Friends, It's my pleasure to finally announce the release of THE UNIVERSAL FIRE, this September (9/6) on Fluff and Gravy Records, and the release today of the title track as a single. To say the arc on this one has been long doesn't really cover it. Thanks for sticking around.
“Our religion was electric / Magnetic, singing on a wire...”
THE UNIVERSAL FIRE is a sort of almanac, the winter count of a season of grief. Its context is the illness and death of Billy Conway – my best friend and our drummer and brother for a decade on the road – and the album sets that loss against the 2008 fire at the Universal Studios lot in Los Angeles that destroyed the masters of certain bedrock recordings of American music, to get after ideas about mortality, legacy, memory, artifact. Sonically it’s a rock’n’roll record, in line with albums like Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits, or Tonight’s the Night by Neil Young. It covers most of what I know how to play, rock’n’roll to fingerstyle ballad, country lament to greasy blues shuffle, and the band is outrageous. They play with so much heart, these dear friends of mine.
Recorded at Wavelab in Tucson, Arizona, and produced by Bon Iver's Mike Lewis (who also played saxophone and piano), the album features my long-time band with Eric Heywood on steel, Jeremy Moses Curtis on bass, and Erik Koskinen on electric guitar, joined by the great John Convertino of Calexico on drums. Kris Delmhorst, Pieta Brown, and Barbara Jean Meyers all later sang backing vocals, and Tucson’s Sergio Mendoza played some beautiful ranchera-style accordion.
That's all you need to know for now, I guess. If you want to help, please order the album right now, share the single with anyone you think will like it, and then go pre-save the album wherever you stream music. Then, make your plans to come find us this fall. We’ll be on the road across the country with the full band September to December. Europe and other regions at home will happen in 2025.
I’ll be in touch as the release approaches, probably more than any of us would like, but for now, go hear the title track and then go PRE-ORDER the album on vinyl and compact disc. As they used to say on television, quantities are limited.
THE UNIVERSAL FIRE — NORTH AMERICAN TOUR
Get tickets
9/5 The Word Barn, Exeter, NH *
9/6 Iron Horse Music Hall, Northampton, MA *
9/7 Narrows Center for the Arts, Fall River, MA *
9/8 Cotuit Center for the Arts, Cotuit, MA
9/11 Cock ’n Bull, Galway, NY *
9/12 Fruitlands Museum, Harvard, MA *
9/13 Iridium, NYC, NY *
9/14 The Cut, Gloucester, MA *
9/20 Millennium Stage, Washington, DC
9/26 Live from the Divide, Bozeman, MT *
9/28 Wilma Theatre, Missoula, MT (An Evening with the Black Ram Guitar)
9/29 Monk’s Bar, Missoula, MT *
10/03 Gold Hill Inn, Boulder, CO *
10/04 Delicious Orchards, Hotchkiss, CO *
10/05 Mercury Cafe, Denver, CO *
11/01 McCabe’s, Santa Monica, CA *
11/03 Sweetwater Music Hall, Mill Valley, CA *
11/06 Mississippi Studios, Portland, OR *
11/07 Tractor Tavern, Seattle, WA *
11/08 Trout Lake Hall, Trout Lake, WA *
11/09 Juicebox Public House, Centralia, WA *
11/10 New Prospect Theatre, Bellingham, WA *
(December Midwest dates TBA)
*with Erik Koskinen
