Uncommon Ground ^ Julie Moffitt

Julie Moffitt
A girl walks into a bar to see an act called ‘The Erotic Adventures of the Static Chicken.’ Though she’s disappointed that the band is neither erotic nor covered in feathers, by the end of the night she’s onstage belting out a drunken rendition of “Stormy Monday” and local bands are asking her to sit in with them. Three years later, she’s living in Chicago with two albums, four Summerfest appearances, a national tour and radio play on hundreds of stations across the country to her credit.

That’s pretty much how it happened, give or take all the years of childhood piano and voice lessons. After five years in Los Angeles earning a college degree and singing at Disneyland, Julie Moffitt returned to the Midwest completely by accident and managed to land in the career she’d wanted all along. These days she’s still performing in bars, but she’s also played live on TV news shows, college and commercial radio stations, headlined the Chick Singer Night Anniversary Show at Tangier in LA, and performed at venues and festivals all over the country, from Albuquerque’s Hyperactive Music Fest to Austin’s SXSW, from the Walnut Room in Denver to WXPN’s World Café Live in Philadelphia, sharing the stage with artists like Matt Nathanson (The American Wedding soundtrack), Adam Levy (guitar – Norah Jones) and The Gufs (Atlantic Records).

Julie went electronic in September 2006 when Sony’s AcidPlanet.com and AcidXpress software sponsored the Julie Moffitt Remix Contest. “Try,” the first single from The Stolen EP (Burst Records 2006), was included on the 2006 GoGirlsMusicFest CD and on Australia’s popular Sounds Like Café series (vol. 14), and in February 2007 “Let Him Be” (also from The Stolen EP) appeared in Paste Magazine’s Issue 28 Sampler alongside new tracks by The Shins and Lucinda Williams.

With the help of family and friends, Julie does the majority of her own booking and all of her own promotion, and now, three years after her adventures with the erotic chicken, 2007 has proven to be a break-out year. Julie’s first live concert videos on YouTube jumped into the rankings immediately with over 30,000 views in just a few weeks, and just as she was leaving Milwaukee for the lush musical scene of Chicago, she was nominated for Best Acoustic Act by the Wisconsin Area Music Industry awards. In the summer Julie enjoyed her first headlining spot at Milwaukee’s Summerfest, and she spent the fall on the road touring through Midwestern colleges, and clubs in Nashville, Winnipeg and Austin.