L'Etage!

photo: Lisa Schaffer

We had such a great time playing for everyone at L'Etage in Philly last weekend. It was soooo cold... many thanks to all who came out, in spite of the weather! It was truly special for me to have so many dear friends, family, fellow artists, and collaborators present. Big thanks to Lisa Schaffer for documenting the evening; there will be more pics on the website soon.

In focusing on the songs and introducing everyone on the stage, I forgot to say much at all about the fact that we were releasing the new album! Duh! I even nearly forgot to announce the video premiere at the end... my brain was just a bit overwhelmed, because of moments like this:

Jim Gallagher, me, Jeff Hiatt, Tim Daoust - thanks for the pic, Jay Levin :)

Here I am with the producers from both of my albums, plus Tim Daoust with whom I've been working for so long on the live stuff now. After spending so much time in the world of my songs with these wonderful people, something like that is just kind of intense.

I am so very grateful to the musicians who are performing these album release shows with me. Rehearsing between Philly and NYC is a bit of a challenge but whatever. I can't wait to bring the show to Drom in NYC this Thursday night.

swallows fly today

 The new album is here! Have a listen:

Philly love

There's a kind of love song to Philadelphia on this album. I don't know how much to tell you about it...

golden eye of Broad Street

more practical magic

I'm grateful to have met some supercool fellow artists here in NYC through playing at a few open mics that Tim Daoust and I have been frequenting.  Once in a while lately I've been dropping by The National Underground on a Saturday afternoon to hear the wonderful Kelli King and her band play their regular slot there, along with a few other open mic friends who sometimes show up as her guests.

Kelli, Ash & Tom singing us a train track lullaby

Sometimes I help out my real-life magical friend the incredible East Village Magic Man who does a bit of magishing in between Kelli's sets.

Kelli also hands out some magical items of her own once in a while.

snowy warm up

Woke up to a sunny, frosted-over day, hearing the crunch of snow shovels outside...




Heading into the city in a little while to play a set at Caffe Vivaldi and help our friend Tania Stavreva raise funds for her debut album. We are planning to kind of rock out more today but we'll have to see what people are in the mood for with their brunch!

album release parties!

It's finally time to announce our two big album release events. I am super psyched to be performing both of these shows with a full band, featuring some wonderful musicians who appear on the Circles of Swallows album. These will be two very special evenings and I really hope that you can make it out to at least one of them!

Sunday, February 17th in Philadelphia:

Circles of Swallows album release and video premiere at L'Etage
Facebook event page for Philly release party
Get tickets: http://www.lacyjames.com/tickets

Thursday, February 28th in New York City:

Circles of Swallows album release and video premiere at Drom
Facebook event page for NYC release party
Get tickets: http://www.ticketfly.com/event/208167

At both events we will also be premiering the official music video for "Old Languages" -- revealing the top secret story line that we came up with during our two-day video shoot last May. It wasn't so easy to find a venue in Manhattan that could also project video, but we finally found Drom -- an awesome club in the East Village that is a longtime presenter of eclectic music. We're super excited to play there! And it's a large venue -- so please come out if you can and help us to fill it up!

Winter Solstice

It seems that a FB friend is posting from the cave at Newgrange, so this is my Solstice morning:

woa the light is beaming to me through my screen -- thanks Karl!