September 2022

I sat down at the laminate pressboard desk in a hotel in Lewistown, Montana, last week and made a notebook recon of all the songs that seem to be in play. Writing the twenty-odd titles out longhand and seeing them together – Crushed Ice and Gasoline, Winter Count, Love Grief and Money, Monterey Rain, Universal Fire – made them look suddenly real, and also accounted for the three or four years that had apparently vanished. When you start out writing, you want to believe that the way you work is an artifact of inexperience, and the process will become more streamlined or efficient over time. That there will be less confusion and wasted motion. But it isn't true. Or, I guess it could be, but you'd be in trouble.

The act creates its own imperatives, and there's no such thing as wasted motion. You just keep showing up, curious to see what happens next, because doing precisely and efficiently what you already know how to do is the equivalent – to crib from Einstein – of drilling multiple holes in a piece of plywood. But writing something that you don't understand, when it works, is like soft-shoeing on the trap-door at the bottom of the soul. Which is also an apt description of playing music when things go right, which they sometimes do. Maybe things will go right this fall. It appears to be coming right up.


ROCK BEND – September 10th, 2022 I'll be in St. Peter, Minnesota as part of the 31st annual Rock Bend Folk Festival, playing the 2:30 PM slot, joined by Erik Koskinen on electric guitar. I like Southern Minnesota, and I always did. There, I said it.

MISSOULA – September 13th I’ll be in Missoula, Montana, for a special show put on by the Tamarack Grief Resource Center, with my dear friend and longtime collaborator, the acclaimed poet and author Chris Dombrowski. The show will be a two-man exploration of art and grief, entitled, Moon on the Water, or Face in the Mirror: The Last Poems of Billy Conway. Chris will read some of his own unpublished poems, and I’ll play some of mine — and Billy’s — unreleased songs, and we’ll talk together about art as a means of parsing and inhabiting grief, while telling stories and examining the indelible late work of our remarkable friend. This will be a free show, of possible interest to anyone who ever lost anyone, or will, which is everyone. We'll post full details soon as we have them.

SALMON RIVER – September 15-20 I’ll be floating the Salmon River in central Idaho with Middle Fork River Expeditions, playing an off-the-cuff concert every night around the fire with my pal Eric Heywood on acoustic guitars. Think of this as a sort of curated float, or a moveable feast: they handle the gear and food, we ride or paddle downriver, and enjoy the largest wilderness in the lower forty-eight, camping out every night, with some music thrown in there. Or, think of it as a Folk Cruise but without marine diesel, ice sculptures, shuffleboard, or a three-mile wake of human excrement paying out behind the boat. If you like rivers, wilderness, music, and the absence of cell coverage, maybe you should look into it. There are seats in play.

WASHINGTON / OREGON – Later in the month we'll convene the band and head west, returning to Perham Hall in Zillah, WA (9/23), the Ballard Homestead in Seattle, Washington (9/24), and the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland Oregon (9/25). We're still looking for a gig in or near Spokane on 9/22 if you have bright ideas. Four-piece band, guaranteed 90% housebroken (not counting Koskinen).

SISTERS FOLK – September 26-29 I’ll take part in the Americana Song Academy at Sisters Folk Fest, talking with a small group of people about things I wonder about all the time, like how songs work, why anyone would write them, and the vagaries of process, before joining the boys on stage at the Festival on 9/30 and 10/1. As my daughter's friends will tell you, I look scary, but I'm mostly nice. I think there's a waitlist for the school, and festival tickets are still available here.

SMOKESTACK LIGHTNING – October 15th, I'll host a triple-bill song swap with my old friends David Champagne and Jim Fitting, members of the seminal 1980's-era rock 'n' roll band Treat Her Right – in which Billy Conway played cocktail drum – at the Parlor Room in Northampton, Massachusetts. THR toured with everyone from Bonnie Raitt to Bob Dylan, and took the one-chord, high-guitar/low-guitar Chess blues and amped harp of Wolf, Muddy, and Little Walter into new territory, with songs like I Think She Likes Me, and I Got a Gun. Jimmy, Dave and I got together on stage at a memorial for Billy back in June, and hearing them light it up was like having a direct pipeline to the first music I ever loved. We're going to get up there and put on a clinic. Get your tickets when they go on sale.

EUROPE – In the first week of November I'll join my old friend Gregory Alan Isakov on the first leg of his fall 2022 European tour, opening shows for his band in Paris, France (11/2), Leuven, Belgium (11/3), Utrecht, Netherlands (11/4) – performing my own set at Take Root Festival in Groningen, Netherlands (11/5) – and in Cologne, Germany (11/6) (full details at TOUR page). I’m generally more of a Ford Transit or Dodge Caravan kind of guy, so I’ll be interested to get on the bus for a week and try sleeping in a bunk on the motorway. Gregory is just aces, a lovely human being with a great band and a pile of beautiful songs, and we’ve shared bills around various parts of the USA this past decade. I’m looking forward to catching up, and getting to hear him again, covering some ground.

UNITED KINGDOM – The full November 2022 tour dates resurrecting our lost UK tour have finally been hoisted. I’ll be touring around for a few weeks joined by the above-mentioned Eric Heywood on pedal steel and electric guitar, a nice long run, with Blueblade recording artist and bon vivant Dietrich Strause opening select dates. Full details on the TOUR page.

I guess that about covers it. We'll see you out there. As always, Jeffrey Foucault.