Winter 2022

Winter in a northern climate tends to stick to the facts, and I'll try to do the same. I've been piling everything on the back burners and the kitchen smells like smoke.

BACK PORCH – The first show of 2022 will be at the Parlor Room in Northampton, MA. (3/5) as part of the Back Porch Festival put on by Signature Sounds. It’s a small room, the best kind, and tends to sell out, so line out a babysitter and get your tickets early.

MIDWEST – In the first half of April we'll pick up the reins again two years later, back home in the Midwest, with shows in WI, MN, IA, NE, and KS. We’ll be full band but flying in the Missing Man Formation, the drummer’s chair occupied by a single shot of tequila, with our friend Erik Koskinen — for my money one of the best songwriters in the country, a total ace — opening the tour, and joining the band on electric guitar. That's a lot of dudes and amps. After two years fallow and everything that’s gone down, we have a lot of feelings. We're going to come out swinging.

UK – Later in April I’ll play two shows with Kris Delmhorst in England, at The Water Rats in London (4/19), and the Ramblin' Roots Revue, in High Wycombe (4/22). Obviously two shows do not a proper tour make, but I will return in November to play the UK, Low Countries, and Spain, so we'll allow these couple to whet the blade for now, and then go off to wander the countryside with our daughter, whose conception of England is triangulated by Jane Austen novels, the Great British Baking Show, and Harry Potter films. Picture a rain-soaked and ill-starred maiden lover crossing the lonely moors, delirious with grief, eating a complicated pastry and occasionally performing feats of magic, and you have the basic impression we'd like to amend.

NORTHEAST – In May I’ll tour the Northeast with shows in ME, NH, MA, and NY. Check the tour page for details, but to my knowledge I'll be in Portland at One Longfellow Square (5/5), Concord at the Bank of NH Stage (5/6), City Winery Boston (5/7), Caffe Lena in Saratoga (5/13), and the 443 Social Club in Syracuse (5/14). We probably won't stop to fly fish at all.

PODCAST – Last year, mid-pando, Billy Conway and I sat down in separate cities with our old friend Dave Champagne – lead guitarist and Bill's bandmate in the seminal rock 'n' roll band Treat Her Right circa 1983-89 – and recorded a conversation about playing music together on the road, and nature of our collaboration. You can listen to that, and various other things, including Dave's own great solo records, via Dave's website.

FOOTAGE – Our friend Brian McKinley in Colorado sent along some footage of a concert that Billy and I played three years ago today in Fort Collins at the Downtown Artery, and I thought you all might like to see and hear how tall Bill sits in the saddle, how no matter what I do – and nights when we were on, we liked to play this game where I'd try to lose him – he just reads my mail the whole time. Changes of intro, ending, time, full stops, nothing shakes him. Nights like these were, and are, our religion.

RIVER TRIP – This September I'll be the musical guest on raft trip down the Main fork of the Salmon River – which runs through the largest piece of contiguous wilderness in the lower forty-eight – via Middle Fork River Expeditions. I learned about their Musical Adventure trips through my old friend Darrell Scott, who's run the river a number of times and spoken highly of the experience. The deal is, you sign up for my trip – September 15-20, 2022 and tell them I sent I you – and then we all show up in Idaho with a minimal amount of gear, and float that beautiful river. They handle the logistics, food, and amenities, and crew the rafts. We enjoy the river, maybe do a little fishing and swimming, and every night I'll play around the campfire. If that sounds like your cup of tea, get on it. The trip has a maximum capacity of 23 seats. I'm announcing it to this list first.

That ought to cover it for now. We'll see you out there.