I took this picture down in Texas on tour with John Convertino this winter. Last night of the trip, wind blowing hard down the street in Marfa, the two of us standing outside the bar and maybe thirty souls inside, some of them just there to shoot pool. When I look at it now I hear Billy Conway singing a song he learned from his pals in Los Lobos, a song he said one of them sang all the time at soundcheck, but Bill only knew the first few lines, which didn't stop him from singing them to me in hotel elevators, traffic jams, green rooms that doubled as janitorial storage, and always in a sort of Speedy Gonzalez burlesque of Mexican-accented English: Theeese ees my liiiiife / playing in taverns and baaaars / singing my songs from thee heaaaart! And he was right. It was his life, and mine too, and we loved it. I still do.

In April I'm going to go broke and go fishing, though not necessarily in that order. I need to turn in the new record, which means finishing the art and getting the lacquer to the plant, and writing a nauseating number of logistical emails, lobbing the next year out ahead of me like a grappling hook. In May I'll start running around again, as outlined below.

IRELAND – In May I'll return to Ireland, first to headline two solo shows – at Colfer's Pub in Wexford (5/5) and the Kilkenny Roots Festival (5/6) – and then to open for England's John Smith on the Ireland leg of the release tour for his new album The Living Kind. That tour includes stops at 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). The grand notion here is that we're making a beachhead for a full band return with the new record in January of 2025, which is itself part of a careful, multi-step plan to be famous in Ireland.

OREGON – At the end of May I'll head out to Oregon to play three shows: first at The Shedd Institute in Eugene (5/30), and then at The Red Barn in Hood River (5/31) and finally on a split bill with my old pal Jeffrey Martin (who sort of looks like me, around the age of 33, waking up a from a long nap) at Mississippi Studios in Portland (6/2) I'll be joined in Hood River and Portland by my new friend, guitar ace Jon Neufeld. I won't be back to the PNW until November with the full band, so if you prefer the solo deal where a sad man plays sad songs on an acoustic guitar between saying clever things, this may be the tour for you.

MICHIGAN – Remember all those Midwest tours where we went everywhere but Michigan? In early June we'll convene the full band for three shows, all in Michigan. We'll start up in Marquette at the Ore Dock Brewing Company (6/7) on a split bill with our lead guitar player Erik Koskinen and his great band, then we'll head south to headline the twentieth annual Nor-East'r Music and Art Festival in Mio, Michigan (6/8) – along with old Wisconsin friends Peter Mulvey and Hayward Williams – before heading east to play another split bill with Koskinen in Paw Paw (6/9) at The Lucky Wolf. These are going to be outrageous good shows, plus our pal Matt Eich of Mule Resophonic Guitars will be tailgating the fest in Mio with his Mule Bus, and it's right on the Au Sable, so there might be some fly fishing.

KOSKO – The new album LOVE STREET / DOWN AVENUE by my friend and bandmate Erik Koskinen is out today and streaming in full color wherever you listen to music. But, more importantly, you can buy it directly from him, like a good person. I wrote the liners for this record, designed the cover, and also sequenced it with Eric Heywood on a long drive over the Rockies on I-70 last fall. I also played some bottleneck slide and pitched in family vocals with Kris Delmhorst on the song Dixie Line. What I'm trying to say is, I'm all in this record, because I believe in it. Go get a copy on vinyl, and then you can buy yourself a record player.

READING / LISTENING – FICTION: City of Bohane, Kevin Barry; Ask the Dust, John Fante; The MANIAC, Benjamín Labatut; The Zero, Jess Walters; The Lost Journals of Sacajawea, Debra Magpie Earling; NON-FICTION The Sense of Being Stared At, Rupert Sheldrake; The Invisible Bridge, Rick Perlstein; Politics, Aristotle POETRY: Ariel; Sylvia Plath; Dream Apartment, Lisa Olstein; MUSIC: Bright Future, Adrian Lenker; Down in Thibodaux, Chris Smither; All Hits: Memories, Jim White; Cat Power Sings Dylan, Cat Power; Algiers, Calexico; T-Bone Blues, T-Bone Walker, Salivation, Terry Allen; Dogs, Nina Nastasia.

Later this 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), which is fantastic, will probably rack up a few Grammies, and is certain to be a cultural touchstone for decades to come. Or, it might just let us keep driving around in a Ford Transit van playing music.

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

APRIL 2024