Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Update from Hannah and Ben



Well,  on this fine Tuesday, in between fighting off fire ants and ornery goats, we managed to get a song out for y'all. I'm not saying we snuck into our boss's penthouse farm office to plug in our mics, but I am saying that our boss's penthouse farm office is a dang nice place to record.

Thanks for being patient with us while we get ready to head back east. It's just that we're so enamored by the luxurious lifestyle here (what you're seeing above is our house and front porch... are they kidding?) No but seriously, we can't wait to meet up with the rest of Forlorn Strangers when we get to Nashville. We've written a whole slough of new songs and are soaking up the inspiration from our experiences here in Texas, but it will be great to do it together again, as the Muppets say...

Anyway, this here is a new song of Ben's. We had too much fun recording and can't wait to get one of Hannah's up soon.


Take Care,

Hannah and Ben


[photo credit: Bryce Hagan]


Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Update From Chris


Folks it's been one hell of a couple months! The four of us finally moved out of Florida and have all started writing new songs together and meeting tons of new people! The Strangers have also made plans to move to Nashville! Our goal is to eat Thanksgiving dinner together in Tennessee... I cannot wait!

Ben, Hannah, and I moved to Waco, TX to work/live/write at the World Hunger Relief Farm, and Becca went to Lynchburg, VA for a bit as well.

My time on the farm came to an end about a week ago and I am now in Florida for a few days before hitting the road and going all around the United States! I'm heading to Los Angeles, Anaheim, San Francisco, Cleveland, Norfolk, and then finally Nashville over the course of two weeks or so! Busy days.

Texas was an amazing experience and I was fortunate enough to meet several amazing singers and songwriters in my time there. You'll be hearing more about our friend Ryan Pickop (ryanpickop.bandcamp.com) with whom the kids and I performed on his upcoming record! It's due out soon and y'all are gonna absolutely love it!

We figured this blog would be a great way to keep in touch with our friends and fans as well as between the four of us. You'll be hearing from each of us in the coming days/weeks and hopefully we'll get some sort of routine going.

I thought I would start off with a demo of a song I wrote called "Backslide". We've changed it around a bit since then and this here is a basic skeleton of what the song is! I really hope you guys enjoy it! I'll be posting recordings of some brand new songs that I've written/am in the midst of writing as I go along!

Thanks for the support and we'll catch you folks on the road!

Chris

Greetings and Heartfelt Salutations, Folks-

Happy August from Forlorn Strangers!
To begin, we wanted to extend our thanks to friends and fans for supporting us and giving us your interest in what has been a time of creative sabbatical and planning over the past couple of months. There are some changes and steps forward planned, and we're excited to share our thoughts and work with you.
The idea behind Forlorn Strangers has always been at its root an experiment, the nature of which is to group together distinct but like-minded songwriters to blend into one interpretation. We consider ourselves to be explorers of folk and Americana music, because at its foundation Americana music has always, like much of our national history, been a blending of authentic styles and renderings into a whole that, transcending the boilerplate [we hope], is greater than the sum of its parts. A song to us [and we think, to most] isn't simply a song, it's a multidisciplinary work panning solid pieces from the stream and bringing them back to share in a mystical dialogue between a performer and his or her audience, between a listener and his or her attentive troubadour.
That being said, this next phase of our experiment as a band will be in many ways the most challenging to date, because we'll be getting ready to move to Nashville, Tennessee by the end of the year and before that, we're in a bit of a diaspora: Christopher finds himself back in South Florida, Becca is up in Virginia, and Benjamin and Hannah are out in Waco, Texas, of all places. Over the next couple of months, we'll be posting videologues or written thoughts about what we're up to and what we're writing as far as new music goes, including demos of new songs and collaborations. Those will be found on our blog: forlornstrangers.blogspot.com. We'll also be sharing where you might find each of us playing in our respective areas on the Facebook site. As the move draws nigh, we'd love conversation and feedback, so that you can make the jump with us and, heck. We may all end up in Tennessee together.
So keep a weather eye: Becca will be up in the Lynchburg, VA area tooling around like a bottle-rocket; if you see Christopher popping up in bars in South Florida then please, God, call the police; and if you catch Benjamin and Hannah in Texas, be kind. They haven't had any meat for a while on that farm, so they may have a hippie's disposition. Don't hold it against them.
See you soon friends.

Sunday, August 19, 2012