PRE-ORDER ‘NEW OLD FRIENDS XX’

“An album like New Old Friends only comes around once every 20 years.”
– from the Seattle Times review of New Old Friends in 2004.

2024 marks the 20th anniversary of Dolour’s pivotal album, New Old Friends. To celebrate the milestone, I’ve returned to this special collection of songs and have created a start-to-finish new interpretation of the material. Recorded in a one-man-band fashion at my home studio – Shabby Road – in Nashville TN. I’ve reconnected with my favorite mastering engineer Dan Coutant out of New York, and he really helped bring a lot of warmth and clarity to the tracks.

New Old Friends was the album where I declared my independence and began the journey I continue on today – as a self-contained, self-produced, independent artist. It’s the album where I chose to step out of the machine and make music I wanted to make for myself. While there were many feels returning to this early music of mine, I also brought my whole last 20 years of life with me into the songs. The album will release on Friday, December 6th, and you can pre-order it now with some instant gratification tracks. I hope you enjoy it.

xx Shane

DAYLIGHT UPON MAGIC is out!

Check out the vinyl, CD, and merch combos available through Bandcamp.

FIRST DOLOUR SHOW IN 15 YEARS DEC 16th SEATTLE

Hey Friends – After last December’s attempt to bring Dolour back to the Seattle stage got snowed-out at the last minute, I had a little more trepidation trying to reschedule. But I powered through, and it is now official – Dolour will finally be making it’s return to the stage this December 16th at Clock-Out Lounge! Main support will be Aqueduct (who we shared the stage with many time back in the day) and opener Mikey Moo (formally of Young Evils) will be kicking off the night. Tickets are on sale now, hope to see you!
https://www.ticketweb.com/event/clock-out-lounge-presents-dolour-clock-out-lounge-tickets/12539735

New Single ‘Moves Like Miyagi’ Out Now!

The story of Moves Like Miyagi starts with my wife’s newfound love for gardening. She had recently mulched a few of her flower pots surrounding the patio where I spent my mornings sipping coffee and soaking in the morning sunshine. The fresh mulch started attracting flies all over the patio. It got so bad after a couple days, that I started bringing a fly swatter with me whenever I’d hang on the patio. Flies aren’t easy to sneak up on, so I was always impressed with myself when I could get one on my first try. It made me think of that classic scene in The Karate Kid where Mr. Miyagi is teaching Daniel to catch flies with chopsticks. So I started singing a little song to myself… “swatting flies on the first try, I got moves like Miyagi.” As more lines and melodies developed, my songwriter brain kicked in, I started wondering if the song could be more than just a reference to The Karate Kid and me swatting flies. I started thinking about what Mr. Miyagi represented – disciple, wisdom, survival, etc – all things I’m looking for more and more in my life. I’ve worked through so many dark periods in my life and somehow I’ve found a way to survive. It’s about finding that inner calmness when the storm around you is raging. The bridge really sums it up with “I breathe in and I breathe out, when everything around me is falling down, there’s nothing in the world I need to prove, survival is my only move.” So in the end I had a song that allowed me to dig in to my journey towards “the art of living” and how to survive. I don’t think that my story is all that unique though, after the last couple years that we’ve been through, I think we’re all looking for ways to strengthen our mental health and self-care etc – so wherever you are at in your journey – I hope the song can meet you there. xo Shane

New Single ‘The Comeback Kid’ Pre-Save Now

New single “The Comeback Kid” dropping April 8th!

“Sometimes it amazes me, all the things I’ve lived through. All the dizzying highs and devastating lows. The many times I wanted to throw it all away. And the growing list of friends I’ve lost along the way. But we are the survivors. Everyone reading this is a survivor. The Comeback Kid is about a lot of things, I sort of feel like I’ve squeezed my life into a 3 and half minute song, but perseverance would be one of the things. I am the comeback kid. We are the comeback kid.”

The song will be available on Bandcamp, but I encourage you all to pre-save it on Spotify to help us fight the algorithm gatekeepers and help the song spread as far as it can on release day. Thank you!

FIRST DOLOUR LIVE SHOW IN 15 YEARS THIS DECEMBER

Hey Friends! I want to thank everyone who has taken part in the Origin Story pre-order. All the CD orders (so far) have been mailed out, so most of you should have your copy soon, if not already. Vinyl is still looking to be on schedule for mid-November. I’ll keep y’all up to date on that in the coming weeks.

For those of you in or around Seattle, I want to make sure y’all are aware that I’m playing my first Dolour show in over 15 years with a full band this December 29th at the Crocodile! I don’t foresee Dolour becoming an active touring band any time soon, so if you are in the Greater Northwest of America and are able to make it – this will be the show!

Here’s the Facebook Event if you wanna connect on social media: Facebook Event Page

And here’s the ticket link to get your advance tickets. TICKETWEB LINK

I also want everyone (wherever you live) to know I’ll be doing some live videos of my rehearsals via our instagram page periodically leading up to the show, so be sure to connect with me there.
DOLOUR’s on Instagram

Origin Story has it’s full release on Bandcamp on September 3rd, which will also be a #BandcampFriday… so if you have been waiting to pick it up, that would be a perfect day!
Origin Story on Bandcamp

Talk soon!
xo Shane

THE ROYAL WE, TELEVANGELIST… AND ORIGIN STORY MAKES THREE

I hope by this point y’all have realized the best way to keep up with me is through social media and my Bandcamp page. This last year and a half has been so crazy. Being stuck at home with lockdowns etc has just meant I have no excuse not to be creating. So I haven’t stopped since starting The Royal We in late 2019. Since my last post here: Televangelist was released April 2nd. It’s had an even bigger response than The Royal We, and it has been so cool to see this little homespun one-man-band album make ripples around the globe. A personal highlight of this era has to be that the great Aimee Mann tweeted that Televangelist’s penultimate track I’m Not Mad Anymore was her “New Favorite Song.” Unbelievable.

And now there is a third album of this Dolour revival era. Origin Story. Comprised of 15 reimagined versions of original era Dolour songs. I started working on it just after I finished Televangelist in January, and we are not halfway through the pre-order process. Be sure to peep the vinyl and CD combo options! That’s all for now, but there is some big news coming soon and I will be popping on here to give ya all the deets. Until then continue tuning into the social media and Bandcamp page. xo

Pre-Save ‘Televangelist’ on Spotify

‘Televangelist’ drops in 11 days and you can pre-save it on Spotify now!

Also – on wednesday I’ll be mailing out the CD pre-orders, so if you order now you’ll get the album early! (The vinyl is delayed, but should show up in the next few weeks.)