November 2017
November 2017
WASHINGTON // OREGON // CALIFORNIA // MIDWEST
It’s been ten years since I shaved, or wore a tie. I know it because an old friend celebrated his wedding anniversary, and I stood up in that wedding with a clean shave and a four-in-hand, not because I liked it, but because I grew up with my grandparents and I thought there might be grandparents on the scene, the kind of people for whom I was willing to observe a certain form. In ten years I’ve become become less susceptible to convention, but I still make my bed every morning and feel a twinge of pointless dread when I sleep late or haven’t shoveled the driveway by mid-morning. This occurred to me on the road last week on tour with what must be the only electric band in North America in which no one has a tattoo, or anything pierced. I guess somehow we never got around to it.
There’s a kind of heliopause where the road life ends and the home life is embarked on but not quite real, and things are clear, the way the light feels scrubbed after a storm. The savor of the road lingers, running jokes replay through the mind so that you laugh under your breath, and the feeling of motion carries like sustain. You set the house to rights looking over the things you own and which own you: a missing hub cap, the flower pot set out on the deck to catch cigarette butts now brewing a weak tea of rainwater and spent tobacco. The problem with being human is that it’s about impossible to know anything while you’re in it, and we only apprehend our lives with any clarity in approach and retreat. The Doppler of perception. The descent into reality can be startling but often enough it’s where the good work begins. It’s November. Our heroes are dying off, the days are strange and warm, the river thunders down over the dam in town. The stars were out this morning and the axe threw sparks when I split wood for the stove. Tomorrow we're on the road again, this time out west. Come find us.
WASHINGTON - This week we begin our tour of the west coast, splitting sets each night with Kris Delmhorst moving north to south, with shows in Washington state at Ballard Homestead in Seattle, WA. (11/2); the Icicle Creek Center for the Arts (11/3) in Leavenworth. If you haven't been to Leavenworth, this is the good one.
OREGON - After that it's down the 5 to Portland, OR and the Old Church (11/4), and then Seven Devil's Brewery in Coos Bay, OR, (11/5) on our way south toward the sunny weather.
CALIFORNIA - In California we'll play the Arcata Playhouse in Arcata, CA. (11/7); the Palms Playhouse in Winters, CA. (11/8); the Freight & Salvage in Berkeley, CA. (11/9); Don Quixote's in Felton, CA. (11/10); McCabe's in Santa Monica, CA. (11/11); finishing up at Soho in Santa Barbara, CA. (11/12). These are all great rooms and they ought to be sweet, memorable shows. Else I'm firing someone.
MIDWEST - In December we return home to the Midwest, traveling from The Ark in Ann Arbor, MI. to Spring Lake (12/1) to Colectivo in Milwaukee, WI (12/9), with stops in Illinois, Iowa, and Minnesota along the way. The complete dates are on the Tour Page. Send your friends and tell them that although our hospitality rider contains only four adjectives and four nouns - French wine, Mexican beer, hot coffee, and tap water - it is seldom filled precisely, and donations are always welcome, mainly in the beer department.
Thanks,
- JF