January mornings have looked like this, sitting by the stove in the dark, trying to bend my mind around one idea or another. I got a lot done in January but I'm not sure what it was. Alfred North Whitehead proposed that the mind and material reality are related in time rather than in space. That we choose among possible futures, and causation runs backward in time from the future, which doesn't exist, but exerts an influence similar to the past, which also does not exist, through our choices, habits, and memories. Working with a booking agent makes all of this very clear. In the morning I fly to Tucson.

SOUTHWEST – I'm headed back down to the desert this month for a brief run of shows in Arizona and New Mexico, with one show in Colorado. I'll be traveling with my longtime bandmate Eric Heywood, the pedal steel ace, who finishes the Ani Difranco tour in Seattle and flies south to meet me at the old Club Congress (2/2) in Tucson, haunt of the late great Rainer Ptacek, hero to me. Then it's out to the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix (2/4), the Whiskey Creek Zócalo (2/5) near Silver City, the San Miguel Mission in Santa Fe (2/6) and the Old San Ysidro Church in Corrales, NM (2/7), with Southwest Roots Music. Finally, we'll head up into Colorado for one show, in Salida, at the A Church (2/8), which is sold out already, somehow. Maybe someone will cancel, and you can still get in? Fortune favors the advanced ticket holder.

SOUTHEAST – Allegedly I am playing shows in the Southeast of the United States in March, but until some more contracts come in I'm not sure I believe it. For now, look for me in Norfolk, VA at The Annex (3/14). Rumors of Atlanta, Knoxville, Asheville, have penetrated my inbox.

THE TOWN AND THE CITY – In April I'll return to The Town and The City Festival in Lowell, MA. (4/25), and around that fest we've built a short run that includes the Cock'n'Bull in Galway, NY (4/23), The House Theater at Treehouse Brewing Company in Deerfield, MA. (4/24) and ArtsRiot in Burlington, VT. (4/26). Our friends in the Minnesota band Wild Horses join us in Galway and Deerfield.

ACOUSTIC CAFE – When I was at the University of Wisconsin in the prior century I spent a lot of Sunday mornings cleaning up the beer bottles from Saturday night and listening to Acoustic Cafe on the local AAA station. I heard some great music I wouldn't have been able to find otherwise, and seldom missed a week. I played the show myself the first time in 2006 and returned this past December with the full band on the Universal Fire Tour, to play a few songs live, and talk with my old friend Rob Reinhart about my dear friend Billy Conway, writing, and family.

INTERVIEW – Last fall I did an interview for the west coast tour that somehow never went to print, and has only recently been published as a preview to our February Southwest tour. You can read that here. I say all kinds of good things.

PIETA – My friend and sometime tour companion Pieta Brown has started a Patreon. She's prolific and deep, one of my favorite songwriters working. If you're looking for a way to support a legit artist outside the rigged game of the music business, I'll vouch for her all day. Go check it out.

     That's all for now, but new information could come in at any time. Come and find us out there.