Dan & Faith

Hello!

We’re finally back home after a fantastic road trip to Florida. Played great shows, met lots of cool people, even got to see a couple of SpaceX rocket launches and booster landings! It’s been a fun month of music, visiting friends and family, and songwriting, too. We’ve also just finished up our second year of February Album Writing Month, an annual personal songwriting challenge. Dan met the challenge goal of 14 songs written in the month; Faith didn’t quite reach the goal, but still managed to write 10 new ones. We discovered that doing a hefty songwriting challenge like this is even more of a challenge when you’re touring! Some of these songs will debut in our shows later this year, no doubt.

To start the month off, we’re back playing Open Mic America on Sunday, March 3rd (hey, that’s today!). Open Mic America is a national online open mic showcasing 7-9 performers in any musical genre, and celebrating local open mics around the country. Music runs 8-10pm Eastern time, and you can watch it live on YouTube. If you miss it live, the video stays up on YouTube afterwards.

Back in 2010 when we were living in Bolton, MA, the Bolton Public Library completed a much-needed major expansion project. We were approached by head librarian Kelly Collins, who asked us if we would host an open mic at the newly-reopened library. “The library needs music,” she told us. We ended the open mic when we moved to New Hampshire in 2017, but we definitely missed the space and the people. Now we’re returning to the library to perform a concert on Thursday, March 21st! Kelly still agrees that the library needs music, and we’re excited to bring ours back to town. Music starts at 7pm. The show is free!

If you’d be interested in hearing some of our new songs that we’ve written in February, consider joining us on Patreon!  As we get these songs polished up and ready for playing in public, we’ll roll them out to our Patreon patrons first.

Our albums Then and Now, Seeking, and Simple Grace are available from us at shows and 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).

Music connects us in so many ways! Go find live music in your area and see what connections it brings to you.

Dan & Faith

Hello, and Happy New Year!

We had a quiet January finishing up recording our tracks for our upcoming album and getting ourselves packed up to get on the road again. Mother Nature finally gifted us with a bit of snow to remind us that we live in New England, followed by a round of single-digit temperatures to punctuate that message. But then again, she gifted half the country with freezing temperatures at the same time, so we can’t claim special status there! The deer have left tracks all over the hayfields, and have figured out that the few lonely kale plants left in the garden are surrounded by a solar battery powered electric fence that hasn’t been charging up to full charge in these dark winter days. That, and the fence is low enough to jump. Ah well, we still have a bunch of kale in the freezer, so we don’t begrudge them a bit of a winter treat! And if it keeps them from nibbling the fruit trees, it’s OK by us.

This newsletter is out a few days early because we’re headed for the South Florida Folk And Acoustic Music Festival (SFFAMF) in Davie, FL which runs Friday-Sunday, February 2nd through 4th, and we’re focused on travel and rehearsal time between now and then. As we mentioned last month, Faith has been selected as a Finalist in the SFFAMF 2024 Singer Songwriter Contest! We’ll be performing her two entry songs, My Name Is George and Gator Gator, on the main stage of the festival along with the other nine finalists on Saturday, February 3rd from 10-11:40am. This is a huge honor, and we’re very excited about this opportunity! After that performance, three winners will be chosen to do an in-the-round performance on the main stage the following day, Sunday, February 4th, from 2:30-3:20pm. If you’re coming to the festival, please come by on Saturday morning and support all the finalists! Festival tickets can be purchased in advance from the festival website (scroll down for pricing) or at the gate.

The following Saturday, February 10th, we’re headed back to the Luna Star Cafe in North Miami, FL. We played an opening set at the Luna Star Cafe last March and fell in love with the place. Excellent food; good listening audience; and Alexis and Keith, the owners, are good people who support the local music scene. Music starts at 8pm.

We finish up the month at a new-to-us venue that we had originally been scheduled to play in December, 2020. Story & Song Center for Arts & Culture in Fernandina Beach, FL has been running their regular concert series since 2005. Their mission is to be a gathering place for the community, offering programs that enrich our lives, books that broaden our world, and delicious food that connects us. Sounds like our kind of place! Our show is Saturday, February 17th from 5-7pm. Tickets are $25 each, and can be purchased online here.

Ten years ago today, January 27th, Pete Seeger’s banjo fell silent. And yet it really didn’t, in that the music he played, and the encouragement and support he and his wife Toshi passed on to so many of us, live on. By a set of unlikely circumstances, Dan found himself in Beacon, New York during the summer of 1980 and went sailing on a ship called the Woody Guthrie, which Pete had named after his friend. Dan had sailed on Hudson River Sloop Clearwater many times as a school kid, and had a background in sailing. He had gone to Beacon to go sailing, but it turned into so much more. This past February, Dan was working on a song (he doesn’t even know which one now), and wasn’t getting far, so he took a nap. He woke up with this song. Thanks Pete. Thanks Toshi. Thanks for the memories.

Our albums Then and Now, Seeking, and Simple Grace are available from us at shows and 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).

During this month of love, take your loved ones to hear live local music.

Dan & Faith