LISTEN TO  PUBLISHER DAVE WIELENGA INTERVIEW ALICIA MURPHY AND SE REED ON THE JULY 12 EDITION OF GREATER LONG BEACH RADIO

  aliciaandse Alicia Murphy was five years old when she got her first guitar as a gift from her big sister. At first, the  little girl’s fingers couldn’t stretch across the frets, but as she grew up her guitar became a part of every life lesson. She played the instrument every night just before bedtime. She discovered that strumming and picking at the strings enabled her to process the things she had experienced during the day that was fading away.

Sé was 16 years old when she decided  that guitar would be  her little sister’s 5th birthday present. As Alicia grew into a teenager so talented that a guy from the Foo Fighters invited her to his home to record, Sé felt proud—and responsible. She accompanied her little sister to make sure nothing went wrong. The EP from those recording sessions—called It Is and It Isn’t—will be released before the summer ends. Alicia is the artist-in-residence at the Blue Café this month. She has summer internships at the Los Cerritos Wetlands and Colorado Lagoon because this fall she is going back to UC Davis to finish her degree in hydrology. Somewhere in there she’s got to find time to turn 21.

But before any of that, Alicia Murphy spent an hour on Greater Long Beach Radio with Dave Wielenga, playing some of the quirky folk music she writes and sings, explaining how it still comes from the way she processes her life. And Sé came with her, but not because she was worrieds anything would go wrong.

These days, older sister sings backup vocals and plays percussion in little sister’s band.

Alicia Murphy and Sé Reed were rather agitated when they arrived at K-BEACH studios for the Thursday-at-6 o’clock start of Greater Long Beach Radio, and only partly because it was just a few seconds before 5:59. See, they had a good excuse, and it doubled as breaking news: the Blue Café, where Murphy and her band, the Mandelbrot Set, were mandelbrotblue scheduled to headline in a few hours, had suddenly closed for a few days—something about some kind of hassle with the City of Long Beach during  which somebody was allegedly overheard using the word “permits.”

 But Murphy was determined to perform, anyway. She had already announced that her show would  be at {open}, the landmark 4th Street book store and culture salon owned by the woman who right this minute was settling into a studio chair and scooting up close to the microphone right beside her— her older sister, Sé.

The show began awkwardly.  The Greater Long Beach Radio theme didn’t play, the delivery of the news about the Blue Cafe wasn’t sharp and then came a weird drift through small talk.  But everything was corrected just as quickly when Alicia Murphy agreed to play one of her songs. First came her guitar in a rising and falling rhythm, then her voice joined in a soothing, milky melody, while all along the way, at precise and crucial places, came Sé’s sweet and careful harmony.

It was marvelous, yet still not as as good as the buzz of Se and Alicia’s sisterhood. c Looking back, my interview may have been a bit too to explore the love and tension and relationship strategies that seem to have rewarded these women for bridging their 11-year age difference through nothing more complicated than the willingness to be as humble or assertive or anything else it  took.

Ultimately, Se and Alicia deftly and sweetly evaded what they saw no use in talking about, and the rest of the time they were relaxed and generous conversationalists. Quite funny, too. And loving. In other words, all my questions were answered.