Dan & Faith

Hello!

We have some big news this month! But first…

The hillsides around us are turning lovely shades of red, orange and yellow. The zucchini apocalypse is pretty much over. We’re still harvesting amazing peppers, both hot and sweet, as well as celery and kale. There are beautiful Kennebec potatoes out there with a bit of digging, and we likely have enough butternut squash to feed us all winter. And tomatoes. Such tomatoes! Perfect brandywine (beefsteak) tomatoes that slice perfectly for lunchtime tomato sandwiches, and an insane number of cherry tomatoes. We’ve been giving away cherry tomatoes right and left, and they keep coming… Peaches and pears are done, and we’re trying to figure out how best to store our apples so they’ll keep while we’re on the road.

Yes, we’re headed out on the road this month! First stop is in Bloomington, IN for the Hoosier Original Music Association (HOOMAC) Songwriters Showcase at Sleeper’s Bar on Tuesday, October 8th. We appreciate the HOOMAC folks considering us honorary Hoosiers! Music runs 7-9pm.

From there, we head to Coffeyville, KS for a weeklong residency as part of the Humanities Community Outreach program run by Artists Of Note. This program brings live performances and diverse experiences to a series of shows for active seniors, high school and college students in the area. As part of the program, we will be giving a free public concert on Tuesday, October 15th at the Coffeyville Community College’s Spencer/Rounds Theater. Music starts at 6pm.

For any fellow musicians who will be attending the Folk Alliance Regional Midwest Conference (FARM) in Naperville, IL from Thursday, October 24th through Sunday, October 27th, let’s meet up!

So what’s our big news? We are delighted to announce that our new album, Who We Are, is now available on our Bandcamp page! The songs cover a wide range of joy and sadness, melancholy and hope, blending various instruments with storytelling lyrics that evoke the people and places in our lives. It was produced by our dear friend (and amazing songwriter in his own right) Joe Jencks, mixed by Mark Dann (who mixed and mastered our previous album, Then and Now), and mastered by Grammy winner Charlie Pilzer of Tonal Park Studios. It will be available on other streaming services (Spotify, Apple Music, etc.) on October 18th, and out for radio promotion in November and December. Rather than do a basic DigiPak CD jacket, we produced a 70 page paperback book that’s the same size as a CD jacket filled with lyrics, stories, photos, and drawings to accompany each song. We hope that, even if you plan to listen to it via streaming, you’ll consider picking up the book as a companion to your listening experience. And if you come to one of our shows, we’ll have copies with us!

Conveniently, this Friday, October 4th, is Bandcamp Friday! During the bleak Covid days of 2020, Bandcamp declared the first Friday of the month to be Bandcamp Friday, where they reduce their cut of album sales on the platform. They have continued this tradition since then (though not necessarily every month). So if you’d like to pick up a copy of Who We Are, this Friday would be an excellent choice of days to do it! Though we appreciate your picking it up (or any of our earlier albums or singles!) at any time. And don’t forget, the holidays are approaching! Music is an excellent gift.

One last thing — if you are eligible to vote in US elections, get yourself registered and then VOTE! If you’re already registered, check the status of your registration to make sure it’s up to date. And if you’re lucky enough to live in a state where there is early voting, take advantage of that, too. We’re five weeks out from Election Day, and every vote counts, up and down the ballot.

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).

Our hearts and thoughts are with our friends and all the folks who are recovering from the wrath of Hurricane Helene. From landfall in Florida up through the mountains of North Carolina, those areas are familiar to us. They all have a lot of work ahead to recover from this. Let’s help them as much as we can.

Dan & Faith

Hello!

This past month has been crazy busy for us! Our orchard has inundated us with fresh peaches, and we have sliced and frozen a bunch, turned some into sorbet, had peaches on our breakfast cereal and over ice cream, and enjoyed them plain. We have given away a whole lot of them, and we still have more. Time to look up our peach preserves recipe! The garden continues to feed us well, with still more zucchini and yellow squash, incredibly flavorful brandywine (beefsteak) tomatoes, cherry tomatoes galore, the best celery we have ever grown, and a whole lot of kale and broccoli. Our bell pepper plants, as well as the ancho and jalapeño chile plants, have all finally woken up and started giving us beautiful fruit. It looks like cucumber season may finally be coming to an end, but we still have a couple of quarts of refrigerator pickles left. We harvested our first potatoes a couple of days ago, which were delightful on the grill. And there are a ton of butternut squash out there that are just about ready to harvest, plus several varieties of apples and a smattering of pears. We’re going to eat very well this winter, but hoo boy, it’s a lot of work! As if that wasn’t enough, we also just published a new song for digital download (more on that below!) and hosted a meet & greet for three candidates for our upcoming state primary races.

Don’t worry, we still have time for music! We’re kicking off our musical month in Francestown, NH at the Francestown Academy Coffeehouse this Saturday, September 6th. The series is under new management this season, and we’re looking forward to meeting the new hosts. The featured act is the Jimmy Otis Trio (jazz/ragtime), and the other performers are Coyote Bleux, Eve Pierce, and us! Music starts at 7pm.

The middle of harvest season is always the best time to go to a farmers market, so what better time for us to play at a new (to us) market? The Greater Falls Farmers Market in Bellows Falls, VT is right near home, which makes it doubly fun. We’re playing there on Friday, September 13th from 4-7pm. Friday the 13th can’t be unlucky if there’s farm fresh produce and live music involved, right?

Everyone knows about New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary in January, but most folks don’t know that state’s primary for all the down-ballot positions (national/state/county) doesn’t happen until the second week in September. Once that primary is complete and the results tallied, the final sprint to the November election begins. The Sullivan County, NH Democrats are holding their 2024 election kickoff event in Claremont, NH on Saturday, September 14th, and we’ll be supplying the music for the event. We’re excited to meet the final slate of candidates and to share our music with folks! The gathering is 4-6:30pm.

One of the songs we will be performing at that kickoff event is our new song, Vote Blue! Dan wrote a New Hampshire-centric version of this for the 2022 midterm elections, and updated it to be more fitting for national politics this year. We offer it for free to any Democratic candidate who would like to use it; all we ask is that they let us know who they are and what office they’re running for. It’s available for free download here. We played it at the candidate meet & greet at our house, and folks were singing along!

Speaking of new music… The audio for our upcoming album, Who We Are, is DONE, and it’s sounding even better than we could have imagined!  We have the packaging out for production now. It’s a little bit different from traditional CD packaging, and we think you’ll like it a lot. We cannot wait to share it with you!

Friday, September 6 is Bandcamp Friday! Bandcamp is the service we use for online album sales. Back in 2020, when all of us musicians lost our in-person gigs to the pandemic, Bandcamp very kindly instituted Bandcamp Fridays, where they would waive their normal revenue share and pass the funds directly to us. They have continued Bandcamp Fridays on and off since 2020, which we definitely appreciate. If you want to pick up a copy of one of our current albums, this is an ideal time to do it, as we get a bit more for it. Want to get a head start on your holiday shopping? Need a birthday gift for a folk music fan? Mark your calendar for shopping on September 6th! But don’t worry if you miss the date — we’re happy to have you shop through Bandcamp any time!

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).

Enjoy the bounty of harvest time, and celebrate live local music, too!

Dan & Faith