Hello All!
Last weekend The Smittens were very lucky to be a part of Bernie Fest 2009. What is Bernie Fest you might ask? Well Bernie is Dana's uncle and the whole family threw him a surprise 60th Birthday Party on Father's Day. It was such a treat being part of such a special family event. Family skits were performed, stories were told and testimonials we spoken of Uncle Bernie. The Smittens were asked to played a set and we even did a cover of one of Bernie's songs. Bernie joined us up on stage and sung along. It was a blast! I think though one of the biggest surprises for Uncle Bernie perhaps was legendary Richie Havens walking into the party to perform following The Smittens. It was definitely a first for us to announce Richie Havens during our set! What an amazing performer he is and Uncle Bernie couldn't of been more happier to see one of his idols play his surprise party! Afterwords we got to hear some of Bernie's own songs. The Smittens had a great time and want to thank Dana's family for asking us to play and be a part of such a special day. Below are a few pictures from the party.


Richie Havens with Dylan, Dana's niece and Dana.

Uncle Bernie, Richie Havens and The Smittens.

Zoe! A new fan is born!

Keiko Lynn Giveaway

Keiko Lynn is giving away this lovely necklace...

Two New Releases

The Smittens are on two new releases on Make Do and Mend independent record label out of London,UK.We are so very excited and honored to be playing at Indie Tracks again this year!

ModLife Interviews Rhiannon Leifheit of Liebemarlene Vintage

One of my favorite fashion blogs to follow is Liebemarlene Vintage. Modcloth did a great interview with Rhiannon Leifheit yesterday. Check it out here.

Three Imaginary Girls Review of Saturday Nights Show at San Francisco Popfest 2009

The review of the Saturday night San Francisco Popfest 2009 show by The Imaginary Girls is up here. Above are some of the pictures they posted. Photo credit Steve Louie.

Three Imaginary Girls Debuts Two New Smittens Videos Today!

Three Imaginary Girls debuts two new Smittens videos today. You can check out the post here or simply read below.

Debut of two brand new Smittens videos
Submitted by keenan dowers on June 1, 2009.

I am pleased to announce the debut of The Smittens new video for "One Hundred Roses" off their HHBTM album The Coolest Thing About Love. This song has been ruling my world since I got the record last summer, with its perfectly Magnetic Fields-y chorus "It doesn't mean that I love you any less/It only means that I'm a mess".

Not only that, but we also have the debut of another video from The Coolest Thing..., "Magpies and Eccles Cake", which is a collection of live videos.

Here's what they have to say about it:

The two videos, both made by Rob Koier with "One Hundred Roses" filmed at the VCAM studio and incorporating a lot of David Zacharis’ artwork – drawings and felt dolls – and "Magpies and Eccles Cake" using footage filmed at our last local VT show. One looks like a candy confection and the other looks more like a 70’s rock film in slow motion. Interesting contrast, and different sides of the visual representation of the band. We can’t wait to share them with you!

Tullycraft and The Smittens

Here is another video from San Francisco Popfest 2009 featuring The Smittens and Tullycraft!

Smittens show tonight!!!

Hey kids!
Last minute news but we've got a show tonight at Monkey House in Winooski with Lady Bright and Torpedo Rodeo. Doors at 8pm, show at 9pm. The cover is $5.00. Come on out for a great night of music!
xo, Holly
p.s. San Francisco Popfest was a blast. We'll post more about that later but here is a video to hold you over.

Lyell

I am fantasizing about having everything in this Spring collection.

Where I Live

The lovely home and product design website Design*Sponge has done a piece on my very own town Burlington, VT. Check it out online here.

San Francisco Popfest 2009 and Smittens Updates

The Smittens will by flying over to the west coast to play at the San Francisco popfest this week– (www.sfpopfest.com) playing at the Rickshaw shop on Saturday, may 23rd! That fest runs from Thursday-Sunday May 21-24 and the tix are available along with all details and lineup and locations at the festival website. Let’s Whisper will be also playing a set during the free Sunday picnic show in the park, too!

We are sad and honored to be playing at what is reported to be Tullycraft’s last ever live show – holy molee! – and excited to finally make good on our promise to come to the West Coast – obviously, one show isn’t going to satisfy all our friends out there, so we promise (again) to make another effort soon to play some more shows out there – all apologies to our pals in Portland and Oly and Seattle and Joshua Tree, and San Diego, and everybody else on that coast. If you can make to the the SF fest, well, that would be awesome – apparently much of the fest is being filmed, so hopefuly you can still feel like you were there at a later date!

In other Smittens and Smittens-related happenings, here are some cool things we’ve been involved in lately:

- Colin, Dana, David, and Holly spent a wildly amusing night in the studio here last week taking part in backing vocal sessions for our friend James Kochalka’s new gameboy music album, Digital Elf! Not sure when that will be coming out, but we had tons of fun with James and a couple of the Jazz Guys, plus a handful of other wonderful singers both tall and small!

We’ll let you know when it’s coming out!

- Max and Colin and Dana had a short visit to London to rock out at the London Popfest at the end of February – delivering an inspired trio performance and being inspired by the other fab acts on the bills! Let’s Whisper even kicked off the whole thing on the first night of the festival and a good time was had by all.

- Dana and Colin had a new Let’s Whisper song come out as part of the latest compilation set from the Eardrums label – and all 4 volumes are available for free download here: www.eardrumspop.com ! The Whisper track, titled “All Happy Endings,” is in very good company with loads of good indiepop from all over the globe. The comp is titled Birdsongs, Beesongs and we recommend it highly. There’s also a Colin solo song on there, “I Miss the Bubblegum,” which is about a time that Colin missed Smittens practice because he was in Portugal with his friend Isaac – a new recording of an old fave.

- Our good friend Steve Williams, who mixed our first two albums and whom you may know as a Magog or even more recently as the bass player for Rough Francis, just completed a new video for his awesome MFDOJ song “Count Me in, I’m Good to Go,” which was filmed by Rob Koier and which also features brief cameos from Colin and David and a handful of our friends here in town! It’s inspired by Goddard’s classic film Breathless and incorporates text from the film and new footage shot in homage to the original – very nice!

- And Colin has a new mini album out on the Weepop! label, too! His latest is titled “Every Little Thing Counts” and features 10 songs in just about 22 minutes with some cute handmade artwork and you can order it here: www.weepop.net – word is it’s selling briskly and could be sold out soon. Alas, the Let’s Whisper ep, “Make Me Smile” is already all gone! So please hurry up if you don’t wanna miss out!

-and this just in - Max and his friend Gillian are also now moving folks on dance floors in the UK! Keep an eye out for dj sets from GMAX! Early reports are in, and yes, the kids do just love it!

Check back here soon for dates and details of our summer adventure plans, too! This year we will be returning to the UK for a short tour (with our friends One Happy Island) which will find the Smittens playing in London, Glasgow, Newcastle, Birmingham, Leeds and making a return trip (this time to the main stage) to the Indietracks festival July 24-26 at the Midland Railway, Butterley, Derbyshire – one of the hottest and nicest summer tickets in the UK this summer. Full line-up, details and a festival blog with links, interviews and mp3s can be found if you start here: www.indietracks.co.uk – it was the highlight of our summer last year – and this time Let’s Whisper will be playing a set on a train, too!

MONDO The Smittens Tonight in NYC

MONDO returns to Don Hill's on TONIGHT!

Come join us!

DJs Miss Modular, Kevington, and Dr Maz spin all your favorite indie, britpop, twee, post-punk, girl groups, and more!

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** LIVE **

We're giddy to welcome The Smittens, a self-described DIY twee pop explosion, to the Mondo stage. The five-piece, hailing from Vermont and the UK, create catchy indie pop overflowing with sunny melodies and clever lyrics. The group's boy-girl vocals and smart vs. cute approach harkens back to classic bands like Beat Happening and Tullycraft.


* * * * *

@ Don Hill's
511 Greenwich Street (at Spring St.)
11:00 pm - 4 am
$5 Cover / $ 3 with Flyer or Invite


more info @

http://www.mondo-nyc.com
http://www.myspace.com/mondonyc

Three Imaginary Girls Review

The Smittens —The Coolest Thing About Love

The Smittens are a sugary mound of twee girl-boy pop, and if you are a fan of A) indie pop, or B) being in love -- you just might become smitten yourself. After all, as the title suggests, The Coolest Thing About Love celebrates all the good things about love, missing your better half from a long distance, and knowing that they're the one. I found the coolest thing about the Smittens wasn't just their penchant for writing catchy keyboard melodies, but that they have 3 singers with distinctive tones and thus go beyond the usual boy singer/girl singer indie pop modus operandi. Singers Dana Kaplan and Colin Clary man the helm as the main singers, and sometimes Max Andrucki's baritone pops up out of nowhere, sounding eerily similar to Stephen Merritt (never a bad thing, really).

Out of the 14 songs on the album, a few stand out above the rest, including "Something Sassy" and album closer "The One For Me." The next time you're looking for the words to say "let's just have fun and not analyze things," just have your partner listen to the former, in which Kaplan and Clary declare "I don't want something drastic/i'm just looking for something sassy." The sweetness is in full swing with "Gumdrops," a horribly catchy tune (trust me, you won't get the chorus out of your head for days) that starts with Andrucki singing the puzzling lyric, "I really like you/my new librarian/but where you been?" before the equally puzzling gleefully sung chorus, "bubble floss heart-shape candy shell/something's started/can't you tell?"

The laidback and downtempo "Magpies and Eccles Cakes" is a welcome respite from the upbeat pop of the rest of the album, and sounds like a collaboration between the Magnetic Fields and Belle and Sebastian. The final minute is a breath of fresh air, a concession that everything changes while we keep pressing on: "but the planes are turning round/and the world keeps spinning round/and your head keeps spinning round."

Overall, The Smittens are like a trip to the candy store, full of extremely sweet and sometimes overwhelmingly saccharine morsels -- definitely not for the faint of heart, or at least the un-indie-pop-initiated. But if you're indeed not up for anything serious, just looking for something sassy -- look no further.

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For online blogpost at Three Imaginary Girls go here.

PopMatters Review

PopMatters reviewed our ablum The Coolest Thing About Love. Go here to read it on their website or read below.

The Smittens

The Coolest Thing About Love

(Happy Happy Birthday to Me)

US release date: 12 August 2008

UK release date: Available as import

The Smittens are from Burlington, Vermont; not the first place you think of when you think of indie pop. Yet, The Coolest Thing About Love is one the best indie pop albums in years. It is a well-planned album with great flow. After listening to this album many times, I find something new to love each time: the lyrics, the harmonies, the instrumentation. Though there are five Smittens, the songwriting duties are shared between three members; Dana Kaplan, Max Andrucki, and Colin Clary. Each member contributes something different to the band’s sound. Kaplan’s songs are innocent and wistful, much like the Softies. Andrucki’s contributions are the most literary offerings, similar in sound and style to the Magnetic Fields. Clary’s are perhaps the catchiest and most twee of the bunch.

Highlights are “The Interstate”, “Half My Heartbeats”, “C’mon!” and “Baby Don’t You Know”. The best thing about this band is how different each song is from one another, while still remaining inside the indie pop sub-genre. However, “H&M(+A)”, by Andrucki, really sticks out because it’s the only song not about love, and instead is about what’s wrong with the world today. The band’s theme song “It’s a Saturday!” is one that will get lodged in your brain. The album ends with Kaplan’s doo-wop number “The One For Me”: “You’re the bluest sky through an open door / In our love I’ve never been so sure.” The Smittens have made a truly lovely album.

My Interview in The Burlington Free Press

Today my interview in The Burlington Free Press came out. They included this picture in the printed form and a different one online. Below is the profile in the hometown section.

Holly Chagnon, drummer extraordinaire

If you happen to run into Vermont native Holly Chagnon around downtown Burlington, it is almost impossible to think of her tiny frame banging away on a set of drums. But that's exactly what she does. Standing at a mere 5 feet 2 inches tall, Chagnon, 33, has been playing with her local band The Smittens for six years and hasn't broken a wrist yet.
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How long have you lived in Vermont?

My whole life.
Do you like living in Burlington?

I love the creative community, the local support. I love that I can walk everywhere and that there are four distinct seasons.
Where did the band name "The Smittens" come from?

My fiance and friend first came up with the name while making up names for bands prior to The Smittens forming. They recalled the name, and when the band formed, it stuck.
You are so tiny, how did they make you the drummer?

Well, the shortest answer is the I was playing drums at a New Years party just for fun with some friends while the real band was taking a break and then a month later David Zacharis asked if I would want to be in a band he, Colin Clary and Max Schwartz were putting together. I said yes in a heartbeat and then they told me we had a show two weeks later. I never looked back.
Do you know any other female drummers in the area?

Dana Kaplan who primarily plays guitar as well as sings in our band also plays drums on several of our songs while I'm either playing the melodica, glockenspiel or keyboard depending on the song. Then there is Alissa who drums with Ryan Power whose drumming I love. Also Vanessa Brunkhorst drums locally and used to play in the band Dialogue for Three with Hannah Wall, Thomas Barnes and Rob Koier. They were a great band.
How would you describe your music?

Well, I always like to think we have a bit of the ¥'60's bubblegum pop with some modern indie pop sound. We are always dubbed "twee music." Several voices, male and female harmonizing to make beautiful pop music you can sing along or dance to.
How would you describe the music scene in Burlington?

I think everyone is pretty supportive of one another. There is such a diversity of musicians and styles of music being played and everyone respects that and supports one another.
Do you feel supported by the community?

Yes, I think people want everyone to do well. There is a lot of local pride being a Vermonter.
What's your most memorable Burlington music moment?

Well as far as the band goes we've had so many great moments. Playing with one of our favorite bands and inspirations Tullycraft was a dream come true. They are the biggest American twee band. We played a sold out show with them at the Monkey Bar this past summer that was so much fun. Another great memory was just this summer too when we played during the Burlington Jazz Festival on the Magic Hat stage on upper Church Street. Growing up in Burlington for me this was such a trip to look down Church Street packed with people for Jazz Fest. We rocked that night and it was great. Of course there's always our first show back in 2002 at Metronome with the Also-rans, James Kochalka Super Star and the Magic Is Gone. I remember feeling so supported by our friends and the crowd even though we were a bit rough around the edges to say the least.
What do you do when you're not playing music?

When I'm not playing music I'm dancing. I take dance classes and perform when I can. Dancing makes me so happy. I love to draw too when I have time. Then of course there's always catching up with my friends and family.
David Zacharis not only plays in your band, but is also your fiancé. How do you like working so closely with him?

Great. If it weren't for the band we might not have met. It sure makes scheduling things together easier.
Who else musically inspires you in Burlington?

Missy Bly, Cave Bees, Let's Whisper, Ryan Power, The Cush, Colin Clary and A Magog, Me and You, and on and on.
Who musically inspires you in general?

I'm inspired by all kinds of music. I love 60's pop, dreamy sad music, classical, R&B to indiepop, my friends who make music. Right now I'm really into this band called The Just Joans from Scotland who we played several shows with in England this summer. They are amazing.
What advice would you give to Burlington musicians?

Practice, practice, practice. Get to know your local musicians and introduce yourself. Put your self out there, ask for what you need and always be clear about your expectations. Have fun.

Ernie Proclaims His Love For Bert

David shared this with me and now I am sharing with you all. Enjoy.

Buying local and handmade is so cool! Check out a video from my friend Eva's Stuck in Vermont vlog this week. Stuck in Vermont is a 100% homegrown Vermont vlog about art, music, obsessions and outsiders, brought to you by Seven Days, Vermont's alternative newsweekly. Last Sunday she covered The Bobbin Sew Bar and Craft Lounge's "Buy Handmade + Local First" holiday party! Several of my crafty friends are in the video including Urban Farm Girl. I'm so lucky to be a part of this great community!

More Smittens Press!

Hi All!
The Smittens are very excited because we just found out that Pop Matters included us in their ten top for The Best Indie Pop of 2008!

Here is what they said:
References to flowers, kisses, and summertime abound in their songs, and the Smittens seem like the band most likely to break into a group singalong at any moment. That means they’ll get dismissed by some as too cute, which is a shame, and not just because haters would miss out on fantastic melodies. Their music is more than just happy-go-lucky. It has more to it than just fun (though fun it is). On The Coolest Thing About Love, that happy/cute side of the band seems mostly an idealistic dream of what love can be, one that in real life is felt in passing moments but still worth striving for. Love is complicated by distance, personal failures, and the passing of time. But when everything clicks right, it generates excitement, peace and contentment. The Smittens capture all of that in suitable song forms—classic pop anthems, impromptu doo-wop ballads, the melancholy strumming of a guitar.

Burlington Free Press Review

Vermont's Burlington Free Press did an end of year review of local artist albums in Thursday's Weekend Section. Here is what they said about our latest album "The Coolest Thing About Love":
The Smittens — The Coolest Thing About Love — This is the most well-rounded album by one of Burlington’s best-loved bands. There’s still plenty of jangly, happy twee-pop that the quintet has patented, but tunes like “11:11” (which inspired the album’s title) and “All the Love In the World” — both sung by Dana Kaplan — temper that giddiness with a more downcast sense of reflection. That adds depth to the optimism these guys wear like hearts on the sleeves of their cozy sweaters.
For the review online go here.