I’m Not Scared of Anything except……

Buy the “I’M NOT SCARED” CD and get access to the exclusive web page with the 13 minute FULL VIDEO (made by Sarah Mac and our good friend/webmaster/video editor Jeremy)!

 

SMB Joins Campaign to SAVE PASTE MAGAZINE

Our most recent single “Burden Beast” is included in the SAVE PASTE Campaign. We are beyond excited to be in the company of Over the Rhine, Emmylou Harris, Indigo Girls, The Decembrists, Ben Folds, Bettye LaVette, Neko Case, and MANY other amazing artists! Donate a few dollars to Paste Magazine and get lots of free song downloads!

New Boyfriend

After a long awaited (and much appreciated) break week, we were back on the road this weekend. We were in Atlanta on Thursday night, playing at the 500 Songs for Kids event. It was fun, as usual. I’m always impressed by how tight of a ship they run up there at Smith’s Olde Bar when they’re doing ten consecutive nights of fifty bands per night. If you think about the massive amount of preparation needed to accomodate that many people and keep them moving in and out in a timely manner without a cattle prod, it could almost insight a panic attack. But, the guys there (a big shout out to our buddy Jed who works there and always treats us well and makes sure that we’re set soundwise) really do a fantastic job of supporting the artists, the foundation and making it an easy, stress free environment for us. 

I cannot even begin to explain how much of a relief that is. As much as most of the people who work in venues are accustomed to working with artists and anticipating and accomodating their needs, it’s a very dynamic environment. Things are always changing, things are always unexpectedly arising and screwing up the plan, equipment is always breaking, and sometimes the last half hour before a show is the very embodiment of what I expect that Hell is like. The staff at Smith’s and the volunteers and staff for the foundation really did a good job of mitigating any weird issues and presenting a very professional and well run event. Please check out their website and make a donation.

We spent the night in Atlanta and then had a leisurely morning, and in what has become our Atlanta trip tradition, dined at my favorite restaurant,  the Flying Biscuit Cafe. We then took the road for Birmingham. 

I have a hard time staying awake in a moving car (not if I’m driving though). Claire and Charlie sit in the front seats of the van and chit-chat… sports… performance enhancing drug baseball bannings… stock market… Lady GaGa… Terry Bowden… the unveiling of the third generation Prius… and I sit alone in the back, drifting in and out of consciousness, lulled to sleep by the vibrations of the car and the constant droning of a language that I pretty much don’t understand. 

Kind of like a dog, my ears perk up when I hear my name, because that’s just about the only word I understand when they have elevated car conversation.  For some reason though, the word “Talladega” was one of those words that passed through my ears and rang a bell somewhere deep in the recesses of my brain. I awoke just in time to see Claire taking a picture of a huge race track right there on the side of the road next to the interstate highway. Although I’ve only ever seen snippets of the Will Farrell movie Talladega Nights on TBS marathons, I have seen enough to understand the idea behind the movie. And.. it blew my mind that the race track was in fact real! So I wanted to stop and check it out. Since when on tour, we’re journey people instead of destination people, Charlie and Claire obliged me and we stopped.

We didn’t so much make it to the actual race track, but in keeping with the “cars” theme, we stopped at the gas station just down the road. It happened as I was perusing the 3/$10 Alabama souvineer t-shirts and buying my awesome new camoflauge baseball cap that says, “God, guns and guts made America free, let’s keep all three.” I saw him… my new boyfriend…

I’ve heard stories from other rock stars about conquests on the road. And I do sing a naughty song about breaking up somebody’s home, but I just never though that it would happen to me…

It was sweet and over too soon. We never spoke, but when I looked into his eyes, I knew. I don’t even know his name, but I know that we had Something Beautiful.* And at the time, when I realized that Claire was invading our totally private, personal moment there in the Stop ‘n’ Shop, I was irritated. But she is my best friend and she was totally looking out for me and knew that I would want to savor that moment for the rest of my life, so she snapped a photo with her iPhone. And since I’m so happy and blissful after meeting my perfect match, I thought that I would share with you too, our extended family. 

Behold, my new boyfriend…

. 

Next weekend, we’re playing in Port Orange, just south of Daytona Beach, which I’m told houses another race track. So, I’m hoping against all hope that his work will take him to where my work is, and we might meet once again. Keep your fingers crossed!!!

* We’re completely sold out of Burden Beast singles and the new Something Beautiful singles will open up for sale this week. Keep checking your inbox for the exclusive pre-order link if you’re on our email list. If not, check the myspace, blog and website to find out when they’re available!!

Something Beautiful

Hi everyone! I hope that your gardens are growing well… all of your little seedlings found good ground to put roots down in and didn’t get washed away in the storm yesterday. I was so excited about everyone’s response to the seedling adoption party that we had at our Warehouse show last weekend! Yay, you! Don’t forget that it’s been scientifically proven by thousands of third grade science fair projects that talking to your plants makes them grow better.
In other news, I’ve been getting lots of questions about the next single in A Single Revolution lately…

1.What’s the next song?

2.When will it be released?

3.What does it feel like to wake up every morning and know that you guys are the most prolific and influential songwriters of this era?

Here are the answers:

1. The next song to be released is “Something Beautiful.” It’s an oldie, but a goodie. We wrote it several years ago, but never felt like we quite had it where we wanted it. Then, when we started working with Dave at Winterstone Productions, we finally felt like we got the song to a place that really fit us. Or as Charlie likes to say, “we found the song.” So, thanks to Dave, the next song to be released in our little musical revolution will be “Something Beautiful.”

2. As we said before, we’re releasing the second single in the revolution once we’ve sold out of the first one. I don’t know how soon that will be… honestly, I don’t even know the exact numbers right now. But over the weekend, I checked the box, and I think that there were about 15 of the limited edition “Burden Beast” singles remaining. And I delivered another one to a proud new owner this morning. My advice would be to go ahead and order it if you’re still considering it. Otherwise, you might lose your opportunity in the next few days. And obviously, given the fact that “Burden Beasts” are disappearing at a pretty good clip, I would expect “Something Beautiful” to hit the market sometime in the next few weeks (however, that’s more of a Sarah Mac Band business team question… and by business team, I mean Claire and Charlie).

3. I made that question up… people don’t really ask us that. Although if they sincerely did ask that, I’d probably be so shocked that I wouldn’t be able to formulate an answer.

What I can answer is the next question that you didn’t ask: “How do you feel about the new single, Sarah?”
I’m really excited about bringing “Something Beautiful” out to meet everyone. For one thing, it’s both my sister’s and my dad’s favorite Sarah Mac Band song. That immediately gives it some special significance. But on top of that, it’s been giving me lots to think about lately.

Outside of gardens, Ed Harris, and Jeannie, from Sleepin’ Dogz (all universally considered beautiful by those who encounter them), I don’t know what else might qualify as “something beautiful” to others. I talked to Claire about it and then we decided that we would open it up to you, our fans, family and friends, to see what you think. Part of it is just out of curiosity and another chance to foster togetherness with you guys. The other part of it is to gauge your taste. I mean, you like us, or you wouldn’t be following our blog– so we want to see if your ideas of beautiful, pleasant looking/feeling/sounding/tasting (and I guess) smelling things match our ideas. Isn’t that an interesting experiment?

I don’t really know how we’ll do this. Originally, I thought that you could email us a photo (please make sure that it’s not a dirty photo, I might get a little creeped out by that) at info [at] sarahmacband [dot] com and we would start a “Something Beautiful” photo album section on our website (yeah, I haven’t told our webmaster about this yet). But, maybe it could be more than photos, maybe poetry and little thoughts, I don’t know. Be creative and we’ll find a way to accomodate that.

Okay, well.. who’s excited? Me. And hopefully you. I’m leaving you with some of my personal beautiful somethings. Although, honestly, I don’t actually own a camera, so these beautiful somethings are photos that I ripped off of my friends’ facebook pages…

 

family dinners

 

puppies (when they're not pooping on the floor)

flowers on your back porch

cannonballs

And now for your submissions…..keep them coming!

 

PICS: Early March 2009

The Crimson Moon. Dahlonega, GA. March 8, 2009

The Engine Room (w/ Miss Tess). Tallahassee, FL. March 12, 2009.

Miss Tess. The Engine Room. Tallahassee, FL. March 12, 2009.

The Crimson Moon. Dahlonega, GA. March 8, 2009

The Engine Room (w/ Miss Tess). Tallahassee, FL. March 12, 2009.

The Crimson Moon. Dahlonega, GA. March 8, 2009

The Crimson Moon. Dahlonega, GA. March 8, 2009

MoDaddy’s. Asheville, NC. March 7, 2009.

A Single Revolution…Coming March 14th!

MORE big news from SMB land!  By now, you’ve probably heard rumors about “A Single Revolution.”  Well…. here’s what all the talk has been about.

 

Let’s hearken back to the days of old, and by that we mean the 1950’s and 1960’s.  Some of you may not remember this time. It was definitely a different musical landscape from today, an era characterized by the ‘old 45’ record.  The release of a single 45 by a band was always the coolest, biggest news and source of excitement.

Over the next few months, the Sarah Mac Band will borrow from said past era and release a series of singles. We have been feverishly working on new material and have several songs that we’re recording to share with our fans. We call it “ A Single Revolution,”  a series of singles that will ultimately take you on a magical, musical Macband journey.

One of the big challenges we faced with project is the expense. It is very costly to release a series of singles. Since we’re all ‘indie’ and ‘do it yourself,’ we don’t have a big record label to underwrite our costs. We do, however, have loyal fans… Fans who have been there since the beginning, spreading the word, telling their friends, hanging out after shows, sending us encouraging emails, and always showing up, rain or shine (seriously… who remembers last summer?). Since we like you best, we thought that it would be fun if you, our fans, became our record label. Together, we’re going to pull this one off.

On March 14th at Potbelly’s in Tallahassee, we will release the first single of the Revolution, our new song ‘Burden Beast.’ You may recall it from recent shows. With the recording, we have created a new and exciting interpretation of this song.

You may wonder how you could help finance this recording. We have already paid for ‘Burden Beast’ and will offer it as a free download on our website for 2 weeks after the release date.  This is our gift to the fans that follow us, stick with us, and get our e-newsletter. Let’s face it; you guys are the reason we still exist.  After 2 weeks it will be available for purchase on iTunes,  but the email list fans will already have it for free. (See… there ARE advantages to being on the email list!)

There will also be a select few who will also have the opportunity to help finance the next single. We will press a limited run of 100 CDs of ‘Burden Beast.’  Each CD will be numbered for authenticity, signed by the band and sold for $10.

$10 may seem like a lot for just one song, but ultimately you are getting much more than a CD with one song on it. First, it is one of only 100 limited edition singles that will be sold. We will never press any more of this CD no matter what we are offered. With the purchase of a CD, you also receive a password that will give you access to a special place on our website containing videos and extras about ‘Burden Beast’ and ‘A Single Revolution.’

More importantly, your $10 will be used to finance thenext single. When we sell the 100 ‘Burden Beast” recordings, we will put out the next single… Thanks in large part to our financial backers (that would be you). The new CD will list the people who made it possible, our record label, namely, the ones who bought the first CD.

We are NOW taking pre-orders for the first limited edition CD ‘Burden Beast’ of the Revolution.  If you order first, you get CD #1 and so on.  Once they are gone, there will be no more. Delaying could cause you to miss out until the next single.

And… now you know… Let’s work together and start A Single Revolution sponsored by the fans instead of the record labels. Get moving now and be a part of the Revolution!

To PRE-ORDER your copy of BURDEN BEAST, visit the SMB Online Store!  FREE SHIPPING! 

Thanks for your encouragement and support!

Peace Out,
SMB