Ana's first band was The Blue Up?.

album: introducing sorrow

Ana: it was never released..but almost was..long story. someday i'll rerelease it

on this record i'm playing everything except for the drums. i wrote this record when i was 18 and recorded it when i was 22. i came up with the money to record it by stripping!

it's a "concept" record ( is was REALLY into the 60's back then...) about a guy who is called sgt. sorrow who is the actual embodiment of the emotion sorrow.
because he is sorrow, no one wants to be his friend. so after he is very old and alone, he comes upon the idea of sewing himself a rabbit to be his friend. he calls this rabbit "day" and they go running through the meadows in happiness. but the townspeople see this old guy running around with a stuffed rabbit, and they decide it is an embarassment to the town, so they go into his house when he's not there one day and they rip up his rabbit. sorrow comes home to discover this and the pain of his only friend being destroyed is too much, he goes insane. way inside his mind he goes to a place called "the animal sea", there he is reunited with day, and he is happy again and safe because he is way inside his mind and will never come out.

this album was almost released in that i sent it to a million little labels throughout europe and i actually got signed to "midnight music records" who had on it people like robyn hitchcock.
i made the album cover, it was going to be a gatefold sleeve. it was all ready to go in a pressing plant in belgium, when the guy who owned the record co. all of a sudden went bankrupt and disappeared off of the face of planet!
i'm still looking for him. i did find a nick ralph in england, but he was a bishop, and we exchanged emails for a few days.

this album was recorded at the underground studios in minneapolis in 1987, i think. and this studio ( it's not around anymore) was owned and operated by zachary vex who also helped me start anacam. so we have a long history together.
in fact, the blue up's 1st single "we are the garden" was recorded in his living room!

Their last album was Spool Forka Dish.

Release date: 05/02/1995
Original release date: 1995 		Label: Columbia
Catalog: 57792
Distributor: Sony
desc: performer
Genre: General 		Mono/Stereo: Stereo
Studio/Live: Studio
Pieces in Set: 1
Producer: Bobby Z.  

Track List:

RealAudio format.

* Please
* Shine
* Breathe You Out
* Feel Me Dying
* Sugar And Gold
* Blasting XTC
* Other
* Capture This
* Six At 9
* Spoons For Seven
* Eat It, 2
* Come Alive
* Exhibitionist
* Your Boat
* Beautiful Hysterical
* H. Sidakr Of Loops
* Icing

Additional Notes:

Here's an article by Simon Peter Groebner at AE.

Next time you see an ad for A&E on the side of a University 13 bus, take note of its psychedelic design. Our art directress, Liberty Eggink, made some of them with this guy singing into a microphone; the others borrow images of a feminine eye, decorated with swirly makeup and glitter. I think the owner of that eye, Rachael, would find her optic exposure poetically appropriate. Rachael leads the Blue Up?, Minneapolis' most adventurous pop creation. Her ahead-of-its-time music is lush with magical fairies and uninhibited exhibitionists; startling emotional power beside fairy tale symbolism. And Rachael's favorite symbol -- besides cups, stars, snakes, Geisha girls and scissors -- is her eyes. Just observe her artwork and lyrics on the latest Blue Up? disc, Spool Forka Dish.

Her large, royally decorated eyes are tiny Rachael's largest and most expressive feature, rivalled only by her broad- ranged voice. Indeed, the combined height of the trio is less then 15 feet. But when guitarist Rachael, bassist Carolyn Rush and drummer Renee Braachi take the stage, the Blue Up? is huge. When I first saw them three years ago in the Whole, I was nailed with the revelation that there's much more to pop than testosterone.

The band draws from an obscure fringe history of pop music, from psychedelia to progressive rock to punk to new wave; Pink Floyd to Kate Bush to Bowie, Babes in Toyland and beyond. Courtney Love once admitted that the Blue Up? album Cake and Eat It inspired her most famous Hole lyric: "I want to be the girl with the most cake." What's most amazing is that Rachael and her band have spent 11 years trapped in a music scene that barely understands them. Rachael's exotic and often controversial flair exudes a potential-star power that contradicts the sound, attitude and gender conventions of the Midwestern rock/work ethic. Spool Forka Dish is the most ambitious pop recording from Minneapolis since Prince's prime. It shifts gears so often, from 12-string guitar rock to synthesized bliss to acoustic meandering, that unaccustomed listeners may be disoriented. Rachael places a premium on recording and performance over musicianship, and she's not very staunch about doing her own promotion work. Yet Rachael's visions extend far beyond guitar-bass-drums in dingy bars. She's much more like Bjork: Her music becomes a post-rock platform for sensuality, whimsy, studio command and neo-feminist assertiveness. The artist lives in, not with, her art. "You can't tell me how and where to shine," Rachael demands on Spool Forka Dish; the irony is that unlike Bjork, Rachael hasn't quite gotten her chance to shine -- yet.

After all, the Blue Up? boasts the bizarre misfortune of having three excellent albums which are all rare or aborted. Rachael's first self-recorded effort, the engaging, embryonic Introducing Sorrow, never saw the light of day once its English label disappeared off the face of the earth with the master tapes. Strike One. The Blue Up? bounced back in 1992 with the masterful, explosive Cake and Eat It, which boasted 23 tracks of emotional catharsis, lush psychedelic production, soundbite oddities and defiantly tough pop. Within nine months of Cake's release, the band surged forth to hard-won local notoriety. But the spotlight was finite -- Cake was released to tiny distribution on a friend's label, Catacombs, and is now next to impossible to find. Strike Two.

Their luck seemed to turn around when former Prince drummer Bobby Z "discovered" the band, signed on as manager and ushered in a contract with Columbia Records. For the first time, the Blue Up?'s stars were aligned for success.

Or so it seemed. In a gabble of bloated disorganization, Columbia sat on the big-budget debut Spool Forka Dish for months, only to issue it last May with impotent support. The single "Breathe You Out" got excellent airplay at home, but Columbia lifted barely a finger to spread the word. Two months after the release, the Blue Up? predictably got the boot. Spool went out of print, and remaining sale copies are dwindling. Strike Three.

After enduring all this, most bands would have broken up three times. But the ever-resilient Blue Up? forges on. I've always thought the acclaimed dream-pop label 4AD would make a better home for the them. But until something happens, the Blue Up? remains our best-kept secret. (ED: Of course, they DID break up, but what the hell).

An interview with Rachael (Ana) by Jon Steltenpohl at Consumable.
I'd steal it and show it here, but it says not to right on the damn site.