Swear and Shake Goes Sledding

Snow Day

Swear and Shake can't take anything seriously. Here's some photography by Chris Weger we did after the last snow storm:

Let's Kick Fire in Mexico

Hi all, Adam here.

I haven't been a solo artist for about a year now, but my last solo record, "Let's Kick Fire," seemed to take on a life of its own over the past few months. Here's the story starting from the beginning:

In February of 2009, I released an album of original music titled, "Let'sKick Fire," which featured ten stripped-down songs written, performed, and produced by myself. It was released under a Creative CommonsAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license, and after some research and outreach, I came upon a few blogs and websites with enough clout to effectively spread the word about "Let's Kick Fire" all over the Web. I made the album available as a free download on FrostClick (which will soon be hosting Swear and Shake's EP as well), and thus attracted the attention of like-minded, free-culture-loving listeners, including a few torrent seeders that pushed my download hits into the thousands. After making my tunes available on Jamendo (an international CC content site), I began to receive electronic comments from new fans in the United States, Mexico, and Europe: every morning, I would find myself translating comments and messages about my music in French, German and Spanish.

Time passed and I attempted to push the record a bit more, but ultimately new projects, new musicians, and college graduation took precedent in my life, and I assumed that although I had accomplished a great deal with "Let's Kick Fire", it was pretty much tapped. This fall, however, I was offered a unique opportunity: "Entretenimiento," anentertainment blog based in Chiapas, Mexico, got a hold of my record and asked to do an online interview. The questions they asked were specific to the "Let's Kick Fire" project, and I could tell that the interviewer was genuinely interested in my songwriting. Only a few days after posting the interview, Entretenimiento presented me with a very unique opportunity, and I am happy to announce, after a month of planning, that from February 27 to March 8, I will be flying to Estado Libre y Soberano de Chiapas (Free and Sovereign State of Chiapas) to perform a series of shows as a solo artist, judge a battle-of-the-bands, give a lecture on my work with the Creative Commons, and travel to public schools to play for music for the young Chiapanecos.

So that's it: I'm brushing up on my Spanish, rehearsing the songs from my record (many of which haven't been performed in over a year), having my album art and liner notes translated, and eagerly anticipating anything and everything that Mexico has to throw my way. And Shaun is coming too.

"Asi que pateemos Feugo!" (Let's Kick Fire. . . sort of)

Adam

P.S. The album will always be available for free digital download here.

P.P.S. Look at how strange this place is:

Patterns

Here's a cool little video of drummer Tom Elefante and friend Samuel Aaron Bennett trying to work out a feel for a new verse.

Happy Friday

Looking for something to do Saturday night? You should probably consider coming out to Spike Hill in Williamsburg and grabbing a bite, having a drink, getting slimed, and enjoying a few bands. Albany-based Around the World & Back teams up with Swear & Shake and our good friends Julius C and The Nightmare River Band to make some noise for y'all. We're excited to play with these guys and show you a few new tunes. We'll be hanging so show your face and shoot the poop for a bit. Doors are at 7:30pm, we hit at 8.

Swear and Shake in Newsday

We're super proud and excited that we got a good bit of press this weekend. Here is a link to a piece on Swear and Shake written by Newsday's Glenn Gamboa. It includes excerpts from an interview that Gamboa did with Adam McHeffey. Alright!

LI Sound: Swear and Shake's 'Johnnie' be good

Photo credit: Jessica Lehrman | Center Moriches-based band Swear and the Shake will play Spike Hill at 184 Bedford Ave. in Brooklyn on Jan. 15, 2011.

Spike Hill

Holy cow! Post #1.

We have a show coming up in Brooklyn with good friends The Nightmare River Band and Julius C and others!

Here's the flier: