On the way home from our Erin Harpe & the Delta Swingers show this weekend in Southern Vermont, myself, Jim and Bob stopped by WZBC to visit Cousin Kate! We played four songs and talked with Kate about music, what we’ve been up to, and what we’re excited about for our upcoming tour to Austin next week! We’ve uploaded a podcast of the show, starting right before we went on the air.
Listen to it or download it for free at our website!
On the way home from our Erin Harpe & the Delta Swingers show this weekend in Southern Vermont, myself, Jim and Bob stopped by WZBC to visit Cousin Kate! We played four songs and talked with Kate about music, what we’ve been up to, and what we’re excited about for our upcoming tour to Austin next week! We’ve uploaded a podcast of the show, starting right before we went on the air.
Listen to it or download it for free at our website!
“Blues commands the present moment, demanding that you forget the woes of your past and deal with the trials ahead. It demands that you get into this song and this feeling right now and, like gospel, give yourself entirely over to the inspiration.”
Bob Colby sent us this video of the Delta Swingers from his front-row vantage-point at the Boston Music Awards. It’s really a great video, especially for only one camera. You can watch each of us rocking out at just the right times. Then the camera pans over to Peter Parcek, who is sitting in, who plays a smokin’ hot solo! I’m so glad I got to see this, because the set was a blur to me, it went by so quickly! Also, it’s nice to be able to see what Peter was playing (not that I can do that!). Awesome video Bob! Thanks!!!
We had a great time at the Boston Music Awards Sunday at the Liberty Hotel – a hotel built inside a former old prison! We were very honored to get our first BMA nomination! We didn’t win, the Blues Artist of the Year went to Johnny A. But we got to share the stage with Peter Parcek 3 (and Peter sat in with us!), Johnny A, and Dwight and Nicole as well as many others that night! I also caught some amazing sets by Amanda Palmer, Debo Band, Sea Monsters, Sodafrog and Mystery Roar. It was a great time, thanks Boston Music Awards, and thank you all out there for your votes!
The rest of the weekend: What a weekend! My weekend started with Lovewhip playing Calling All Angels: A Benefit for Friends of Emilia at TT the Bear’s on Saturday afternoon. It was a great show, great audience, great turnout. I am hoping they raised a lot of funds for the Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Beth Israel Hospital in honor of one of our favorite writers from Boston Band Crush (and formerly from Performer) C.D. DiGuardia’s daughter Emilia. (Read a new review he wrote of Wrecking Machine here – just scoll down to Lovewhip).
Then we had our own fundraiser at the Midway in JP, I want to thank everybody that came out and supported us, bought raffle tickets, and danced! Let me say that while it was a bit tiring to play two sets that night – one with my band the Delta Swingers, and one with Lovewhip – it was a really special night and I was so excited to share “both sides” of me with all of you! I want to thank all of the fabulous bands and friends that performed: Streight Angular, Zayde Buti, Jake Zavracky and Sean Revoltah, and special thanks to Czaya for her go-go dancing!
I’ve been working on a bit of video lately. Here’s the latest, some footage of Lovewhip live recently at Geno’s in Portland Maine sent to us by Regina. The light was a bit low so I messed with the contrast and ended up coming up with cool effects, the hard to see bits were really dark… but you can kinda see the Whipettes and the crowd dancing!
Erin Harpe & the Delta Swingers have been nominated for a Boston Music Award!! We are so honored and excited about all the great things happening for us! 
To vote for us, follow the link below and scroll down to the “Blues Artist of the Year” category, where you’ll find Erin Harpe & the Delta Swingers!
I just want to say thank you to all our supporters, friends and family who have helped to make all this happen! And of course also the Boston Music Awards nominating committee! Wish us luck! And vote! You can definitely vote outside of Boston too, so please pass this on to all your delta-blues-loving friends!
Voting more than once is allowed but not encouraged. Voting closes on Monday November 29th at 5pm. Winners will be announced at the Boston Music Awards on Sunday, December 5th at the Liberty Hotel. We’ll also be performing! You can get tickets for $20 here.
xo,
Erin
The Delta Swingers have been playing up a storm lately! Already this week we played a Blues Union dance night last night in Union Square Somerville – which resulted in some pretty sweet moves created by the dancers for our new “dance” song The Delta Swing! Plus I got some blues dance lessons, and we were joined on stage for a coupla tunes by dancer Tim Lewandowski on trombone. The dueling trombone and harmonica was great! And tonight we are extremely honored to be opening for James Cotton and his “Superharp” Band at the Regent Theatre in Arlington! Here’s the Facebook event and here’s the poster:
And the big week of delta blues continues on Saturday night (11/6) with our downhome show at Smoken’ Joes’ BBQ n’ Blues in Brighton (RSVP at the Facebook event). Whew! What a week! I’m feeling very lucky to have such a great band – harmonica player/blues guy Richard “Rosy” Rosenblatt, bass player Jim Countryman and the bestest singing drummer who has a great falsetto – Bob Nisi! Oh, and if you want a taste of the new band, you can now hear four live demo songs of the band streaming at our website! Let me know what ya think!
Next week is Lovewhip’s big last show of the year in Portland, Maine… (we do still have a couple more Boston-area shows in 2010…) More on how that’s going soon!
xoxo,
Erin
Here’s a video of our Boston Blues Challenge Finals set! This was just uploaded by our friend Joe Marino, who edited and produced the vid. Thanks, Joe!
Wow, I’ve been so busy lately I haven’t had a chance to sit back and reflect. And I really haven’t been blogging! The new band I started earlier this year – Erin Harpe & the Delta Swingers – has been having all kinds of good luck, opportunities have opened up and now we’re going to Memphis to represent Boston in the International Blues Challenge! There was a lot of work that went into getting our show arranged and our set cut down to the right amount of time (20 minutes in the prelims, 16 minutes in the finals!) And now that we won we’ve had to get our picture taken (!) which we actually did ourselves at my house using a tripod (see pic). We had to get our official application in to the festival down in Memphis. And we’ve had lots of new friends and fans at all the shows we’ve been playing. We played a show at the House of Blues opening for Honeyboy Edwards, and now we’ve been given the opportunity to open for James Cotton at the Regent Theater Friday November 5th in Arlington. It really has been quite a whirlwind! I’ll fill you in more later about what’s been going on. Right now I need to get ready for my Delta Swingers show tonight at Johnny D’s opening for the Stone River Boys from Austin! We go on at 7:45pm! And if you’re on the Lovewhip list I’m about to send out an email about our Halloween costume party at Bishop’s Lounge this Friday night! Busy week… more later!
