The Good Graces

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!

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!