Next Friday July 31st I’ll be playing a concert at the Fifth Maine Museum on Peaks Island, a short ferry ride away from the city of Portland. It’s a beautiful building constructed by veterans of the union regiment in 1888. They were famed for having captured 5 confederate flags during the war. My dear friend Lauren, operations director at the Museum, has organized the evening. It should be a riotous night, with Sydney up from New York and local artist Auntie Opiate opening the show.
John Brown’s body lies a moulderin’ in the grave… but his soul is marching on.
I’ll also have a sculpture installed at the museum on view for the month of August. It is a cradle-shaped music box that plays an arrangement of a melody shared by the civil war song “John Brown’s Body,” its reactionary twin “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” the labor song “Solidarity Forever,” and the hymn “Say Brothers.” It plays this song using a motorized music box movement that takes punched paper, much like a player piano.
Hello, hello. Last time I was here, I said that my new record would be properly released in July… Well, needless to say that did not happen. Sophia and I got very busy with our wedding in August, and then teaching obligations swallowed me whole in September. The records also took longer to produce than I initially expected — I ended up making 50 small paintings in total for the sleeves.
All that being said, I am super excited to announce that I’ve planned a proper release show for The Americanization of Shmuel in December with an absolutely wicked line-up. It will be a special night, with Ella Heron up from Philly, Sydney Spann coming from New York, and Oliver Strand driving down from Gloucester.
I hope to see you there!!! It’s Friday December 12, 7:30pm at the Repair Atelier on Church St, Providence. There will be a modest cover to support the out-of-town artists.
Hello there. And welcome to my newsletter! If you’re getting this email I was thinking of you, and thought it might be nice to keep in touch.
Moraines are both accumulation and deposit, a churning terrestrial agglomeration laid down at glacial speed. I’ve started this newsletter as my “moraine,” a way to put things down for you to see, read, and hear. I’ll share show announcements, audio releases, perhaps a story or two—things like that. I am horrific at texting and I dislike invasive social media platforms, so I have landed on this as a fine way to keep in touch with you, dear friends, colleagues, and listeners. I promise these dispatches will be occasional, at most, and if you want to unsubscribe, please just click here: unsubscribe. I won’t be offended! If you do want to subscribe, but I’ve got the wrong email in my rolodex, you can also re-subscribe using your correct address.
