Freakwitch.net

Hi all, an update is overdue.

The Lammas Bash was great fun, playing with Alfred Lund on drums for the first time.

This week, we have gigs on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

Thursday will be an “acoustic set” (without drums) at Hempstock from 6:30-7:30pm.

Friday will be a full band set, with Michael Heat on drums, at Hempstock from 2:45-3:45pm.

Note that times at Maine Vocals events are subject to change, depending on how things go. Hempstock is at Harry Brown’s farm in Starks, Maine. If you’ve been to the hill before you know where it is. It’s always a great time, a good scene with a bunch of vendors and great music all weekend.

Then, on Saturday, we are playing at Maine Pagan Pride Day in Portland. This is a fun event, also with good vendors and a bunch of great workshops. If you are pagan or pagan-friendly I encourage you to come check it out, bond with the southern Maine pagan community, and listen to great music. There will also be dancers while we are playing, as well as on their own.

We will be doing 2 sets this year, again with Alfred Lund on drums, from 1-2pm and 3-4pm.

Consider yourself summoned!

The RPM Challenge people are putting together compilation CDs from the tracks submitted to this year’s RPM Challenge. I’m happy to say that “My Own Way” by Freakwitch has been nominated for the Rock disc (Disc #7).

If you want to help us out, please go to the voting page and enter some votes for Freakwitch, My Own Way. It’s a forum, so you’ll have to register for the forum.

Please and Thank You.

With Interconnected out (thanks to all for listening), we are now gearing up for our summer gigs. We have several lined up so far. I’ll list them all here for a preliminary reference, and as we get closer to them we’ll post more individual detail about each one.

Fri June 20
5:15 - 6:15
Maine Vocals Freedom Fest
Starks, ME (exact location to be determined)

Sat Aug 2
afternoon - evening
Lammas Bash
Hollis, ME (our private bash, contact us if you want to come)

Thurs Aug 14
5:15 - 6:15
Fri Aug 15
11am - noon
Maine Vocals Hempstock
Starks, ME (exact location to be determined)

Sat Aug 16
1 pm - 2 pm
Maine Pagan Pride Day
Portland, ME

Fri Sept 5
evening
Awen Camp
Harrison, ME

Solar Sun Festival
(time and location to be determined)

Sat Sept 20
Lizzyoos Bog Bash
Belgrade, ME (another private party, contact us if interested)

Thurs Oct 2
5:30 - 6:30
Sat Oct 4
noon - 1 pm
Maine Vocals Harvest Fest
Starks, ME (exact location to be determined)

Our new album, Interconnected, is now available. You can download it directly from us, but please save bandwidth and listen/download from our myspace page or our RPM challenge page instead if you can (they will be posted there shortly as I write this).

We are not charging to download it, but please support us if you like it either by buying some merchandise, buying a copy of the CD (they will be available soon), or just simply donating to our cause.

Lyrics are posted below for your perusal. Thanks to everyone for contributing to this album and for putting up with us while we made it.

Everything is interconnected, I’m just not sure why

Everything is interconnected
I just don’t know how
Butterfly is flitter-flying rising to the sky
Rising through the clouds up toward the sun
I know that my chance is slim
Still I hold out my hand
He lands, then he flies

Sometimes the choice is not your own
When you come up against that you see how you have grown
You can hold on tightly and still he has flown
Sometimes the choice is not your own

Everything is interconnected
I’m just not sure why
I see him running through the field
He’s kicking up the flowers
He’s kicking all the stars into the sky
As I watch him run away I cannot help but ask myself
Why? Why?

Sometimes the choice is not your own
When you come up against that you see how you have grown
You can hold on gently and still he has flown
Sometimes the choice is not your own
Not your own
Not your own
Not your own

I’ve been looking all day long for you
Now you’re standing right beside me
So I just paint myself a fool
I should have trusted the light to guide me

Sometimes I just get in my own way
Sometimes I just get in my own way
So I’m left with nothing else to say
Sometimes I just get in my own way

I’ve been singing all day long despite you
But I have not written one damn song
I guess I should have remembered to invite you
Then you could be singing along

Sometimes I just get in my own way
Sometimes I just get in my own way
So I’m left with nothing else to say
Sometimes I just get in my own way

I’ve been lost in these dreams for years
Still you’re lying right beside me
As we turn to face a brand new day
I trust in the light to guide me

Sometimes I just get in my own way
Sometimes I just get in my own way
So I’m left with nothing else to say
Sometimes I just get in my own way

Well I was about to say something to you
But I forget what it was
I was about to share something with you
But I forget because
It slipped my mind, just like that
It slipped my mind, just like that

It was right at the tip of my tongue
Right at the tip of my tongue
I had something
Something profound, and it’s gone

Right at the top of my head
Right at the top of my head
I was about to say it
Then it fled
It was right at the top of my head

Ahhhh, the tip of my tongue

All the things that I left undone
All the dreams that I left undrummed
All the songs that I left unsung
Because they’re trapped on the tip of my tongue
The tip of my tongue

Well I know I had something important to say
But all the words, they just seem to fly away
I had something profound that I wished to impart
But I fear I am finished before I start

It was right at the tip of my tongue
Right at the tip of my tongue
And all the things that I left undone
All the dreams that I left undrummed
All the songs that I left unsung
Because they’re trapped on the tip of my tongue
The tip of my tongue
Right at the tip of my tongue

Ahhhh, the tip of my tongue

And all the things that I left undone
All the dreams that I left undrummed
All the songs that I left unsung
Because they’re trapped on the tip of my tongue

Right on the tip of my tongue

I don’t know how to reach your heart
I don’t know how to reach your heart
I only wish you’d take my hand
I can show you things you never dreamed of
And you can show me things I never dreamed of

I’m stuck here in the middle
And I don’t know what to do
I hurt myself for loving you
If you won’t notice, and if you can’t see
Why the hell am I doing this to me?

I don’t know how to reach your heart
I don’t know how to reach your heart
I only wish you’d take my hand
I could show you things you’ve never dreamed of
And you could show me things I’ve never dreamed of

I know you’ve been lied to, and I know I can’t possibly understand
But damn I’d like to try to, woman you know I want to be your man
‘Cuz you know I’ve been lied to, and you know you can’t possibly understand
But don’t you even want to try to? Woman don’t you want me to be your man?

I don’t know how to reach your heart
I don’t know how to reach your heart
I only wish you’d take my hand
I could show you things you’ve never dreamed of
And you could show me things I’ve never dreamed of
You can dream my dream with me
I can dream your dream with you
We can build a dream together, just we two
If you’d just tell me how to reach your heart

She weaves alone in her room all day
And every night she unravels her fate
She will do this until he returns
Or they catch her at this charade

Because she believes,
She believes in love

She’s sure she’d know if he was dead
She’s sure she’d feel it in her soul
So she weaves with her thread
In hopes he comes back soon, but she don’t know

But she believes
She believes in love

After twenty years he returned
To find his court is filled with fools
He looks for his lady bride
And when she sees him it all comes true

That she believes
She believes
She believes in love
She believes

The edge is all about
The edge is all about
The edge is all about
The edge is all about
The edge is….

In an instant your reality could be entirely snuffed out

The edge is all about
The edge is all about
The edge is all about
The edge is all about

When you come down off the mountain
Nobody gives a fuck
About how much was daring
About how much was luck
About how dumb you were in the first place
To hang your ass out here
You made it back from the edge
and the message is quite clear

The edge is all about
The edge is all about
In an instant your reality could be entirely snuffed out
The edge is…

If it were raining now, that would suit my mood just fine
If it were raining now, I might just have a glass of wine
But it’s not raining now so you’ll have to hear my song
If it were raining now, I bet you would sing along

Sing along
Sing along

No I cannot even claim to understand
What you see in your position and your plan
I’m not disdainful, I just am a bit confused
As to the tools and the methods you will use

When you get to where you think you ought to be
I bet you won’t even cast a thought on me
Bet I remember you for the rest of my days
If I don’t, it’s because I slipped into a haze

Into a haze
Into a haze

If I were screaming now, I bet that would suit your mood just fine
Cuz if I were screaming now, you wouldn’t have to hear my rhyme
And if I told you how I feel right now inside
You would burst into flame from the shame

If it were raining now that would suit my mood just fine
If it were raining now, I wouldn’t have to cry inside
Since I came to this place it seems like I’ve been wasting time
If it were raining now, that would suit my mood just fine

My mood just fine
My mood just fine
My mood just fine

Hear it coming now
Hear it coming down
Hear it coming down
Hear it coming now
Here comes the rain

Well, we finished in time. Barely.

We’ll get mp3s up here soon, but first we want to finish artwork etc for the album.

It’s called Interconnected, by the way….

So it’s clocking in at right around 40 minutes. Minimum is 35, so that’s good.

Rain Song, Reach Your Heart, Penelope, Edge, Edge (reprise), Hope, Tip Of My Tongue, My Own Way. Not sure of the running order.

Also, we need an album title and artwork. Anyone have any ideas about that?

This is a notice: the Freakwitch Community Forum and the Quitches listserv are no more.

We haven’t been using them in a while, and both ultimately succumbed to the gravitational allure of spam. It was too much work to constantly try to weed out spam, and they weren’t being used. So…. buhbye.

This site, as well as our myspace page, are still active.

Still recording like crazy. Spent the weekend up the coast getting Guitar tracks from Todd and Bass tracks from Yo. Recording went well, and is (just about) done. I’ll probably add a few of my own guitar tracks here and there this week, but the bulk of the remaining work is in editing and mixing. We have 8 songs for the album, 2 of which are pretty much done. I am going to try to finish up one additional song each night before Friday, when we’ll get together and put this baby to bed.

Watch this space. Looks like we’ll (finally!) have some new music up here this time next week!

We’re giving the RPM challenge a serious go. We have about 40min worth of songs in various stages of production, and we have less than two weeks left. Some of the songs are coming out quite nicely, I’m particularly excited about The Rain Song. This week/weekend we’ll get the last of the tracking done, and next week I will be madly mixing and editing to finish by the 29th.

Not much else of an update, we aren’t gigging right now, but as you know we have a few lined up. We also are on board for this year’s Maine Pagan Pride Day, which is always fun. Last year there were dancers, and I believe that will be the case this year again as well.

Well, we’re signed on for the RPM Challenge:

This is the challenge: record an album in 29 days, just because you can.
That’s 10 songs or 35 minutes of original material recorded during the month of February. Go ahead… put it to tape.

It’s a little like National Novel Writing Month, (NaNoWriMo.org) where writers challenge each other to write 1,700 words a day for 30 days, or the great folks over at February Album Writing Month (fawm.org), who encourage artists to write 14 new songs in February. Maybe they don’t have “Grapes of Wrath” or “Abbey Road” at the end of the month, or maybe they do—but that’s not the point. The point is they get busy and stop waiting around for the muse to appear. Get the gears moving. Do something.

We’re going to give this a go. You can visit our user page to get more info or follow up on our progress.

It’s a slow time for Freakwitch by all outward appearances. We do have some gigs scheduled for later in the year, we will be playing several shows for Maine Vocals in 2008:

• Freedom Fest June 20-22
• Hempstock August 14-17
• Harvest Fest October 3-5

The fests are undergoing some changes, apparently they will no longer be held at Harry Brown’s farm in Starks. They are working on the locations, but we’ll let you know more as things clarify.

In the meantime, recording continues. I have been continually upgrading the recording setup, and indeed I’ve started Crafted Recordings as a commercial recording/consulting business. Plus I’ve taken a job in the acoustics industry. So there are a lot of changes happening around Freakwitch that can distract us a bit, but in the end these changes will support what Freakwitch is doing.

We are also thinking about taking the RPM Challenge and record an entire album, start-to-finish, in February. The idea was inspired by the National Novel Writing Month, in that it imposes a completely arbitrary deadline as a way to spur creative production. It’d be a good exercise for us if nothing else. We’ll make the decision one way or the other on this and keep you posted. Watch this space.

We’re in recording mode. We’re writing some new songs, and recording them immediately as we write them. This is sort of a new mode of operation for us.

No gigs are currently scheduled; we may decide to gig some over the winter but we’re having fun with the writing and recording.

Not much else to update at the moment, we will probably have some new songs up for your listening pleasure before too long.

We’re gearing up to play a couple of sets at HarvestFest in Starks this weekend.

These things are often in flux — bottom line, there will be great music happening all weekend — but at the moment we are scheduled to play on Thursday afternoon from 12:00 noon to 1:45, and again on Saturday morning from 10:30am-11:30am.

See you there!

We’re gearing up to play the Bog Bash in Mercer this Saturday. For those who don’t know, this is a private-but-welcoming party hosted by the fabulous lizzyoos.

We’ve been informed that we are welcome to bring as many as we like, so if you aren’t doing anything Saturday night, and want to head up near Norridgewock to meet some cool people and hear some good music (Smoked Salmon is also playing, probably others as well), then contact us for directions.

See you there!

We’ll be at the last Maine Vocals event of the year, the Maine HarvestFest. We will be the house band, which at this point means we get 2 slots (Thursday, Oct 4 from 12 noon -1:30pm and Sat, Oct 6 from 10:00am - 10:45am), and if there are any last-minute cancellations we will fill in.

Should be a wild weekend with camping and all kinds of amazing music, including DOORBELL, DIFFERENT NATURE, SOAK, THE NEARLY NORMAL, BLUE SKY MISSION CLUB, ROOST, SIMPLE, STRATOSPHEERIUS, THE RHYTHM SHIP, JIM WEIDER’S ProJECT PERCoLAToR, GREEN LEMON, and many others.

Come on out for an amazing weekend.