We're excited to be embarking on a new tour of Western Canada and the US Pacific Northwest starting just a few days from now, and we'll be premiering some new material slated for our next album!
But first, a little update... We enjoyed a great tour in February and March, touring southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, followed by a quick swing up to Whitehorse, Yukon, for Dan where he performed along with Gord Stobbe backing three time grand master fiddle champion and friend Patti Kusturok. Thereafter Dan and Laurel reunited in Winnipeg on Laurel's birthday to play Canada's largest winter festival, Festival Du Voyageur (though oddly, Laurel had to explain where she'd be performing to the Winnipeg border guard twice...he'd never heard of it!). Quite a few of our concerts this year had record breaking attendance, having hosts scrambling for chairs, and aside from Dan catching a bad cold half way through the tour, we managed to pull through all the gigs with flying colors.
We're still working on editing the rest of the footage, but here are some new videos from a great show we played at Kulak's Woodshed in North Hollywood on February 3rd, 2017. It's not every day we get to play for both a cheering audience and have a million cameras filming us, including one on a toy train track and one running on a track across the headboard of a bed!
Since this last tour, Dan has been busy back in California, establishing himself as a multi-instrumentalist on the local scene - teaching students, guesting on local recording sessions, as well as in a number of bands on mandolin, dobro, banjo, bass, and acoustic and electric guitar of course. Some of his new side projects have been playing bass in a four piece 60's covers and Motown inspired band called Honeytone, playing electric guitar with local singer and songwriter Andy Fuhrman, and playing a wide assortment of songs and instruments in a few casual folk bands.
As the record winter rainfall subsides into spring in California, we're beginning to write songs for a new album. Only the strongest songs survive however, and after the success of the last two albums the bar is set particularly high, so the upcoming tour of Western Canada will serve as a test drive of all the new potential album choices. From there, as we've done int he past, we'll let the audiences decide which songs to pursue recording, likely in the Fall and Winter, after our first duo tour to Europe.
Yes, you heard that right! We'll will be touring Europe for the entire month of September after a brief tour to southern California to perform a handful of concerts. We'll fly to Iceland, then to Ireland, then Paris, then we'll drive through Germany to Berlin, before flying to Copenhagen, then to the UK, and back to Ireland before returning to California. We'll be playing shows all along the way, though we could still fill in a date in or around Paris as well as a date or two in Ireland if anyone has leads. Please contact at info@danandlaurel.ca. Thank you!!! Also, if anyone is interested, we'll be subletting our granny cottage in the Santa Cruz mountains of California while we're away. It's perfect for someone who would enjoy an artist/nature retreat at a very reasonable for California rental rate, and it will be available from August 20th to October 4th. Please contact us for details!
Due to baggage restrictions and other restrictions with air travel, especially for this upcoming Europe tour, Dan has recently become an sponsored artist for Voyage-Air Guitars, and will be using his new folding VA-OM-04 left handed Voyage-Air guitar on future tours involving this kind of travel uncertainty. This new instrument sounds comparable to Dan's beloved Martin guitar, but at a fraction of the price while being easily transportable in a lightweight backpack type carry case.
We are always interested and seeking out house concerts to perform and will gladly route an upcoming tour to come play a full concert for you in your living room, a friends' home, or your local community center, church, or listening room. All it takes are some chairs, a decent sized living room or other space which can hold 20-50 people, and some music lovers who give a suggested donation to cover our fee. Generally, a house concert event begins at 6pm or 6:30pm with a potluck, snacks, or simply a meet and greet, followed by a 7pm pr 7:30pm performance consisting of two 45 minute sets separated by an intermission to sign CD's, visit, maybe enjoy some dessert, etc. We've performed about 400 house concerts since we started touring together in 2013 and enjoy this style of concert the most. We've performed house concerts all the way from Prince Rupert, British Columbia to Saint Petersburg, Florida, and from Los Angeles, California all the way to Boston, Massachusetts. Please let us know if you're interested in hosting us for future tours we're now booking in 2018 and 2019.
Thank you for being part of our mailing list! We continue to grow our fan base through our touring, as well as though fans who have followed us on our mailing list and/or Facebook music page and who take a moment to share our dates and posts from time to time. Scroll down below our upcoming concert dates to find easy links to share this newsletter on Facebook, as a weblink, or in an email to your music loving friends. We really appreciate it!