Last summer while I was waiting around for The Universal Fire to come out, I re-recorded all the songs from the new album alone, playing everything myself. I worked mornings and evenings in my friend Maria's barn fronting a meadow and sheep pasture, with the windows open to the late season birds and crickets, the wind in the trees, an occasional truck lumbering up the hill. I tried to work fast, and leave things a little rough.

I started out to make a voice and acoustic guitar record, but found that leaving out the instrumental breaks made the songs wobble like a table with a short leg, while leaving them in with nothing happening was boring. So I started adding rhythm guitars, octave mandolin, bottleneck and lap slide. Pretty soon I was sitting at the little green upright in my kitchen, playing piano with one hand. I don't know how to play piano.

As I found new ways into the songs, tried new keys and tunings and changes of time, the work took on its own life. I began to add in some of the songs that hadn't made it onto the studio version, and by the end there were seven new songs – Straightaway, High, I Miss (The Way It Used to Feel), If I Could Find It in My Heart, How Do You Know It’s Heaven (If It Never Ends), Someplace Left to Stand, and Sun Is Going Down – almost a whole second album.

I began the work because I knew I'd need to make some money by the end of the year. Touring a five-piece band for four months is a hell of a fun way to go broke, but at the end you're still broke. In the course of drilling down on these songs from new angles, hearing them against the unreleased songs, it began to feel like a valid piece of art, something that stands up on its own. At least I hope it does.

It'll remain unreleased for now. If you're in the industry, please don't play it on the radio, or use it on your podcast. I'll put it out the regular way sometime next year, but today I'm making it available as a pay-what-you-want download, only to the mailing list, and only for the month of December (You can subscribe to the mailing list at the bottom of this page). We set it up so you can use any of the various payment methods, including a check to my P.O. Box. So if you're broke like me, download it and get me back later. If you're feeling flush, decide what it's worth to you. There's no wrong answer, but nothing exceeds like excess.

MIDWEST – In December THE UNIVERSAL FIRE full-band tour picks up again in the upper Midwest with shows at The Ark in Ann Arbor, MI. (12/5), the James Theater in Iowa City, IA. (12/6), the Trempealeau Hotel in Trempealeau, WI. (12/8, with a second, special limited-ticket show on 12/9), the Parkway Theater in Minneapolis, MN. (12/10), SPACE in Evanston, IL. (12/11), the Stoughton Opera House in Stoughton, WI. (12/12), and finishing out the year at the Cactus Club in Milwaukee, WI. (12/13). Erik Koskinen opens everywhere except Milwaukee – though doubtless we'll make him front a couple of his songs that night – and joins the band on electric guitar. I don't know when this band will convene next, so now is the time. Come find us.

That's it folks. It's been a long year and I'm looking forward to sitting still and thinking things over. I'm tired as hell but grateful that anyone ever comes out to hear us play. That we can do this job at all feels like some kind of miracle. Thanks in advance for anything you can put toward The Universal Fire: Solo Acoustic Recordings, to help me retire my debts, keep everyone paid, and keep the wheels under us. We'll see you in the Midwest, or somewhere else in 2025.