brought an album’s worth of songs back with me from Iceland. left most of my heart behind in exchange.
a solo show or two within the next couple of months, full band shows once we can get together and rehearse the new songs.
happy new year, everyone.
- eric.
dear everyone,
i’ve begun writing songs for a third album. it’s been slow going, but it always is. even if i wasn’t already one of the slowest songwriters on the planet, no ghostless place pretty much drained my batteries for a while. i’ve been recharging by visiting Iceland (twice), drinking, reading, gazing longingly at a map of the world, and having all four of my wisdom teeth ripped from my face. and now i’m ready again, and working hard. hope you can be patient.
as for the other guys, Andy’s currently working on recording and mixing the next Great Lake Swimmers album. Ray just got back from a solo European Pink Moth tour. Alex has been playing with some other people, writing some of his own music, and doing some travelling. and Brady’s been playing shows here and there with his other band, Tournament!, and spending time with his family.
as for all five of us together, we’ll be playing some shows this summer and fall, but only in Canada thus far – it’s terribly discouraging to have to tell everyone in the States and overseas that it’s still going to be a little while before we get to you, but we’re helpless to do much about it at this point; we simply don’t have the resources to organize a tour overseas (or below the border) by ourselves. we have the all-consuming desire to play live, and we have the time, and we have valid passports, and we have the guitars and drums and keyboard and all that, but we don’t have the money, or apparently, the proper connections. but we’re working on it. in the meantime, anyone willing to send 5 round trip plane tickets to your country will be rewarded with as many live shows as you’d like, whenever you’d like. we just might have to play/sleep in your kitchen, vehicle, or orchard.
as always, all booking inquiries and plane ticket confirmations (and if you happen to be part of an interested – and awesome – independent label, we’d love to hear from you as well) can be sent to raisedbyswans@gmail.com.
there’s nothing i/we could say that would properly express the depth of our gratitude for the support and warm words you’ve all sent us, from all over the world. we’re humbled. no matter how long it takes, we will do our best to visit you, and play every song you want to hear, and maybe even a couple that you don’t, no matter where you live, and as soon as we possibly can.
it’s nowhere near enough, but thank you all for being there for us, and we hope to see every one of you very soon.
love,
eric.
here is a beautiful short video recently created by Manana Films, an Armenian independent youth film studio. the studio’s current focus is working on a series of PSA’s “about civil society and the importance of being an active citizen”. we’re proud that the studio chose to use ‘violet light’ as accompaniment to its first video in the series.
click here to watch the video.
it’s a lovely and unexpected privilege that on the day of his birthday, the wonderful Alan Cross is the one who’s giving us a present instead of the other way around. not only is we were never young featured on the Explore Music website as one of Alan’s “5 songs you gotta hear today“, but he’ll also be playing some music from no ghostless place on Explore Music, his awesome radio show that’s featured on radio stations all over Canada as well as online.
show times below; listen if you can. happy birthday, Alan!
TORONTO: 102.1 @ 8:35pm. LONDON: FM96 @ 6:30pm. VANCOUVER: CFOX 99.3 @ 9:50pm. WINNIPEG: Power97 @ 11pm. EDMONTON: Sonic1029 @ 10:30pm. OTTAWA: Live88.5 @ 9pm. HAMILTON: Y109 @ midnight. PETERBOROUGH: The Wolf @ midnight. The show will be streaming at http://www.exploremusic.com/ so check the archives if you miss it!
the show tonight at APK Live in london, ontario is free. doors are at 7:00, show starts at 7:30, and it’s an all ages/licensed show. APK Live is located at 340 wellington street (corner of wellington and york), lower level.
either way, we hope to see you there.
we’re very pleased and proud to announce that CHRW 94.9 FM has named no ghostless place its local album of the year for 2010.
thank you to CHRW for being a very real and impassioned supporter of independent music over the years, and for giving our music, and the music of many, such a warm and generous home.
love,
raised by swans.
http://www.lfpress.com/entertainment/music/2011/01/28/17075891.html
The London Free Press has named no ghostless place as its favourite local album of 2010 – click here for the article. also, Lueda Alia of absolutepunk.net has included no ghostless place in her top albums of the year. from the looks of her list, we’re in good company.
maplemusic.com and indiepool.com are currently sold out of both no ghostless place and codes and secret longing- we’re actually running very low on copies ourselves, but you can write to raisedbyswans@gmail.com if you’d like to purchase directly from us.
if you live in London, Ontario, both albums are still available at Grooves.
tomorrow (Thursday) night we’re playing at a very cozy, very intimate little place in Guelph called Jimmy Jazz. there is no stage, we’ll be set up on the floor. we can have drinks together. we can toast each other, clink glasses, mid-set. you can (re)paint my toenails. or play with Andy’s beard. give it a good combing, perhaps. we don’t mind.
please come out if you can. it’s going to be a great night.
love,
e.
p.s. we’ve just confirmed a London, Ontario show – December 11th at APK Live. More details soon.
to everyone who came out to the rivoli on saturday night: we are currently the happiest band in the world because of you. which is saying a lot, because more often than not, we’re miserable jerks.
thank you for sharing such a beautiful night with us, all of you. and thank you to everyone who had to travel an extra long distance to make it out. to say that we’re flattered would be hopelessly inadequate.
sigh. enough gushing for now. we’ll see you all soon, we already miss your lovely faces.
love,
raised by swans.
our show at The Rivoli in Toronto is now exactly one week away, minus seven or eight hours. if you’ve not picked up an advance ticket yet, please do so by visiting this link.
we’re very excited. if you have any specific requests for songs please let us know and we’ll do our best to fit your request into the set list. one way or another, rest assured that we’re going to play as long as you’ll put up with us.
it’s going to be a wonderful night – see you soon.
love,
raised by swans.
advance tickets still available for this show at brownpapertickets – hope to see you there.
advance tickets for our November 6th show at The Rivoli in Toronto are now available here. be sure to buy online soon if you can; from the sounds of it, advance tickets are going quickly. the door price on the night of the show will be $10.00.
we’re very excited, we last played The Rivoli way back in 2005. it was our release show for Codes and Secret Longing. we also took part in a scene from Atom Egoyan’s Chloe, performing on the very same stage. the footage you see in the film was shot in February of 2009.
this update is dedicated, with affection, to antranik t.
we just found out that we’re a part of absolutepunk’s Absolute 100 this year – look!
thanks to eda and everyone at absolutepunk.net for their continued support.
we’ve begun booking shows for the fall. there’s one happening in Toronto, at The Rivoli, on November 6th, for instance. we’ll let you know the details as soon as we have them sorted out.
as for all of the lovely emails we’ve been getting from all over the world (we never imagined that we’d reach so many people through Chloe), we couldn’t be happier to have such warm and eloquent fans. thank you for all of your kind words.
hi everyone.
we’re tremendously excited to be playing at The Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto this Saturday night (June 5th). come early so that you don’t miss Pink Moth and Fjord Rowboat – set times are Pink Moth 10:00 pm, Fjord Rowboat 11:00 pm, Raised By Swans 12:00 am. $8.00 at the door.
see you soon.
love,
us.
we won’t be at The Standard tomorrow night (Friday, May 28th) in Winnipeg, as originally planned…we’ll be at Finn’s Pub, which is at 25 Forks Market Road.
here’s the facebook event link:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/event.php?eid=324390291749
we’re at Zaphod’s in Ottawa tonight. it’s an early show, so be sure to get there by 9:00 pm or so.
we’d love to see you at The Black Sheep Inn tomorrow night (Tuesday the 11th) as well. you can buy advance tickets here.
it’s going to be a pretty special show. we’re excited to have Bronze Leaf sharing the night with us.
a brand new review of no ghostless place can be found here (Exclaim! Magazine).
we’re two days into our Canadian tour and having an amazing time thus far. the weekend’s going to be good, we’re at Gus’ Pub in Halifax tomorrow night (Friday, May 7th) and The Capital in Fredericton on Saturday, May 8th.
tonight three of us are staying in the tiny town of St. Leonard, New Brunswick, where a truck filled with 12 million bees once overturned back in 2008. it was too misty and dark to continue on to Fredericton, which is where Andy and Alex are (we think/hope); we were in serious danger of colliding with a moose. or worse, a swarm of phantom bees.
advance tickets for our extra-special show at the Black Sheep Inn on Tuesday, May 11th (with Pink Moth and Bronze Leaf) are available here.
we’re officially on the road and away from our homes for just over a month as of tomorrow (Tuesday, May 4th, which is actually almost today at this point) – our big cross-country tour starts at The Mansion, in Kingston, Ontario. it’s our first show of twenty-three or twenty-four dates across Canada (the number of shows is still growing, as we’re still booking a few last minute dates – be sure to check in every so often here, or on myspace, or on our brand new Facebook page for updates).
try not to miss us when we’re in your city – this is a really special tour for us for too many reasons to list, and we’d love to have you share it with us. apologies in advance if we happen to be coming to you on a weeknight, but we promise to make it worth your while. take the next day off work. tell your friends across the country to come see us when we’re in their city, tell your ex-friends, tell your future friends, tell your friends’ pets. this has been a long time coming, and we’ve put the whole thing together all by ourselves. so seeing each and every one of you will be a wonderful thing indeed.
we’ll be updating you all as we go.
see you soon.
love,
raised by swans.
thank you everyone for the beautiful send-off at Call The Office last night. you’ve given the rest of Canada a lot to live up to.
on that note, you are all cordially invited to join us for the month of May as we head across the country. we’ve made room in the van.
thanks again for being there, it was a perfect night.
love,
us.
post-Electrical Surge update:
still working on restoring our poor ravaged website, which as you can see is still a bit sparse – we hope to have it back to full strength very soon.
in the meantime, please visit us on myspace for additional information.
our store is not back up yet; to buy no ghostless place or codes and secret longing, visit either maplemusic.com or indiepool.com. both albums are also available on iTunes.
and finally, come to Call The Office tonight – Saturday, May 1st. it’s our last local show before we head into the Great Unknown. come have a drink with us.
Fjord Rowboat and Pink Moth are opening.
(side note: apologies for the grim and not-very-friendly-sounding ‘Age Restrictions: No Minors’ that comes up for each of our shows on this site, it seems to be a default setting in WordPress.)
brand new UK-based website crackintheroad.com just posted this lovely feature/review:
a few relatively recent interviews. give yourself a few hours for the third one; Eric got a bit carried away.
advance tickets for our show at the Black Sheep Inn on Tuesday, May 11th are available here.
Bronze Leaf will be joining us for this show, it’s going to be a really special night.
the Black Sheep Inn is only half an hour from Ottawa, in Wakefield, QC. hope to see you there on the 11th.
our coast-to-coast tour of Canada is only three weeks away. we’re really looking forward to getting out to see all of you finally. check out our dates and put a big red X on your calendar on the date we’re in your city. or maybe just clip it right out of the calendar and fold it up and put it into your pocket. or chew it up and swallow it. you won’t need to do anything else with that night – we’ve got it covered.
if you see any blank dates on our calendar and we don’t seem to be playing in your city let us know and we’ll do our best to get to you.
sorry, Saskatoon, about the 14th – the whole city seems to be booked that night. that makes us sad. a Friday in Saskatoon with nowhere to play. sigh.
pre-tour shows: we’re at The Phog Lounge in Windsor this Friday, the 16th. and The Casbah in Hamilton on the following Saturday, the 24th. and then our tour kickoff show happens in London, at Call The Office, on Saturday, May 1st. come see us off. break champagne bottles on our heads. or maybe on our van. the van’s a better idea.
we’ll be posting ticket purchase information very soon in case anyone wants to buy in advance.
it’s going to be a wonderful month, we hope you can join us for a night (or two, or three) to hear us and Pink Moth play some songs.
love,
raised by swans.
here’s a nice little interview with Atom Egoyan, in which he talks a bit about Chloe and the band’s involvement.
here’s a review of our latest show at The Garrison in Toronto, from Much Music’s Red Hot Blog
we’ve been told there is a chance that the March 20th show at The Wellington Room in Orangeville will sell out – if you can, please purchase your tickets for the show ahead of time by calling (519) 941-4100 or (519) 941-4100. all credit cards are accepted. we’ll try to set up an advance purchase arrangement for those of you who don’t have a credit card, as well – please stay tuned.
here is the Facebook event listing for the Orangeville show.
shows are being added daily to our coast-to-coast Canadian tour, which is happening in May – the jigsaw puzzle is finally not just a few scattered pieces on a frighteningly enormous table.
check back often. get in touch with us if you have venue recommendations or want us to come through your city. we’re putting it all together ourselves so we’ll listen.
if you live in Toronto, don’t miss our show next Thursday (March 4th) at The Garrison – it looks like it will be our last show in TO before the tour.
if you’re coming out to see eric play all by his lonesome tomorrow night (Saturday the 13th) at The Local in Toronto, make sure you show up before 9:30 pm. it’s an early set. he’ll certainly be less lonesome if you’re there.
and be sure to stay to see/hear Alun, not that you wouldn’t. he’s great.
no ghostless place is currently streaming in its entirety on the wonderful
absolutepunk.net, to celebrate its release on iTunes, Amazon, and various other digital retailers. be sure to listen (and comment) if you can.
more live shows to come; still in the midst of confirming shows for the May cross-Canada tour. check back often.
no ghostless place is now available on iTunes and amazon.ca.
Chloe is coming out in Canada and the US on March 26th. it will be released in some parts of Europe previous to that, not sure of the exact release date.
we’re in the midst of booking shows around Ontario for February, March, and April, and also across Canada for our tour coming up in May. Pink Moth will be accompanying us. check back often for updates.
CBC Radio 3 has chosen ‘there’s hope yet’ for their Track of the Day.
listen and leave a comment if you can: cbc radio 3 ‘track of the day’
the lyrics for no ghostless place are posted; codes and secret longing soon to follow. apologies for taking so long to make them available, and to all who have asked for the lyrics to codes and secret longing starting back in 2005 when that album first came out. it’s not that we don’t take your requests very seriously. it’s just that lyrics should always be kind of shadowy and open to interpretation. also, we can be horribly lazy.
just promise us this: if you like the words you have in your head, don’t feel the need to read the actual lyrics to check your accuracy. keep the words you have if they feel right.
codes and secret longing is now available on iTunes (and very soon, Amazon, Puretracks, and about twenty other global digital retailers). within the next couple of weeks no ghostless place will appear as well; we’ll let you know.
more shows coming very soon. and tour dates as well. we’re finally coming across Canada. and then overseas, hopefully, if you’ll have us.
be seeing you.
we seem to have been successful in towing our poor, becalmed website ashore from a dark spot in the middle of the ocean, where it has been drifting, off the map, (or at least off the tiny, smudged map we’ve always used) for the past several months.
and now, after stripping it of its black and green paint and unloading most of its cargo, we’re nudging it back out again. this time, though, we’re going to hold on to it, with really long ropes.
our new album, no ghostless place, is finished.
we also have two big shows coming up, and some music posted. and a whole lot of white space to get lost in.
more soon.
love,
raised by swans.