new band, new music, new tour!

NEW BAND NAME

As many of you know, this has been brewing for a long time. We’ve been feeling more like a band than a solo-artist-with-a-backing-band for a while now; truly all we needed was the name. It’s scary to name something you’ll be publicly associated with indefinitely – any of you that have successfully named an entire HUMAN, I salute you. But we finally have a name: Times New Rita! 🥳

We wanted to still have Rita in the name, but we didn’t want “Rita and” – it felt clunky. There was honestly a lot we knew we DIDN’T want in the name, to put it mildly. But things we do love include whimsy, fonts, puns, and contemplating the passage & concept of time. We love the Old Rita, and we welcome the New Rita that Time has brought – we hope you love and welcome it too! We also have a new Instagram account @timesnewrita, so please follow us there!

NEW MUSIC

For the first time ever, all three of us (me, drummer Jenna, and bassist Clay) are on a record together – so it’s only fitting that we release it under a band name. Our debut EP Periphery will be out on November 3rd! It’ll feature two brand new songs, two existing favorites, and a new version of an existing song. More on that in a future newsletter 😉 And to kick off the festivities, we’re releasing our EP’s lead single “Bubble Wrap” on October 10th! That’s NEXT FRIDAY if you can believe it. I know I sure can’t. You can pre-save “Bubble Wrap” here – it really helps us out if you do!

NEW TOUR

I’m almost out of breath with all this news, but we’re not done yet. We are doing another baby tour this year to celebrate the release of Periphery, and it’s an even bigger baby tour than last year! Not only are we returning to NYC and Philly, but we are also playing our very first Los Angeles show! The LA show is a showcase at the iconic Bar Lubitsch, and the NYC & Philly shows are co-headliner sets at The Bowery Electric & Silk City Diner with our friend the iconic Sadie Gust. She’s headlining in Philly, we’re headlining in NYC, and we’re each doing full-length sets. We’ll be playing songs from the EP, some extremely fun covers, and maybe even a brand new unreleased song (if I can finish it 🤪). Tickets are already on sale for all of these shows, but of course I’ll be back in your inbox later this fall to remind you about them. 😚

I think that’s all I have for you for now, reader. You know I love a “behind the song” newsletter, so trust that you’ll be getting a few of those this fall. And I would be remiss to not mention – IT’S SEPTEMBER! R U STREAMING LOVE ME IN SEPTEMBER? I’m very lucky and very happy to finally experience love in September, and a little love on my song would put the icing on my pumpkin spice cake. 🥰

I’ll leave you as I often do with a question: Do you buy merch for bands you like? And if so, do you prefer a sticker, a pin, a shirt, something weird and unusual, a CD, a vinyl? What’s your favorite piece of merch you own? I wanna know and I wanna usurp it!!!!! 😈

Thanks as always for reading okloveyoubyeeeeeeeee 🧡