Saturday, August 8th, we have two gigs. First, in the morning from 11:30 to 12:30, we’re opening up Maine Pagan Pride Day at Allen Avenue Unitarian Universalist Church, on 524 Allen Avenue in Portland.

Then, we play another set at around 5pm at The Alliance Festival at the Barnyard in Livermore. This is something of a warmup gig for the Woodstock show the next day.

On Sunday, August 9th, we’ll play a set at the Heroes of Woodstock Festival at the same venue.

The Barnyard is at the intersection of Rt 108 and River Road in Livermore.

NOTE: We’ll have a new run of Freakwitch T-shirts available, as well as an opportunity to preorder our album, Sway, which will be sent to you as soon as it’s ready.
We hope to see you there, come one come all!

We are definitely looking forward to playing this show, as it will mean playing for a lot of people who may not have heard us before. Cool!

These are the “basic tracks” of the album, in other words these recordings are the 5 of us playing live, with no overdubs or studio trickery of any kind. Of course, the final album will have plenty of overdubs (mostly guitars and vocals), and will sound a bit different, but we feel these relatively stripped-down files do a good job of capturing the energy of the 5 of us playing music.

The song excerpts are from Seems Like, Tip Of My Tongue, Too Bad For You, Breathe, Cackle, Sway, Long Way To Go, Make It Through, and Unglued.

Enjoy!

Friday October 16
5:30-6:30pm
Saturday October 17
11:15pm-12:15am
Maine Vocals HARVEST FEST II
Harmony, ME

Saturday October 3
12:00-1:00pm
Maine Vocals HARVEST FEST I
Harmony, ME

Sunday August 23, 2009
9-10:15am
Maine Vocals HEMPSTOCK
Harmony, ME

Sunday August 9, 2009
early afternoon
Heroes of Woodstock
Livermore, ME

Saturday August 8, 2009
afternoon
Southern Maine Pagan Pride Day
Portland, ME

Saturday August 1, 2009
afternoon/all day
Lammas Bash (contact us for details/directions)
Hollis, ME

Friday June 18, 2009
5:15- 6:15
Maine Vocals FREEDOM FEST
Harmony, ME

Watch this space for future announcements.

I’d like to get a song-in-progress or excerpts up here soon, to whet the Freakwitch appetite….

We had a GREAT weekend at Jon Wyman’s studio. In this shot, I was standing in the live room, and took this shot, you can see the back of Jon’s head, and Todd, Alfred, Matthew, and Yo as we listen back to some of the takes. And if you really look, you can see my reflection as I took this picture, right in front of the diffusors on Jon’s back wall.

After a weekend of chill, vibey, and productive work, all the basic tracks (meaning drums and bass) are finished for the new album. They sound great, these are easily the best basic tracks I’ve ever had to work with for Freakwitch. This is due to several factors…. Alfred’s drumming, Jon’s engineering chops, a great kit, a great room…. and most importantly, a well-rehearsed band of skillful people doing their thing…. there were very few edits required, only a handful, which were usually just splicing together different takes. This is refreshing in this age of grid-editing, drumagog, beat detecting, and drum samples; great drum tracks that don’t involve me programming fake drums! What a concept.

Next step…. JWL’s guitars. Stay tuned.

Despite the lack of updates here, we’ve been hard at work, writing some new stuff, tweaking some older stuff, prepping a great album for release soon. Having Alfred as a co-creator/co-conspirator has greatly expanded our rhythmic vocabulary. And getting Jon to record us means we won’t have to worry about good-sounding tracks.

Once the basic tracks are in the bag, we want to knock out the rest of the album as soon as we can, and still do justice to the material. We’re talking about gearing up for summer gigs so that you can hear this new incarnation of Freakwitch. It’s exciting!

As we move into the dark time of year, we are pleased to be turning inward with Alfred Lund on drums. Having a drummer of his ability, power, and sensibility changes everything, and is quite simply a joy to experience and co-create.

We will be heading into the studio over the winter for a new album, and we are presently gathering our creative energies in preparation for such, writing new material and tightening arrangements of existing songs.  Over the recordings we’ve done so far, we’ve consciously saved some of our best songs for a full album, one where we aren’t limited to producing it over part-time work in one month. Though the RPM challenge was a lot of fun, this new album will be fully realized, something we have not yet been able to accomplish in our recordings for a variety of reasons.

Also, for the first time, we will be turning to a producer/engineer outside the band, which is almost always a very good thing for a band to do. More details anon.

We’ll be playing Harvest Fest in Starks, which is the weekend of Oct. 2 – 5. We have 2 sets over the weekend:

• Thursday, Oct 2, 6:45-7:45pm. If I’m not mistaken, this should be our first set in the dark in Starks. Michael Heat will be sitting in on drums.
• Saturday, Oct 4, 12:00noon – 1pm. Again, Michael Heat will be sitting in on drums.

Then, two weeks later, we’ll also be playing Harmony Harvest Fest I at their new location in Harmony, Maine. We just have 1 set for this festival:

• Saturday, Oct 18, 4:30-5:30pm. Alfred Lund will be playing with is for this show.

So come on out, for a good cause, and enjoy the harvest, beautiful people, and great music all weekend long.

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!

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.

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)