Our latest Off the Shelf guest is MorganEve Swain. Her latest musical project is The Huntress and Holder of Hands — one that phoenixed from the loss of her songwriter husband and musical partner, Dave Lamb (Brown Bird) in 2014 — Babylon, their second album, drops this week on June 5th (pre-order the album on Bandcamp).
Ahead of the album’s release, the band have just shared their new single “Timbre Inaudible.”On the track, it is abundantly clear that Swain’s personal grief remains an active driving force, something she also touches on below.
Off the Shelf with MorganEve Swain
Hand Collection
I started collecting hands only a few years ago, when I played a house show in CT, and the hosts had an impressive collection of their own. I was immediately drawn to theirs, and felt a twinge of jealousy; I suppose it was. It really felt like those hands should be mine, in a way I can’t describe. Like when you’re a child and see a toy or something you want so badly it aches a little and it’s hard to imagine it not being yours.
My collection is small but ever-growing. I buy just about any hand I stumble upon in vintage stores and trips and have received a fair amount as gifts. I’m particularly drawn to hands with strangely elongated, delicate fingers. The top-middle hand is a favorite, given to me as a surprise by my most recent ex, after we’d seen it in a vintage shop and I’d deemed it too expensive. It showed up a week later, unannounced.
Brown Bird Box
In the months after my husband Dave passed away from leukemia, my friend Seth, the engineer at Machines With Magnets Studio in Pawtucket, RI, came to our apartment and set up a makeshift recording studio. Together, we worked off the demos Dave had left behind— songs he and I had been working on for the next Brown Bird record, the one we planned to make when he got better—making the best record we could with what we had. Seth had already been a friend for a long time then, but during that project, we bonded over a shared grief, working on this painful, beautiful, vulnerable project together. I wouldn’t have trusted anyone else with that task, nor would I have been able to be my whole, messy, broken self with anyone else.
Will Schaff, the artist who created the covers for Brown Bird’s Salt for Salt, Fits of Reason and Axis Mundi, was our landlord when we lived in Warren, RI. I think it was after I’d made the first Huntress record, also with Seth, that I was moved to commission Will to make a piece of art as a thank you to Seth. This box is that piece.
I am ashamed to say that it never made its way to Seth. When Will gave it to me, I was so stunned and moved by it, and I placed it on my bookshelf in Dave’s and my bedroom. The longer it sat there, the more I knew I couldn’t part with it. Sorry, Seth. The sentiment was there, and the thanks eternal. But the box is mine.
Javelina Skull
In 2011, Dave and I made friends with The Devil Makes Three and joined them for the first time on a West Coast tour. It would be the first of many tours with them, and the start of a deep and lasting friendship. (Fifteen years later, I’m now the fulltime upright bass player for TDM3, having taken over for Lucia when she retired in 2019.) I think we were in Oregon when we found this piece of art. We had all gone to a bar after a show one night, where a friend of theirs had an art show hanging. Sadly, I no longer remember the artist’s name. I’m not even sure we were in Oregon… but Dave and I had fallen in love with this crazy piece and purchased it on the spot. The artist packed it up and shipped it to us back in RI, so it was waiting for us when we returned from that tour, and it’s hung in my house ever since. I love that I have a physical memory of such an exciting and special time in our lives, and a token that represents the start of the friendship that has allowed me to keep a career as a touring musician.
Loving Anvil Rings
I’ve met so many people through Dave and made so many friends who feel like family because of our shared connection to him. Our friends Coco and Gil live in Biddeford, Maine, in a house they call The Hog Farm. In the early days of my life in Brown Bird, The Hog Farm would host house shows in Coco and Gil’s shared art studio and in 2009, we used it as a recording studio to make The Devil Dancing.
Coco designs and makes jewelry (LovingAnvil.com), mostly large statement pieces with words and giant stones. Shortly after Dave passed, she made me this turquoise ring— it being a particularly favorite stone of mine and Dave’s birthstone. On the back of the ring, she stamped his star sign constellation—Sagittarius—and an arrow for the Huntress. The second ring is a more recent acquisition. Another stone I was drawn to, the back of this ring has Tom Waits’ lyrics to Innocent When You Dream stamped on the back. It was in her collection when I delivered a fiddle to her this past winter, as a surprise Christmas present for her daughter. We made an even trade— two Loving Anvil pieces for the fiddle, which I’d refurbished and made ready for her daughter. Keeping it in the family.
LadyBird Fiddle and Bow Repair Workbench
Around a decade ago, I started apprenticing with a violin maker in Providence. We’d known each other for several years when I started working for him. He’d just lost his wife, and I’d just lost Dave, and in our own quiet way we bonded over that shared and separate experience while working in his little violin shop. One summer, he surprised me with the tuition to the Violin Craftsmanship Institute in New Hampshire. The program functions as a series of summer workshops, and over the next three years, I’d attend and learn violin and bow repair. I now have my own little shop, which functions out of the living room in my little home, lovingly named LadyBird Cottage. Someday I hope to have a separate workshop space, but for now, there is something comforting about having fiddles hanging in my living room window and a cat who insists on lounging on my workbench when it’s not being used.
Tiny Beast
There is no shortage of tchotchkes in Lady Bird Cottage. And each one has a story. But somehow this one, which stands watch in my bedroom window, knew it wanted to be included in this little project. One night, when Dave was being treated for leukemia, he spiked a fever, and we had to rush to the emergency room, as was protocol for bone marrow transplant patients. On our way out the door, our landlord and friend Will, slipped this little dog statue into my hand as a good luck token. Dave and I had been working on a new song, called “Forest of Fevers”. Once he was stable and we were calmly waiting in the ER, Dave and I joked that our new tiny shepherd was the beast in the forest of fevers, as the lyrics say. I’ll forever see this little dog as a good luck charm and will always think of it when I hear the words to “Forest of Fevers”.
Moon Phase Prints by Alec Thibodeau
Winter 2009 would have been Dave’s and my second Christmas together, and when I started collecting moon phase calendars. These three come from Providence artist Alec Thibodeau, who happens to be the brother of Joel Thibodeau, who played drums for The Huntress and is on several of the songs on the new record. I know both brothers through Joel’s band Death Vessel, of which Dave and I were both big fans. If you don’t know Death Vessel, I strongly recommend looking them up. We’ve shared multiple bandmates and shows, and I remain an avid listener and fan. I wish I had more of Alec’s moon prints, but these three represent 2009, 2010 and 2011— three years that were perfect and formative in my love story with Dave and with Brown Bird.
Will Schaff Sketches
I had no idea how heavily Will Schaff would feature in this project when I started it. This piece is a real gem though. When we first commissioned Will to make the cover for our record Salt For Salt, I’d given him only two parameters: nothing too lewd, and nothing too literal. We were both already fans of his work and wanted to be sure there were no birds involved in the art (even though his are exquisite), and also nothing sexual. When he had artwork to show me, he pranked me by showing me these first, presenting them as ideas he had and wanted my ok for. They still make me laugh.
Kingfisher Print
I developed a love for kingfishers after falling in love with Gabor Szabo’s song “Three King Fishers”. I don’t know if those fishers are men who are kings, or birds, or what, but in my mind, they’ve always been kingfishers. They are incredible birds, stunning in every way. I have three tattooed across my torso in honor of the song, and when I encounter them in the wild— either as living creatures or works of art— I am drawn to them and quieted by their majesty. This print was made by an acquaintance in New Orleans— Matt Johnson. As soon as I saw it, I knew it had to be mine. It’s one of my most prized pieces of art. Here you see it hanging in my living room, behind the cat station. There’s Ēos, eating her dinner and shooting me a glare. Behind her is a wooden lamp made by my great-great-uncle. Everyone in my family has at least one pair of his lamps. I have two. And to the left, speaking of objects on shelves, you can just see my collection of Yellow Submarine figurines. These are the ones that were reissued after the anthologies came out. I was a preteen and obsessed with The Beatles from the very start. In fifth grade, as the editor-in-chief of the school newspaper, I wrote a column no one cared about but me called “Beatlemania”. I can only imagine the teachers were amused.
The Garden
LadyBird Cottage is the first place I’ve lived that has given me my own house and my own outdoor space. When I first moved in, I started gardening. My new landlord assured me nothing would grow here, but I did my darndest anyway, and I’m glad I did. This year, the lupines are really popping. When I was a youngster, there was a family who would bring me to Prince Edward Island each summer. It was with them that I was introduced to Scottish and Irish fiddle music. That was the beginning of the rest of my life in so many ways. Playing that style got me gigs as a teenager in Connecticut, taught me how to improvise and play in bars and ultimately forged the way my adult life would go. That family lost their matriarch suddenly a few years ago, and I lost a friend. Lupines were her favorite, and seeing mine bloom fills me with joy. Just beyond these early blooms, you can also see my Royal Enfield Int 650. That brings me joy too.
The Huntress and Holder of Hands will be touring this summer, including the Providence, RI Record Release Show on June 18th at the Uptown Theater (Upstairs) along with DakouDakou and BERM. The Devil Makes Three will also be playing live this summer as well. See below for the full list of dates for both acts.
The Huntress and Holder of Hands – Tour Dates
6/14/26 – Middletown, CT @ Dirt Floor Studio (w/ Rodeo Parade)
6/18/26 – Providence, RI @ Uptown Theatre Upstairs (Record Release Show w/ DakouDakou and BERM)
6/19/26 – Hudson, NY @ Park Theater (w/ The Glass Hours)
6/21/26 – New London, CT @ The Oasis Pub (w/ A Former Friend)
7/17/26 – Cambridge, MA @ Lizard Lounge Cambridge (w/ Wyn & The White Light)
7/18/26 – New Haven, CT @ Me and The Other Mom’s House Show (w/ Old Milk Mooney)
9/10/26 – N. Falmouth, MA @ The Lounge at The Daily Brew (w/ The Glass Hours)
9/12/26 – Portland, ME @ TBA
9/19/26 – Egremont, MA @ The Buttonball Barn (w/ DiTrani Brothers)
The Devil Makes Three – Tour Dates
8/7/26 – 8/9/26 – Alta, WY @ Servant Jazz Quarters
9/4/26 – 9/6/26 – Charlestown, RI @ Rhythm and Roots Festival
9/24/26 – 9/27/26 – Louisville, KY @ Bourbon & Beyond