Hey everyone,

Just writing to let you all know what's going on with us right now! First and foremost: Shows!

We have several big shows coming up. The first one is at The Middle East, Upstairs, in Cambridge, on Mardi Gras. We'll be playing a full set in between two sets from the exquisitely awesome rock band "School for Robots" (www.schoolforrobots.com). We may even have some cross-band mixing, so that's sure to be a blast. That show is Tuesday, February 5th. The show starts at 9PM. There is a cover at the door. All proceeds from this show are going to the New Orleans Habitat for Humanity.

Directions: www.mideastclub.com

We'll also be playing at "The People's Pint" (www.thepeoplespint.com) in Greenfield, MA on Saturday, February 9th from 10PM - 1AM, and we'll be returning to the Richard Sugden Library in Spencer, MA on Thursday, February 14th, Valentine's Day. Candlelight, acoustic music and free chocolate! What better way to celebrate Valentine's Day? That show is from 6:30 - 8PM.

Don't stop reading yet, there's other neat stuff!
________________________________________

Amy and I were sitting down the other day and we began constructing a list of songs we'd written that never found a home. We were amazed at how long it was! In light of this discovery, we've decided to release an EP of songs for FREE on the internet, both to give them a home and also as a gift to the fans.

We'll be releasing those songs as we record them, one at a time, and eventually you will be able to download the entire EP from one location.

We've put the first song up at myspace.com/fiskeherrera

It's called Saint Patrick's Day and we think you'll really like it. Remember it's FREE to download, just click on "download" right below the song title on myspace.

________________________________________

The non-profit charity organization Planet-Aid has finished a short film that uses our song "choice" as its soundtrack. You can view that here: Planet Aid Short Film
They are an excellent organization making a very real difference.

That's all for now, Please let us know what you think of our new free song, Saint Patrick's Day. If people respond particularly strongly to a song from this new EP, we may end up re-recording it for our next full length CD!

Much Love,

Jared and Amy

PS - once again we're doing very well on ourstage. we've won once, so we won't tell everyone to go crazy and vote, but we've got a couple of songs in quarter finals!

Lots going on the world of F & H. Amy and I have moved to a new apartment in West Brookfield and we love it here. We can walk to the bank and the post office, library and corner store! ahhh, country life.

We recently did a taping for a television program called "new music showcase" which will air (eventually) in a number of major cities and states.
You can check out what they're about at http://newmusicshowcase.tv/index.html

The show was about fifty minutes of performance and ten minutes of interview. We even got recorded doing one of those "Hi, we're Fiske and Herrera, and you're watching the new music showcase!" bits, presumably for when we're rich and famous and that little clip will actually add credibility to their program. :)

We've begun booking our Spring tour as you can see in our "performances" section. We'll be revisiting some of our previous haunts and also expanding into some new venues. We're already itchy to be back out on the road.

This thursday, Amy and I will be performing on Valley Free radio. WXOJ-LP, 103.3 FM
You can check them out at
http://www.valleyfreeradio.org
We'll be performing this Thursday, November 8th at 9PM. If you're not in the pioneer valley area, you can listen streaming from the valley free website, just click on the "listen" tab on the front page of their website.

also, our CD is finally available on cdbaby.com at cdbaby.com/fiskeherrera

9/8/07

Return to the Sad Cafe. Amy and I first shared a stage at the Sad Cafe, so returning there held a certain nostalgic quality. To compound that feeling, an old bandmate, Ben Kindberg, was playing with his band "action camp". they played a sweet set with an elaborate setup of keyboards, a midi controller and guitars and bass. and they were just a duo, so it was something to watch. Morra was the other half of the duo, playing bass and singing.

the only drag of the night was that some corporate sounding singer/songwriter bullied his was into our time slot (with a story involving an elderly woman and a hip replacement...) but luckily our later slot allowed our awesome friends dave and cara to show up in time for the second half of our set. we debuted a new song called "my only love". now we have a recording of it which is nice. many of amy's old friends from the cafe were out to see the show and we had a good night, and like always we got a CD of the night's performance which is a neat perk.

Also at that show was yoga class for cats, a band that has formed out of old members of "ways to fall". they sounded really fantastic.

9/15/07

Last night was our big "CD release" at the brookfield UU church. I'd say on the whole it went really well. my dad, rob, and his partner meg pash opened the show as "Muse Two", and they were a wonderful blend of harmony and acoustic guitar and meg's period instrument "viola de gamba" sounded lovely. Amy and I took the stage to a nearly full house and performed six originals as a duo before inviting Seth Connelly up to join us. Meg played the cello parts on "the explanation" and we even got my brother seth up on percussion and eventually drum set at which time rob came up and rounded out the rock band with some electric guitar. we wrapped with a zepplin cover, over the hills and far away. an excellent night.

9/14/07

Played the Bee's Knees in morrisville vermont. this was a long drive since we were in sturbridge the day of the show and had to truck all the way up to morrisville which is a just over a four hour drive. we had a brief fear that this gig would prove to be one that put us in the red, but thanks to generous morrisville residents we made enough to make gas back and a little more. the place had a very friendly atmosphere, and an excellent tofu burrito. we brought our own PA, which I've decided is actually kind of a good thing because we know exactly how to make it sound good. ran into a couple guys from boston with land up there in VT. very nice guys, they bought a CD. Definitely hope to play there again.

9/13/07

Played the Main Streets in concord, ma. Had a really good gig. We played a comfortable blend of covers and originals. Had attentive and appreciative listeners all night long. We sold many CD's and made good tips, chatted with friendly cutomers. We got the PA setup just right this time by setting the JBL behind us so we could really have a sense of where we sat in the room. JBL's are great. light-weight, powerful, and highly resistant to feedback. having two of those babies makes this guy a happy boy.

feature at the sit 'n bull. we journeyed once again to maynard to perform as the feature at the sit 'n bull open mic. amy and i were touched that so many local folkies had turned out for the show, and also to share in the performing. ellen and jake from "two for the show" were there, as well as jane fallon and paul beck. my brother seth had come along for the ride as well, and we drank white russians and enjoyed the performers until our slot. when we performed we were joined on-stage by seth connelly (our producer who also runs the open mic and played bass on our album) and don croad played skins. always a trip when we get to flesh out the tunes like that, especially with fine musicians like seth and don. audience was enthusiastic, and we sold product and got excellent "pass the hat" tips. fun night all around. At the end of our set we were actually encouraged to play an encore, and amy and i returned to duo form and played "across the river" which went over well. good times.

9/7/07

Brattleboro is a sweet town. Amy and I showed up early, although there was a little confusion at the Common Ground where we were scheduled to play from 7-10PM. They didn't actually have a record of our having booked a gig there. Luckily, Ian was very accomodating and we got to play 7-9PM since another band was playing 9PM-1AM. Once we'd figured out that much, we walked around brattleboro where we discovered a "turn it up" and i had a sweet time vinyl shopping. Picked up an elvis costello record, roberta flack, nick drake and randy newman. They've all proven to be excellent choices. Right now I've got Costello on.

So the Common Ground is a deeply hippie joint with a sign out front that reads "impeach bush". we felt right at home. the PA was good, but no house monitors. we "borrowed" a monitor that the band had loaded in so we'd have some sense of what we werer playing. the only drag was the heat and humidity which were through the roof. neither of us felt like we could get a decent lung-ful of air. anyways, the show went off without a hitch and we headed back to sturbridge for some much needed recuperation.

The Radiobean was a fun gig. We got there pretty late, so we ended up with a short set. But sure enough we managed to set up and went on right after a great band called "The Gregory Brothers", with Andrew, Evan,  and Michael Gregory, and a fantastic singer and bass player, Sarah Fuller. We ended up playing again with them the following night at the Langdon Street cafe. Over all the two gigs went very well. We had nice crowds, and it was nice to see new faces and old friends. We caught up with Jared's cousins Melinda and Heather, who were very cool to hang out with. We got to see Burlington as well, which is a very hip place. I hope the next time we're there we have more time to play some other venues, and see some of the sights.

 

    

9/1/07

We played the Northstar Cafe last night, in Portland, ME. It was a really excellent venue in an artsy part of town. Anna Maria was an excellent host to us. We came in early and played some scrabble and drank coffee. Later, the Deanna Moore showed up and started the show. She sounded excellent, and she brought her family along. She was an exceptional guitar player and singer.

So we took the stage around 9PM and were thrilled when people started filtering in from the streets. We sold some product and made some dough. Nice PA, nice people, nice atmosphere. We'd love to get back there sometime.