The Nields Newsletter 
January
 2015
Last Month of Pledge! 
Happy New Year!!!
Here in Nieldsland, 2015 is the year of XVII--our new album available early at PledgeMusic. And we have only 18 days left in our campaign! People: we need you, our best and truest fans, to help us spread the word! More on that below.

We, once again, had the great pleasure of ringing in the new year in our beloved town of Northampton, Massachusetts. First we sang for children who danced and sang and sparkled the way they do. Then we sang for grown ups, who listened, nodded and understood, the way they do. We felt so lucky. I heard this great idea to fill a large jar with exciting or happy moments of the year. As they happen, you just write the fun thing down on a piece of paper and put it in a jar. I did it with my family, but the jar was just filled with the stuff we remembered anyway--the soccer goals scored, the concerts played, the plays performed, etc. But today, I heard the idea that you are to put in a happy moment from every day. So sometimes that moment is the way the sun hits your face or the way your son's dirty hair smells or the way that harmony felt when you sang with your sister. The normal everyday stuff, but noticed and transcribed onto a scrap of paper to join hundreds of other scraps. Then, instead of waiting til the new year and starting over, you just pull out a handful whenever you are feeling blue. Elizabeth Gilbert calls
this a Happiness Jar. You know us and our love of the full catastrophe--not every piece needs to be happy. It just needs to be.

  
This January we are playing at the fabulous Steeple Coffeehouse in Southborough, MA on Saturday the 10th. We love the Steeple. The sound is fab and the snacks are delicious. Plus the Mercadentes who run the joint are music lovers extraordinaire. If you have never come to the Steeple, we highly recommend it. Plus we'll do some sweet tunes from our forthcoming record!

On January 24th, we are headed down to Old Lyme, CT to play a couple of shows at a wonderful new (to us!) venue, St Ann's Episcopal church.  We'll do a children's show at 4 and a grown up show at 7.  There will be a pasta dinner in between if you feel like hanging out and meeting each other. Really, we love to play music. We love to sing and write and perform, and of course we enjoy all the clapping. But most of all, we like the idea that the music we make might provide an opportunity for some community.  Come meet some other music loving folks and hang with us! What a great New Year's Resolution. 

Did you notice that thing I said about our NEW RECORD????  XVII is coming out on Groundhogs Day, February 2, 2015. But you can get a digital copy sent right to your email inbox before the CDs are even printed if you go pre-order the CD from our PledgeMusic site. You will also be treated to some videos of exclusive Nields singing: mostly in Nerissa's living room, but once on the streets of Northampton. Or you could pledge a little more than the $15 for the digital download and get some fun Nieldsy treats, like the album outtakes or a birthday message videoed and sent to whomever you please. OR you could boss the Nields around and make us learn the cover song of your choice. Thanks to you, we are 95% funded as of this writing. 426 of you have pledged. WeBut we need more fans to come to our shows, know our music, spread the word. One of the hopes for XVII is to grow our audience, and we can only do this with your help. Will you forward this newsletter to a friend, or better yet, bring a friend to one of our shows? Or send them a copy of XVII? Or just send them a link to our Wasn't That a Time video. Oh, look! Here it is again!
The Nields Wasn't That A Time
The Nields Wasn't That A Time
We can be "liked" on Facebook and followed on Twitter (we are NerKat). You are our people! Please help us!

Speaking of Twitter, Nerissa will be tweeting ALL of the lyrics to our album in the next two months. Follow us and re-tweet! There will be a big beautiful XVII album release party at the Iron Horse Music Hall with a 6 piece band to celebrate the release of our new record, XVII.  We called it that because it is our 17th record. Whoa. We have been at this a while. There is nothing quite like an Iron Horse show. Come join us on Saturday, February 7 at 7pm. You will not be sorry.

So far, we've made all of our goals for our fundraising organizations, and we'll be announcing when we're doing those benefits shortly. We have one more: The Better Future Project. Read on below to learn more about it. If we are successful, we will do a benefit for them at Nerissa's church in West Cummington

Love, love, love!
Nerissa and Katryna Nields



Nerissa & Katryna_Kris1
We Endorse


Better Future Project was founded in January 2011 by a student leader, a community

leader, and a faith leader to combine their various constituencies together into a powerful, unified movement. Having collaborated across their separate spheres, they decided there was a need for a new organization that would bring these different communities together, and work across 

silos to engage other stakeholders in this important work. 

They began with a single program, Climate Summer, in the summer of 2011. Since then, more than a hundred young people have graduated from Climate Summer. Many alumni are currently spearheading fossil fuel divestment movements on their campuses, and others are now engaged full-time in organizing and climate justice work.

 

In June 2012, BFP launched 350 Massachusetts, a state-wide volunteer climate action network. In the year and a half since its establishment, 350 Massachusetts has grown from a regular meeting of about two dozen people in Cambridge to hundreds of active members in ten nodes (and counting) across the state.


 

BFP has engaged in countless climate and clean energy campaigns over the four years since their founding. They've helped to shut down all the state's coal plants and worked to promote the Cape Wind clean energy project. They started the campaign to make Massachusetts the first state in the nation to divest from fossil fuels and have supported divestment efforts on campuses, in towns and cities and in faith communities across Massachusetts. They're committed to fighting all proposed new gas infrastructure in Massachusetts, including the proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline, the proposed Salem gas plant, the proposed Spectra gas pipeline expansion, and more. 

 

In 2014, we played our annual show at the West Cummington Church, and it was here that we met the Climate Riders who were engaged in this flagship leadership program that involves story-telling, relationship-building, social media, traditional media, event planning, campaign planning, and more, all while living their values and traveling exclusively by bicycle. They had stopped for the night at our church and came to the show. They wrote about it here in their blog.


Fan Of The Month! Stan Yamene!

Stan has been a lovely face in our audience for many years, but I feel I got to know him first at the Homegrown in March 2010, the night my mother-in-law died. He is a dear person, father to twins, and a strong musician, himself. I am always so happy when I get to see this dear person!

1: When did you first see the Nields? 
A Nerissa and Katryna "probe" show at the Homegrown Coffeehouse in Needham in the fall of 2001.  


 

2. Why do you keep coming to their shows?

I love the connection they make with the audience, the interplay between Nerissa and Katryna on stage, and, of course, the great music.  Or, another way to think of it is, at the end of the show, I'm always happier than I went in.


 

3. What are your other favorite bands?

Tori Amos, Regina Spektor, Amanda Palmer, Talking Heads, and lately I've been listening to a lot of Pentatonix's a cappella remixes.


 

4. If you eat bacon, which do you prefer: turkey bacon, soy bacon or pig bacon? If this question is too personal, please feel free to skip it. Bacon can be embarrassing.

Pig bacon.  Terrible for me, but ... it's bacon!


 

5. If you were a Brady, which one would you be? If you were born after 1979, you might not know who the Brady Bunch are, in which case, substitute your own cheesy TV show, but be aware that WE might not know what you are talking about. 

Hmm, didn't watch enough Brady Bunch growing up to have a favorite.  Can I be the professor from Gilligan's Island instead?


 

6. Do you play an instrument or sing? If the latter, who do you most sound like? If the former, what instrument do you wish you could play? 

I can play the piano, and am just getting back to getting started on the guitar.  I played the viola in high school orchestra, but only very badly.


 

7. If you were offered two pills, a red pill and a blue pill, and the red pill made you be able to speak all languages on earth, and the blue pill made you be able to play all the instruments of the earth, which would you take. (There would be no nasty side effects.)

I'd definitely go with the red pill.  Playing all instruments would be amazing, but I think I've gotten more joy from the small experiences I've had communicating with people in different languages.  I'd love to to be able to hear all of those different perspectives and ways of looking at life.


 

8. When you were between the ages of 7-12, what were your obsessions?

Astronomy, computers, and music (oh, and the crazy Japanese superhero shows that were on TV in Hawaii at the time).


 

9. What is your favorite state in the US?

It's a toss-up - I grew up in Hawaii and love so many people and places there, but I live in Massachusetts and really appreciate the abundant educational and cultural opportunities here (like being able to drive over to a Nields show at a local coffeehouse).


 

10. What is your favorite Nields song? Why?

Just one?  Jeremy Newborn Street was probably the first recorded Nields song I heard (after snapping up a number of CDs at the merch table after that first concert), so I have a special affection for that one (and I love Katryna's recorder solo).  According to iTunes, the one I've played the most is 'Heading Home', which I'd never realized, but the lyrics resonate so poignantly that I'll give that the nod.  Of course, if you ask me tomorrow, I'd probably choose something different - I mean - there are 16 albums of amazing tunes to choose from.
Polaroid From the Past

At the West Cummington Church 2014

Ok, not such a blast from the past, but still. If we are successful with our last fundraiser, we will play here and give all the proceeds to Better Future Project.

 

XVII
Nerissa & Katryna Nields's seventeenth album will be released on Feb. 2 2015
What's on it? Glad you asked! We just sequenced it!
1. Love Love Love
2. Wasn't That A Time
3. Treasure in the Rock
4. Normandies
5. River
6. Joe Hill
7. Princess
8. Witness
9. Dave Hayes the Weather Guy
10. As Big As I Am
11. Delilah
12. You Don't Have that Kind of Time
13. Victory

OUTTAKES EP
Joe Hill (Acoustic)
I'm Pretty Sure that My iPhone is Making Me Sick
Lonesome Valley
Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream

Recorded by Kit Karlson and Chip Johnson at Sackamusic in Conway, MA
with Dave Chalfant and Sturgis Cunningham.

Special guests:
Dar Williams
Tracy Grammer
Stephen Kellogg
Lucy Wainwright Roche
Suzzy Roche
Catie Curtis
Rachael Sage
Jennifer Kimball
Steve Yarbro
Dave Hower (!!!!!)
Amelia Chalfant
and more!
Order now from PledgeMusic
Florida Writing Retreat with Nerissa!
Come to Florida in February for a weekend of writing with Nerissa Nields, and see Nerissa & Katryna perform Saturday night at Craftsman House in St. Petersburg!

Nerissa has been running retreats out of her home in Northampton MA and the Adirondacks of upstate NY since 2004. Join her for her first ever Florida retreat, at the studio of our friend Enee Abelman!

  • learn how to create a daily practice
  • find your authentic voice
  • discover your writing community
  • nurture yourself
  • get your work done!

When: Feb. 20-22, 2015

Where: Downtown St. Pete at funky, sweet artist's studio: see pictures!

Time: 5:30pm Friday-noon Sunday

Other: Cost: $200. Bring a laptop, notebook and pen, and a guitar if you are a songwriter!

Write to Nerissand@gmail.com if interested.


 

New CD--XVII--out Feb 2! 
In This Issue
Better Future Project
Fan of the Month: Stan the Fan
Polaroid from the Past
Tour Schedule
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Winter

 

January 10th, 2015 

7:30pm
15 Common Street 
Southborough, MA

 

January 24


32 Lyme Street
Old Lyme, CT
 
860-460-9668

two shows! 
4pm Family Show
7pm Concert


February 7

7:00 pm
20 Center St. 
Northampton, MA 


February 21


2955 Central Avenue 
St. Petersburg, FL
 


February 28


8:00 pm
433 Fern St. West Hartford, CT 


March 7


Cornell University Ithaca,  NY 


March 20


Album release with John Colonna and Amelia Chalfant
two shows: 
7pm and 8:30pm


April 11


7:30 pm Album Release Concert!
47 Palmer St.
 Cambridge, MA 

April 25
 

Full band show! Album Release Concert!
7pm



Click here for complete tour schedule.
 
Photo by Sarah Prall




New Web site is here!

photo by Sarah Prall

 

""The Nields make clever folk pop full of sweet harmonizing." -The New Yorker


photo by Sarah Prall

The Nields offer small moments of joy and sorrow that linger in one's memory as a kind of quiet paean to the mystery of who we are and what it is we are about. Consumable.com
COF4.13
photo by Jake Jacobson

"As the work of the Everly Brothers or the McGarrigle Sisters has amply demonstrated, there are few sounds as sublime as close harmonies rendered by siblings. In the case of western Massachusetts folk rockers the Nields, the siblings are sisters Nerissa and Katryna Nields, and their inimitable vocal blend is a disarming mix of clean folk harmonies and clenched Generation-X angst." -The Chicago Tribune


They're cheery, these two, but not Pollyanna. They know that life is hard, and making art while tending to our other obligations, especially as women, is a painful struggle. The Artery
Nerissa & Katryna_Kris1
photo by Kris McCue
There's a profound state of aesthetic arrest that some singers can put an audience into, and singers like that are worth their weight in gold. Not many bands manage to have two of them. Pop Matters
"A review of a Nields concert described their music as "equal parts Beatles, Cranberries and Joni Mitchell." iTunes

"Guitarist Nerissa has written the clear-eyed, literary lyrics and sister Katryna has provided a gloriously eccentric vocal delivery ......Lots of backward glances and relationship foibles punctuate this quiet collection, which is ideal for harmony addicts and dreamers alike"           -- Billboard Magazine 


 

"If there's one constant here, it's The Nields sisters' beautifully sweet vocal harmonies that sound eerily like the Roches singing Lush in a really big room. It's infectious stuff."-Austin Chronicle


"...a gentle explosion of high-strung harmonies and spare arrangements of songs that snap like cinnamon sticks. They ride their dynamics from literally whispered passages over tick-tocking sidestick or no drums at all, up to electric squalls that push Katryna and sister Nerissa Nields' vocals without overwhelming them."-Musician Magazine


Tomorrow, Saturday  Oct. 6, we will be live-streaming our upcoming concert

 

"The Nields rank among the upper echelon of today's original acts, with emphasis on the word 'original'...Five individuals whose pooled talent has resulted in one of the best new sounds to emerge in America in recent memory." -Island Ear, New York

 

N&KFRFF13

 

"The marvelously expressive Katryna and Nerissa Nields provide vocals sounding at various times very much like the Bangles, the Roches and ...Alanis Morrissette...a delightful discovery."-Chicago Tribune