our first show in three million years is happening in four weeks.  don’t miss out on tickets, you can still get them here:

http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/241650

be seeing you.

eric.

advance tickets available now, click here.

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.

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.

click here to watch the video.

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

here’s the facebook event link:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/event.php?eid=324390291749

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

http://www.crackintheroad.com/?p=393

have we told you how excited we are to be coming across Canada in a little less than two weeks?

we have?

oh. okay.

make sure to check back frequently for information on how to buy advance tickets for certain shows.

love,

us.

interview with NXEW

interview with The Ambitious C

particularly long interview with The Parallel Universe

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.

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 is the Facebook event listing for the Orangeville show.

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.

and be sure to stay to see/hear Alun, not that you wouldn’t. he’s great.

more live shows to come; still in the midst of confirming shows for the May cross-Canada tour. check back often.

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.

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.

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.