Dan & Faith

Hello!

How many ways can we use peaches? Chopped peaches on our morning oatmeal. Peach-banana smoothies. Peach sorbet. Peach crisp. Plain chopped peaches in a dessert dish. We haven’t pulled out the muffin tins yet, but peach-oat muffins are definitely on the list. Frozen peaches to save for mid-winter. This is such a wonderful problem to have! Our peach trees have blessed us with a bounty this year, and we’re loving it. On the vegetable front, our four zucchini plants are producing enthusiastically now. We finally found a spiralizer that seems to work without making a horrible mess, and we’ve been making “peanut zoodles” (zucchini noodles in a spicy peanut sauce) in addition to Dan’s zucchini-based vegan alfredo sauce, as well as adding chopped zucchini into just about every meal, and freezing a bunch as well. Yes, it’s definitely harvest time!

Fruits and vegetables are not our only bounty this month. Faith’s song Deep Cold Sea has won the Portsmouth Maritime Folk Festival’s 2025 songwriting contest! According to two of the veteran judges, it was the strongest field of candidates they have ever had for the contest, so we are incredibly honored to have our song chosen. Our reward will be to perform it live at this year’s festival, which runs Saturday and Sunday, September 27th and 28th, across the city of Portsmouth, NH. The concert where we will be performing the song will be Saturday evening, September 27th, at 7pm at the North Church in Market Square. The full schedule for the festival can be found here. The entire festival is free, but reservations are requested for the free evening concert. Check the festival website for ticketing details.

The International Singer Songwriters Association (ISSA) is a national/global professional association whose goal is to build community and provide opportunities for singer-songwriters. The ISSA Boston/Northeast chapter is hosting a songwriter showcase on Sunday, September 28th at Oakes Ames Memorial Hall in North Easton, MA. We’ll be playing in the round with Caroline Brennan, Terri Lachance, and Linda Marks. We love doing in-the-round shows, as it’s such a great opportunity for spontaneous collaborations! You never know when multi-part harmony or amazing instrumental accompaniments might break out. Music starts at 3pm. Suggested donation of $20 at the door.

Our albums Who We Are, Then and Now, Seeking, and Simple Grace are available from us at shows and on our website, through Bandcamp, or you can find them at iTunes and most other online music stores. Our music is also available streaming on Spotify and Apple Music.

As always, you can find additional schedule information on our website. For additional content, follow us on Patreon. For more frequent news updates and information, check out our Facebook fan page.

Check out your local venues that offer live music. The venues and the musicians will appreciate you!

Dan & Faith

Hello!

Here in New England, we’re just coming out of a fairly brutal stretch of weather with high temperatures and high humidity. This is something that we expect to have happen occasionally in New England, but not for weeks at a time. We had 12” of rain here in May, and 4” in June, so the 1.4” of rain we had had right up until the last couple of days of July was a bit of a shock, especially given how humid it was. But thankfully we could water the garden every couple of days. It has so far rewarded us with a few hot peppers, a handful of cherry tomatoes, enough pickling cucumbers that we can now do a batch of refrigerator pickles, a bunch of broccoli, and the zucchini has gone from 0 to 60 in no time flat! We have already frozen two full gallon bags of chopped zucchini, as well as 5 batches of our vegan zucchini-based alfredo sauce. We expect the tomatoes to shift into overdrive any day now. The peppers and cukes always take a bit more care to get them going. Kale and celery are doing fine, too. We had a nasty time with a bunch of potato beetles, but a serious larva-picking round has helped the plants recover, along with a whole lot of weeding. There’s always more to do in the garden! But we’ve got some stuff happening out on the road, too.

It’s always a treat for us to return to a great stage that we’ve been to before. Friday, August 8th, we’ll be back at Luthier’s Coop in Easthampton, MA, a funky place that’s part musical instrument sales and repair shop, part restaurant, and part music venue. We’re on from 7-8pm.

We love playing farmers markets! The Becket Country Store Friday farmers market in Becket, MA is a new one for us. Come by on Friday, August 22nd, shop the market and the store, and hang out for some music. The market runs 4-7pm.

The Keene Music Festival is a Labor Day weekend tradition in Keene, NH. Multiple stages around the city will be hosting music all day Saturday, August 30th. We will once again be hosting the Singer Songwriter Stage at the Toadstool Bookshop from noon to 6pm. Stop by to listen, browse the bookstore, and check out the new Chapters Cafe inside the store. We have a fantastic lineup this year! Several folks returning, and several who have not played our stage before. Here’s the schedule:

• 12:00 Pat Daddona
• 12:45 Merry Trudeau
• 1:30 Rick Quimby
• 2:15 Tom Maynard
• 3:00 Carl Beverly
• 3:45 John Ferullo
• 4:30 Josh Hall
• 5:15 Tom Smith
• 6:00 Dan & Faith (hey, that’s us!)

The festival is rain or shine, so bring along some good weather vibes!

We have another great music review and interview! Buzz Music, a women-owned indie music blog out of Los Angeles that describes itself as “a cultural voice, an artist incubator, and a launchpad for the next generation of creatives who refuse to play by outdated rules,” says this about Dan’s song Se Llama Juanita from our Who We Are album: “What makes the song so effective is its sincerity. Dan & Faith do not rely on sensationalism or politics. Instead, they invite listeners into Juanita’s story, asking them to feel what she feels and see the world through her eyes. It is a subtle but powerful approach that underscores the importance of storytelling in today’s cultural landscape.” You can read the rest here!

Our apologies if you swung by the Acworth Village Store last month for the Saturday dinner and music. The store has been short staffed, and had cut back their hours. This meant no dinner and music on Saturday evenings, which we found out when we got there to set up! They have the staff now, and hope to resume their Saturday dinner and music soon. We hope to play there before the end of the season, and will let you know if and when we get a date for that.

Our albums Who We Are, Then and Now, Seeking, and Simple Grace are available from us at shows and on our website, through Bandcamp, or you can find them at iTunes and most other online music stores. Our music is also available streaming on Spotify and Apple Music.

As always, you can find additional schedule information on our website. For additional content, follow us on Patreon. For more frequent news updates and information, check out our Facebook fan page.

Like tending the garden, live local music needs care to keep it growing. Nurture your local musicians and venues!

Dan & Faith