Bio

Anna Sacks started writing songs in 2005 while living in San Francisco.  She started out as a lyricist, and began singing shortly thereafter. A trip to Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin for the Steel Bridge Songfest in June 2006 proved to be a life-altering experience; Anna moved to Sturgeon Bay six weeks later.  In May of 2007, she was one of 14 investors to purchase what is now the Holiday Music Motel in Sturgeon Bay, a charming 1950s motor lodge.  The group, consisting of musicians and music enthusiasts (including Jackson Browne and Steel Bridge Songfest co-founders pat mAcdonald and Christie Weber) put a recording studio in the motel and set out to make it a destination for collaborative songwriting.  (To date, more than 200 original songs have been written and recorded at the Holiday Motel.)  After spending three years in Wisconsin managing the motel and collaborating with a great many talented songwriters (including pat mAcdonald, Adam Mackintosh, Eric McFadden, Chris Aaron, Seth Raddatz and Delaney Davidson), Anna moved to Venice, California in August 2009, and currently has a number of musical projects in the works.  

This site will be updated periodically with show dates and other announcements, so please stop by from time to time!

I wrote "When Will You Be Mine"  with Delaney Davidson (a brilliant songwriter and performer from New Zealand) in the Holiday Music Motel during Steel Bridge Songfest 5, in June 2009.  The song itself was hard-won, taking many hours to write.  The recording was similarly hard-won, due to the number of songs written in the motel that week, but we loved the song and were determined to record it. Thanks to Steve Hamilton (SBSF engineer extraordinaire!) and his superhuman ability to go without sleep for days on end, we were able to slip into the Holiday's recording studio at about 3 a.m. on Saturday night...after the festival was over and Steve was meant to be sound asleep.  For better or worse, I fell asleep on the studio couch and missed the entire recording of the song, waking for just long enough to record my vocals.  I love this recording, and am forever thankful to Steve-o and Delaney for making it happen.  I particularly love the perfectly out-of-tune piano at the end.

"TimeSpace Lullaby" was written by Adam Mackintosh, Corey Carlson and me at SBSF 2 in June 2006.  While the original recording was lost, I was able to record this stripped-down version with Adam a couple of years later in Sturgeon Bay at the home of our friend Craig Storlie...we recorded this and "Mourning of Magic" one night in his 8-track ADAT studio.  Both songs were recorded with the intention of adding more instrumentals to them, which has yet to be done.  

I wrote the lyrics to "Mourning of Magic" and held onto them for over a year before showing them to my dear friend and genius songwriter Susan Howe, who literally ran off with them and came back an hour later with the music written.  I was honored she had her way with my words, and look forward to having the opportunity to add to the existing recording, which is sweet but quite bare.

Last but not least, "April" was written with my friend Fatti Fischer shortly after I moved to Wisconsin.  We recorded it in the attic at Chris Alley's house, on a sub-zero night with a couple of feet of snow on the ground...at least that's how I remember it.  




Press

01/02/2010 - Paper Darts Magazine Interview