So look out for Ring, recorded at Ol Elegante and produced by Lester Nuby III, to be released on Skybucket Records on August 14th, digitally, on CD and VINYL!

Thank you times one hundred million.

As you may know, Janet has been working for the last year and a half with one of the greatest songwriters in America, James Jackson Toth, aka Wooden Wand. She performed on the album Briarwood released in 2011, and just finished recording on another Wooden Wand album earlier this year. Having now done two tours with WW, she and James have made great friends. As a result, she sent him an early copy of the upcoming Ring. James loved it so much, he mentioned it in Magnet Magazine this week! This is a huge honor for the band to have such an endorsement.

Look for two more Wooden Wand shows with James, Janet and the entire gang from the most recent recording in May in Nashville and Louisville opening for none other than Lee Ranaldo! More details on that soon, so keep checking back!

I’m back from an adventurous tour as the backup musician for the amazing, prolific wordsmith, Wooden Wand. Together, WW and I shared the bill and a tour vehicle with anti-folk wonderment Jeffrey Lewis, whose unflappable good nature stood as an inspiration for the two of us as we faced tour debacle after tour debacle, all revolving around broken down vehicles and the “merriment” of SXSW. 

It was a great honor to tour with each of these men, whose wisdom was invaluable, whose sense of humor was limitless, and whose songwriting and performing was truly inspiring. I found myself continuously humbled by their mighty talents and keen minds. I am so grateful to have had three of the most strenuous tour weeks of my career with these two guys, both of whom I miss sorely, already.

That said, it’s a great thing to be back in my hometown, rehearsing with Delicate Cutters! We’re gearing up for some home state shows, beginning in the town where we were born, Montevallo, AL, this Saturday, March 31 at Eclipse Coffee & Books. After that, you can catch us at The Nick on Sunday, April 8th with The Driftwood Singers. Next, we’ll be at the Southsounds Music Festival on April 14th and 15th in Mobile. More dates will be announced very soon! 

Stay in touch!

Janet & Delicate Cutters

We had a great time! We especially want to mention the amazing hospitality and support we got at The Mockingbird Cafe in Tallahassee, FL, where they fed us like kings and had a full house of music lovers in attendance. Tallahassee is a great town! We can’t wait to go back. After that, we were graciously hosted by Central Square Records in Santa Rosa, FL for an in-store. The folks at Central Square did their homework and had the place packed out on a Saturday afternoon. We’ll be getting back down there for our upcoming release, for sure! We also want to mention the kindness of a few strangers – including the inimitable Mike Stinson and his amazing band and the kind folks at Rudyard’s in Houston, the crew at Lola’s in Fort Worth, James at Beauty Bar in Austin, as well as Austin bands Western Ghost House and John Wesley Coleman, and last, but certainly not least of all on this tour, the amazing crew and patrons of Maxine’s Live in Hot Springs, AR, a new favorite of Delicate Cutters! All the people and places we’ve mentioned went above and beyond call in some way, showing us real hospitality and knowing what we needed before even we did. We can’t wait to get back out there and revisit all of you.

And now, the new news. Janet is in her last day of rehearsal for tour with Fire Records artist Wooden Wand. They’ll be on their way out to SXSW starting Tuesday, March 6th, passing through Nashville, Atlanta, Huntsville, Birmingham and Shreveport en route to Texas. If you can’t make it to Austin for the annual industry debacle that is the SXSW festival, make sure to catch them on their way there or back home. Look for a complete list of tour dates HERE.

Once Janet returns home, Delicate Cutters will be getting ready for the upcoming release of their third album, Ring, slated to be unleashed this Summer. Look for videos, teasers, and more!

That said, we are now in the mixing phase of our upcoming album, Ring, at Ol Elegante Studios. Engineer, producer and the all around savvy Les Nuby III has put his own personal touches on the record, making this, our third release, something wholly new. We can’t wait for you to hear it! We’ve already got the beautiful cover art by Birmingham’s own Megan Kimber. Guest musicians on the album include David Hickox (Broken Letters, The Gum Creek Killers), James P. Fahy (Teen Getaway), Opal South (Trees With Bells, Ferocious Bubbles) and Daniel Farris (Lunasect). We’re talking about a June release, so keep your fingers crossed we can stay on track.

In the meantime, we’re a mere two weeks away from our January tour, during which we’ll be looping around from Georgia to Florida and onward to Texas, stopping through Louisiana and Arkansas en route. Visit our SHOWS page to view specific dates and venues.

By the by, we’re feeling extra inspired by all of our Alabama friends, musical and otherwise. We, along with some other fantastic Alabama musicians, have been nominated for both “Best Album” and “Best Song” this year on Mod Mobilian.  Check out the full list and vote HERE. In the words of our friends from This Is American Music, it’s simply too much awesome to have to choose from. What a tremendous blessing to be in a place with such a wealth of talent.

Lastly, we just want to mention that we are getting some shows together for a Southern tour in January. So far, we’ve confirmed Savannah, GA and Denton, TX, but many more are on the way! Be sure to stay tuned…

Cutters take a break at 8th & Rail while Janet plays a couple of solo tunes.

In other news, we’re working on a nice January trip out on the road, where we will be hitting some of our favorite towns from Texas to Florida to Georgia to Tennessee.  Check back in a few weeks for details!

It takes a lot to put an album together and so many people go unrecognized for their hard work.  Let’s take a moment to talk about some of those people.  Our bass player, Brian Moon, is also our engineer.  Getting to record and produce your own album has its perks.  Since you aren’t paying by the hour, you can spend as much time as you like trying to find the sound you are looking for, plus you have complete creative control. On the other hand, you can also spend too much time recording, wearing out your ears and your brain and everyone else’s patience.  As a member, Brian has a keen sense of what the band is looking for in terms of sound.  He was instinctive, patient, and incredibly resourceful.  Each session, we invaded his home and took up all of his free time.  Not only did he engineer and record and help to produce the album, he also spent long, arduous hours mixing it.  No single member spent more time on this album than Brian.  For that, we owe a serious debt of gratitude.  In the end, he did a fantastic job and made an album to which we feel deeply connected.

While we are on the subject of band members putting in hard hours, drummer Chance Shirley, who just so happens to be a filmmaker in his “spare time”, has now made three music videos for the band.  One of them is released, the other two are in the editing process.  Shooting and editing the video while also starring in it is another sign of serious dedication to the efforts of this band.  Seriously, these guys need a break!

Then there are the people outside the band who are helping make all the parts move.  Of course there is Travis Morgan and the Skybucket team, who’ve been great cheerleaders for the band as well as helped manage our affairs and get our records into more hands.  But also, there is Stacey Kines Jaynes, my cousin, who found all the great pictures of our grandmother to use for the album’s cover art.  There is Joanna Holloway, who created the beautiful artwork for Some Creatures.  And there is Mike Paragone in Nashville, who mastered the album, bringing the album to a new light.

There are so many other people who helped us along the way and who continue to support us and cheer us on.  We are so grateful to have such wonderful, supportive people in our lives.

Give it a listen.

If you’d like to purchase a copy of Some Creatures, it’s available at the Skybucket store and Amazon.com.

If you’d like to hear the whole album before buying it, ModMobillian.com is hosting a free Some Creatures preview. You can also listen to Delicate Cutters songs on Spotify. And you can virtually spin digital Cutters tunes at Turntable.fm.

Folks in North Carolina might be able to hear us on good ol’ “terrestrial” radio, as the Cutters are in rotation on WNCW radio in Boone, Charlotte, Greenville, and Wilkesboro.

People all over the country might hear a snippet of our song “Picture of Health”–it’s being used as “bump” music on NPR’s “All Things Considered.”

Read about it.

Some Creatures was awarded a 7.8/10 in this review at PasteMagazine.com. The album has also received positive reviews from “The Fire Note” blog, 40 oz. Robot, and the “Brand New Kind of Photography” blog. And here’s a brief mention on someone’s Spanish-language Tumblog.

Delicate Cutters, along with several other Birmingham bands, were featured in a recent B-Metro magazine article. It’s a nice read, and the photography (by Liesa Cole) is amazing.

Speaking of photography, here’s a retro-tastic snap of Janet taken by bassist Brian Moon on a recent video shoot in Rome, Georgia…

“Be Sweet.”

You can watch the video for the Some Creatures song “Be Sweet” at Vimeo or YouTube.

And “Be Sweet” was featured as the IndiePulse.net “song of the day” on July 31.

Upcoming.

As for the future, we’re working on a music video for our song “Warm Beer and Sympathy” and planning a short tour for the autumn. We will, of course, keep you posted.

Our first album, We Are Not Lovers, was a collection of songs about many various love/relationship themed ideas.  A bit more cohesive, Some Creatures is an album about family, home, and in a way, about growing up.  We hope you’ll enjoy the stories and sounds.

Read a review of the album by Paste Magazine here.  Check out upcoming shows here.