We played at the inaugural show of the Anna’s new DIY venue “elbo room” in Philly.  You can read about Anna’s sweet project, good plaids little lads, and see photos taken by Alex JOnes that evening here.

We’ve also received some blog press recently (many thanks to all!):

Circles of Concrete dedicated a post to us.
CastleQwayR gave us a little write-up that still has us blushing:

SODF reminds me of those passions and dreams that I have sadly felt myself drift far from with each unrequited passing year. What is it we so strongly desire, but is just beyond our reach? It could be grasped by force and therefore conquered, but that would cheapen it somehow. So we wait, and still wait. In the meantime, you may enjoy the often Renaissance and folk sounding melodies that flow freely from these four talented friends.

The Onion’s AV Club deemed us worthy of a “forehead slap” in their 2009: Year in Band Names.

Finally, we’re heading down to Fairfax, VA this weekend to record once more with the fabulous Fabakis Studios. Let’s hope we don’t get snowed in this time (as awesome as that was).  Stay tuned for updates…

Hello friends!  We just had a wonderful show at Southpaw last Thursday.  Thanks so much to everyone who came out.  Not only was it an evening delightfully close to home, but we managed to record the entire show.  We might put up more tracks in the future, but for now, here’s our very first recording of Widow’s Walk.  It’s live, so it’s not perfect, but we really hope you enjoy it.  You download it by right clicking the link below.

MP3: “Widow’s Walk” – Solider On Dear Friend

the place

and where it all began

]]> http://sodf.wordpress.com/2009/10/09/the-widows-walk/feed/ 0 auraticoutmoded roof top ww1 ww2 ww3 http://sodf.wordpress.com/2009/09/28/black-bette-gets-a-mate/ http://sodf.wordpress.com/2009/09/28/black-bette-gets-a-mate/#comments Mon, 28 Sep 2009 19:31:34 +0000 amilkmaidenstead http://sodf.wordpress.com/?p=215 ]]> here she is. her name is Scarlet.

This quaint pastime has been yanked into the present. The change is physically manifest in the sheet of metal wedged into my bridge, connected by a rubber-encased wire to the pick up that grips the shoulder of my violin. Every performance and rehearsal, I insert a quarter-inch cable into the pick-up, an act of penetration that requires such force, albeit gentle, that I feel I am intruding into the body of the instrument, a violation. Electricity courses through our instruments, wires alter and amplify our motions and voices so our bodies become electronic and our art resides somewhere between neurons and the PA system.

But it’s not just that: new as amps and DI boxes and XLR cables are to my personal narrative, Bob Dylan horrified fans when he plugged in his guitar in pre-historic 1965. It’s the fact that I write this on the second story of a megabus speeding from Philadelphia to New York City on a Sunday night with a ticket I bought online four hours prior and showed the bus driver in the form of a 15-digit number on the screen of my cell phone. Anna and Zach live in Philly, Madalyn and I live in New York, but by the miracle of Google, we have 40 email long conversations coordinating rehearsal, testing out new ideas, passing on song lyrics and musical fragments from garage band, discussing tv shows, shooting the shit, wasting time. We plan the future in our four-way g-cal. We track our spending and (occasional) earnings on our shared spreadsheet. And we keep in touch, for hours on an end, in that small rectangle blinking orange in the lower right hand of the computer screen, fingers meeting keys with furious rapidity in gchat. We hop on buses back and fourth between cities. We pile into Anna’s car, our fearless leader at the helm, to drive to DC, to venues, following the directions laid out on Madalyn’s iphone.

Into the soul of our music is written speed, electricity, technology, bytes, ohms, the internet, the twenty-first century. And there is such thrill in this, knowing we are working at something never before possible, not only the sounds of the music, but also the circumstances of our lives.

But today when Anna and I sat on the slope of her roof, baked by early evening sun, and played the guitar and Edward Panormo’s violin over the tops of trees and the spires of Philadelphia skyscrapers, half lit gold, half in purple shadow – well, music can still spill straight from the bow into the late summer breeze.

Now, bona fida rock stars (yup, sure), we return!
Saturday night!  The Annex! 152 Orchard!
Doors open 8 pm! $8! 21+!

AND best of all
we’re playing with FRIENDS – check out the beautiful voice of  Hannah Fairchild and the fabulous electronica compositions of Matt Diamond.

There is nothing better than playing WITH friends FOR friends.  Hope to see you there.

Now the main event – a sample of photos from our show this Tuesday at Pianos taken graciously by Mike Brotzman – take a moment to check out his gorgeous photoblog, it’s a treat.

Well, as everyone knows, it all goes to shit after that and no one has any idea what they’re doing and flops about in a state of perpetual existential crisis. The same goes for being a wee little indie band in the big bad city of NYC — when exactly have you progressed? Is all of that practicing leading to somewhere? How do we know what success is anyway? (Madalyn, our bassist-qua-manager might have other thoughts on this.)

But sometimes something happens that’s so exciting that it feels like success in a big happy way. And for us, that’s playing

PIANOS! !! ! – that cozy but oh so hip venue on the lower east side, where we’ve heard so many great bands play -
158 Ludlow Street
July 28th at 9 pm
21 + $8 at the door

graduation -> pianos! zach has skipped the first step, because he's that cool

Also, we’re playing a Brand New Song, which features things we’ve never featured before – it’s a nautical epic, a ballad of the sea . . . so, come ye hearties.