Got the news Friday--the CD arrived chez Steve on Friday, and it sounds and looks great! We're giving our good friend Lilli Kuzma, of WDCB-FM 90.9/www.wdcb.org, first crack at it--we will be officially debuting it on her "Folk Festival" show this Tues. night, 6/29, at approximately 8 pm CDT (the show itself runs from 7-9, and is definitely worth listening to in its entirety) and performing selections from it live in-studio as well as introducing cuts from and discussing it with Lilli. Your first chance to buy it in person before its official release? If you are coming to our special outdoor holiday dock concert for the Woolpys in Minocqua, WI on Sat. night July 3, we'll have it with us there. If you plan to be in Hays, KS Fri. July 9 at 7:30 pm at Cafe Semolino, we're selling it there too. We're hoping to have it on Columbia, MO's KOPN "Sunday Morning Coffeehouse" with Steve Jerrett (also the home of Stephen Lee Rich's comedy segment "Penguin Shoeshine Theater") live in-studio the next day before heading back up north. Sat. July 15, 1 pm at Edgewater Third Saturdays in Chicago (location TBA, somewhere outside along either Granville, Thorndale, Bryn Mawr or Berwyn Ave. w/in steps of the CTA, or along Broadway between Granville and Berwyn), I will have some for you in my open guitar case--no tips necessary, they're paying me--as I perform solo for your enjoyment. You West Suburbanites get your chance to buy it when Andina & Rich play the French Market in Lisle Sat. morning July 24 from 8-noon (or longer if we're on a roll) and Northsiders can come to the Glenlake Block Party to watch us play (gratis) at my block party during the dinner hour. Madisonians get their chance at our first OFFICIAL release party Thurs. Aug. 12 at The Brink Lounge just n. of downtown--for $10 you get not just admission but the CD itself....and maybe some noshes. We will have accompaniment (fiddle, bass, mandolin, perhaps accordion, just like on the disc). We're still working on the location of the Chicago release party; and we would love to be able to have one down in Southern IL near Sparta, so our full in-studio lineup can join us on stage!
It's also being processed by CDBaby.com so very soon you can buy it there and via Amazon and BestBuy.com (and on the usual download services including iTunes, Amazon, & Rhapsody--but you'd be missing out on the terrific packaging and art direction by the amazing Annie Capps if you only download). It is immediately available for $15 (S&H included) from www.andinaandrich.com--just e-mail becausewecan@andinaandrich.com until we have the link up and we'll get it out to you (we'll even remove the shrink-wrap and autograph it if you'd like). Look for t-shirts and other merch as well very soon.
If you'd like to be part of "Andina & Rich's Attitude Army" ("street team" is so yesterday), let us know at our e-mail address!
Also, if you reside or have contacts anywhere along the road from Chicago to Hays (including the Des Moines, Topeka and Kansas City areas) and Columbia back home (the St. Louis and s. IL areas north along I-55 or I-57) and would like us to entertain you up-close-and-personal (but not in-your-face)--do let us know ASAP: we will do house concerts, coffeehouses, bookstores, hoedowns, whatever. By ASAP, I mean STAT, PDQ, yesterday!
Finally, a special shout-out to my good friend Jean-Luc Leroux in Nouméa, New Caledonia. Besides being a wonderful singer-songwriter-multi-instrumentalist, he is the deejay and host of "Route 66," the Southwest Pacific's premier roots/Americana/Canadiana/bluegrass/country music program en français, on Radio RRB, Saturday afternoons from 4:30-6pm Nouméa local time (14 hours earlier for Central Daylight time, interpolate your time zone from there). Listen streaming live (and archived till each new show) at http://countrydanseetmusiquenc.lagoon.nc.He has been playing country selections from Andina & Rich's, SASS!'s and my solo CDs. And for the past month or so, I've been his American music correspondent, delivering the weekly "Nashville News" and spotlighting two noteworthy new releases per show. (Aussi en français, bien sur). The talk may be in French, but the music's mostly in English and always a delight. I hope my schedule (and knees) will permit me to deliver one of those weekly reports live from Nashville when Jean-Luc visits there in late September! (And to let Steve take his French language skills out of mothballs).
Ah, I love the smell of shrinkwrap in the morning!