Spring Mini Tour Starts this Week!

It feels like such a gift to be back on the road for a quick jaunt up the West Coast. We’re calling this one a “mini-tour” not only because it’s a 3-show run, but also because we’re leaning into the unique feeling of small, intimate, community-centered gatherings. We hope that with only a few shows, each one will feel extra special.

During this tour, we’re especially excited for Folk and Forage, a weekend micro-festival filled with camping, live music, art, wild foods, hiking, friendly competitions, and workshops. We’ve been hearing about this festival through friends and friends of friends for a few years now, and we’ve been dying to join in on the fun(gi)! We hope you’ll come and make some memories with us!

KQED Sunday Music Drop: Over Easy

Look, Ma! We’re on the local NPR station! It was such a pleasure to speak with Annelise Finney for this piece, and what an absolute thrill to hear our song after the All Things Considered tag… dreams do come true! You can hear the whole piece at KQED’s website by clicking here.

We're Early Bird Finalists in the 21st Annual NewSong Competition

Although we are still in a bit of shock, we’re honored to say that we’ve been selected as the early bird finalist for the 21st Annual NewSong Competition We will join seven other artists in December to perform in Asheville, NC. It’s such an honor to be recognized and have the opportunity for our music to be lifted and heard by more people! 

It’s already been a year of milestones… our dreamy younger musician-selves are jumping up and down at this recognition. To join the NewSong family has been something we’ve worked at for a long time and we’re feeling so grateful to join the fold (alongside some of our songwriter heroes). Stay tuned for the official announcement of all 8 finalists and more details about the final competition performance in De

We're Finalists for the Kerrville 2022 Grassy Hill New Folk Competition

It’s an incredible feeling for us to get to actually write these words: we are FINALISTS for the 2022 Kerrville New Folk Song Competition! We’ve been submitting our songs and following along to this song contest for years now, and it is a dream come true to be welcomed into this community of talented artists and songwriters. It’s moving and deeply inspiring to join the ranks with some of our songwriting heroes who have been New Folk winners and finalists in the past.

As people of color in the folk music scene, it feels so validating to be recognized as emerging songwriters in the genre. It quite literally feels like the folk music doors have been flung open. We are, humbly and gratefully, headed to Texas at the end of May!

Check out the full schedule of the finalists below:

New Sync Licensing Representation - Marmoset Music

A few years ago, in an existential panic about how we were going to get our music heard by a larger audience and create financial stability through music, we stumbled upon the idea of sync licensing. We started to learn from other artists and songwriters about the process of writing and recording, pitching, and licensing our music for film and tv. 

Along the way, we kept hearing the name Marmoset Music come up again and again from creatives and music supervisors as one of the leading agencies in this field. We’ve been following their work for years now, and they continue to be innovative and dynamic when it comes to telling stories with music. In addition to being great at what they do, their community-centered approach also contributes profits to many charitable organizations, and they are the first music agency to be a Certified B Corporation, meaning they have the receipts for doing their part to be sustainable.

This is all to say that it’s our great honor to officially join the Marmoset artist roster! Being a part of the Marmoset family feels like a dream come true and we’re proud to be adding 40 (!) original songs to their already impressive catalog! We’re excited to do big things together and can’t wait to embark on this next chapter with them! 

New Single - "Saddle Tramp" Out Now

Our newest release is a cover of Marty Robbins' classic cowboy tune, "Saddle Tramp" from his album Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs. We love this song and its nostalgic ability to transport the listener to a different time and place. For us, it feels like an ode to the open road which we miss very much having not been able to tour for the past two years. We hope this song makes it onto your fall playlist and keeps you company wherever you might roam this season.

Recorded at Rainshadow Recording in Port Townsend, WA. Engineered by Everett Moran.

Blues Run the Game Official Music Video Premieres on Americana UK

Today, Americana UK premiered the official music video for our latest single, a cover of Jackson C. Frank’s folk masterpiece, “Blues Run the Game.” The single will be released to all streaming and online services this Friday, July 10th, and you can be among the first to get in your playlists and inbox by “pre-saving” the track on Spotify!

This song was recorded last summer at Rainshadow Recording, a boutique studio in Port Townsend, WA where we worked with engineer/owner Everett Moran. We were connected with Everett and Rainshadow through our beloved Folk Alliance Region - West (FAR-West) network (and a bit of dumb luck) when we won some studio time via a raffle when we were official showcasing artists at the FAR-West Conference in 2017.

The idea for the video came about as a way for us to work with our extremely talented friends and collaborators, Ursa Major, during the time of social distancing. Since we are obviously unable to get together for a music video shoot, we decided to create a video from public domain footage. The incredible team of director Madeleine Johnson Dean and editor Alan Dean, researched hours and hours of footage in the Prelinger Archive, a collection of 60,000 advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur films acquired by the Library of Congress, and they masterfully wove the images together to create a video that perfectly captures Frank’s evocative, melancholic lyrics.

We’re extremely proud to be donating all proceeds from the sale of this single to The Loveland Foundation Therapy Fund, which is striving to provide 5,000 hours of free therapy sessions to black women and girls.

The Songmobile

The Songmobile was conceived as a contact-free way to deliver private, personal, live music experiences to folks around the SF Bay Area during California’s shelter-in-place order. These private mini-concerts were our way of sharing music with people at their homes from a safe distance in our car after losing all of our tours and gigs due to the pandemic. Over 2 weeks in March and April, we played 50 stops around the Bay Area and getting to connect with folks in this way was a true gift for us.

We even had some nice press coverage from the SF Chronicle!

While The Songmobile is currently paused, we hope to restart our engines very soon. Please stay tuned with the latest updates here!

We Reached our Goal! Thank you!

We are incredibly excited and grateful to announce that, thanks to you, our new album has been successfully funded! With the help of 183 generous backers, we managed to raise $16,634 which will set us on the path to a successful new album next year.

During this campaign, we have been constantly reminded of the genuine connections we have made through our music and our travels. The people who have opened their hearts and their homes to us, the audience members who have shared their stories and their heartaches with us, the fans who wear our t-shirts to a show, the people anonymously listening to our music that we’ve never met and may never meet - we’re thankful for you all, our beautiful, generous, loving community. 

We can’t wait to share this new music with you and we will be sending you updates along the way.

With gratitude,

Rachel & Thu

Kickstart Our New Album - Dreams! The Dead! Ghost! Future

Today, we are launching a Kickstarter campaign to fund the creation of our next full-length album! Many of you who have seen us live this past year have heard these new songs as we've been road-testing them on tour. They are some of the most personal and fully-realized songs of our career. We are thrilled to finally share them with the world, but we are going to need your help!

Over the last 3 years, we have been touring the country non-stop, and all of the people we've met and places we've seen have inspired these new songs. We are so excited to share this new music with you. You can be a part of this album by contributing to this Kickstarter campaign today!

Click "Learn More" below to watch our Kickstarter video, learn the origin of the album's title, and learn about the perks and rewards you get for contributing to the album.

With Kickstarter, it's all or nothing. So if we do not hit our goal of $16,000 by Friday, November 29th, we will not get any of the funds. So your pledge will ensure the success of this album.

Thank you so much for all your love and support. It is because of you that we keep going and we cannot wait to share this new music with you!

Announcing the HPPR Music Ambassador Tour this October!

This October we are absolutely thrilled to be partnering with High Plains Public Radio for a three-week tour through Kansas and Texas, in towns we have never been to before! We’re so excited to be bringing our show to these towns and teaching some local songwriting workshops too.

This tour is part of HPPR’s ongoing mission to further the musical arts in the high plains region through the HPPR Living Room Concert series.

By providing this creative space, HPPR’s Living Room Concerts:

-- support independent regional artists and touring musicians passing through the High Plains. These shows help put our region "on the map" for great live performances.

-- ensure an affordable, accessible, smoke-free performance without distractions, allowing the artists to give their best performance for an appreciative, respectful audience.

-- provide our listeners with music they are not hearing anywhere else in our region

-- encourage like-minded music lovers to build relationships, with station partners, artists, and one another.

-- increase community exposure to the arts. Our concerts cover a wide variety of acts – from veteran musical masters to emerging artists. Without our series, many of these performers would have a hard time finding an outlet for exposure in our region.  

For more information on the Living Room Concerts series and our HPPR Music Ambassador tour, visit hppr.org.

Our Tiny Desk Contest Entry Was Featured on NPR This Week!

Last month, along with thousands of other musicians from around the world, we entered NPR's Tiny Desk Contest with our video and song, "Drowsy Driver." This morning, we found out that our video was featured along with five other amazing musicians in the category of “Desks in the Wild” (i.e. videos filmed outdoors).

Here's an excerpt of what NPR said about our entry:

“The rolling hills in California make a stunning backdrop for The Singer And The Songwriter's entry video for "Drowsy Driver," almost as beautiful as the detailed lyrics of the song. Chirping birds sing along to Rachel Garcia's comforting voice and Thu Tran's folksy guitar.”

Now we need your help! Please click the button below and vote for us as your fan favorite “Desks in the Wild” before the end of the week! Wish us luck and thank you!

2019 Tiny Desk Contest Entry - Drowsy Driver

It’s that time of year again! Tiny Desk season is upon us which means thousands of independent musicians from all around the world create video entries in hopes of getting to play a coveted Tiny Desk Concert at NPR’s office in Washington, DC.

This year, we are throwing our hat into the ring with a brand new song called “Drowsy Driver.” We’re so proud of this song which has taken us almost two years to complete. The idea started when Rachel saw a road sign in Salt Lake City, UT that read “Don’t be a drowsy driver - pull over” and thought it would make for a good song. On tour, there are many days where Rachel drives for 8-10 hours straight, so she is often a drowsy driver. A strange thing happens when you drive for that long, which is you start to hallucinate a bit - common things on the road start to resemble other things. So she compiled this ongoing list of images and just kept adding to it for nearly two years.

Meanwhile, Thu was playing around with this guitar line that was based around a clawhammer technique (to see an amazing example of this technique, check out this video of Molly Tuttle). Eventually, we put all of this together and “Drowsy Driver” was born. The song is told from the perspective of the road, presenting these various images to the drowsy drivers as small gifts of encouragement, watching over them, and gently guiding them all safely to their destination.

We hope you love this song as much as we do, and if you do, please give it a like and a share! And wish us luck for the Tiny Desk Contest this year!

Live Performance at Norman's Rare Guitars

We had an amazing time performing our new song, The Work, at Norman’s Rare Guitars in Los Angeles last month. True to its namesake, Norman’s is an incredible trove of incredible vintage instruments so it was very difficult for Thu to choose one to play for this video. He finally settled on a 1941 Martin D-18 which had a beautiful resonance. It was an honor to play on this famous couch that so many other amazing artists have graced. Check out all of their other amazing performances on their YouTube channel!

New Artistic Collaborations - The Wonderheads & Break Form Podcast

One of the most rewarding things that we get to do is collaborate with other artists that we admire. We've always appreciated this artistic exchange - from the musicians on our records to the visual artists who contribute to our album art - we are endlessly inspired by artists of other disciplines and media. That's why we are over the moon about two recent collaborations to which we've had the honor of contributing our music. 

The first is with the award-winning physical theatre company, The Wonderheads, who specialize in mask performance and exquisite visual storytelling. Think living cartoon. Created by Kate Braidwood and Andrew Phoenix, their work has been described as “Utter magic” (CBC), “Powerful, surprising and moving” (The Globe and Mail), and “Fantastic, in every sense of the word” (Cincinnati Enquirer). Their latest show is called "The Wilds" and we had the privilege to contribute 8 songs across our catalog of music to help tell this imaginative love story. They are currently performing at The Winnipeg Fringe Festival and will be touring later in the summer The Edmonton Fringe Festival and the Victoria Fringe Festival! Tickets and information at http://www.wonderheads.com/thewilds/

We were also interviewed on the latest episode of the podcast Break Form. This podcast was created by Annette Wong and Sarah Woo, two former(ish) lawyers turned writers, who explore their career transitions away from law, and, through conversations, discuss and challenge conventional narratives about career, creativity, and success. We had the opportunity to sit down and talk with Annette about touring, our artistic process and…. SURPRISE!… our brand new instrumental single, Vis Viva! 

Earlier this year, we composed a piece of music which is our very first wordless creation, and we’re so proud to be unveiling it on Break Form, and contributing it as their new theme song. The single will be available on all digital platforms on July 27th, but if you want to hear an early sneak peek of the song ahead of its official release, listen to Episode 11 of Break Form, and make sure to click subscribe so you can hear all of their episodes.

New Video: Tiny Desk Contest 2018 Entry - The Work

What better way to debut a brand new song than entering it into NPR's Tiny Desk Contest? This is a new song called, "The Work" and we are thrilled to be sharing it with you. We always love "Tiny Desk Season" when we get to see all the other amazing independent musicians' submissions - it reminds us of the wonderful community we get to be a part of. Please enjoy "The Work."

Kansas City Folk Festival

We just got back from Kansas City, MO where we attended our very first Folk Alliance International (FAI) Conference. For those who are not familiar, FAI is an annual gathering of artists, agents, promoters, house concerts, festivals and industry professionals in the folk music world. It's inspiring and overwhelming to be among such accomplished, talented people - but also invigorating to find this incredible community of music lovers/creators.

We went to Kansas City for the FAI Conference, but also to perform at the Kansas City Folk Festival, which is open to the public and concludes the week-long folk festivities. We performed on the FAI Regions stage, representing the FAR-West region, which covers California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming, Alaska and Hawaii, as well as Alberta, British Columbia, Yukon and Northwest Territories in Canada. This was one of the biggest shows we've ever played, which was nerve-wracking, but we were honored to have had the opportunity to represent our region of FAI.

Huge thanks to Playlistplay for their lovely review of the festival and of our performance: 

The duo create soft melodic songs, that could just as easily exist as poems. Beautiful and full of soul and emotion, the quaint pair swept the audience away; first time listeners and long-term fans.

Read the full review and see a photo gallery of the festival performances here.

Music Video - Wild Heart, featuring The Company

We're so proud to share the music video for our song "Wild Heart.” We had the great privilege of working with The Company on this project, whose incredible choreography, passion and artistry brought this song to life in a beautiful way, and we could not be prouder of this video. We've been long-time fans of The Company and it was a dream-come-true to work with them. 

The song was inspired by Rachel's grandmother who, as a young girl in Mexico, used to sneak onto trains with her friends to steal the sugar cane that was drying on top of the cars. That image of her as young girl has always stuck with us - just how vibrant and fearless she was. This song is a testament to that courageous, rebellious spirit. We hope this song resonates with you, and empowers young women to be strong, brave, wild and free.

We also hope you’ll share the video with the courageous and powerful women in your life. 

"Wild Heart" is currently available for purchase and streaming on Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes, CD Baby and all other major platforms. The video is available on Youtube.

"Give Love" for a Good Cause and Holiday Tour

UPDATE: Thank you to everyone who purchased the song and donated to the campaign. We were able to make generous donations to both organizations this past month. We hope you'll continue to follow and support these organizations - we definitely will!

We are very excited to announce that through the month of December, all proceeds from our song “Give Love” will be donated to MADRE and Girls Rock Camp. We are passionate about the missions of these two organizations and think they are doing valuable work. Click below to purchase and download the song on your preferred listening platform while supporting two great causes. We hope you can join us in giving and getting more love this holiday season!

Learn more about the organizations here: https://www.madre.org and http://girlsrockcampalliance.org/ 

Purchase the song here: 

Bandcamp: https://thesingerandthesongwriter.bandcamp.com/track/give-love

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/give-love/1277969776?i=1277969780

We’ll also be playing a string of California shows this month as part of our Give Love Holiday Tour to spread the word about these organizations. 

12.02 - San Luis Obispo, CA - Luna Red

12.03 - Cambria, CA - Cambria Christmas Market

12.07 - Larkspur, CA - Marin Country Mart

12.09 - Alameda, CA - Off the Grid Market

12.09 - Novato, CA - Mantra Wines

12.13 - San Luis Obispo, CA - House Concert

12.14 - Carmel, CA - Barmel

12.15 - San Luis Obispo - Palm Theatre - Get Tickets!

12.16 - Cambria, CA - Cambria Christmas Market

12.17 - Cambria, CA - Cambria Christmas Market

12.21 - Larkspur, CA - Marin Country Mart

The Reviews are in for DIRECTIONS....

Have you heard what critics and blogs are saying about our new EP, DIRECTIONS? We're honored to have received some really thoughtful and kind praise from publications we admire like The Huffington Post, Elite Muzik and Indie Band Guru! 

We've compiled some of our favorite quotes below for you to check out!

"Garcia’s voice commands attention. It reminds me of Adele, but exhibits more resonance and luminous texture than Adele’s. It’s rich and mellow, strong and elegant, delicate and turbulent, all at the same time. Candidly, it’s one of the best female voices around. In short, it’s nonpareil
[...] 
Directions radiates gorgeously contagious melodies, palpitating rhythms and luscious harmonies and, of course, Garcia’s unparalleled voice." 

 - The Huffington Post

“If America is the land of the iconic road trip then this is its perfect soundtrack.”

 - Scene and Heard

“...this is a band whose approach to music is as broad minded as is their love of exploring the world around them. If only their were more people like them, the world would be a friendlier and more understanding, not to mention musically diverse, sort of place.”

 - Dancing About Architecture

“The Singer and the Songwriter are at it again, making the world a more peaceful place through music.”

 - Indie Band Guru

“If you regularly find yourself singing in the cosy confines of your car, then you’ll be hard-pressed to find a better soundtrack to enhance your journey experience.
[...]
The Singer and The Songwriter have ushered us into their beautiful world of being on the road and drawing inspiration from this experience.”

- Sputnik Music

Listen to the album here! Buy/download it here! Or get a physical copy here!

Wanna read more? Check out links to the full articles (and then some!) below:

Pasadena Weekly

The Huffington Post

Rock and Roll Infinity

The Music. Review

Scene and Heard - Single Review

Dancing About Architecture - Album Review

Elite Muzik

Andrea Caccese

Independent Clauses

Indie Band Guru

Stepkid.com

Sputnik Music