March 2020

When I passed through the entrance to the security line in Dublin last month, the small, uniformed woman checking my documents said to me, in a heavy Polish accent, “You look like Texas movie.” I said, “Thanks.”

This month there are, in fact, two shows in Texas. Consider us on location there, for a film that will never be made. And not in Austin, or Houston, but west Texas. Lubbock, for example. Buddy Holly country. I’ve never been there, which is my favorite thing to say about anyplace. 

First we have a bunch of shows in California, Arizona, and New Mexico. Yesterday I flew to San Francisco, after participating in what Lewis Lapham memorably called, “the ritual reenactment of the legend of democracy.” Like the music business, in our national politics we don’t know what else to do, so we keep doing what we did before, though it seems no longer to work, and feels like running water through a bad hose. I got a sticker though. 

Now I’m on the 12th floor of a hotel fronting the bay at sunrise, waiting for the coffee to kick in, and considering the balance between the miraculous and the profane, a long line of airplanes on approach strung out in the half dark like Christmas lights. Grandpa Jack used to take my brothers and I to the end of the the runway at the airport in Milwaukee to watch the planes come in, but that was a long time ago, and I wasn’t a movie star yet.
 
Tell your friends out west we’re headed for their town, or near it, in a rented van, with some guitars and amplifiers, and the production values are low but the soundtrack is fantastic.
 
WEST - This March we tour from Oakland, California down through the desert southwest and into west Texas, with shows at the Starline Social Club in Oakland, CA (3/5), Felton Music Hall in Felton, CA (3/6), McCabe's Guitar Shop in Santa Monica, CA (3/7), Last Exit Live in Phoenix, AZ (3/10), Coconino Center for the Arts, Flagstaff, AZ (3/11), GiG Performance Space in Santa Fe, NM (3/12) {SOLD OUT}, Blue Light Live in Lubbock, TX (3/13), and the Green Apple Arts Center in Eden, TX (3/14). Tickets are, as always, available through the TOUR page for all confirmed dates. Our friend Jessie Bridges opens Oakland; Ismay opens Felton.

UNITED KINGDOM - In the first half of April, we'll tour the UK south to north, not unlike the early Norman kings, with shows at the Railway Inn, Winchester (4/1), The Water Rats in London (4/2), the Gosforth Civic Theatre in Gosforth (4/3), the Foxlowe Arts Centre in Leek (4/4), The Greystones in Sheffield (4/5), Kingsmead House in High Wycombe (4/6), The Butterfly Collector in Barry (4/7) {SOLD OUT}, The Rose and Monkey in Manchester (4/8), Broadcast in Glasgow (4/9), Glenbuchat Hall in Strathdon (4/10), and The Blue Lamp in Aberdeen (4/11). Our friend Ry Cavanaugh opens the tour, supporting his forthcoming solo album Time for This, and sits in with the band. Full details on the TOUR page.

MIDWEST - In May we'll tour a part of the country that we love, and which many educated people on both coasts know exists but could scarcely delineate on paper: Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Dates and tickets for most of the tour are up on the TOUR page, and we'll fill in a few more around the edges in the next month or two.

ELSE - I'll mention in passing that most of my albums are in print and for sale, for those of you who still like to own the artifact instead of renting it, one song at a time, for 1/100,000 of a cent, and who still have a device that reads a compact disc. You can buy them at the STORE, but you can't buy anything else, because I'm a musician, and I make and sell music.