Truus Makes Waves II

This is an episode of WORM Sound Studio’s Klangendum Radio series, 2024

My second autobiographical Opera travels from 1991 as I moved to Seattle (after 11 years in New York City) to the present day, 2024 in Escondido, California. The move from NYC to Seattle was a big shift. Leaving the Rock and Roll lifestyle behind, I set out to become a normal citizen. Get a steady job, a house maybe? All that was achieved, but no Rock and Roll and the lack of performing gnawed at me. No, I was not really great at mainstreaming. Seattle was the absolute opposite of NYC. Grey, dull, rainy, laidback and, well, weird. Then you had the West Coast VS the East Coast attitude. A confusing matter. Where NYC was a place where you could be blunt and honest, in Seattle there was a forced politeness, they would dance around the subject and usually tried to be “nice”, even if they didn’t mean it. Something to get used to and finding it out took some time. But the coffee was great and it felt safe to walk the streets, unlike NYC.

Throughout it all I continued to create music, although not live. In the mid 90’s I finally found a lively gay scene of artists and like-minded rejects, and it was party time again. With the introduction of Cocktails by my close friends Cocktail historian Jeff Berry and NYC bestie Annene Kaye, who both lived in Los Angeles, things started to look up. We would visit each other on occasion so I got a taste of Southern California. The thrift shopping was amazing in Seattle and it became a steady preoccupation finding treasures. As well as finding older drink establishments and architecture.  We were the Urban Archaeologists!  It was “all aboard” for fun times again. Those two also hooked me up with Tiki artist Bosko. So it was in 1998 that I left Seattle for the Southern Californian sun and started a new life. I became immersed in the Tiki Scene and we created a successful business to sell his Art. I also resumed putting out music. First a trilogy of Exotica music albums to go with the Tiki vibe, then Plus Instruments came back to life again to this day on as well as numerous other collaborations with people worldwide.

Listen to the episode: click here