Hello!
We’re settling into winter mode now. The brush clearing equipment is put away, the snowplow is on the tractor, and the snowblower is ready for when it’s needed. We’ve had our first snowfall, but it’s all melted away again. Our walking path is mostly mud, which collects in the soles of our hiking boots, making our mud room true to its name. The deer have been leaving hoof prints in the mud as well; the turkeys are too light for the mud, but left great prints in the snow, hundreds of little directional arrows scattered around the field. We also found opossum prints in the snow — splayed toes, and a tail waggle! Even without the cameras, we can see a lot of activity around here. And for now, we’ll be sticking around the New England neighborhood, too.
The Linden Tree Coffeehouse in Wakefield, MA presents their Winter Potpourri on Saturday, December 10th. A selection of New England singer-songwriters will play two songs each, with hopes to be chosen to perform during next year’s coffeehouse season. Host Kirsten Manville, who will play a feature set part way through the evening, will present Ric Allendorf, Dan & Faith, Alex Fam, Folkapotamus, Rick Gottlieb, Kenny Selcer, Rob Siegel, and Erin Ash Sullivan. Audience input will play a major part in the decision around who will be chosen for next year’s season, so please come down and help make the choice! Music starts at 7:30pm. We would love to see you there! Admission to this special Linden Tree concert is a suggested $10 donation, cash or check at the door, which will be shared with the Wakefield Interfaith Food Pantry. Please reserve your seats by calling 781-246-2836.
The Mid-week Song Swap is back! Need some entertainment while you’re wrapping presents? Want to settle down with a warm blanket and a glass of eggnog, rather than going out? Join us Wednesday, December 14th as we swap songs with the duo Friction Farm. Modern-folk duo Friction Farm is a husband and wife team of internationally traveling troubadours. Aidan Quinn and Christine Stay combine storytelling, social commentary and humor to create songs of everyday life, local heroes, and quirky observations. From ballads to anthems each song is filled with harmony and hope. We finished up last season’s Song Swap with them, but they had some severe internet issues, and couldn’t hear us at all for the entire second half of the show. Music starts at 7:30pm Eastern time (UTC 00:30) on our Facebook and YouTube pages.
One great annual tradition, in which we have taken part since 2014, is DJ Nick Noble’s annual Folk Revival Holiday Show on WICN radio in Worcester, MA. This year, Nick is running the show on two consecutive Thursdays. We’ll join him in the studio for the second week, Thursday, December 22nd. The show runs 7-10pm Eastern time (UTC 00:00-03:00) at 90.5FM in the Worcester area or online at WICN.org. Back in 2014, Dan wrote Solstice so we would have a holiday song to play on Nick’s show, and we’ve been playing it for him ever since. Tune in to hear it, find out what else we play, and hear all the other great local musicians bring holiday cheer to the airwaves!
Our birthdays both fall at the end of the year, two days apart, and we tend to do our major celebration on the day between. This year, that’s Friday, December 30th (yes, Dan’s birthday is the 29th, and Faith’s is the 31st). This year, we’re in the mood to share a little music for our birthdays! Join us at 7:30pm Eastern time (UTC 00:30) on our Facebook and YouTube pages for an hour of us playing whatever the heck we’re in the mood to play that evening. Feel free to have cake in our honor! If there’s a song of ours you’d particularly like to hear, email us back, and we’ll add it to the list.
We have created a lyric video for Solstice! You can see a preview on our Patreon page. Sign up to be a patron, and you’ll have access to the full video, plus you’ll get other stuff from us on here from time to time, too.
If you are on Spotify, you can also find Solstice on the Indie Collaborative Christmas Playlist, along with more than 125 other holiday songs by various Indie Collaborative musicians from around the world.
Music makes a great holiday gift! Our albums Then and Now, Seeking, and Simple Grace are available from us on our website, through Bandcamp, or you can find them at iTunes and most other online music stores. Our music is also available streaming on Spotify and Apple Music.
As always, you can find additional schedule information on our website. For additional content and stories from the road, follow us on Patreon. For more frequent news updates and information, check out our Facebook fan page and follow us on Twitter (@danandfaith).
This has been an odd year in so many ways, but it has been a delight to get to do more live shows and see so many friends. As 2022 comes to a close, we want to wish you and yours a wonderful holiday and a hopeful new year!
Dan & Faith
