Okay, so I downloaded Hollow and Redwing from iTunes last night. Played them a couple of times, really liked them, paid $10 to download the other 14 songs,

I remember the first three songs sounding really dreamy, and the next thing I knew my wife was waking me up at 6:30 to get ready for work.

Oh no. Not again. Not with another band.

I came up with this as well - a feature on rollingstone.com

I pre-ordered, but not speedy shipping.  Hopefully I'll have it by the end of the week. 

Hey, I've waited this long for their second release, what's a few more days.

I know half the songs by heart already.

HEM is so good, I like her rendetion of The Cukoo. I like Bob Dylan's better, but she is definetly second.

I'm really, really happy you threw in the towel with your battle over being open to HEM, Keith.  You go boy.

The seeds for Hem were planted when Messe befriended guitarist Steve Curtis at Carlton College in Minnesota. After graduation, Messe moved to New York and began working as a soundtrack composer for corporate and industrial films, where he met engineer and guitarist Gary Maurer and began talking about "this mythical dream project" that would combine the traditional music they love with modern sources of inspiration and instrumentation.

The three formed Hem in 1999 with the idea that they would use a different singer on every song. They placed an ad in the Village Voice and were deluged with responses, so many that they pulled the ad.

"Several weeks later, Sally, who must have had an old copy of the paper, called," Messe recalls. At the time Ellyson was working as a television news producer at "48 Hours." "She said she's not really a singer but her friends told her she had a beautiful voice and she wanted to try.

"I had heard this 10,000 times before but I said send me a demo. She said she didn't have one but she had recorded some lullabies a cappella for a friend's baby.

"She came over and made a copy for me, and I wasn't even planning on listening to it. But I went to play something else one day and accidentally played her tape. And I was dumbfounded.

"I couldn't believe that voice existed. It wasn't until Sally's voice brought these songs to life that I realized what was really there.

"We all sort of feel like it was 'The Wizard of Oz.' Like the exact right person showed up at the exact right time to get us home."

Hey - all you west coasties:

Hem in Concert

OCTOBER
26 Portland, OR - Fez Ballroom
28 Los Angeles, CA - Hotel Cafe
31 San Francisco, CA - Freight & Salvage - KFOG "5th Sunday"

New Tour Dates:

Bill, you gotta check 'em out. Serious.  Both Dan's, too.  They're goin' to CO, Trudes.

2005
Sat 15 Louisville,KY - Phoenix Hill Tavern

09 Saint Louis, MO - Off Broadway

Hello everybody,

As you have heard if you've been poking around the myspace site or eveningland.com, we're in a bit of a studio flurry right now... We just completed the last of many tracks for what will be a collection of covers, outtakes, live recordings and Hem miscellany, and we're off now to begin work on our next full-length recording of original material. We'll keep you posted as conditions evolve, but the current sense is that we're thriving in the studio. No furious breakdowns; not too many addictions; lots of good writing and recording.

We've got just one show coming up - a benefit show for Reprieve , an organization that works to provide legal and humanitarian assistance to people facing the death penalty. All proceeds from the show, November 1st at Sin-é in New York City, will help provide these services to families who were additionally impacted by the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Please come out to show your support if you're able Sin-é is a great intimate place to hear music. More info at http://www.sin-e.com.

Our next scheduled show, we're very pleased to announce, will be February 9th at Lincoln Center, as part of the American Songbook series. "Pleased" is actually a pretty weak word; we're practically breaking a sweat. It's going to be a wonderful set - a full night of Hem with a small chamber orchestra to, you know, make everything sound extra good. We'll do more rhapsodizing for you online as the date approaches, but tickets are in fact already on sale. Go to http://www.lincolncenter.org/.

n/m

Cursing me out again, Michelle?

No Word From Tom (US, 7 February 2006 ??)
An album of covers, b-sides, outtakes, and live songs

Track list is unknown at this time. The following songs (listed in alphabetical order) have been mentioned in Hem's blog with regard to work on this album, so they're likely candidates to make the album's final cut. In all, expect 16 songs on the album, the so-called "Hem dozen" that appears on each of Hem's full length albums.

The Golden Day Is Dying [Traditional cover]The Present [B-side]
Rainy Night In Georgia [Brook Benton cover]

Other songs (also listed alphabetically) known to be in Hem's collection of covers, b-sides, and outtakes that may make the cut include the following.

Black Star [Radiohead cover]
Crazy Arms [Cover]
Eveningland (long version) [Eveningland outtake]
Hymn #1 [Eveningland outtake]
Oh No [Eveningland outtake]
Radiation Vibe [Fountains of Wayne cover]
Tennessee Waltz [Cover]

There's also the song No Word From Tom which has been mentioned as a Hem original tune, but it may instead (or in addition) refer to that song in Igor Stravinsky's opera "The Rake's Progress."