Musicians are constantly on the move when they’re on tour. But Valerie Teicher—who goes by the name Tei Shi and is touring in support of her latest album, Crawl Space—has conquered the turbulence of the road. Teicher—who was born in Buenos Aires, moved to Vancouver when she was younger, and now lives in New York—says that being on tour and knowing what she knows about live performances helped her grow and contributed to her new album.
“Touring is pretty rough,” she says. “I had a hard time with it earlier on in my career, but I think that since I was able to take some time off and work on my album I was able to bring that mindset of playing live into the process of making the album. I wanted to make music that I thought was going to translate well live and that I felt that I was going to be happy and excited to be touring. Touring off the EPs that I made, it was kind of something that I got thrown into, and during that phase I was making a lot of music; I think I kind of developed an aversion to touring.”
Teicher says that each city she performs in is different from the last in one way or another, be it the venues, the people, or the city itself. Despite that, she says that she does find some similarities between places when she’s on tour.
“I think, overall, there’s kind of a cohesiveness of people that come to my shows, and it feels like there’s kind of a unity in the people that come out,” she says. “But with that said, it’s a different experience in every city, even just based off the space we’re playing in, like the venue, what the energy in the space is like, or how separate the crowd is from the stage. Some cities and crowds are notorious for not really moving a lot and just standing there, whereas some cities are really rowdy and loud. It really does vary from place to place. I’m really excited for this tour, since it’s my first time touring Canada and to come back to the west coast, where I grew up, so I’m super excited for that; it’s going to be a special moment for me.”
Teicher says that, had she been told when she was younger that this is what she would be doing as her career, she would have believed it, but she would’ve viewed it happening in a different way.
“I think that if I had the chance to tell my younger self that this is what we’re doing now I think that she wouldn’t be surprised,” says Teicher. “I think that when I was younger I had a lot more unchecked ambition and was a lot more confident than my adult self. My younger self would probably say something like, ‘Oh, yeah, of course—that’s exactly what you’re supposed to be doing.’ But I think that my younger self would’ve pictured it way more differently than what the reality of it really is.”
Tei Shi
8 pm Wednesday, October 11
$15, Sugar Nightclub
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