By Maureen Houston
News-Democrat
"In the Mix" played in the background as she talked about her life and times.
When Mandy Gasparich was 19, she and a friend took off for California.
Since then, she has owned a restaurant, earned a massage therapist degree, worked as a nanny and joined a band that toured 16 countries through Armed Forces Entertainment.
She's now 28.
"Mandy is always a real adventure," said her father, George Gasparich, who teaches art and photography in the Belleville area.
Her latest is writing, performing and producing music she describes as pop-based urban dance. The day after Christmas, Miz Mandy's second CD, "In the Mix" played in the background as she talked about her life and times. The CD shared the coffee table in the living room of her family's sunny Fairview Heights home with a photo of Mandy in Liquid Blue, a pop music band.
Dressed in a brown-striped top, thick black belt and jeans, Mandy listened to her mom recall her early adventures.
"She used to run away in the department stores and hide in the circular racks," said Peggy Gasparich, who teaches at Belle Valley South.
"Even at a young age, 6 or 7, she would dress up (as the Easter Bunny) for neighborhood kids at Easter and deliver eggs to them."
Mandy arrived from San Diego for a holiday visit with her clothes packed in a vacuum cleaner box.
"It's very sturdy," she said.
The dark-eyed 1995 Belleville East grad was brimming with excitement about the new CD and filled with stories about her adventures.
"I went out to San Diego on vacation with a girlfriend (Erin Chancy). I loved it so much that two weeks later my U-haul was packed."
"I was scared to death," said her mom. "She flies by the seat of her pants."
"I originally wanted to go to New York or Los Angeles," said Mandy.
But she and Erin were comfortable with San Diego. Comfortable enough to pick up a guitar-carrying hitchhiker on his way to the beach. They invited him for dinner and offered to take him where he wanted to go the next day.
"He stayed and fell in love with my roommate," said Mandy. "That's pretty amazing. My roommate married the hitchhiker. They now live in the San Francisco area."
Then, there's the restaurant story.
"I was engaged," said Mandy. "My fiance was saying, 'I should open a restaurant.'"
They heard about one about to go on the market and submitted a low bid.
"We didn't think it would happen. All of a sudden, we had a restaurant."
They both knew parts of the business. She had been a hostess, bussed tables and managed. He had also worked in restaurants. Her parents came out and helped with the decor.
"That was while I was 21. We had it for about a year, broke up and sold it to the chef. We didn't lose money on it. It's called Le Passage. It's a French bistro in downtown Carlsbad."
Along came Liquid Blue, a six-member pop band. She sang background vocals and performed dance routines with another dancer. Together, they choreographed 250 songs. Tours took Liquid Blue from Tegucigalpa, Honduras, to Mozambique in East Africa, from Brussels, Belgium, to Dalian, China.
"We had a two-minute turnaround to get out on stage," she recalled about sets she performed for 55,000 in China. "We were getting our mikes put on. All you see is heads and waving arms. They have those glow-in-the-dark tubes and wands. I was treated like a rock star."
From Liquid Blue, she decided to go solo.
"I left the band in 2002 and wrote my first song. I started getting books about the music industry. If they can do it, I can do it."
"That's her attitude," said her father.
"Her songs have positive messages, especially for girls," said her mother.
"One from the first album ("Mandatory") tells women to invest in themselves and stop relying on finding a man to make them feel good," said Mandy. "Some songs are about taking risks. Stop just talking. Take action."
She works as a massage therapist at a country club to support her music.
"It's been about four years now. I've managed, self-marketed, promoted -- anything I can do."
"No one else puts on the shows that I do..."
She had a local CD release party at Castletown Geoghegan in Belleville last year and a California release at the Belly Up Tavern in San Diego. Her song "Shake, Shake, Shake" is No. 2 on the pop charts in Brazil. She's now working with producers who will distribute, market and promote her work in 2007.
"No one else puts on the shows that I do," she said. "I have an eight-piece band, three or four background musicians, and eight dancers. It's a 20-piece show."
Maybe Mandy was destined to become a singer. She grew up dancing and singing around the house, sometimes in a conga line with her sister, Liz, and her parents. She took dance lessons in grade school, sang in junior high with American's Pride program and studied voice.
"A Barry Manilow special was on the night she was born," said her mother. "I wouldn't go to hospital till he sang that song, 'Mandy.'"
Foods she misses when she's in San Diego: Refried beans from the Chuck Wagon in Fairview Heights, Imo's pepperoni pizza and her mom's pork chops and beef stroganoff, rhubarb pie and cherry cheesecake.
What she misses when she's here: The California weather and no smoking.
Favorite musicians: Prince, Billy Joel and Janis Joplin. "Prince does everything himself. He writes his music and plays most of it. I think he plays 11 instruments." Janis Joplin for her soul and lyrics; Billy Joel for his lyrics.
She also likes music from the 1940s. "I got exposed when I was looking for stuff for my grandpa for Christmas. I couldn't get enough. It's romantic, old-fashioned." She likes Etta James, Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra.
