Annique Jaeckel — Portland Recording Connection

My name is Annique.  I was born in Santa Barbara, CA and grew up with a lot of people from around the world that lived a very peaceful life that revolved around music, growing food, being who you are never heard anyone yell or get mad.  After years of that I went thru California with my older sister, mother and father up and down the coast.  My father was all about music.  From San Diego to San Francisco both parents seemed to know and hang out with musicians that were famous at the time.  I didn't know anything about them other then they were all in bands. Different people from Janis Joplin, David Crosby...I have one photo of my mom singing on stage with Country Joe and the fish...it's funny to look at for me.  

My father then moved to Maine when I was kid because he started to become very well known incredible artist that too many people were trying to make famous by putting his work in the best galleries for the most amount of money and he wanted to get away from it so I went back and forth between Maine and California growing up.  Before the time of the internet me showing up in Maine I looked completely different.  I dressed different and sunglasses all the time but either side of the country I got along with everyone.  At my fathers house was small with most of the walls knocked down so hundreds of records and a lot of speakers surrounded all walls. I was all and all raised on music and as I got older the collection grew along with huge sound systems...thousand cd's, still has all the records, tapes and every kind of music player imaginable all stacked up from one end of a wall to the other.  We didn't watch TV unless with with my mom-all kinds of music all the time.

At age 19 I got picked from the street by a photographer that worked with modeling agencies to do an international ad that in those days was too much for magazines in the U.S. because it showed too much skin and my tattoos but was a cool yet elegant enough of a photograph to end up in the magazine ads in other countries and hung in a few restaurants in NYC, Denver and L.A. Hundreds of real models wanted the ad and weren't very happy that me a nobody got it. I learned that at a show in NYC of modeling photos that I was in and had tattoos-not popular at all yet.  Modeling was not for me and people couldn't believe I didn't take any offers from agencies.  

Same year my sister moved to London with a friend to live and work. I went to visit to see London and one weekend we took a train to Amsterdam.  It was incredible.  We were supposed to be there for three days because she had to go back to work in London but I stayed for seven weeks without much money.  I was lucky enough to look like a local so that's who I ended up hanging out with.  The whole time was about music.  Being taken into the big clubs where some of the kids I met worked or were DJ's.  That's what blew my mind was hearing all different kinds of music in different clubs.  The sound systems there were louder then I thought possible...if I got to close to one it probably would've knocked my eardrums out.  If anything, it was the time of my life and collected as much music as I could from everywhere I was taken to see by locals. I went back to England finally to see my sister and she then took me to the streets of Camden where there were so many booths set up by Jamaicans that had been transported there to work. Most of them were selling their own music so by the time I had to come back to the U.S.A. I had ditched all my belongings so I could have enough room in my suitcase to take all the music I had gotten myself or from the poeple I met that worked in music.  It was heavy to say the least and my friends laughed when I showed them what I brought back because it didn't surprise them  

I then started traveling for years from a few of my guy friends getting me on a snowboard.  In the beginning we could only drive up on the backside of the big mountains that had dirt/snow covered roads in Colorodo or California because we .  We would take turns driving so one of us had to drive back down to the bottom of a long "out of bounds" trail to pick us up. After that ended up in the world of snowboarding working on the ski mountains to get a ski pass, getting paid to do what I loved. No matter where I worked there were people from all over the world and on or off the mountains music played the biggest role in everything.  Any job I had I took only if it had something to with music from coffee shops, restaurants where you eat and party. Anywhere I was I ended up getting control of what was played. Worked in a couple night clubs as a cocktail waitress or head of floor staff and always ended up in the DJ booth picking out what was to be played.  The best was Aspen, CO getting to work where bands from around the world would come to play...Paul Oakenfold, Alpha Blondie, Public Enemy, Parliment, The whailers, many many artists. I'll never forget after hours working at the Double Diamand Club I ended up waiting for my roommate that bartended in the small office with Bunny Whailer drinking coffee out of the pots. He talked and laughed a lot. That was a fun two hours of my life waiting for a performer to go back to the Ritz.  That place was where most big time artists would play other then outside in the summer.  It's not a huge club but the best of Aspen. 

Most of my twenties were between surf, snow and music.  A lifestyle that became a part of who I am.  I live in Portland, Maine now for five years and worked in spa and salon work showing women how to love their looks and be proud of it.  

That being said I'm incredibaly lucky to have been taught that I do what I love and have a passion for and put everything I have into it.  Learned from traveling all over that everybody is human and keep who and what I love close to my heart down to the core. Never understood drama or saying mean things about others no matter what comes out of their own minds in the world of music, dance, theater, art in any form,  writing... keep my word and work hard to do learn and do what I love.