PIETA BROWN – At the end of February I'll play a couple split bills with my friend Pieta Brown in New England, sharing the band and backing each other, reprising a stripped-down version of the show that we toured in December in the Midwest. We'll start at the ZenBarn in Waterbury, VT. (2/29) and then head over to Askew in Providence, RI. (3/1). After that, I'll join Pieta on guitars for her headline show at the Parlor Room in Northampton (3/3). If you're unfamiliar with her work, she's aces, deep and subtle. Start anywhere. Here's a playlist.

MARTHA SCANLAN + JON NEUFELD – I met Martha Scanlan and John Neufeld a few years ago at Red Ants Pants Music Festival, our favorite summer festival out in Montana, and their live show was mesmerizing. Two voices and two guitars, and the way they play feels like circular breathing. When I'm driving I often wonder what might be the exactly appropriate music for the landscape I'm moving through. Jon and Martha have created their own landscape. This March they'll be my special guests for a brief run in the Northeast, with shows at our upstate home stadium, the Cock'n Bull in Galway, NY. (3/13), and over at One Longfellow Square in Portland, ME. (3/14), and finally on a split bill at Passim, in Cambridge, MA. (3/17), as they promote the gorgeous new album of covers called Save It For Later, due 3/1, and which you can and should pre-order, right now.

BACK PORCH – Between those shows I'll play two sets at the Back Porch Festival (3/15) in Northampton, MA., the first as part of a Willie Nelson Tribute show and the second with my band. It's a sweet fest and the headliners this year include a lot of my friends, not only Martha and Jon, but also Peter Case, Charlie Parr, and a pile of others I'm looking forward to hearing and seeing again. Richard Thompson, whose 1991 album Rumor & Sigh is one of my all-time favorites, plays kingpin to the whole wagon.

IRELAND – In early May I'll return to Ireland to lay the groundwork for a winter 2025 full band tour there by opening a brief run for England's John Smith. We'll play a run of shows that includes Whelan's in Dublin (5/8), Dolan's in Limerick (5/9), Debarra's in Clonakilty (5/10), Coughlan's in Cork (5/11), and The White Horse in Ballincollig (5/12). Look for a few solo dates to fill in around the edges. Just saying the town names makes my heart go pitter-pat. Still some magic over there.

READING / LISTENING – FICTION When We Cease to Understand the World, Benjamín Labatut; The Rings of Saturn, W.G. Sebald; The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers; Red Harvest, Dashiell Hammett; Prophet Song, Paul Lynch; Nine Stories, J.D. Salinger. NON-FICTION The Gospel in Brief, Leo Tolstoy; The Invisible Bridge, Rick Perlstein; Jesus, Jay Parini; Beyond Belief, Elaine Pagels. POETRY: Darkness Sticks to Everything, Tom Hennen; Collected Poems, Robert Hayden; The River Sound, W.S. Merwin; On Drinking, Charles Bukowski MUSIC: (Complilation) Benny Goodman Sextet Featuring Charlie Christian; On Savoy: Charlie Parker and Miles Davis; Troubador, J.J. Cale; Teatro, Willie Nelson; Belladonna, Daniel Lanois; Feast of Wire / Spoke, Calexico.

Otherwise? I'll be out solo in Oregon at the end of May, with shows in Eugene and Portland, then in Michigan in June with the full band to headline the twentieth annual Nor-East'r Music and Art Festival in Mio (6/8) – along with old friends Erik Koskinen, Peter Mulvey, and Hayward Williams – with shows in Paw Paw (6/9) and Marquette (6/7) too. Later in the summer we'll play a few more festivals, and starting in September, we'll be on tour half of every month around the country behind the new record, The Universal Fire (Fluff & Gravy Records, 9/6). If you feel neglected and want us to come to your town, now is the time to write to my agents and manager, and make your case. Tell them the 250-400 seat club, or bar, or barn, or defunct church, or hayfield you want us to play, and remember: the magic word is not please, or thank you, but guarantee. As you may have guessed by now, we're in this for the money.

Thanks for reading this thing. We'll see you out there.

MARCH 2024