The Permission Parties: A New Listening & Tasting Experience

Three years after that pesky pandemic cut our dinner series short, I am thrilled to share that we will finally return for a limited 5-night run in May!  To celebrate the release of my newest album Permission, I am embarking on a brand new kind of “tour” called The Permission Parties: a multi-sensory listening and tasting dinner series. Attendees will enjoy six Chinese-inspired dishes I’ve created that share some common emotion with each of the six tracks on the album. I will share a personal story about each course before serving, and then premiere the track while the guests enjoy the dish.  The dinners will take place in Nashville in May as a part of AAPI Heritage month celebrations, and then across 9 other US cities in September and October: Kansas City, Denver, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Santa Fe, Houston, Austin, & Dallas. 

Proceeds will benefit groups fighting for AAPI safety and visibility via The Quiet Voice Fund.

GET YOUR NASHVILLE TIX HERE! (5/9-5/13)

Tickets for other cities coming soon. If you’d like to host a future Permission Party please drop me a line at alex@highceilingsmusic.com

More about The Permission Parties: 

The purpose of The Permission Parties is to invest in the idea that everyone has permission to take up space in the world… we don’t need to wait for it to be “given.”  Growing up in the US as a second-generation Chinese American, I rarely felt permission to take up space with my body, my voice, or my stories. Movies and media told me I was allowed to be a buddy, a punchline, or a decoration, but there was not enough space for my story in the center of the room.  By showcasing the emotional stories connecting my music, food, and cultural identity, I hope to empower everyone, especially those on the margins, to feel permission to take up space with their stories.

The inspiration comes from having synesthesia, a condition that mixes up 2 unrelated senses in our brains. This did more than connect colors to letters, numbers, and musical pitches.  It taught me to find connections between seemingly unrelated passions such as food, music, and storytelling, and inspired me to synthesize these disciplines into a holistic artistic event in order to share these connections with others.  

Music making and cooking have always come from the same creative place for me. The same elements that make music endlessly fascinating are also what drive my curiosity in the kitchen; pushing for new sounds/flavors, quiet/loud elements working together, and most of all the emotional message at the core of any creation. The way a kick drum makes my mouth salivate when it sounds just right is the same feeling I’m looking for when seasoning a dish. The way my heart flutters when the string arrangement locks into place is the same as when I taste a new combination of ingredients that really works. I’ve always wanted to express these emotional parallels between food and music somehow.  My hope is that experiencing them together might offer a deeper enjoyment of each.  

You can view a past listening and tasting experience here.
I can’t wait to cook for you all again!

Much love,
Alex Wong and the Angelhouse Family Dinner team

New Song Drops May 15. Vienna Teng May 15 & 16

Dear loved ones,

The first half of the Show Yourself Residency has been an absolute joy! Thank you everyone who filled Rockwood Music Hall or streamed a show! The second half starts this Sunday, have you gotten your tickets yet???

I’m especially excited for the upcoming shows on Sunday 5/15 (only LIVE tix left) and Monday 5/16 (only STREAMING tix left) which feature Vienna Teng, an artist who I have collaborated with for many years and who has had a profound influence on me as a songwriter, artist, and human being.

Vienna and I met almost 20 yrs ago while playing an open mic at Red Rock Coffee in Mountain View CA. We became mutual fans and friends and I was psyched to meet another AAPI artist, a rare sighting in the singer songwriter circuit at that time. Two weeks later I turned on the tv and saw her performing on David Letterman

Since then we’ve been lucky to play music around the world together. She’s always been an inspiration to me and others as one of the first AAPI artists to break through on the national stage.  Working w her inspired me to #levelup as a songwriter, producer and musician, and showed me how we can integrate art and advocacy with grace and power. Some of my most joyous and most present moments making music were on stage performing with Vienna. I’m so grateful she’ll be sharing her powerful stories at the #ShowYourselfResidency. 

In-person tickets are $35 and online tickets are $20.  VIP add-on options are available for both which include access to a post-show meet-and-greet, mixed/edited video recordings of the show, and more.  100% of ticket sales will benefit The Quiet Voice Fund, again supporting organizations fighting anti-Asian hate and advocating for the AAPI community.  If you’re planning to be in NYC area, I highly recommend grabbing live tickets right away… one of the shows has already sold out!

AS ALWAYS, ALL PATREON MEMBERS GET ACCESS TO ALL STREAMING SHOWS FOR FREE.

Patrons can also get a special VIP package which will include access to the post-show meet and greet live from the Rockwood stage, an official poster signed by all the artists, access to mixed and edited audio/video recordings of each show, a special set of all 4 prints of Ping’s artwork, and handwritten lyrics to my newest single, to be released during the residency!  

BECOME A PATRON TO GAIN ACCESS TO THE PATRON-ONLY STORE.

Recorded and mixed the new song while in NYC for the residency!

If you’ve tuned in to any of the live streams, you know I have also been testing out a brand new song called “Permission” during this residency and I’m very excited to share that on Sunday I will be releasing a special recording of the song ON PATREON featuring guest vocals by Vienna Teng and MILCK! I got the very impractical idea to produce the song while in NYC, so I went to Hive Mind Recording in Brooklyn and laid down my piano and vocal, then got my musician friends from all over the country to send in parts, including a string quartet from Nashville TN! I can’t wait for you to hear it. Here’s a clip of the song from the moment I finished writing it, hours before I performed it at the first #ShowYourselfResidency.  

A bit about the song - As a kid I rarely felt permission to take up space… with my body, my stories, or the sound of my voice. Movies and TV told me I was allowed to be a buddy, a punchline, or a decoration, but there was not enough space for me in the center of the room. I learned to shrink… my voice got quieter, my shoulders folded inward.

I wanted to be a singer for a long time, but my body was so terrified of making any noise, let alone the “wrong” noise, that my throat would literally constrict and physically block sound from coming out as a defense mechanism. My throat was so tight that my voice would crack when I tried to sing, flooding me with even more shame.

I often feel that my path as a singer (a label i still struggle with) has been less about learning new skills and vocal techniques and more about removing these emotional clogs living in my throat and letting the sound come out. I wrote this song for that kid, and anyone waiting for someone to give them permission to take up space.

You don’t have to wait for it to be given.  You have permission.

Become a patreon member to hear the full song.