin’.” Jamin is her middle name, she said.
Valdez’s last local show before deployment is scheduled for Saturday at Hot Java Café, according to her MySpace Music profile.
The performance is listed under Valdez’s “upcoming shows” directly above the “Sandbox Tour” — described by the musician as “my voice and guitar, accompanied by various sandstorms and booms for approximately half a year.” In other words, a seven-month Iraq deployment.
Valdez describes her sound as a “dame and her guitar … telling you my secrets.”
Her musical inspiration is life, she said.
“Everything and everyone around me has made contribution to my total state of being, and life is what inspires me,” Valdez states in her profile. “Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad ... either way — you can always write about it.”
“A hero’s lady,” one of four songs on Valdez’s MySpace page, takes the listener on a six-minute acoustic tale of a deploying Marine. It was something Valdez saw when her shop deployed four Marines last year, while their wives stayed behind.
“I wrote the song as kind of a thank you” to those women, Valdez said. She wanted them to know that Marines “see what they go through .... and that we appreciate what they do, as well.”
Valdez, 23, performs with her guitar, which she picked up about two years ago — but has yet to actually take lessons, according to her profile, which had been viewed 1,621 times as of Friday.
Valdez said Marines make up a big part of her fan base, and the Corps has opened doors for her musical career. She performed the national anthem in her dress blues at SeaWorld in San Diego and opened the UFC Fight Night at MCAS Miramar earlier this year.
Singing the national anthem for fellow leathernecks is an “immensely powerful” experience, Valdez said. “I don’t know any group who feels the impact of that song greater than those who live it.”
Valdez leaves for her first deployment to Iraq within a week or two, she said. When she returns, she plans on pursuing her music “much more seriously than time allows for right now.”
Meanwhile, she’s “looking forward to the different perspective and experiences to write about” during her sandbox tour.
Ellie