One door closes and another opens... Claire will concentrate on school and work, so won't be recording with us anymore. Her pristine vocals will be missed greatly. However, Blackbirds has a new member - Jasmine Quintana. Jasmine is a professional dancer already and is currently finishing her last year at DePaul, where she has pursued interests in music, film, and modeling. Check out our new track, "One"; there will be more to come. In other news, "Requiem for a Friend" finished 8th out of almost 800 entrants in the Sony open competition on Americanidolunderground.com, by far the highest acoustic number. "Edge of Town" continues to be 1st out of 201 in the Big Push Folk II on that site. "Deficits of the Heart" has been picked up by a British weird-cultural-arty-subversive website - http://www.smallfish-online.net/ - and is appearing on their "radio" feature, though they seem to be on vacation right now. Soundaid.org continues to raise money for Heifer and is growing all the time. We're happy to be among the first artists to appear there. Hope your holidays were relaxing, fun, and blessed. Happy New Year and thanks for listening.