March 6, 2008
Dear friends,
Anne-Marie Strohman, our friend and fan from Mountain View CA, wrote me on January 31 to let me know that February was National Album Writing Month. The challenge is to write 14 songs in the month of February. Since we didn't have anything better to do, besides finish the draft of How To Be An Adult and paint the cover, run HooteNanny, raise our kids, shovel snow and play all over upstate New York, we decided to take on the challenge. The result is 14 brand new (sort of) Nields songs which we will record this week and post on our website shortly. The bad news is we will have to send you a SECOND EMAIL this month to give you the link. This is bad because we promised you up and down to only write you once a month, and here we go breaking that promise for a second month in a row. Sorry. I will also post a commentary about the songs on our blog, May Day Cafe, at www.nields.com/blog.
So about these songs: some are good, some are, well, songs we wrote to meet our quota. Some are destined for the soundtrack for The Big Idea; others will appear on our new Family CD (tentatively titled Rock All Day, Rock All Night) and some I will sing to Lila in the car.
Besides recording these songs on Garage Band and posting them as soon as possible, here's what we will be up to in March:
Sat. March 8 we will do a double header: a free family show at the Jones Library in Amherst MA in the morning; and then a drive up to the southwestern tip of the Adirondack Park to play a show at Old Forge, purportedly the coldest spot in the Adirondacks. (We just didn't get enough of Western NY in February). The next weekend, March 15, we'll be joining our friends the Kennedys for a blow out show (which seems to be an annual event) at the Joyful Noise Coffeehouse in Lexington, MA. On Sunday the 16th we'll travel to New Hampshire to play at the famed Stone Church.
Easter weekend, March 22-24 our parents are coming to Massachusetts (or as Lila calls it, "Mackatussess") and our father is going to record some songs with us for Rock All Day, Rock All Night. The reason for the title, by the way, is that this will be a double CD: one CD will make you want to bounce up and down. The other CD is full of lullabies and designed for new parents to stick in a CD player to virtually sing their colicky infant to sleep when it's night night time.
 Speaking of new parents, as I said in the last email, I am pregnant. I am already huge. Here is a picture of pregnant me.
We end March at the Sounding Board in West Hartford, one of our all time favorite gigs. Since March came in like a lion, dumping 8 inches of snow on us, we expect it to go out like a lamb.
In May, we are part of an amazing workshop at Kripalu in Lenox, MA. It's called Powerful Women, Powerful Voices and it's with Eliza Gilkyson, Gretchen Peters and Val Denn. More info is here, but this is an opportunity not to be missed if you are a songwriter or artist of any kind. And Kripalu is perhaps my favorite place on earth.
I just found this from Marv Hiles, writer of a little book called "All the Days of My Life":
"The only way to live spring is to let her sun and shadow pass softly through us. Ultimately, spring teaches us that to fight against what is, is foolishness. When the cherry blossom falls and we realize how few days comprise our lives, we fall with the petal. Life is in the falling, not the staying."
Happy spring! We love you!
Nerissa and Katryna
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