We went down to Tucson and cut a record. The boys flew or drove from Montana, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Texas, and we met up at a little adobe house – north of downtown and across from the blue neon of Gus's Liquor – with a mechanical gate, and a pool, and a cactus that ambushed me the first night, so that my right hand swelled up and started itching, and only settled down with a general application of tequila. Welcome to Tucson, watch your ass.

We worked five days at Wavelab, and cut twenty-two of three dozen songs in play, working fast, an outrageous band, nimble, hungry. We ate tacos for lunch and dinner, and sometimes cold for breakfast, because tacos are delicious and they make a sturdy platform for heroism. Nights after supper we'd drive up Euclid in the early January dark with the waxing-full moon pulling at us, and stop at Gus's for two twelve-packs of Modelo and a bottle of Jimador, and then we'd sit at the long cheap table in the garish rental lighting with most of the bulbs backed out of their sockets, and play through the day's rough mixes on a portable speaker, to find out what happened, and marvel at what everyone else had done. I wish I could describe the happiness of this, but I can't.

Why Tucson? Well, we had to go somewhere. The appeal of the desert in January is visceral. Then, too, Tucson: Worried Spirits, Devotion and Doubt, Chore of Enchantment, Feast of Wire. To be alive to another sky, hear strange birds singing in the dry scrub. To leave your own parallel and season, and disorient your body and mind, make an island of time around a creative act, these are all worthwhile, and I guess I could cough up satisfying reasons all day, but I was trying to get quiet and listen to the world, and the world said, Go on down to Tucson. Much as I would play the no-nonsense Midwesterner, I'll follow the torch of hope and intuition every time and make a hard right into the tall corn if it seems like I should.

It was the first record without Billy Conway in thirteen years, and we set a place for him by the bass station, with his work gloves and some battered wooden brushes – he called them English bundles, after Willie Nelson's longtime accomplice, who invented them so that he could smear the beat against Willie's impossible phrasing – the handkerchief with a silhouette of Wisconsin on it, that he used to wipe down his kit every night, and the saint candle we bought at the Mexican grocery in Nebraska last spring and rechristened Saint William, Virgin of Owatonna. I talked to Bill a lot, the way I would talk to him between takes on any record, looking for the good word, the steady hand, the ready needle when my pretensions or delusions wanted puncture.

What happened? Well, I'll have to tell you about that later. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, and there's a lot of other shit going on.

FURTHER ON – For instance, today is the official release of FURTHER ON: THE SONGS OF BILLY CONWAY, a collection of some of the many songs Billy wrote over the course of his life – from old four-track cassette demos in the 1980’s, to new songs he wrote, recorded on his phone, and sent to his friends like postcards between worlds when he knew he was dying – sung and played by a handful of his comrades and bandmates. Last spring we convened a working wake at Billy and Sarge's old farmhouse in NH, and spent a solid week cutting tracks, arranging vocals and horn lines, cooking dinners, hauling firewood, feeding horses, drinking wine, laughing and crying together. This record is the fruit of that time. It isn't everything he wrote, and it isn't everyone he loved or toured with, but it's a beautiful and faithful document of our dear friend, made for love, without a shred of ambition. All proceeds go the nascent Billy Conway Artist Fund. Buy your copy before they're gone, or stream via all the usual suspects.

FLOODWATER – Off the road for the next month I've decided to keep a hand in by playing two shows at Floodwater Brewing Company in Shelburne Falls, MA. (1/25 and 2/10, respectively), a great little beer bar down on the river. We don't want to piss off the regulars so there will be no charge, just a suggested donation of $10, and all proceeds go to the venerable Franklin Land Trust during their Winter Matching Gift Challenge; a wonderful non-profit I've partnered with before, which has been working the last thirty-five years to preserve and protect land in our region from unwanted development. These won't be precious pin-drop folk shows, just bar shows, duo or trio, playing loud enough that folks can listen or talk a little, or God help us, dance. I have a lot of new songs and I need to learn at least some of them before this next record comes out.

CALIFORNIA – The word itself is music, isn't it? I'll be on tour there and into Nevada, late February through the first week of March, with shows at McCabes Guitar Shop in Santa Monica (2/24), The Lost Chord in Solvang (2/25), Felton Music Hall in Felton (3/1), the Hopmonk Tavern in Novato (3/2), Freight and Salvage in Berkeley (3/3), Old Ironsides in Sacramento (3/4), and then we'll skip over the pass to Reno for one show in Nevada at The Peavine Taphouse (3/5). Erik Koskinen opens everything but Novato, and backs me on electric guitar. The man is a natural born killer on an electric guitar, and writes some of the best songs going. Get some tickets and come say hey.

NEW ENGLAND – I'll play a couple shows out east in April when I'm not fishing, though the only one I know about right now is at The Drake in Amherst MA (4/15).

MIDWEST – I have a run of shows in early May centered on Michigan and Wisconsin. Keep an eye on the TOUR page as those fill in.

I'll hope to see you out there somewhere. Go find that Billy record, and take a long drive.

January 2023