Released on our fourth album, "Driving By Candlelight," we decided to revisit our song "Crow Flies High" recently and to finally create a music video for it. Written on a tour through the Southwest back in 2016, we had to cancel our last tour date in Phoenix due to an approaching storm that had been washing out roads across Southern California. We took a more northern route, passing through Flagstaff and watching black clouds collect on the southern horizon for what felt like hours. It felt like we were riding the edge between two worlds and as we reflected on that feeling it brought up memories of friends and loved ones passing to the other side, and the choices we all have to make, sometimes daily, between the light and the dark, the known and the unknown, the self and the other.

We hope you enjoy our latest efforts here and will share the video the others you think might enjoy it. Laurel works tirelessly to coordinate every element of these videos and enjoyed searching through various public domain footage sources to bring everything together and represent all the variety, diversity, and beauty our crow might see, flying high, taking in all experience and all it means to be a being on this planet.

Song and arrangement by Dan Frechette & Laurel Thomsen. Violin, viola, and harmony vocals by Laurel Thomsen. Acoustic guitar and harmony vocals by Dan Frechette. Drums and percussion by Jimmy Norris. Double bass by Stan Poplin. Engineering, recording, and mixing by Justin Mayer, Bear Creek Recording Studio, Bonny Doon, California. Mastering by Jamie Sitar, Outta Town Sound, Winnipeg, Manitoba. Video concept, production, and editing by Laurel Thomsen. Videography by Dan and Laurel. Additional video clips care of videezy.com. Video budget $0. If you enjoyed this music, please help our grassroots career by sharing this video!

Physical signed album copies, downloads, and info at https://www.danandlaurel.ca as well as all major online streaming and download sites.

We've just released a new music video!

Country Beauty Queen was among the first batch of songs we collaborated on as a duo back in 2013, but it took a while to find its way onto an album and even longer to get its own music video. The timing just had to be right.

In a small town it's always bittersweet when someone finds love. On one hand, we're happy for the new couple. On the other, it becomes even more apparent that the pool of eligible singles is shrinking!

We thought we'd release the video on May 3rd in honor of Dan's mom's birthday. Born and raised in the small town of Saint Malo in southern Manitoba, Agnes fell in love with sewing and made clothes for herself and her siblings from a young age. She's a true country beauty queen and we wish her many more happy birthdays!

We filmed the video at the historic homestead property at Wilder Ranch State Park, not far from where we live, and Laurel put it all together along with other footage she found online to help tell the story.

Please enjoy and share!

We'd wanted to create a supporting music video for this song ever since we released it on our penultimate album, "Driving By Candlelight," back in 2018. The pieces didn't fall into place until two weeks ago. After a bit of online sleuthing in a flurry of inspiration, Laurel knocked out the video from concept to final edit over an intensive 24 hours. Please click the player below or here ---> https://youtu.be/CcvpvsyzGaY to check out "New York City Sundance"! We hope you enjoy it! And if you do, please help our grassroots career to by sharing it!

Background on the song: Written on this day back in 2001, Dan had been performing across eastern Canada that summer with a First Nations band from Winnipeg. After a Dodge minivan breakdown, being stranded for two weeks with "six large adults" in a trailer, and a sweat-lodge "rebirth" at Akwesasne, the Mohawk Nation territory in upstate New York, the song came to him. If you'd like to hear Dan's complete and humorous recount of that adventure, please also enjoy the live performance we did of the song back in 2019 down below, or click here: https://youtu.be/gnNexKBy2sw

Speaking to themes of identity, authenticity, and conquering inner and outer demons, New York City Sundance has remained a central song of Dan's ever since. Our arrangement came together back in 2013 as we jammed on the upper deck of a ferry while touring around Vancouver Island.

For the album track, Dan recorded 6 and 12 string acoustic guitars and lead vocals, Laurel contributed violin and harmony vocals, and we enjoyed featuring the talent of Stan Poplin on doublebass and Jimmy Norris on drums. The audio track produced by the two of us, was recorded and mixed by Justin Mayer at Bear Creek Recording Studio in Bonny Doon, CA, and mastered by Jaime Sitar of Outta Town Sound in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Credits:
Song written by Dan Frechette.
Arrangement by Dan Frechette & Laurel Thomsen.
6 and 12 string guitars, and lead vocals by Dan Frechette.
Violin and harmony vocals by Laurel Thomsen.
Doublebass by Stan Poplin.
Drums by Jimmy Norris.
Audio recording and mixing by Justin Mayer.
Audio mastering by Jaime Sitar.
Video concept, production, and editing by Laurel Thomsen.
Video clips care of videezy.com and shutterstock.com.
Additional videography by Dan and Laurel.

We are excited to share our latest music video with you! Featured on our fifth duo album After the Fire, which we released in 2022, "Colfax Harbor" is our nod to the Celtic/Irish ballad. Written by Dan back in 2005 at the end of a 6-month solo tour across the US mid-west and south, he included key features of the tradition: a tragic story-line yet uplifting melodies and toe-tapping rhythms (because Irish music must still be dance-able right?!). For the album track, Dan recorded 6 and 12-string acoustic guitars, lead vocals, piano, harmonica, bass, and drums, while Laurel contributed violin and harmony vocals. It was produced and mixed by the two of us in Dan's Bonny Doon home studio space, before it burned down in the 2020 CZU Fire.

Please click the image below or here ---> https://youtu.be/moYNxsEfBac to check it out!!

Laurel enjoyed loosely acting out the story of the protagonist - a young girl who's heart has been captured by a dashing sailor. "She dreams of houses, beaches, walks in the park" upon her love's return from sea, but alas, as the "crimson begins to make its way to the dark" (the sun sets that day), fate does not smile upon the happy couple.

We filmed on a moody day during California's early summer "June gloom," in and around coastal Pescadero, a cute historic town which sits just off highway 1 between San Francisco and Santa Cruz. Specific locations also include Waddell Creek Beach and the Pigeon Point Lighthouse.

Video Credits: Lyrics and music by Dan Frechette. String arrangement by Laurel Thomsen. Dan Frechette: vocals, 6 and 12-string acoustic guitars, piano, harmonica, bass, drums. Laurel Thomsen: violin, vocals. Videography by Dan & Laurel using iPhone XRs. Video concept, production, and editing by Laurel Thomsen.

To purchase a signed physical copy of the album, please visit our online store at https://www.danandlaurel.ca/Shop/

We hope you enjoy this music and share with those you love!!

Happy Holidays!!

We hope our last post of 2022 finds you well and enjoying a joyous and restful season. It's been a busy year for us, and we're looking forward to spending some time with family and friends, even if in many cases it's still virtually, in the coming weeks. However, we're really excited to share our latest music video with YOU today! Please click the video below to check it out!

Background on the song: Featured on our fifth duo album After the Fire, which we released in early 2022, our original pop-folk song "Together Again" celebrates love and friendship, with the hope that we'll all be able to be together again. Hey, this holiday season, or very soon, it might actually happen! For the album track, Dan recorded 12-string guitar, vocals, bass, and drums, while Laurel contributed violin and vocals. It was produced and mixed by the two of us in Dan's home studio space before it burned down in the CZU Fire.

About making the video: We had hoped to release a video for this song last December, ahead of the album release, however, the timing was too tight. With additional Covid waves soon hitting our shores, in retrospect the timing felt premature anyway. Thanks to all the family and friends who contributed cameo performances! Sorry it took so long to get the video together, but it feels even better now because we're finally able to be "together again." For our video performances, we found a beautiful grassy hillside along CA-35, about 45 minutes from where we live. For those of you experiencing extreme cold and snow this holiday season, and who may be wondering why we're releasing such a summery looking video right now, don't be fooled! It was actually 48 degrees F and our fingers were numb by the end of the filming process. We can't complain too much though - winter in California is still more comfortable then many places!

Video Credits: Lyrics and music by Dan Frechette. String arrangement by Laurel Thomsen. Dan Frechette: vocals, 12-string guitar, bass, drums. Laurel Thomsen: violin, vocals. Videography by Dan & Laurel. Video concept, production, and editing by Laurel Thomsen.

To purchase a signed physical copy of the album, please visit our online store at https://www.danandlaurel.ca/Shop/

We hope you enjoy and share with those you love!!

Whew! For as shutdown as 2020 and 2021 were, 2022 has been a whirlwind of activity. We've been teaching and playing a ton of events locally, but alas, there have still been very few chances to perform as Dan and Laurel and share songs from "After the Fire" for an actual listening audience. Cover tunes, Classical favorites, and a general mixtape of "what do you want to hear" has created a very full life lately - the life of working musicians, making a living, making people (hopefully!) happy. We can't complain really, but we miss performing the songs we've created together, and we're thrilled to share a new music video with you today! Please view below or here ----> https://youtu.be/B9TC0m0ZSyo

Some background on the song: Featured on "After the Fire,” the album we released earlier this year, If A Wave harnesses the uncertainty of the moment we’re living through and transforms it into hope. Usually quite determined to uncover all the “silver linings," Laurel was in a funk, feeling hopeless and needing to shake off doubts and depression. Writing this song did the trick! Drawing metaphors from the natural world - water, fire, air - the song encourages us to remember that we're all connected, and asks us to take responsibility for the “waves” we create. “We’re still looking for the answers we thought we knew / And wishing on the same dreams the whole world through / You can’t part a wave from the sea."

A bit about the video: Filmed in parks, on an overpass, next to a church, and from a vantage point overlooking downtown Santa Cruz, California, our vision was to take the viewer on a journey of contrasts - light and shadow, peace and noise, linear architecture and flowing water - bolstering the persuasion that we might find what we’re looking for, not in autonomy and separation, but in acceptance and togetherness.

We hope you enjoy our efforts, and will consider sharing the song with anyone you know who could use a little hope these days 🙏🏽 ❤️ 🙏🏽

Song and video credits:
Lyrics and music by Laurel Thomsen.
Music also by Dan Frechette.
Arrangement by Dan Frechette & Laurel Thomsen.
Violin and Vocals by Laurel Thomsen.
Guitar by Dan Frechette.
Videography by Dan Frechette & Laurel Thomsen.
Video production and editing by Laurel Thomsen.

Lyrics:
If a wave began right here
Would you hold it tight and empty
Let it disappear
Or let it flow
Find other waves
Let it pick you up and carry you
Grow into an ocean
You can’t part a wave from the sea

(chorus) My world begins with me
From here to all I see
I own these wounds and the flowers that grow free
My world begins with me

And if love began right here
Would you still look for another
Hide away in your fear
Or would you feed
Its tiny light
Let it breath out with and through you
Merge with all the love out there
You can’t part a spark from the fire

We’re still looking for the answers we thought we knew
And wishing on the same dreams the whole world through
You can’t part a wave from the sea

And if peace began right here
Would you count it as your sweet luck
Push needy souls clear
Or set it free
On little wings
Small forces felt around the world
Spread out to eternity
You can’t part the breeze from the air

In about a week it will be 10 years since Dan's fateful sighting of Laurel in a YouTube video and the chance he took on sending her a message here on facebook. It bloomed into our partnership, five albums, well over 1000 concerts, several countries, countless tour stories, and Dan moving to a new country and having to start over on so many levels. It completely changed our lives. We've all weathered so many ups and downs, these last two years especially, and lately has been a real emotional roller coaster ride for us. How can some days feel like the worst day and the best day all in one? The news of deaths and losses coming at the same time as happy engagements and babies can be real whiplash! Or maybe it's just life.

We always enjoy revisiting and performing "Puddles in the Rain" from our "New Disguise" album - "Walking through life's little puddles in the rain/Looking for the meaning in every kind of pain." It's all about just continuing to step forward. And then to take another step. We can find a lot of faith if we can muster our fortitude. And we might not know where we're going, but what's nice about puddles is that eventually we do reach the other side.

While we are missing playing formal concerts, especially for audiences like we enjoyed in this video, and sharing songs like this one, we are grateful for the many recent opportunities to make people happy with their favorite cover tunes, Classical music, Jazz, etc. at various events and weddings. Hopefully we can hit our stride again soon. It might not be the endless tours we seemed to be on before, but maybe even better and more sustainable?

In all this time off from touring we've been reflecting on how many of our songs, as well as our story together, have a "phoenix rising from the ashes" flavor. We always struggled to describe our music, so maybe that's our genre, if there is such a thing?! It's all about hope, strength, and regeneration. Let's do this! Maybe we'll try for just a few backyard house concerts to start...?

"After the Fire" released two weeks ago and we're pleased to announce that we've sold out of our initial run of physical album copies. Thank you!! More copies are on the way so if you didn't get a chance to pick one up yet we should have them back in stock in about a week. Feel free to head to the Dan and Laurel online store to purchase your signed copy and we'll send it out to you just as soon as we have them back in hand.

In other news, we're concentrating a lot of our publicity efforts in Canada, where we've traditionally had the most robust reception for our sound (Dan had a head start on that!). Canada has a strong Roots music scene and pre-Covid we were honored to play alongside amazing talent at a number of their folk festivals, some favorites being the Winnipeg Folk Festival and Trout Forest Festival, as well as taking part in the Home Routes/Chemin Chez Nous house concert circuit. We're hopeful that we'll be able to relive all those memories and make some new ones sooner then later, but for now, we've been honored to have our album featured in a number of publications, including a piece by Darryl Sterdan of the Tinnitist, plus our single "Make Me Come Alive" was chosen as a "top 20 hit pick" for the month of February on Cashbox Radio, and was featured this past Friday on Jan Vanderhorst's long running show "Just Us Folk." If you'd like your local station to consider us, please request us, or send an email with the station name and ideally, the DJ we should reach out to.

We hope that those of you who have had the chance to check out our new songs are enjoying them! If you haven't had a chance to listen yet, you can find us on most streaming platforms (yes, we're dipping our toes into the 21st century), or better yet, help show your support by purchasing a physical copy or a digital download.

Today, along with our "After the Fire" album release, Canadian singer-songwriter Dan Frechette and I are releasing a music video for "Money Shouldn't Talk That Strong," another of the new songs. Enjoy a behind the scenes glimpse of our recording process (simulated in Dan's new "mighty tight" studio that has been rebuilt since the 2020 fire that nearly caused us to lose everything including the "After the Fire" tracks that we were just finishing up recording - thank you Rachel & Steve, and my father, Ken!!). We enjoyed arranging and recording all the instruments we added to this one and share throughout the video - violin, viola, cello, guitar, bass, drums, harmonies, and we hope you'll feel empowered by the song's message.

We recorded another Violin Geek Podcast episode about the making of "Money Shouldn't Talk That Strong." Dan and I share details about the song's origin and lyrics, our recording process, particularly Dan's approach to layering guitar, bass, and drums, and my approach to composing and recording the violin, viola, and cello parts, as well as the making of the song's music video above. Enjoy!

Order signed physical copies and exclusive downloads (including MP3 and WAV versions, album art, liner notes, lyrics) of the new album here. You can also find the album on a variety of streaming platforms and online stores. We look forward to sharing the album with more of you in the coming days!

We hope your 2022 is off to a good start. What a trying couple of years it's been... The good news we have to share is that our long awaited fifth duo album, "AFTER THE FIRE" releases today, along with a new music video, a new Violin Geek Podcast episode, and an outdoor concert in Santa Cruz, California.

We’ve been working hard behind the scenes to make something of this album (possibly our best one yet) and it feels tricky when we can’t yet tour to promote it as we've done with all our previous releases. We’ve had a heartwarming response from those of you who took advantage of our holiday pre-orders and have been enjoying the new songs already. Please help us share our music with those you think might appreciate it!! THANK YOU!!

Order signed physical copies or exclusive downloads (including MP3 and WAV versions, album art, liner notes, lyrics) here. You can also find the album on a variety of streaming platforms and online stores. We look forward to sharing the album with more of you in the coming days.

As we mentioned, we're not touring yet, or even performing much, other than a lot of outdoor private events and weddings, but if you're in the area, we'll be sharing songs from the new album as well as previous albums tonight in downtown Santa Cruz. The event is outdoors and free, with food and drink available for purchase from a variety of vendors, and we'll have CDs for sale and signing.

"After the Fire" Launch Party Featuring Dan and Laurel along with Dan Robbins on bass Friday, January, 21, 2022, 6-9pm ABBOTT SQUARE 725 Front Street, Santa Cruz, CA

Canadian singer-songwriter Dan Frechette and I just released our first single and music video from our fifth duo album "After the Fire," which we'll be releasing in its entirely January 21, 2022. It's a song called "Make Me Come Alive" which Dan wrote and I created the violin parts for. Here's a host of places to listen to the track https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/danfrechetteandlaurelthomsen/make-me-come-alive

And here's the music video which I produced, filmed, and edited:

I enjoyed capturing familiar scenes from all around the Monterey Bay and developing a storyline to fit the transformation that happens to Dan's character. He was a good sport to go along with it all! We hope you enjoy.

Finally, we also put together a Violin Geek Podcast episode to share the story behind the song and the album in general. Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts.

Has it really been more than a year since we sent a newsletter? Well, we're still here, we're doing fine, and we hope this message finds you doing well too! What a crazy time it's been for all of us... Feel free to drop us a note and let us know how things have been going for you.

We're excited to report that we'll be releasing our fifth album as a duo on January 21, 2022. Today we launch our website pre-order period and while supplies last, for orders placed by December 1st we're offering special delivery before the holidays for signed physical CDs, or delivery within 24 hours for digital downloads. Be one of the first to enjoy our new songs!

Pre-order "After the Fire"!

We began recording this album in late July 2020, under California’s Covid–19 stay-at-home order, in Dan’s Bonny Doon home studio, The Shed. We were wrapping up by mid-August, but then a heatwave and extremely unusual lightning storm sparked a fast-moving forest fire. Completed after our evacuation to the safe haven of a friend’s home, After the Fire marks the end of an era and a fresh start; Dan’s little studio burned the morning after he’d rescued the rough tracks, studio equipment, and a range of instruments we play in addition to acoustic guitar and violin (such as viola, cello, bass, drums, piano, etc.), yet rarely have the space to bring with us on the road. Highlighting these additional instruments on this album helped us feel the joy of performing again and to know that despite the setbacks of the past year, our music will thrive in new ways.

Each song portrays a facet of the journey from setback to reclaimed hope - finding faith in the possibility of LOVE in “Make Me Come Alive,” HOME in “Beale Street,” COMMUNITY in “Together Again” and “Money Shouldn’t Talk That Strong,” and one’s own STRENGTH and FORTITUDE in “If A Wave” and “Hey, It’ll Be OK.”

Our new photography, including the photo above, taken in the burn zone a few months after the fire swept through, is care of the fabulously talented Michelle Magdalena who also took the photos for our first two albums, "Dan and Laurel" and "New Disguise." We've been blessed to work with amazing photographers for all our albums and it was wonderful to get the chance to work with Michelle again.

We're planning some special events leading up the the CD release, including some podcast episodes diving into the stories behind the songs and the release of some new music videos. We'll let you know about those details soon. For now, we'll be releasing our first single and music video for the album at 4pm Pacific Time on December 17, 2021. Tune in at that time for our YouTube watch party of the music video Laurel created here https://youtu.be/jNue8FBwT3s

We're also launching our new website today. Laurel has been hard at work and did a great job! We're particularly pleased about finally having a responsive site that resizes automatically to suit various devices, as well as our new photos page and the new lyrics page where you can enjoy the poetry of whatever songs from our five albums pop up, or search for specific songs by song title, a word, a lyric, an album, or a songwriter. Poke around and please let us know what you think!

Finally, while we've been staying busy with teaching and playing private weddings and events, we have a few public performances to look forward to, including a return to First Night Monterey on New Year's Eve, a house concert on the California Central Coast on December 18th, and a casual CD launch party at Santa Cruz's Abbott Square on January 21st featuring the addition of the formidable Dan Robbins on Doublebass on January 21, 2022.

The fire in the Santa Cruz mountains became an imminent threat to us late on Tuesday night and we evacuated to a friend’s house in Santa Cruz. We got all the instruments out and most of the very important stuff. Laurel has been kicking herself for forgetting the book she’s written all her instrumentals in over the past 15 years and her artwork, but we can still pray it will all survive. At least we are safe and decided to get out when we did. The fire seemed relatively far away from us, but then everything started changing very quickly and within a couple hours we’d decided to pack the cars and very soon after got the code red mandatory evacuation notice.

Yesterday we heard that the fire burned two of our neighbor’s homes and burned Dan’s recording studio shed to the ground (he thankfully had evacuated most of the equipment since the freak lightening storm that sparked these fires). Thankfully, so far the report is that the other structures on the property we live on are still standing. The fire still rages from various directions and with limited fire crews due to other extreme fires around the state, so we hardly think we can assume they’ll remain spared.

This terrible week started with a heat wave followed by a freak lightning storm Saturday night that knocked out our power, phones, or internet until Tuesday afternoon, just a few hours before we learned we had to evacuate. For those who are used to T-storms every few days throughout the summer, a storm of any kind from about May to November is very rare in California (we’re talking years if not decades). A winter T-storm only happens once every few years, and a summer one is maybe only once every 10-15 years, usually sparking forest fires since everything dries out pretty quickly here in the summer once the rains stop.

We were up most of that night with continuous, mostly dry thunder and lightening, wondering if a strike would hit close by and we’d have to evacuate. From a detached standpoint, it was an amazing show, but terrifying on a mountaintop in the middle of fire season! Dan packed up all his gear and took it to a friend’s storage space in town the next day and Laurel packed up to be ready. While some fires started immediately with the storm, none were particularly close to us and it took a few days for embers to spark the blaze that has now been steadily consuming Bonny Doon this week.

The waiting and wondering is very difficult to sit with right now and we’re starting to consider various options for the future, especially if we become homeless in the next few days. Our hearts ache for what’s been a really sweet place to call home for the past five years, the people on the mountain who have already lost their homes, and all our little animal and plant friends we really got to know and love throughout the quarantine - may they be spared.

Above is a photo a friend was able to get in and take yesterday of the hillside where Dan’s studio was two days ago and below is a photo by Derek Fester of the lightning that created all this drama:

Dan had recorded over 32 of his 90+ solo albums in that little space and we were working on the Dan and Laurel album #5 in there this summer. At least he still has all the instruments he used to record these albums and most of his studio gear. Enjoy some here and please hold us and all of Bonny Doon and California in your thoughts and prayers https://officialramblingdanfrechette.bandcamp.com/music

Well, life looks a bit different then we all expected it might right about now! We hope everyone is hanging in there, staying healthy, and finding ways to connect meaningfully with loved ones, even from a distance. We wanted to update you on what's been happening for us.

We're starting the sixth week of our shelter-in-place here on the California Central Coast and we're thankful to have each other and the entertainment of the squirrels, lizards, and deer with tiny newborn fawns roaming through the yard now and then. Watching Spring arrive in Bonny Doon has been an unexpected treat. We've lived in our little cabin for five years and have always been touring at this time of year. Who knew our meadow blossomed in these lovely baby blue flowers? Despite the uncertainty and fear swirling all around, it's been an opportunity to recognize the importance of slowing down and remembering to be grateful, even if that seems impossible sometimes.

The need to be flexible and creative has also become even more apparent. As we saw entire tours and all the festivals and private events we'd been booked to perform wiped from our calendar, likely at least into the Fall at this point, we were humbled by the recognition that we were never in control over these future plans to begin with.

As Pete Seeger wrote in his song "Turn! Turn! Turn!": "To everything/Turn, turn, turn/There is a season/Turn, turn, turn/And a time for every purpose under heaven."

In this season we're enjoying the cleaner smell in the air, more time to play our instruments, and the volume of silence that comes when we stop playing. We're making huge pots of soup, enchiladas, and lots and lots of tacos. Laurel has perfected her vegan banana bread recipe (check it out below), which was put to the ultimate test recently when regular flour became unavailable. We were able to find spelt flour, and most recently, sorghum flour, and these were still able to produce a delicious loaf. We're appreciating our walks through the forest and all of our online music students now more than ever, and are excited by the extra strides they're making now that everyone seems to have a lot more time to practice.

But still, some days are tough. Motivation comes and goes and it seems impossible to escape depressing news. We're probably all sharing these feelings. With extra time has come the expectation that we should be even more productive, really make the most of it! Yet the simplest tasks, like grocery shopping, have suddenly harnessed the power to zap all of our energy and wrap us up in a bundle of stress. It's important to recognize that processing everything that's been going on is a new frontier. Some days, doing what we can to just take care of ourselves while staying mentally and emotionally healthy, let alone physically healthy, can feel like a full time job. It's a good time to be kind to ourselves.

Despite the ups and downs, Dan's still managed to release five more solo albums, including a number of songs written just this month. See https://officialramblingdanfrechette.bandcamp.com/music Together we're also contemplating album #5, but we're not in a rush. We don't have to finish it in a short window of time between tours as we've felt pressured to do in the past. We can sit with the songs, let an album take shape organically.

We are trying to keep up our performance chops however, and invite you to enjoy some of our live streaming shows coming up soon. Details are below and we encourage you to check our website or Facebook page for future live streams not yet scheduled. There's no need to have a Facebook account to watch and enjoy, though this does allow you to comment or even request a song if the inspiration strikes you. Your virtual tips are appreciated, but they are also not required to tune in.

We also want to let you know that we're available for private online concerts. If you'd like to host a virtual concert for your friends and family, we did a lunch hour show via Zoom recently for an office team, now all working from home of course. It was a welcome diversion from their work day, and for us, the next best thing to playing a house concert. It's amazing that technology allows us to still connect this way, see each other's faces, chat and share, while staying germ free. Our schedule is pretty wide open for the foreseeable future. Please send us a message if this idea intrigues you and we'll figure it out from there - info@danandlaurel.ca

If you're interested in some online lessons on guitar, ukulele, mandolin, harmonica, banjo, or perhaps having Dan overdub some of the instruments he plays on a recording you're creating, you can learn more and contact Dan at https://www.danfrechette.com/Services/

If you're interested in online violin, viola, or fiddle lessons or coaching, you can learn more and be in touch with Laurel through https://www.laurelthomsen.com/Teaching.html She also has a wide ranging collection of blog posts and Strings magazine articles dating back to 2007 and covering topics from violin technique and better practice habits, to navigating performance anxiety and plateaus in our music learning. Most recently she shared ideas for musicians and creative types weathering the pandemic. Enjoy them here https://www.laurelthomsen.com/Violin_Geek_Blog/Archive.html and here https://stringsmagazine.com/?s=laurel+thomsen

Whenever it's safe to emerge again, we'll resume booking future tours. We're probably looking at 2021 at this point. Feel free to reach out if you'd like to get on our radar, or tentatively schedule a house concert or private event down the road.

This will likely be our last newsletter for a while. We'll be in touch again once we have something to report, preferably some happy news! Feel free to keep up with us on social media in the meantime.

We'd like to leave you with an unreleased live performance of our song "The Beauty Doesn't Know." As the chorus states: "The Beauty doesn't know the rose from the weed, the man from the babe, the storm that shakes the trees. The Beauty doesn't find a road painted black, but a wild horse charging me home. Hold tight. Loose rein. All of your might. Hold tight. All of your dreams. All of your light. It's alright."

While we can't see the big picture yet, let's all hold tight to the hope that good will follow these strange and crazy times.

Laurel's Vegan Banana Bread

2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour (one cup white, one wheat or an alternative flour like oat works well too)
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup sugar (Laurel likes using coconut sugar, or better yet, 5-6 pitted whole dates blended into a paste with the water below!)
1/3 cup avocado oil
3-4 ripe bananas, well mashed
1/4 cup water
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 cup dried raisins or currants
1/4 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F, and lightly grease a bread pan or 12 full sized muffin tin.
In a medium-sized bowl, mix flour, baking soda, and salt together. Set aside.
In a large bowl, mash the bananas, then add sugar, oil, water, and vanilla. Mix thoroughly.
Add the flour mixture to the large bowl, along with the raisins and nuts. Stir until just mixed.
Fill each muffin tin halfway with batter. Bake for 20-30 mins, until muffins are golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

From: “Offa My Plate - Favorite Recipes of a Musical Duo.” by Dan Frechette & Laurel Thomsen. https://danandlaurel.ca/Shop/

We hope our first newsletter since last summer finds everyone doing well and making time to go out and enjoy live music. We got to see Scarlet Rivera, violinist of Bob Dylan's Desire fame last week. Dan had met her in his early 20s when she recorded on a demo Dan was doing with Columbia Records. It felt like a full circle moment for him to see her again after so many years, and wonderful for us to sit in the audience for a change, taking in all that inspiration.

After a busy 2019, we've been off the road since November, resting up and re-imagining our individual and collective dreams and goals. It's also been a wonderfully productive time.

Dan recorded and released several new solo albums this winter, including his 60th (!!) solo album released just today. After some past success with having his songs featured in movies, and the hundreds of additional songs he's written and recorded since then, Dan's hoping to foster more connections in the film industry this year and open up his extensive catalogue to the possibility of more of these types of opportunities. It's a bit daunting and hard to know where to start, but as they say, "every journey starts with a single step." Check out, listen, and download his wide ranging releases featuring all original material here https://officialramblingdanfrechette.bandcamp.com/music

Dan's also been entertaining around the California Central Coast, performing frequently at private events, local venues, and as a guest musician in a few bands, as well as teaching a variety of local and Skype students on guitar, ukulele, harmonica, banjo, and a few of the other instruments he plays. Learn more at https://www.danfrechette.com

This year marks Laurel's 24th year teaching the violin and viola, and her 11th year working primarily with students scattered all around the world who take their private lessons with her via Skype. She continues to enjoy the unique challenges each student brings to the table and besides reaching a wider audience through the online courses she's published and the occasional Strings magazine article or blog post, she hopes to combine her touring and performing with more opportunities to also share her love for teaching and her expertise at more music camps and workshops. Learn more about what Laurel's doing at https://www.laurelthomsen.com

This month eases us into our 2020 touring, with a return to Southern California this week, and a Santa Cruz area Valentine's themed show also featuring another musical couple - Amanda West & Pete Solomon, coming up on February 15th. The rest of this year will include: a return to Oregon in April; touring in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Manitoba in May; more California dates this summer; EUROPE in September; and a Western Canada "Home Routes" tour in November. In March 2020, Dan will be touring the Canadian Prairies, his first solo tour since 2014. Please check our upcoming dates here https://www.danandlaurel.ca/Tour/, and Dan's March tour dates in Canada here. We hope to see some of you soon!

Speaking of touring, we are always booking ahead and are currently filling in a few more dates for 2020 and looking ahead to 2021. Please contact us if you or someone you know would like to host us for a house concert or have a venue or festival to recommend. If you're not sure what a house concert is or how to host one, we're happy to answer your questions. You can also check out the information we've put together here: https://www.danandlaurel.ca/Booking/ Finally, thanks to a wonderful producer and music advocate, Doug Young (also a phenomenal guitarist!), last Fall we were able to record a TV spot featuring our music for KMVT in Mountain View, California, and we're excited to share one of the songs featured in that session with you! It's an oldie (for Dan anyway), but one of our favorite songs to perform off our 2018 album "Driving By Candlelight." It's a magical moment when a song just falls in your lap, and in the case of this one, it also turned out to be rather prophetic. Scroll back in the video to hear the humorous backstory, otherwise, just enjoy "New York City Sundance."

A few other new videos, including one featuring the formidable Jeremy Rusu joining us on electric accordion (aka honky-tonk piano, bass, drums, horns, etc.), can be found here: https://danandlaurel.ca/Video/

We're honored to share our music with you and seeing your smiling faces in our audiences makes us feel that all is right with the world. Thank you all so much for your continued support!!

We've been enjoying our first summer at home in California. With some new songs brewing, we are excited to announce that we will be recording a supplemental album of original instrumentals this Fall and hope to have it ready for our 2020 tours.   Besides our usual circuits around California and the US West Coast, Manitoba/the Canadian Prairies, New England, and the US South, we are planning a return to Europe (September 2020) and are overdue to return to the Canadian West Coast/Vancouver Island (we're hoping for an early Summer 2020 tour). We are in the middle of booking a mid-west/Great Lakes tour for May 2020 and could especially use some leads for this region as we haven't toured there since 2013!

This past Spring we enjoyed a house concert tour from Florida up into Georgia and North Carolina, which included a full house in Asheville, NC at the famous Isis Music Hall. For months leading up to the show we'd been receiving daily notifications saying "0 tickets sold" and we were getting quite concerned about the venue cancelling us. However, in the week leading up to the show we were thrilled to see those notifications suddenly turn to "19 tickets sold," and "15 tickets sold" etc., and finally, the notice that we had actually oversold the room by one ticket. An incredible and unexpected turnaround!

The excitement continued into a very busy May and June, driving up from California through Oregon, Washington, and then from B.C out east to Manitoba and Ontario, playing almost every night and getting to reunite with friends and family in Winnipeg. We would have loved to stay in Manitoba through June, but we had a few important dates to play in Los Angeles, so in just three days we drove 32 hours from Winnipeg to California. And then, after just a few days back at home post LA, we headed back North to play the fantastic Kate Wolf Music Festival in Laytonville, CA.    The Kate Wolf Music Festival was a highlight. It was an honor being invited to perform there after being a fan of Kate Wolf's music for many years. The festival was blessed with uncommonly cooler weather, and we were impressed by the array of high quality, creative vendors, humble and genuinely talented musicians around every corner, and a great reception for our music. We enjoyed catching up with a number of friends we’ve met through our travels. A poignant experience was meeting Kate Wolf’s widow. He was especially kind to us and told us many stories about his times with Kate, making the whole weekend that much more poignant. Here's a video of our contribution to the Kate Wolf song showcase, performing her song "You're Not Standing Like You Used To":

  One sad bit of news is that our beloved pet dove, Shanti, passed away in June. He'd been back and forth to the vet several times over the past year and his spirit finally flew away to clearer skies. We miss him and his uncanny ability to interject his coo into just the right moments in our music when we'd be practicing at home.

The past few weeks have been all about trying to recover from the busy schedule... trying! Dan has actually been performing nearly every night, hired to sit in with different bands on different instruments - drums one night, bass another, mandolin, lap slide, etc. and in between all that, also managed to also record a new solo album. Besides her usual weekly violin and viola students, Laurel has been enjoying some nice long hikes and violin practice sessions, and has been working on a new project we will unveil at some point in the future. Meanwhile, she's trying to not go insane this month with brides requesting her to arrange rap and pop music into something that sounds like music on the violin for their weddings. An interesting challenge to be sure, but she'd happily return to the days of Pachelbel, Mozart, and Handel requests, The Beatles, or our own tune "Back Down the Aisle."

We have a few shows coming up this month that we are particularly looking forward to, including two concerts this weekend in the Monterey Bay Area with Emmy award-nominated composer and vocalist Gary Stockade from Los Angeles. We will be co-billing with Gary at The Ugly Mug in Soquel, CA on Friday, August 9 and Saturday, August 10 in Monterey, CA at East Village Coffee Lounge.  If you're in the area, do not miss your chance to be beguiled by this incredible talent. He's one of our favorite vocalists in all our travels.

We return to the Brask House Concert in Fremont, CA on Saturday, August 17 (this will be our third time being invited back!), and perform a rare house concert in San Francisco on Sunday, August 25th. We are also performing at some great outdoor concert series' and festivals around Monterey this month, including the Lovers' Point Concert Series in Pacific Grove, CA on Friday, August 23, where we'll be joined in three part harmony by the lovely vocalist Shannon Warto, and The West End Celebration in Sand City, CA on Saturday, August 24. More details for all of these concerts below.

We have a tour coming up in New England in late September (FYI, we're trying to re-book Sunday, September 22nd after a recent cancellation if anyone has a lead in MA, NH, or VT), some more dates around California to finish out 2019, and finally, we are excited to report that we'll be returning to Pinawa, Manitoba for the a spot on the EMCA season (Eastern Manitoba Concert Association) on Friday, November 1st. The last time we performed EMCA was five years ago, the day after Laurel's ban from Canada was lifted and the night Dan introduced his hometown to his new bride, Laurel Thomsen. A fantastic and magical evening we will never forget! That tour will also include a stop on Saturday, November 2 at Temple Shalom Hall in Winnipeg. We've been trying to square away that date for a few years and are happy it's finally happening. This will be our only public concert in Winnipeg before Summer 2020, so please mark your calendars!!

We hope to see some of you at one of our upcoming shows. You can always visit our tour calendar for more details. Please share our dates and tell your friends!

We want to thank you for tagging along with us this year and hope you'll enjoy this wrap-up of some of our favorite photos and experiences. We started 2018 off as we'll do again tomorrow night, performing in Laurel's hometown of Monterey, California at First Night, a family friendly, alcohol free New Years festival for the arts. We stayed off the road for most of January and into February, enjoying some beautiful weather, as well as a good bit of rain, and even our first tiny snowfall since moving onto the mountain (snow on the coast is very rare!).

We needed the time off, mostly to recover from a terrible flu we caught on a plane back from Winnipeg over the holidays. Laurel's first purchase in the new year was a couple of N99 masks, which we proceeded to wear on every flight this year, doused in Thieves oil no doubt, the recipe the thieves in the Middle Ages used to ransack homes and not get sick during the plague. We definitely got some funny looks, but we've stayed healthy on the 14 or so flights we've taken since.

We also enjoyed seeing some sights close to home, including hiking to the top of a mountain in Carmel Valley for Laurel's birthday in February.

And we toured one of the only spots in world with gigantic Elephant Seals, just up the coast from us at Ano Nuevo State Park.

January also saw us getting into new CD mode, recording demos of about 25 new songs and soliciting the help of a couple dozen fans to listen to them and help us decide on just 12 songs for our fourth album. Unfortunately, everyone had their own favorites and cancelled out each others' votes so we decided to put any official recording on hold until the Spring so we could continue to test drive material live in concert. And concerting we did! In March we toured the Southeast for three weeks, with shows in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and North Carolina. Between concerts and long drives, we toured the swamps, met up with some dear old friends and made some new ones, saw where the guy who wrote Jingle Bells lived in Savannah, GA, and Dan even got to meet one of his idols, flat-picker Norman Blake, after some concert attendees told us that Mr. Blake lived just up the road.

In between tours, we enjoyed the wildlife around our cabin.

In April we toured to LA and the southwest for a couple of weeks. We were particularly amazed and thrilled about a show in a little theater in southern Arizona where we enjoyed a 173 person turnout on a Wednesday night! Dan also discovered a rare instrument in a Tucson guitar shop and played it for five hours straight in the shop! He didn't buy it that day, but sent for it a couple weeks later upon our return home. It makes it's recording debut on the new album on "Jester."

In May we did our fifth annual west coast tour of Northern California, Oregon, and Washington. Dan's mom, hard at work back in Winnipeg, sent over a dozen new guitar straps she'd made from recycled leathers, bead-work, and embroidery. We sold out pretty quickly! We also successfully reached our Kickstarter goal, helping make our new album dreams financially possible. Thank you to all who donated!

Then in June we hit the studio, Bear Creek Recording Studio in Bonny Doon, CA to be exact, and recorded "Driving By Candlelight" with Justin Mayer engineering and guest musicians Jimmy Norris (drums, percussion) and Stan Poplin (double bass), as well as Winnipeg's Tim Osmond (banjo) on "The Seeds That You Won't Sow."

Our dove, Shanti, even came in to do his debut "coo" at the end of "Ragtime Baby." No auto-tune needed. He was pitch perfect!

We had a few set backs and stressful moments in the album process, including a few graphics people falling through at the last minute (Laurel took the reins and taught herself to do the layout, with flying colors) and difficulty finding an available photographer. We were so pleased to find Jim MacKenzie and thank him for the epic photos he captured. 

In July we played some shows around the California Central Coast and self produced and recorded two music videos for the new album, "American Refugee" and "Morning Time Lovers Waltz." Here are a couple of epic images from "American Refugee" and you can watch both videos on our video page.

Then in August we made a long overdue trip to Canada, performing at festivals in Manitoba, Ontario, and Alberta, and playing shows all across the prairies. Dan's mom, Agnes, even came along for a weekend festival trip. Unfortunately, shortly after arriving, over 500 fires exploded in British Columbia making for some really terrible air quality. We saw brown skies and a red sun on our travels all the way from BC to Ear Falls, Ontario.

September saw us briefly back home, again enjoying the wildlife in our yard.

But within just a couple of weeks we were back to Canada again, this time for a Home Routes tour of Alberta, BC, and Saskatchewan. The weather was incredibly fickle. One day we were enjoying this proud llama, the next there were several inches of snow! The Canadian Rockies are gorgeous in any season and we enjoyed a bit of time at Waterton Glacier on a day off.

In early October we released "Driving By Candlelight" in a historic one room schoolhouse in the redwoods of the Santa Cruz California mountains. The lovely Shannon Warto joined us for three part harmonies on a few songs too. It was truly magical!

And finally, in October and early November we toured New England and the East Coast, with concerts in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. Besides the concerts, Laurel gave a vibrato workshop near Boston based on her popular online course Complete Vibrato Mastery, we toured historic Deerfield, MA, and enjoyed spending a couple days off in Northampton, MA and Brattleboro, VT.

At home now since mid November, we've been fulfilling our Kickstarter rewards and sending out CDs.

Dan has recorded about six more solo albums too, bringing his total album output up to 42 albums of original material. Even crazier is that this is just barely scratching the surface of his songwriting catalogue! He recorded these latest albums in his little 8X12 home recording studio, "The Shed," packed with all the instruments, including drums, bass, banjo, dobro, etc. he's using to record all his parts. You can check out Dan's albums here and get 75% off his discography: https://officialramblingdanfrechette.bandcamp.com/music

Laurel has been doing a lot of behind the scenes work on our websites, and just got our website set up with its own online store! We're excited to now have an easy way to sell directly to fans, besides at our merch table when we're playing a show. The shop currently has downloads of our four albums for sale, signed hard copies of the albums we currently have in stock, and our cookbook!

We hope you are doing well, getting out to hear some great live music or creating some of your own. We'll be resting up for a few more weeks before hitting the road again in late January. We have tours around New Orleans, the Southeast, the Western US and Canada, and the East Coast planned for 2019, and we're keeping fingers crossed that some summer festivals will have us this year. If you'd like to book us for a house concert or have a venue or festival in mind for our sound, please don't hesitate to be in touch - info@danandlaurel.ca. Happy New Year!

We officially release our new CD today! Driving By Candlelight is now available online around the world and at our upcoming tour stops.

You may find and preview it here: iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/driving-by-candlelight/1433893249 Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GRCZFRD CD Baby: https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/danfrechetteandlaurelthomsen

We released a new music video for another song from the album this past week, "Morning Time Lovers Waltz." Click the video below to view, or use this link to view and share the video:

We've been spending a bit of time every day sending out Kickstarter rewards, so if you pledged, keep an eye on your email or mail box soon for your reward. We hope you enjoy!

In just a few hours we'll be officially releasing the album for Laurel's hometown fans on the California Central Coast, but if we don't see you there, we'll surely see you soon!

Happy Memorial Day to our US fans and thanks so much to everyone for your pledges towards our fourth album Kickstarter!

We're 48 hours away from the end our fourth album fundraising campaign and we're VERY happy to report that we managed to hit our funding goal over the weekend with 109 backers (and we've even gotten several more pre-orders since then!). Woo hoo!!

This means we've successfully secured all the funding pledged so far and WILL be heading into the recording studio in June!!! We're on track to have a new album ready for Fall tours in Canada and the East Coast, and have never been more ready to make an album we hope you'll all fall in love with!   These remaining hours also mean that we still have a chance to inch towards our stretch goal of $7500, which is what our last two albums actually cost to record, mix, master, and manufacture. So, if you were thinking about pre-ordering the new CD, or had your eye on a different reward and just haven't gotten around to pledging yet, there's still time to help us out and receive that gift (until May 30th at noon Pacific time). Anything pledged now we get to keep, so feel free to continue pledging and spreading the word! We'll be using these funds to help us cover studio time, CD manufacturing, hopefully some promotion (because otherwise it's impossible to make a "hit" record), and it's just nice to have a bit of a buffer going into something like this to help cover any unforeseen hiccups that might arise along the way. Here's the link if you'd like to check out the project, share, or donate www.kickstarter.com/projects/danandlaurel/dan-and-laurel-want-to-record-their-fourth-full-le

We are VERY happy, incredibly appreciative of everyone's support, and eager to get into the studio (hopefully even next week!!). Thank you all so much for believing in us!! We'll be giving newsletters a rest now for a few months, but we'll let you know when the new album has a release date. If you'd like to keep up with our progress, hear demos along the way, etc., please "like" our Facebook page, or follow us on Instagram or Twitter.

We'll be recording our fourth album and have a few days between tours here to announce the launch of our new CD pre-order funding campaign.

We'll have until midnight PDT on May 30th to reach our funding goal, or unfortunately we won't get a penny of the funding our fans have pledged. That's a little scary, but also exciting. This funding will cover our costs in the recording studio, working with great people to record, mix, and master the album, hiring some talented studio musicians to help flesh out the arrangements on certain songs, the photography, a graphic designer, manufacturing the physical copies, and also the CD promotion to radio and print media.

It's time to rouse the support and make this happen! Here's our campaign link https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/danandlaurel/dan-and-laurel-want-to-record-their-fourth-full-le If all goes well with this funding project, we'll head into the studio in June and have a finished fourth album ready for our Fall tours!

4 ways you can help:

1. Make a pledge! We want to give everyone the chance to take part and make a difference. So, we're excited to report that if every one of our mailing list subscribers were to pledge just $3, we'll more than meet our funding goal! That's before any of our fans on social media even step in. This means that YOU CAN REALLY MAKE A DIFFERENCE! And, for your $3 pledge, you'll get the single from the album before anyone else. That's pretty cool, and means you'll get a head start learning all the lyrics so you can sing along at the CD release show! Since not everyone will open our emails or see our social media posts, if you can pledge a bit more, consider pledging to receive a digital download of the entire album ($10), or "splurge" on a signed physical copy which will include all the artwork, liner notes, and lyrics ($20 plus shipping). There are a number of pre-order prizes for supporters of all income levels to enjoy, and you can come back and pledge for more than one prize, making tough decisions easy if you have the money to pledge. Just click here, check out our campaign page and video, and when you're ready to pledge, click the green "Back this project" button to the right of the video: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/danandlaurel/dan-and-laurel-want-to-record-their-fourth-full-le Thank you for your support!

2. Share our campaign with your friends! You've seen us perform live. You've vetted us. You love our music and we're confident you'll fall in love with our new collection of original songs, some of which many of you have heard at recent concerts. So, share our campaign with all your friends who might otherwise never hear about us! We can't wait to meet them! Send this link https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/danandlaurel/dan-and-laurel-want-to-record-their-fourth-full-le and talk us up! You might also share our YouTube video playlist with them so they can hear more and get excited about who they'll be supporting. See:

3. Come to a show and share our tour dates! While this may not seem to directly help our pre-order funding campaign, at every show we're making new friends and connections, gathering new mailing list sign-ups, and sending more CDs off to good homes. Our career is a community driven effort. We stay on the road because you keep asking us to come share our music with you and our audiences keep growing. Thank you!

4. Host us for a house concert! While we enjoy playing festivals and theaters, we would never give up the intimacy of the house concerts which make up 75% of our tour dates. We enjoy the grassroots nature of house concerts - most are not publicly promoted, meaning they spread word of mouth and build as one music lover finds another. We also enjoy the community aspect - witnessing neighbors shaking hands for the first time, breaking bread with new friends, sharing lovely conversations with guests and signing everyone's CDs. If you have space in your home, garden, or community center for 20-60+ people, and friends and family members eager to sit close, hear all the lyrics, stories, and musical nuances, to laugh, feel, and make new friends, let's talk! We'd love to get you booked on our CD release tours this Fall and into 2019! Send us an email at info@danandlaurel.ca. We can't wait!

As always, you can track our progress with the fundraiser, the new CD, and around the globe by liking us on Facebook and following us on Instagram.

Heading into the rest of the year, we'll be in Northern California and the Pacific Northwest coming up here in May, playing in California and at some festivals in Manitoba and Alberta this summer, and touring the Canadian Prairies and the New England/Central East Coast region in the Fall.

We hope to still fill in a few tour dates surrounding those Canadian summer festivals, an Alberta "Home Routes" house concert tour in September, and the Eastern US tour in October/November. If you're interested in hosting us for a house concert or have a venue or co-bill in mind for us, please email us at info@danandlaurel.ca.

Now, let's hit this fundraiser out of the park!!

We just got back from our debut European tour - 18 shows, 6 rental cars, 9 flights, and 6 countries in 4 weeks! Does it sound like we're counting?! Yes, it was a whirlwind, but we had a great time minus a few misadventures. We'll detail some highlights a little later on.

First though, we're looking ahead to concerts and tours coming up soon, including a fabulous house concert in Carmel Valley, CA TOMORROW afternoon, one in Berkeley, CA later in the month, and dates on the Central East Coast and in Manitoba in November and December respectively. View our tour schedule through the end of 2017 below, and please share our dates with your friends. The more the merrier!! We still have a date or two we could fill in for this year, as well as a little window of time over the next few weeks to devote to applying to festivals for next year and booking house concerts and venues for 2018 and beyond. Please send an email to info@danandlaurel.ca to let us know if you'd like to host us for a house concert in your living room or know a venue or festival near you which we should approach! It can be as easy as gathering your chairs and music loving friends, we'll show up, and everyone will enjoy a memorable time. THANK YOU for keeping us in mind!

Ok, now back to Europe! We started in Iceland, which really stole our hearts and imaginations. We could easily devote an entire newsletter to telling you all about the fun we had. Here are some highlights in picture form, including meeting some Icelandic horses, tasting traditional rye bread baked for 24 hours under molten mud, hiking through "Game of Thrones" style landscapes (that was a bit of a cold, epic adventure...!), and just the peaceful, yet wild countryside. We soaked up some hot springs and can't wait to return!

Then the tour dates started kicking in as we traveled through Ireland, France, and Germany, performing almost every night along the way at many house concerts and a handful of venues. Hospitality was top notch and we appreciated the tradition of looooong applauses and encores (interestingly, the French now call it "bis"!). We especially enjoying busking in Galway, seeing the Cliff's of "more hair" and jamming with a young group of musicians on the Dingle peninsula on Ireland's west coast, for better or worse the crazy, romantic Paris, and the countryside of France, including the Château de Chambord (we might as well have been in a Masterpiece Theater movie). Also, we were amazed to see the tidy organization of speeds on the Autobahn in Germany (Darwin's theory at work perhaps!?). No one camping out in the fast lane there! Laurel got up to 160kph, but we easily saw people going by at 220!

Next, we visited Denmark, which we easily could have stayed in for another few days...or weeks...or years. Laurel enjoyed getting to see where her father's side of the family had originated from, and everyone we met was so kind and generous. Our shows were well attended and we left a lot of CDs behind for the Danes to enjoy. Our sightseeing highlights were the Frederiksborg Castle and Dryehaven park, where we came across a Red Deer with gigantic antlers! We didn't want to risk getting close enough to him to get a good photo.

Finally, we flew over to the UK for a string a dates, and particularly enjoyed seeing Yorkshire, Wales, and spending some time in Liverpool. Between the gorgeous countryside, friendly hosts, visiting the childhood homes of all the Beatles, being asked to perform live on the BBC in Liverpool, and getting to meet and play a show with Elfin Bow, one of our new favorite UK artists, our road weary spirits found renewal each day.

We're back in our little cabin in California now and are thankful that ourselves and our instruments came back intact, but look forward to returning to Europe in the future. On a final note, Laurel really deserves some kind of expert driving status stamp on her drivers license for tackling the roads in all these countries! Other than the Autobahn, between the ubiquitous roundabouts, sometimes driving on the right, and sometimes the left..., driving (and trying to find parking) in Paris and London (not recommended!), and some incredibly narrow roads in Ireland where a head on collision seemed imminent, she was a real trooper and came through with flying colors. Dan also gets high marks for deciphering the GPS navigation suggestions and rerouting us many times on the fly.

We hope you enjoyed our Europe tour wrap up as much as we did going back through the photos. As always, you can track our progress around the globe and join in the fun by liking us on Facebook, and right now you can scroll back through a bit and watch some footage from shows we performed throughout the trip.

Finally, we're still test driving new material for a fourth album at our shows and would like to gather 20 or so fans to take part in our online listening team. You'll get the chance to hear the songs we're considering, give feedback, and vote on your favorites. We have about 25 new songs currently on our list, but only the top 12 or so will make it onto the next album. We want only the very best! No "filler" tunes! Please send us an email at info@danandlaurel.ca if you'd like to take part and we'll add you to the group. Thanks for the help!

First off, we have a little window between tours here to devote to booking house concerts and venues for 2018 and 2019. Please let us know if you would like to host us or know a venue or festival near you which we should approach! Thank you for your continued support!

We've been off the road for about a month now since our Canadian tour, and since arriving back in California, Laurel, her awesome mom, and her mom's talented handyman friend, Rick, put the finishing touches on Laurel's new teaching studio in the forest. Laurel has been teaching and practicing up a storm these last couple weeks and enjoying the wildlife that wander by, including lizards, two large families of quail, a multi-generational deer family, bunnies, birds, and squirrels. It's really opened up more space in our tiny house and made life a lot more comfortable for everyone to be able to relax, find inspiration, and appreciate time spent both together and alone. Here's a photo taken just after finishing. Can you find Laurel's mom peeking around the corner?

Dan has been working on “The Dan Frechette Songbook,” gradually uploading all of his 1400+ songs and compositions to Bandcamp.com. He has been enjoying digging through 25 years of archived recordings, finding gems to upload, and re-recording updated versions. Though Dan has released 28 albums on Bandcamp, there are still 500-600 great songs that have not been properly recorded. Dan's songbook will be available sometime in 2018 and include photos of the original drafts of each songs, lyrics, and recordings. It's an active archive which will be updated as Dan writes new songs. We're not sure what the Guinness Book Of World Records might be for biggest music release of all time, but Dan may be getting close. It's definitely a big job!

We're still test driving new material for a fourth album and will be performing a number of notable concerts in the next few months, starting with tour dates around Central and Southern California, and the Sierra Nevada foothills in late August. Please scroll down to check our dates below. We hope you'll be able to add one to your calendar or tell a friend to come see us perform!

And coming up in September, we are so thrilled to announce our first tour of Europe! Since meeting Laurel in 2013, Dan has always had a fantasy of bringing their love and music to Europe. Over the last few years we've had a few friends coming forward to recommend house concerts and venues "over the pond" and after hundreds of email inquiries and 6 months of basically having the logistics of this tour be our part time jobs, we are excited for our 18 concert tour of Europe.

We first land in Iceland where we look forward to overcoming jet lag and soaking in the hot springs, then on to Ireland, where we'll spend the better part of a week driving around the country, including and visit and concert in Dingle, Ireland.

The following week finds us playing a couple house concerts and a cafe in and around Paris, followed by a 7 night series over the course of Dan’s birthday week, locations stretching all the way up through Germany and into Denmark. Next, we'll be in UK for a few shows, playing in London, Nottingham (opening for fellow Canadian folksinger Eileen McGann!), Driffield, north Wales, and Liverpool. From there it’s a short flight over to Dublin for a few days of sightseeing, then back to California.

You can track our progress and join the fun by liking us on Facebook and joining the "Dan and Laurel in Europe!" Facebook event, where we will be posting updates as the tour unfolds.

Please find our European tour dates below and share with friends you know who may be interested in coming to a show. We're happy to give you more information regarding specific concerts as that information becomes available. Please just send us an email!

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!

Hi everyone!

Well, we shopped around a bit last year in preparation for releasing "Between the Rain" and after receiving quotes of $5,000, $10,000, $15,000+ decided we just couldn't swing a radio campaign for the album. However, we did send to a dozen or so radio stations and DJs we already had relationships with throughout Canada and the US. Some of them reported back that they had listened to the album and were playing us. We kept our fingers crossed but our expectations low. Without money talking these days, it can feel difficult to make an impact. Then over the summer we saw that we'd climbed to number one for a number of weeks on a radio station in Winnipeg. Then we sat in the top five in Winnipeg for a few months. That was very exciting! Well, NOW we learn that our April 2016 release was #11 on the Roots and Blues charts all across Canada for all of 2016! Apparently quite a few more people played "Between the Rain" on the radio last year than we thought, and our own grassroots success story gives us hope for our future, and the future of independent, original music in general. We'd like to thank everyone who played us on air (or might still be playing us!), and all of YOU who may have bought CDs or otherwise helped give this album wings. It means so much to us that you are listening and enjoying and we still love and listen to the album too.

We also want to tell you about a couple tours we have coming up in February and into March. Early in the month we'll be heading to Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. Later in the month we'll be heading to Winnipeg where we'll be playing Festivale Du Voyageur, a few house concerts, and Times Changed, big band style. Laurel has been learning French online and is looking forward to testing out a bit of it at Festivale, while Dan just learned he can try on Buddy Holly's actual glasses in Lubbock, Texas. He's pretty excited and clearly we have another recipe for a great time. Please check our tour dates below. We hope to see some of you at these concerts!

Also, we need some help filling out our calendar for 2017. House concerts, venues, festivals, parties, etc. Tell us what you got and we'll come on down! We need to:

• fill a few important dates on this upcoming Southwest Tour in early February
• fill some dates in Northern California, Oregon, and Washington state for early May
• fill some dates in western and central Canada this June and July (we're also interested in teaching some workshops if anyone is interested)
• fill some dates in England and Ireland for late September
• fill some dates on the east coast for early/mid November and are particularly looking for opportunities in Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and DC.
• We're also going to be at home in California in late March, April, August, October, and December and hope to play some more dates closer to home at these times.

Finally, Dan has a number of his old instruments back in possession and is looking for some more students who want to learn to groove and rock on the guitar (including electric, acoustic, 12 string, slide, resonator, flatpicking and fingerpicking), mandolin, electric bass, harmonica, ukulele, banjo (clawhammer and three finger style), and the Dobro. He teaches committed beginners through advanced level on most of these instruments and does 30, 45 and 60 minute lessons via Skype or can set up a lesson in person if you live close by or would like to catch us while on the road. Get in touch with Dan for questions and for rates and scheduling at dan@ramblingdan.com

Dan also has a couple new "online only" albums out which feature him playing all these instruments, and one which features his original 12 string guitar he first learn on as a kid and a few of his first songs he wrote around that time. There's nothing at all immature about this material though. It speaks well beyond his 13 or 14 years at the time and may still be some of Dan's most profound and creative work. We're looking forward to featuring some of the songs in Dan and Laurel. Preview and download here: https://officialramblingdanfrechette.bandcamp.com/album/jasmine-dreams-vol-1 Dan also has a new Blues record out, covers and old Blues styles he's been excited to play again on his new resonator guitar. Preview and download here: https://officialramblingdanfrechette.bandcamp.com/album/sings-the-blues

If you're in the area we hope to see you at one of our upcoming dates below, and please visit and like us on Facebook to keep up with our photos, videos, and adventures!

Just a little update to wrap up a long, but rewarding year. We also want to tell you about a few final dates we have coming up this month in California and Nevada, and to preview the tours we have shaping up for 2017. If you'd like to host us for a house concert next year, we'd love to come play for you! Send us an email and we'll let you know how these events work. They're all the rage!

Well, we made it back from our epic Fall Colors/Colours Tour in one piece. It was hit or miss there for a while...

In early August we left Dan's car in Winnipeg and flew back to Laurel's car in California to play a string of dates down through Southern California as well as the American River Festival. Then in mid September we flew back to Dan's car and drove it out to Toronto, playing a number of venues and house concerts as we went.

Boy is Northwestern Ontario huge! We nearly ran out of gas twice and Laurel injured her thumb trying to quickly honk at a semi-truck passing over the double yellow and coming right at us! We managed to get safely to the shoulder in the nick of time, but her thumb took a couple weeks to heal up, making violin playing not as enjoyable as it normally is for Laurel. Here she was at a gorgeous pit-stop just before the incident:

Thankfully, the fall leaves were really hitting their stride when we arrived in Toronto and the hospitality of our friend and songwriter Jay Linden, his lovely partner, and his three comical cats, soothed our spirits for the week we spent in the big city, not to mention all the jams and fun we had co-billing around the region. Dan even got to serenade a little black squirrel on a ukulele in Justin Bieber's hometown! It may have been a career highlight for him, which you too can enjoy here:

Then at one point we got to drive straight through a rainbow...

After Toronto, Laurel flew back to Winnipeg to spend a few days teaching her violin and viola students on Skype, while Dan drove his car back through the upper midwest. As soon as he arrived, we started a two week Home Routes tour of Southern Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Are you still with us? Getting tired yet? By this point, after having already been in Florida this year, Arizona, Northern British Columbia, etc. etc., we were starting to wonder where we were...but the many great hosts and audiences who helped us sell out of all our CDs also helped give us a second wind.

Next, we left the car in Winnipeg again and flew to Washington DC to rent a new car and drive long distances to play for people we'd never met as well some we'd met last year. Thankfully, everyone was very enthusiastic and welcoming, but unfortunately, Laurel lost her voice half way into that tour after a brief cold. With impressive finesse given the unexpected turn of events, Dan saved the day with his some of his best impressions and comedic routines, and we played even more passionately, again selling out of all our CDs, maybe because everyone wanted to hear what we normally sound like in full health?! And believe it or not, the Fall Colors were STILL happening, all through New York and New England! At one point we realized we had successfully chased them for a solid two months from north to south.

Anyway, we're happy to be at our little cabin in the redwoods until February now, when we'll be taking off for the Southwest and Texas, as well as a little jaunt up to Winnipeg to play Festival Du Voyageur on Laurel's birthday weekend.

If you're in the area we hope to see you at one of our upcoming California dates, and please visit and like us on Facebook to keep up with our photos and adventures!

Thank you for your support and have a wonderful and blessed New Year!

Well, we actually don't know how to get to #1 on the radio, without spending about a million dollars, but miraculously, our third album, Between the Rain sat at #1 for three straight weeks in Winnipeg, Canada's music hub, which is quite the honor, as well as ranking within the top five on the national Roots charts for most of this summer. Maybe third time's the charm??

Most importantly, we hope YOU have been enjoying the album as much as we did writing the songs and creating the arrangements (especially Dan, playing a borrowed Double Bass and drum kit - he has still never met the mystery folks who owned those instruments...). If you haven't picked up a copy yet, just come to a show or click the link here. We were reported to be the only artists playing the Winnipeg Folk Festival this summer not on Spotify or Apple Music. We're not sure if that's a dumb move or a brilliant one in this day and age, but we're holding out none the less with our dueling green sharpies forever ready for autographing.

Speaking of the Folk Fest, my goodness!! It took us a good week to recover. What a whirlwind of an amazing experience! Here we are playing a mainstage "tweener" on opening night:

The festival kept us insanely busy, with seven appearances, including mentoring in the young performers program. We were inspired by many of the new friends we made, and seriously impressed by the organization of the festival - from the dedication to sustainability, to the lack of trash anywhere, and reportedly, the 2500 volunteers keeping everyone happy, schlepped, sounding good and fed. The mosquitoes of course were another situation all together... Dan started a clapping frenzy during our set at the “Little Stage in the Forest” which allowed the audience to kill off at least a few thousand and finish the show in relative peace. Here's Winnipeg artist James Culleton's rendering:

The mosquitoes will hopefully be dead or hibernating by the time fly to Canada again later this month to play Ontario, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan. But first, we have a few dates to finish up around the California Bay Area, including one with our neighbors as a new band "The Dooners" featuring famous and lesser known hits from Folk to Motown as well as the American River Music Festival up in gold country. We hope to see you soon!

In just a couple weeks none other than Dan Frechette & Laurel Thomsen will be playing the Winnipeg Folk Festival! It's one of the largest music festivals in Canada, and North America for that matter, and a great honor to have been selected to perform along with many great artists, such as the Head and the Heart, Louden Wainwright III, and The Staves, and several friends from our time spent in Canada and California, including Red Moon Road, Meredith Axelrod, The Brother’s Comatose, Matt Epp, and The Crooked Brothers. The list continues. We'll be mentoring in the young artists program as well, where Dan got his start back in 1992!

Hope to see you around the festival grounds! We’ll be playing somewhere every day, including a mainstage tweener on Thursday night and a formal concert at the Little Stage in the Forest, 4:30-5:30pm on Saturday, July 9th, 2016.

Tickets are on sale now but the early bird discount is over June 30th.

Hi folks! We’re catching up with you from Medicine Hat, Alberta as we continue our new album take-over of North America. In all seriousness though, the road can be tough some days and we've been appreciating the little lights along the way.

For example, the other day we searched through four little towns in central Alberta, all lacking gas stations. Running on fumes we thankfully made it to our concert, in another little town without a service station! Upon hearing about our situation, a guest at the venue paused dinner to take us around to the fire house where he had a card to use the fire engine gas station.

We'll be playing all over Western Canada this Summer, including the Winnipeg Folk Festival, ArtsWells Festival, American River Festival, and a number of house concerts and venues in some of our favorite spots, including Nelson, Salmon Arm, Winnipeg, Dawson Creek, and Prince George. Visit us on Facebook to keep up with the adventures!

Finally, we hope those of you who have picked up our new release "Between the Rain" have been enjoying it! We're nearly sold out of our stash on the road here and are waiting for a new shipment. Once we receive it we will be sending out the rest of our Indiegogo gifts, so check your mail in the coming weeks and otherwise head to CDBaby or one of our upcoming shows. See you soon!

We got to hang out with some of Dan’s favorite birds recently, making a new music video with a song from our latest album, “Between the Rain.” Thanks to the Dennis family for letting "Pancakes" and "Ruffles" take part. The song was inspired by Dan's transformation over the past few years. He's gotten a LOT healthier and hopes to be on the path of music making to a ripe old age at this point. Laurel outdid herself again, planning all the video locations and concept and doing the videography and editing. We hope you have as much fun watching the video as we did making it!

We enjoyed two CD release shows this past week for our latest album “Between the Rain.” We’re very happy with how the recordings turned out, feeling it showcases a further integration of our individual talents and chemistry while presenting hints at many styles of roots music in a polished, yet powerfully raw sound. 

Thematically, we share personal themes such as love, music, and touring, as well as several contemporary “folk” topics, including increasing wealth disparity, personal empowerment, and social responsibility. Some songs venture into new musical territory, while others are throwbacks to simpler times and early rock music. 

Laurel’s violin soars throughout the twelve new compositions, weaving catchy melodies through a range of Gypsy Jazz, Celtic, Folk-Rock, and Appalachian sounds. Dan develops his orchestral style of acoustic guitar playing further, offering up unique chord progressions, lead and bass lines, and a nod to his Blues, Bluegrass, and Rock influences with songs featuring slide, flat picking, as well as electric guitar throughout the 43 minute album. 

Similarly, we feel our voices blend with the richness achieved on earlier albums, but with increased subtlety, honed over now four years on the road together. Individually as lead vocalists, we were happy to showcase a deepening ability to convey honesty and emotion. That’s the point of our music making after all. Preview, download, or buy a physical copy here: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/danfrechettelaurelthomse

We just released our first "single" from the new album and Laurel's debut as a videographer and video producer. The video's been going "viral" over the last 24 hours online, and we're happy to hear, as some have reported on our Facebook page, that it's putting a smile on your newsfeeds.

Laurel spent many hours putting this together, learning the ropes of video editing and how to sync everything with this track from our third album "Between the Rain." It's inspiring to see the vision of her efforts unfold. We filmed it partially on our Southwest tour last month and the rest on the porch at home and around the Santa Cruz mountains and coastline. We're really excited to share this song, written about our love for touring and the feeling of coming home wherever we are. If your internet is robust enough, watch it in HD quality for the best video and audio (it took about four hours to upload these four minutes of video!). Thank you to all the folks who continue to support us (and the arts in general!). Please share!

Happy Valentine's Day friends and lovers (especially the music types)!

We just returned from a great debut tour of the Southwest and look forward to returning there this time next year.

We've been sharing songs we've composed during our travels together over the past three years, and a few that we were honestly "afraid to perform" before recently due to their scope and complexity. We've started to bust them out though, and with the great feedback we've been receiving from audiences, we've decided it's time to head into the studio again and record our third album as a duo!

At first, trying to work with nearly no budget, we tried to record in our new home base - a tiny, yet affordable cabin in the Santa Cruz mountains, but quickly abandoned that idea. We want to make sure our new album is up to the standard of our previous two CDs so we can confidently present songs to radio in the US this time and to follow up on recent interest we've received from the movie industry.

We know what type of budget and album quality is possible through our last successfully funded campaign, so to help us take album pre-orders and to help fund the album itself, we've launched a new Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign which includes a budget for recording, manufacturing, and marketing.

We offer in return some worthy "perks" for any contribution beyond an album pre-order, giving a contributor something exciting to look forward to receiving this Spring.

Any amount really does help however. We've already started the recording process and are actively finding ways to cut costs even further should we fail to meet our goal before the funding period ends on March 29th. No matter what, we really want to get these songs out to you! We think many are our best to date, with a true integration of our creative spirits as evident in the arrangements, which include a range of acoustic genres and universal, current themes.

The recordings we've made so far sing like an old friend you'll want to have around for a long time. We're committed to completing this CD in time for a release party in California at Don Quixote's International Music Hall on April 27th, and our Canadian tour starting in May, but we need your support - financially through your pre-orders, but your kind thumbs ups keep us feeling like we're on the right track and that really makes all the difference.

Please, check out our Indiegogo campaign video and the perks that we hope will "perk" your interest, and connect with us on Facebook to see how the process is coming along.

Thank you for your support!  

Thanks to Julie Epp of Winnipeg, one of the tracks from our second album New Disguise has become a music video! We adventured out with Julie into Bird’s Hill Park on the outskirts of Winnipeg last July and are excited to share the video. Laurel wrote this song in February 2014 after a misunderstanding at the Canadian border escalated into her being banned from Canada for a year and her and Dan needing to part ways for a time. Laurel needed a song to give her courage that she had done everything right and hope that everything would work out. Enjoy!

We're wrapping up October with two remaining California concerts before we head out for a three week tour of the New England and the East Coast in November. Then upon our return to California we’ll wrap up shows for 2015 with a "Hootenanny" at Don Quixote's on December 20th filled with music from some of our favorite local friends. We'll of course play some too. Check our Facebook page or tour calendar for details as that comes together.

For the Californians, we hope to see you at the Crepe Place in Santa Cruz on October 25th co-billing with Amy Obenski, or for two intimate sets in Boulder Creek at the Lillie Aeske House Concert on October 30th (very cool space!). We'll be trying out some of the new tunes slated for the CD we'll start recording in December.

Finally, we'd love to ask a favor. Can you please share our dates for our upcoming Eastern tour with any friends you might have in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia, or Maryland? It will be our first time to most of these places and we could use some personal "thumbs ups" from people who know and support us. Thank you so much!

We just flew back from six weeks of touring western Canada and want to extend hugs and thanks to all those who attended our shows, bought CDs, wrote in our guestbook, and made us feel so at home. It was truly our pleasure to play for you! And, a very special thanks to our house concert hosts, venues, and festivals - we quite literally would not be able to do this if it weren't for your support. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

Our next Canadian tour is already booking up for May/June 2016. Please send us your tour requests and invites so we can be sure to set aside dates to visit. We'll look forward to seeing you all then!

We have a number of concerts and private events scheduled around California over the next few months. Dan will also make a brief solo tour to Canada and back in October. In November we take off on our next big tour, this time to New England which will mostly be brand new touring ground for us. Wish us luck!

On the creativity front, we'll be gradually debuting new material we're considering for our next album starting this month. Come to a show and vote on your favorites! We plan to have the new CD ready by our Spring 2016 tours of the Pacific Northwest and Canada.

We also have a great CA visual artist currently working on a T-shirt design for us and plan to unveil those this Fall. What other D&L merchandise do you want to see?? Send us a message, otherwise stay tuned!

Finally, remember how we opened for The Wailing Jennys back in June? Well, we're quite grateful to see how the gifts seem to keep on coming from that little five song set. Not only were we a hit with the sold out audience in Grass Valley, CA, we received some wonderful professional video of our performance from the kind volunteer videographers working the show that night. Check our video page for some of the clips!

We're excited to hear this lovely interview with Joe Armstrong of the Independent's Day Podcast we recorded in LA a few months ago. Here’s a little tune recorded live in his home studio!

It's the title track from our album "New Disguise" which is available in our store on site, or at various places online.

We’ll be flying up to Winnipeg on Wednesday and will be doing another loop out west through July and into August - not quite as far as last time, but many of the stops we enjoyed this winter. We can’t wait! We’ll be having our official Winnipeg CD release at the West End Cultural Center on Friday, July 3rd with Jess Rae Ayre of Sweet Alibi opening up the night. Please spread the word! This will very likely be our last Canadian tour until Spring 2016, though it is hard to think of staying away that long... We hope we see you this summer, and if not, wishing you a wonderful season!

It was such an honor and pleasure to open for The Wailin' Jennys over the weekend up in Grass Valley. The audience was so supportive (and thunderous!) and the Jennys were so kind and put on a very inspiring show. Above is one of our songs from the night.

The Grass Valley Center for the Arts was an incredible place to play, filled with wonderful volunteers and good vibes. As an example, it's hard to believe their livestream from which the above video was filmed was a first for the Center! Everything was top notch. We encourage you to see a show there if you're ever in the Sierras and to check out the Jennys!!

We're excited to be opening for The Wailin’ Jennys in Grass Valley, CA on June 26th, and just learned that the theater is already sold out. We're feeling very honored about this opportunity and can’t wait to hear them and check out their new album!

We'll also be returning to Don Quixote's in Felton, CA on June 29th to share a stage with Neil Young's longtime sideman (as well as collaborator with Steve Winwood, Dwight Yoakam, Vince Gill, Rosanne Cash, Rodney Crowell...), Anthony Crawford. Along with his wife Savana they form the impressive duo, Sugarcane Jane, featuring rich, homegrown Americana drawing from a deep well of roots influences. The Washington Times thinks they're "one of the best duos since Johnny and June”. We can't wait to hear them! Check our tour calendar for details. See you soon!

We're very excited to announce that we'll be officially releasing our new CD "New Disguise" online for worldwide download tomorrow, June 10th! To celebrate, we'll also be having a streaming live concert via Concert Window. The concert is free, but we’ll be accepting tips and anyone who tips $7 will get a download of the new album (and that’s nearly a $3 discount compared to iTunes and CDBaby). See https://www.concertwindow.com/7341-dan-frechette-and-laurel-thomsen for online concert details.

"New Disguise" features uplifting, rhythmic, and harmonically rich violin and guitar, smooth harmonies, and vivid, literate lyrics across eclectic acoustic genres. We're taking our music even further into fascinating depths of emotion and meaning and hope you'll consider this album a must have!

We really appreciate the over 70 Kickstarter supporters who helped make this album possible, and want to extend another thank you to Justin Meyer and his fine audio engineering, Jamie Sitar and his quick and masterful mastering, as well as the wonderful musicians who added the finishing touches to our duo sound: Tracy Parker, double bass; Jimmy Norris, percussion; Patti Maxine, lap steel; Shannon Warto, harmony vocals; and Gianni Staiano, organ. Everyone played such an essential role and helped this come together in record time (pun intended).

Hope you’ll check out the new tunes and let us know what you think!

We enjoyed playing Monterey’s MayFest over Memorial Day Weekend and reporter Dennis Taylor made us front page news! Thanks for the lovely interview and article! Read the article here: http://www.montereyherald.com/lifestyle/20150524/mayfest-monterey-music-blends-life-music-of-montereyan-canadian

Next week we hit the road again for a nice loop tour around the western states. We're especially looking forward to a return to the Pistol River Friendship Hall in Oregon, having a reunion with our friends in Spokane, Washington who we last saw right before the Canadian border so rudely tore us apart, visiting and playing where Laurel lived for a few years in Missoula, Montana, and a couple days off to see the creatures of Yellowstone! We'll then take a few weeks off, then get back on the road, this time for a week playing southern California in June. Check our calendar for dates!

We’re just back from a wonderful tour of Western Canada and can’t wait to share the new CD with our friends in the US! We have two central coast parties planned, one on April 9th at Don Quixote’s International Music Hall in Felton, CA with the full band, including Tracy Parker, Jimmy Norris, and Patti Maxine, plus soulful songwriter Amy Obenski and her band, and the other on May 2nd at Chamisal Tennis Club in Corral de Tierra, as an intimate duo concert. See the show posters below and visit our Tour calendar for more details.

We’re six shows in to our Canadian CD release tour and wow, it feels good to be on a big tour again! We enjoyed an amazing homecoming in Dan’s hometown of Pinawa, Manitoba, with hundreds of people coming out to see us and over 60 CD sales. We just kept signing them... Blown away by the support.

Other highlights have included playing a number of house concerts, one with Roger Fourier sitting in on washtub bass on a few tunes - quite something! Here are a few photos from various hosts and fans, and from the road.

Thanks to the help of 72 Kickstarter supporters who pledged their support in December, the first shipment of our second album arrived in the mail ahead of us as we flew into Winnipeg to begin a 40+ date tour which starts tonight just south of the city. We are very excited about “New Disguise” and can’t wait to share it with you!

While we love the full but raw, unedited, only-us sound of our first album “Dan and Laurel”, for many of the songs on “New Disguise” we heard a band and a “festival-ready” sound so enlisted the help of talented and groovy sound engineer Justin Mayer of Bear Creek Studio in Santa Cruz mountains, and Santa Cruz area musicians Patti Maxine on lap steel, Jimmy Norris on drums and percussion, Tracy Parker on upright bass, and Gianni Staiano on organ. In keeping with the live off the floor sound of our first album, all the new duo songs and most of the new “band” songs were recorded live, though this time with everyone in separate rooms to allow for easier volume adjustments during mixing. We couldn’t be happier with the tasteful additions these musicians made to our songs, especially across all the different genres we like to dabble in. Jaime Sitar then took our mixed tracks to the next level with his mastering work, adjusting volumes and making everything clear and sparkly.

Likewise, we enjoyed a great photo shoot in Big Sur with the talented photographer Michelle Magdalena. Yet again she found magic in all the little moments when we thought we were just standing there. Finally Griffin Dominique Sokal, graphic designer and Dan Shinan of Ironstone Technologies, both of Winnipeg worked their magic to make the final product, including lyric sheet, professional, fun, and engaging. Over all, two months from start to finished CD, a testament to the quality of support we’ve had from our fans and colleagues. Thank you everyone!

Incredible!! We've been floating all day knowing that our new album campaign on Kickstarter literally went from 52% to 100% funded overnight with one extremely generous donation. Our album WILL without a doubt be made now. THANK YOU!!!

We've seen an astounding show of support, and what's crazy is we still have two weeks to keep giving away rewards, taking pre-orders, getting excited about the possibilities, and perhaps even funding our BIG DREAM for the record. Thank you so much to everyone for helping us make our target in record time (pun intended).

And what a mental shift this has made for us - we're now looking forward to our holidays being spent relaxing and enjoying finishing the album knowing that the support is there, monetarily and in spirit, to make this record everything we imagined it could be.

If you want to join in the fun there's still time at: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/452731129/dan-and-laurels-second-album

Sharing some highlights from our debut shows in Los Angeles and send a big thank you to Russ and Julie Paris, Gary and Terri and all the volunteers at The Living Tradition Concert Series, Brad Colerick and the Wine and Song Concert Series, Gary Stockdale, John Zipperer and Friends, Joe Armstrong of the Independent’s Day Podcast, Nic and Natalie Cappelle, the Coffee Gallery and Bob Stane, and everyone who came out to visit with us for making us feel loved! Enjoy some scenes from our trip!

All our time gestating this year has really paid off! Dan received word that his US paperwork has finally been approved this last Monday afternoon and an hour later, coincidentally, we hit the recording studio and were able to knock out four songs for our new album in just three hours, live-off-the-floor, including bass and drums! Now free to get back to our lives already in progress, it feels like a huge burden has just melted off our shoulders and to top it off we are incredibly pleased with our studio back-up band and the first mixes of our new CD. We hope you will be too!

For the California Central Coasters, we'll be celebrating all the good news at our big show this coming Sunday, November 30th, 7PM, at Don Quixote's International Music Hall, in Felton, CA (see the left sidebar for details). This show christens the sound and musicians that we'll be featuring on this upcoming second studio album - celebrated Santa Cruz artists Jimmy Norris, drums, Tracy Parker, bass, and Patti Maxine, lap steel. We plan to have the new 12 song CD finished by our upcoming 40 concert Canada tour (January 20 through March 24th, 2015) and we'll officially release the album in the US at shows in early April 2015.

However, WE NEED SOME FUNDING HELP by December 31st, 2014 at 11:59PM in order to make the album a success. For your generosity, we've spent many hours this week dreaming up gifts for you. Besides the new album or our joint and individual discographies, we're gifting prizes like violin, guitar, and songwriting lessons, hypnotherapy sessions to stop smoking, lose weight, or sleep better, personal mixed tapes, care packages of our favorite things while on the road, private concerts, etc. etc. Check out our Kickstarter page for details: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/452731129/dan-and-laurels-second-album

What's Kickstarter? Kickstarter is a popular "crowd funding" platform used to help fund creative projects. Friends, family, and fans pledge a donation amount of choice to help fund the project to completion and in return may chose a gift to receive should we reach our goal. No money is spent and no gifts received unless we reach our target amount, in our case, $6,500 by 12/31/14 at 11:59PM PST. If only a portion of the funds are pledged, we receive NOTHING, no credit cards are charged, but you also receive NOTHING and we may not be able to complete our CD by tour time. If more money is pledged than our target amount, we might invite a few other musicians record with us, send the new album to a few more radio stations, or even take ourselves out to dinner on New Years Eve to celebrate! If we're funded, you'll receive your gifts by January or April 2015 depending on the nature of the gift you've chosen.

We've just launched this Kickstarter, a first for both of us, and are happy to report that we already have $175 pledged towards the album. We feel it's important to create a buzz right away with early mailing list support. The fact is, if we get enough traffic and support in the next few days it's possible that Kickstarter will feature our project, in which case our project would be shared with thousands of music supporters who wouldn't otherwise know about us.

Will you help us show people who have never heard of Dan and Laurel that we have strong support and are worth their notice?

If so, please head over to https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/452731129/dan-and-laurels-second-album, check out the video we put together with footage from our recent recording session that will put a smile on your face, and pledge your support. Pledges start at just $1 and the gifts you can receive start at just $3. Any amount helps and you can pledge multiple times as well if you are interested in receiving multiple prizes should we reach our goal by New Year's Eve.

After you check it out for yourself, please share our Kickstarter project link and/or this email with your friends, family, on Facebook, or anywhere else the music lovers and supporters congregate in your life. We want you and your friends to ride along with us through this creative and joyous time.

"The sun is shining, all over my life, and baby you're the reason for the season of my new disguise." ~ Dan Frechette, from "New Disguise", soon to be released!

Thank you for reading and for your continuing support!

The life of this duo just got a LOT easier! We’ve just learned that in late June 2014 Canada repealed it’s work permit requirements for foreign musicians playing time-limited engagements in the country. As a Canadian-American musical team, this is some of the best news we’ve heard all year!!!

After a petition through change.org rallied 143,481 signatures and an overhaul of the temporary foreign worker program, Canada has removed the “tour tax” it implemented in 2013. The “tour tax” targeted non-union musicians and smaller venues (larger venues were oddly exempt) with $275 fees per performer (and crew member) per show, on top of a $150 work permit per performer, or $450 per band. In addition, Canada has also removed the work permit and Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) requirements for playing gigs in bars & restaurants (per Operational Bulletin 580, 6/23/14).

In the past, under the R186(g) exemption, artists didn’t need a permit to busk on the street, and play private events, festivals, and concerts in venues which didn’t serve food or drink. However, in our experience, the government had a hard time determining which venues were indeed exempt. On a few occasions they counted venues we were playing that simply offered a few tea bags and some hot water in the back, hardly a restaurant! We wonder if that confusion may have supported the move to overhaul the temporary foreign worker guidelines?

In any case, we booked our shows, paid their fees, and followed their rules, and still, when they refused to grant Laurel a work permit in January 2014, stating that we wasn’t playing enough “big” shows to make it worth their while, we had to cancel the 40 odd engagements we’d spent months booking, many of them private house concerts with long time fans. It made no sense.

This is an amazing victory for musicians everywhere and society in general! Artists will still need contracts from venues, letters from house concert hosts etc., when they cross the border, but it sounds like the process just got easier and simpler for everyone! Canada, we’ll see you in 2015!

We're excited and honored to have received an official showcase for the FAR-West Conference in Oakland, CA in October 2014. FAR-West is the west coast regional conference for Folk Alliance International, promoting acoustic music and education. We attended last year and had an amazing time playing, jamming, learning, socializing, and supporting an awesome community with a great vision.

After all the legal hassles we've been through and are still in the midst of this year, receiving an official showcase spot was great validation to help boost our morale and give us something to finally look forward to. And hopefully you will as well!

We'll be hitting the stage on Saturday, October 18th at 7PM at the Oakland Marriot Hotel, and the public is most welcome to attend! The showcase night will run from 6:30-10PM both Friday and Saturday with six showcases each night. Here’s the lineup: https://www.far-west.org/showcases2014.html

Stay tuned for more information as it becomes available.

Our year started out great - relaxing after the long tours of last year in a cabin by a lake in British Columbia, planning a new album and a new show for tours later in the year...

However, just when we were getting used to not traveling, unexpected developments concerning Laurel's work permit for Canada suddenly separated us to our respective countries of citizenship.

Our consultations with lawyers over the last few weeks have given us hope that we WILL be able to play music together again, and hopefully with less stress and uncertainty than being a Canadian-American music duo booking all our own tours and trying to understand legal issues has created in our lives so far!

Unfortunately, it seems that without spending many more thousands of dollars than we have to spend, it will be impossible to remedy this situation for the tours planned this year. Because we spent such a large part of 2013 touring the United States we were focusing our booking efforts more heavily on Canada this year, and it's frustrating that we won't be able to play for you as a duo.

We've decided to postpone or cancel some concerts, while others Dan will be performing solo, as he did for many years, including a month long tour of western Canada starting in less than two weeks. For that tour, Dan has just recorded a new album, "Genuine Heart", to be released February 11th, 2014. In the spirit of this necessary return to solo touring, Dan has chosen songs that reflect a going back to his harmonica/solo acoustic guitar roots after rambling through several genres in his past releases such as blues, bluegrass, reggae, latin, folk-rock. Of the new album he states, "These days I sound more like me than ever before. In the past I was paying homage to all the music I love and can play. This album nails what I was doing pre-internet. I have a feeling this is the kind of album fans have been waiting for all along." Laurel gives the new release a big thumbs up and encourages you to spread the word, come out to a concert, buy a CD, and give Dan a warm show of support.

Dan will also have copies of our 2013 release "Dan & Laurel" for those of you who were looking forward to getting a copy when we toured through.

We are very sad to have been forced to apart, but we are changing gears as best we can and hope to make the most of the year given these enforced limitations. We'll be focusing on our individual teaching studios and working on projects we've had on the back burner, including a violin method book and video series Laurel has been working on. We are also hoping to still find a way to write and record a new album together for release in late 2014 or early 2015.

Our story has just begun.

We made it through our big tour in one piece - across the Canadian Prairies, down the West Coast, across the Southwest and South and up the East Coast and through the Great Lakes states! A couple of the routes were repeated, but the the big miles, like through Texas, was driven between October and December.

We’ll be doing a personal songwriting retreat in early 2014 and plan to have a new album finished and released by early summer 2014. We've submitted to about 40 summer festivals, laying the foundation for what we hope will be a fantastic spring/summer. House concerts and theater shows are likewise lining up from Manitoba to British Columbia and LA to Brooklyn. That's really exciting for us! We're curious if anyone's interested in hosting!! Our big wish list for the year is actually pretty small - some booking angels to help us share our music with more people. We have a percentage and our deepest appreciation to give.

And, here's a video Timothy Barrett and Michael Martinez graciously put together: ttp://vimeo.com/75860979

Finally, we are both looking for new students for guitar, songwriting, or violin or viola. We operate via Skype, so we can "take you on tour with us." We're looking for beginning through advanced levels, and mature kids, teens, and adults. Please pass along the word to interested parties or get in touch yourself through our individual sites: Dan Frechette - guitar, songwriting www.danfrechette.com Laurel Thomsen - violin, viola www.laurelthomsen.com

We're settling into a nice Indian Summer in California and are pleased to announce that our debut CD is now available for download! If you haven't picked up a physical copy at one of our shows yet, please stroll over online and pick up the digital version. We're really excited to share our "best of" the year's tours with you!

We have another month in California before touring east to Austin, Nashville, and the east coast. Please our tour calendar for our September show dates. We're focusing on writing some new music now and booking the rest of the year into next. Please be in touch with us at info@danandlaurel.ca to put in your vote for our next concert in North America, perhaps in your own living room!

We are in the midst of a short western Canadian tour on our way down the US west coast and back to California where we'll be touring for several weeks. Thought we’d make this duo official and start an actual blog!

We have been fortunate to have some “back by popular demand” dates from our last tours as well as some new house concerts and venues to perform at. We have been busy with festivals these past few weeks in Manitoba, and also have just released the debut 18 song Dan and Laurel CD! Recorded in an amazing sounding church, with the wonders of modern technology we have it available in hard copy already. Digital version coming soon on CDbaby/iTunes! Please check Facebook for updates: www.facebook.com/danandlaurel We are still hoping to fill in a few more dates between now and October so if anybody would like to have us open for Gillian Welch, or even Bono solo, or put us in touch with Bob Dylan, or host a house concert or a backyard get together with our music, please be in touch with us at info@danandlaurel.ca.

Seriously, we're having a great time on the road and hope to play for you soon!

Some of you have been enjoying our overdubs on Facebook, while others are finding us at shows around California. Yes, we’ve finally met and are half way through tour!

Some highlights have included playing Mandolino Waltz, our first overdub, for the first time face to face, our first show 24 hours after meeting and at that show having a couple from the midwest come up talking about wanting to help book us a tour. They were flabbergasted that it was our first show together, ever, saying “it sounds like you guys have been playing together for five decades”. It kind of felt that way to us as well... Dan was also excited to run on a beach for the first time and put his toes in the surf, and Laurel was blown away with the energy Dan brings to the stage. “I’ve played with passionate performers, but Dan takes it to the next level. He lives and breathes music. It’s incredibly inspiring. I can really expand into my music and have fun. I get to PLAY!”

We have several more shows to catch this month, so check our tour dates and come say “hi”.

In the meantime, here’s our first press release, care of Mari Lynch:

From Pixels to Performance In Spring 2012, music and modern technology transpired to bring together two artists with captivating musical synergy, despite their living 2,000 miles apart. As Manitoba-based singer-songwriter Dan Frechette and California-based violinist Laurel Thomsen were drawn together, there was no question of why, only how.

Ardent and down-to-earth performers, both Dan and Laurel enjoyed early success in music, as teens. By young adulthood, each had turned away from such temptations as music scholarships and major label publishing contracts, choosing instead paths as independents comfortably supported by their musical talents.

In the years to follow, Dan’s songwriting took off, with numerous compositions covered successfully by many artists. Among them, The Ploughboys (“Who Will Take My Place”), Dervish (“My Bride and I”), Emma Cloney (“My Canada,” “My Bride and I”), Jessee Havey (“Dance and Play”), The Duhks (“Who Will Take My Place,” “Mists of Down Below,” “You Don’t See It”), and The Buccaneers (“Everybody Loves You”). Dan is a prolific songwriter with over 1,300 songs across a wide variety of genres, inspiring steady praise from reviewers, fellow musicians, and appreciative fans, making comments such as “I never met a Dan Frechette song I didn’t like.” He has recorded over a dozen albums of his original material, showcasing the fine distinctions of his vocal and multi-instrumental abilities as well. When Dan discovered via YouTube how this violinist expressed emotion, he knew the next musical direction he hoped to explore.

Laurel's path led her from Bach partitas and Beethoven sonatas to improvising, arranging, and recording for assorted bands and singer-songwriters. Whether dropping in to play a set with electric guitarist Tom Ayres and cowboy rocker Mike Beck, setting historic Alta California’s 1840s town hall ablaze with her fiery renditions of 1900-1950s classics, or stunning audiences with her recent songwriting debut, this diverse violinist hits the mark. From backstage meetings with Neil Young and promoter Britt Govea to being recognized on the front-page of the New York Times for her online teaching, Laurel’s star is on the rise. Still making time for serious violin and viola students in her private studio, Laurel is also the creator of the Violin Geek Podcast, and an author and educational video luminary for Strings magazine.

In March 2013, twenty-four hours after their first in-person meeting, Dan Frechette and Laurel Thomsen will play their inaugural live concert. At every tour stop, audiences will experience the thrill of this fresh musical partnership forged on the Internet. But while technology brought them together, it will not be tech assistance that delivers in these performances; it will be the authentic sounds of violin, guitar, and voices honed over two young lifetimes.