The Good Graces

indie-folk from Atlanta, GA

Catching up and winding down May 15, 2010

Happy spring everyone! We hope all of you are enjoying the sunny weather, listening to great music, and going to lots of good shows. We’ve been really busy, both musically and with life in general. We had the pleasure of recording a video session with indieATL a few weeks ago; it was a lot of fun and we can’t wait to see the results, as they have an excellent setup and the sound on stage was pretty dang amazing!

As some of you might know, we’ve also been gearing up for our very last show, at least for a while. I (Kim) have been threatening a “retirement” from music for a few years now, and it’s finally time. (For more info on that, visit my blog, Pretty New Songs.) But of course we’re planning on some big things to help me go out in style …

May 21 Kavarna

Next Friday, May 21, we’ll play our last Atlanta show at Kavarna, the same venue where we had both our CD release shows, and were fortunate enough to play with such bands as Hope For Agoldensummer, Dare Dukes, Night Driving in Small Towns, and countless others. Needless to say, that venue has been very kind to us and it’s only fitting that we say farewell with another “eskimo kiss presents” show, featuring some of our very best friends and favorite bands, Jupiter Watts, Michael C. Smith, and a very special guest courtesy of Atlanta’s A-List, Swing Set.

eskimo kiss records WE Fest showcase

For our old friends in NC, John & I will also play a short set at this year’s WE Fest in Wilmington, on Sunday, May 30. This is part of the eskimo kiss showcase, so it’s sure to be totally awesome. I’m delighted to get to share a bill with bands that are not only on my label, but who also happen to be responsible for some of my favorite songs, ever. Bands like Citified, North Elementary, Velvet, Goner … they’ve been a huge influence on me as a musician, and I’ll be forever grateful for the opportunity I’ve had to expose their music to a wider audience. Of course there will be eskimo kiss shooters. And cupcakes! And who knows what else.

Prior to the WE Fest showcase, a few of us are playing an in-store show at Gravity Records, also in Wilmington. Beginning at 3PM Sunday afternoon you can catch The Good Graces along with John Harrison from North Elementary and Actual Persons Living or Dead. While we don’t want to drag you away from WE Fest, if you’re not into the bar thing and want something a little more low-key, then you’d probably dig this. Hope to see you!

EKR comp cover

Finally, I’m delighted to share with you one final release from eskimo kiss, Let’s Do Art and Be Best Friends, a sampler that spans the label’s 10-year history. It’s not only a best-of, but it also includes some rare/unreleased bonus tracks, many of which were recorded especially for the compilation. The Good Graces are contributing three tracks, “Over It” and “Pretty New Song” from our previous records, and a newer tune, “Pepper,” for the bonus tracks portion. It’ll be out June 15, so keep an eye on eskimokissrecords.com for all the details on that.

Whew! See, told you we were busy. Hope to see you all very soon.

 

New EP review, plus NC 3-day tour! January 26, 2010

Filed under: News,Tour — thegoodgraces @ 11:18 pm
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Hi friends! A very quick update to point you to a really cool review of the Tambourines EP—thanks FensePost! A little snippet:

The Good Graces might be the greatest fucking band in the world!

I’ll probably use that in our press kit forever :)

Also, we’re just two days from taking over NC with North Elementary! Here’s the low-down on our upcoming 3-day tour; hope to see some of you there!

January 28 – Greensboro NC – The Green Bean (8p EARLY SHOW!) w/ Citified

January 29 – Chapel Hill NC – John’s Living Room (Bug Harbor – 117 Kenan Street – park on Franklin and walk up) – 9p – FREE SHOW! Stripped down acoustic versions for NorthE and The Good Graces w/ Billy Sugarfix, Corey Pallon (Pistolero), Anna Bullard (POX artist) , Reid Johnson (Schooner) and Maria Albani (Organos).

January 30 – Charlotte NC – Snug Harbor w/ Radio Taiwan

 

Bad Driver stickers are here! October 29, 2009

Filed under: Merch,News — thegoodgraces @ 3:17 pm
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baddriver_final

If you want one just send a SASE to me at:

eskimo kiss records
PO box 11310
Atlanta, GA 30310

 

“Bring on the Tambourines!” now available for download across the interwebs! September 29, 2009

Filed under: News — thegoodgraces @ 5:57 pm
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tambourines_front_final

Today’s a big day for The Good Graces around the interwebs, as it’s digital release day for “Bring on the Tambourines!” So if you missed out on the free downloads from www.bringonthetambourines.com, you can purchase the full release from your favorite digital download site! Here are a few links to purchase for your convenience:

Amazon

emusic

iTunes

LimeWire

And if you’re following along for the free downloads, it’s not too late to get the final track that we’re making available for free, “Bad Driver!” It’s a favorite at our shows and we hope you enjoy the recorded version.

Finally, I wanted to also send a shout-out to all who attended our CD release show Saturday night at Kavarna! We had a wonderful night that began with obligatory pre-show (flu) shots and ended with a fantastic set by our dear friends Chickens & Pigs, who are also celebrating the release of their great new CD, “See Through Soul.” It was nice to have a full room of enthusiastic listeners; we really do appreciate it! xoxoxyz

pre-show flu shots

pre-show flu shots

 

“Bring on the Tambourines!” now available for pre-order! September 16, 2009

Filed under: News,Shows — thegoodgraces @ 3:42 pm
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I’m very excited to announce that we have our shiny new EPs in hand, and they can soon be in your hands as well! Head on over to www.eskimokissrecords.com to pre-order the disc; the first batch of orders will come with a very limited-edition homemade CDR of exclusive demos, many of which have never been heard outside of the band! We’ll be shipping the discs the first week of October, ahead of the release date of Oct. 27.

cd release flyer_lowres

Also a reminder, our CD release show is next Saturday, Sept. 26 at Kavarna. It’s a split CD release show with our dear friends Chickens and Pigs, who are also celebrating their brand new CD “See Through Soul” (we’ve heard it, it’s wonderful!). We have lots of surprises in store for this show, and hope to see you there!

 

new tune up on bringonthetambourines.com ! August 11, 2009

Filed under: News — thegoodgraces @ 9:10 am
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Hi friends! Just a quick update to let you know that you can now download “Yo No Puedo Hablar Español” from www.bringonthetambourines.com. So if you didn’t get the first download, “Working Title,” sorry, too late, you’ll have to wait for the full release of the EP.

Some fun “behind the music” background info on Yo No Puedo … last fall, we had a Spanish instructor come to our work once a week, in an attempt to help make us more effective in communicating with our Spanish-speaking coworkers. Well, I’ll just say it. As much as I LOVE Mexico, Mexican food, anything Mexican, really … I have a mental block against Spanish. In fact, I just remembered that last night I had that dream, AGAIN, where it’s time for my final exam in college, yet I haven’t gone to class all semester, so I can’t find the classroom or remember what time the class meets. I have this dream once every six months or so. And the class is always, always SPANISH. Every dang time.

I took two years of Spanish in highschool. And I hated it. I think it was all just a mental block from the very beginning. I remembered my mom telling me I’d do well in Spanish because I was doing so well in my English classes. She said the two languages were more similar than, say, English and French. So I must have thought it would be really easy. Immediately I could tell that it wasn’t going to be. And that it was going to involve a lot of practicing over and over, and memorization. Which I never enjoy. So I quickly decided “this is too hard,” and pretty much gave up, before even giving it much of a chance.

I can’t say my recent experience with Spanish was much different. I still seemed to have that same mental block. I did learn the basics though. And one weekend, I sat with my guitar, determined to write a Spanish song. I struggled with it for a while. Thought about writing out English lyrics and then translating them. Finally I realized that the particular tune I was playing around with really didn’t need very many lyrics. And that the most appropriate thing for me to sing in Spanish really was “Yo no puedo hablar español, muy bien.”

Enjoy.

www.bringonthetambourines.com

 

“Bring on the Tambourines!” in the blogosphere! July 30, 2009

Filed under: News — thegoodgraces @ 8:51 am
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We’re already getting some nice little blurbs from various blogs about the record! I’ve listed a few of the links below; remember, if you haven’t yet downloaded or listened to “Working Title,” get to it, as it won’t be up much longer. In a week or so we’ll take it down and put up another track from the record. (and if you’ve just tuned in, all of this is happening over at www.bringonthetambourines.com)

But without further adieu, here are some links to various postings about the record:

http://www.rocksellout.com/2009/07/27/the-good-graces-bring-on-the-tambourines/

http://itstoolong.com/wp/2009/07/28/bring-on-the-tambourines-the-good-graces/ (need a translator for this one. but it’s short and looks positive enough)

http://thetruthenlightensme.blogspot.com/2009/07/japancakes-good-graces-jim-johnson.html (I’m just not sure “Kim Ware and the Good Graces” has a nice ring to it?)

http://www.fensepost.com/main/2009/07/29/the-good-graces-working-title-track-review/

http://www.deckfight.com/2009/07/mp3s-good-graces-reptilian-nurses-pinx.html (who were kind enough to praise my taste in music. which is really just as important to me, if not more, than being a decent musician)

http://res1999.blogspot.com/2009/07/more-apologies.html (scroll down a bit)

and finally… http://hypem.com/track/872682 – the cool thing about this one is you can click to tweet it, if you’re on Twitter, and that will help move the song up in their charts!

Thanks everyone, and enjoy!

 

“Bring on the Tambourines!” – Download it for FREE! July 22, 2009

Filed under: News — thegoodgraces @ 9:46 pm
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In all the busy-ness of this past week, I nearly forgot to post our big news here. We are giving away our new EP, “Bring on the Tambourines!,” for FREE—one song at a time.

Here’s the drill. Between now and the actual release date, Sept. 29, visit www.bringonthetambourines.com and you can download a different song from the record every few weeks. Each song will only be up for a limited time; once the next song is released, the previous “single” goes away. So it’s kind of like collector’s items! Of course you can just wait and get the entire record come September 29, but to me that just doesn’t sound as fun. So keep bringonthetambourines.com bookmarked, and visit it often! Thanks and enjoy!

 

Announcing “Bring on the Tambourines!” July 17, 2009

Filed under: News — thegoodgraces @ 3:56 pm
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tambourines_front_final

This, my friends, is the cover for the upcoming Good Graces EP, “Bring on the Tambourines!” It was lovingly designed by my dear friend James Tritten, who some of you might know from the late great Audio Explorations and currently as the hubby and guitar player for the wonderful Tracy Shedd. He is very talented and I’m lucky to have his help. The tambourine photo was taken by one Michelle Friedman, also a dear friend, at WE Fest 2008 in Wilmington, NC, my old stomping grounds. I love this cover because it was one fantastic collaboration between the three of us, which I think speaks to the record itself, which is also very collaborative in that my band mates Jim and John, along with the amazing engineer and musician Jerry Kee, helped shape these songs into something much more than I could have envisioned on my own.

If you heard last year’s “Sunset Over Saxapahaw” then you heard a very autobiographical, confessional account, mostly centered around my divorce a few years ago. Those songs are very special to me, because they are some of the first songs I ever wrote on guitar, and also because of their highly personal nature. But I’m happy to say that I’ve moved on, people! The new EP is somewhat of a new direction, in that the songs are more upbeat and lighthearted. They are still very much ME, but instead of dwelling on past relationships, I’m focusing on topics like Bad Drivers, missing the 90s, and Kurt Cobain. I even attempt to sing in Spanish for one song. So anyway, I am very excited to unveil these new songs to the world, and we’ll do just that this fall. But until then we have a few suprises in store, so be sure to check back here often! ;)

I hope everyone is enjoying their summer. We’ve been busy at work on the EP, so we’ve been laying a bit low show-wise, but do have a few upcoming appearances to report, so check the shows page for all the deets on those! Oh, and here’s a little something to tide you over til the EP — Tim Young from the Contrast Podcast was kind enough to include The Good Graces’s “Disassembled” on his most recent episode. The podcast is chock full of some really great tunes from all over, and what’s really cool about it is each artist introduces their own song. So check it out!

 

Recording at Duck-Kee May 16, 2009

Filed under: News — thegoodgraces @ 12:00 pm
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I traveled to NC last weekend, to spend a day with Jerry Kee at his Duck-Kee studio, recording vocals and drums for the upcoming Good Graces EP, “Bring on the Tambourines!” Had a wonderful time, got a great deal accomplished, and can’t wait to unveil the shinier, happier Good Graces to the world. Here are some photos of Jerry, his lovely cat Molly, and an old Superchunk tape. 

 

Jerry manning the boards

Jerry manning the boards

Molly

Molly

100_5794

Superchunk tape

(a few more photos posted at Flickr)