US Tour #4

My fifth DIY tour may have followed a somewhat familiar route around the eastern half of the United States, but my experiences were far from routine. Here are a few brief highlights.

Detroit
Our/Detroit Vodka – “Leave” Music Video Release
The New Way Bar
Detroit Contemporary – Women Exhibit Performance

Despite a frigid chill that made my fingers wish that Michigan could somehow materialize into mittens instead of just resembling them, the night I released my first-ever music video at Our/Detroit with Gold House Media was wildly heart-warming. Staged in front of a huge window overlooking Michigan Central Station (quite possibly my favorite train station), I performed a set of singles to be released on Year of Abandon and watched the very first public screening of “Leave” with a crowd filled with friends.

Making a Music Video: Round Two was not far to follow. During my month-long sojourn in Detroit, Natasha Beste and I planned the ins and outs of my next music video for “Nestling“, off Year of Abandon. A lot more conceptual and a lot more mud-caked, the shoot entailed a day full of positioning fake birds and real flowers in front of a green screen.

Kevin Eckert and Mike Burridge invited me to be a guest on their hilarious, creativity-driven show, Royal Oak Comix Party. We had quite a cute chat about how virtually anyone with $34 and the internet can live the dream and tour so long as they have a good handle on the importance of bus snacks. The episode is viewable here.

My Chorale Corral “Just Married” sound sculpture had a temporary home in the Fortress Studios Exhibit at Oakland University, where I rode this awesome model tractor.

On my last day in Detroit, I took a trip to the ever-beautiful Belle Isle, happened across a pretty fantastic tunnel bridge, and wrote and recorded “My Baby Don’t Love Me No More” to appear on my upcoming Cities album.

Chicago
Norwood Den

I happened to be in Chicago for St. Patrick’s Day, so I finally saw the river dyed green! I also met a large number of enchanting folks at my house show at Norwood Den.

Madison
The Brink Lounge

At the Chazen I pondered over Oldenburg’s “Soft Screw” sculpture, which is in the irreversible process of reversion, whereby solid converts to viscous liquid. Could Oldenburg have known just how aptly fitting his titling would be as his sculpture softens to liquid in a constant state of becoming?

At MMoCA, the “Lands in Limbo” exhibit opened my eyes to the predicament of unrecognized sovereign nations and had me considering how our personal, ancestral, and political history shapes our lives as well as the role ancestral history plays in personal identity.

At the UW-Madison music library I poured over books concerning women in hip hop, antique gramophone advertisements, and John Cage and Morton Feldman. Records Ruin The Landscape by David Grubbs was the most enlightening book I scanned through. It details Cage’s aversion to the recorded medium in capturing musical performances as it leaves no room for the fluctuations and idiosyncrasies naturally occurring in every individual performance of a singular composition. It also revealed to me the existence of La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela’s sound and light environment “Dream House“, which is hidden in plain sight in Manhattan.

Minneapolis
Barbette
Driftwood Char Bar

My first time in Minneapolis proved to be charming and meditative.

At the Walker Art Center Sculpture Garden, I sat on a bench taking in Oldenburg’s Spoonbridge and Cherry sculpture. Two separate groups of passersby requested I show off the musical capacity of the toy piano at my feet and both parties were pleasantly startled when the playing was accompanied by my singing. It turns out “Kermit vs. Pinocchio” is a popular in-the-park-on-an-afternoon-meeting-a-stranger kind of song.

I discovered restorative yoga. In the course of an hour we worked our leisurely way through 4 very relaxing poses. I also took some chill time to concentrate on my breathing underneath an adorable and colorful indoor tree.

And of course I took a trip to Lakewood Cemetery to see what the (relatively new) necropolis architecture of the midwest had to offer.

Memphis
House Show – where I had the distinct pleasure of sharing the stage with an awesome band from Detroit, The Kickstand Band.

Spencer Kellum, a solo artist with a singing voice of glory, took me thrifting and I found a lovely yellow coat with cowboys and bulls running around inside. But it took everything in me not to try bringing home a tractor tricycle.

Adam Silver, the wild drummer of DBJT, introduced me to the real meaning of zen by letting me be in charge of every turn we made as he drove his car until we came upon an interesting destination. Without knowing where I was going, I led us past the Stax Museum, which looks phenomenal lit up at night, and right into the downtown, where we had a bite and enjoyed Beale Street and a view of the Mississippi River before I made my way to my second home, the Megabus.

Dallas
Three Links Deep Ellum – where I shared the stage with Skinny Cooks, Eric McFadden, and Jah Born.

Nothing brings me more joy than to spend time with my great friend and sometimes musical collaborator Nigel Newton when I’m in his neck of the woods! Together we explored the MADI museum, which sports geometric works of art, and the Dallas Museum of Art, which had an exhibit of minimalist paintings made with feet instead of brushes and an inventive rope pulley system by which the painter was able to somewhat control his balance and movement around the canvas. Nigel also brought me to an epic jam with members of one of his bands, Reinventing Jude. Normally I’m not one with much propensity for jamming, but when a theremin entered the equation, I changed my tune very literally and found a new instrument to covet!

Houston
SXSW Overflow Fest at Super Happy Fun Land – where I was happy to be joined in the line up by my favorite Detroit rapping duo, Passalacqua.

House Show- where I mentioned that I had just released my music video for “Leave” and was in the process of telling people how they could check it out on YouTube when everybody started to actually pull up the video on their smart devices. Harkening back to my drum major days in the marching band, I counted everybody in to pushing play at the exact same time that I started my performance track for “Leave”. This made for an incredible meta show experience of people watching me perform “Leave” while watching me perform “Leave”.

New Orleans
Sundown Sessions at Loyola University
House Show – with the ever-lovely and completely dance-worthy No Clouds and a crowd that really rallied behind the persistent themes of death that manifest in most of my songs.

As a real lover of trollies, I considered myself privileged to be a passenger on a thrilling Nola night-time trolley ride. As a real lover of trollies, I considered myself foolish the next day when I realized how entirely slow Nola’s trolley system is and how late you will probably be to a prior engagement when you rely on the trolley as a main source of transportation and don’t provide yourself an ample delay cushion.

During my time in Nola I was also initiated into the local bounce dance scene. I can’t say I didn’t feel a bit schizophrenic when I was dancing to two overlapping songs that would otherwise make no logical sense to be played over each other, but did I learn a few moves and have a great time? Yes, yes I did.

Orlando
The Space

My first time in Orlando was a source of great excitement. Part tour stop and part visit with my cousin Lauren, Florida was mostly a vacation from my tourcation. The best part of which was most certainly a cousin canoe outing at Wekiwa Springs (which was interrupted for a few minutes by a phone call with the photo editor at Newsday who was organizing a photoshoot for me when I made it to Atlanta for a spread in the arts section about my upcoming Long Island performance in conjunction with Sparkboom) and a visit to downtown Orlando’s vegan hot dog cart.

Atlanta
Eddie’s Attic
Mammal Gallery Open Mic – which happens to be the most diverse and entertaining open mic I’ve ever had the pleasure of attending and performing at.

My twin sister Liz took me to Stone Mountain for a scenic hike boasting a view of ATL’s downtown & midtown. Was I ready to break before we were out of view of the parking lot? Admittedly, yes.

Liz’s house set the stage for the photoshoot Newsday arranged for me – laying down on the floor, enveloping my bells in my hair, and making whatever face the photographer asked of me in the least possible awkward way.

Charlotte
Crown Station

Red Jesse, a talented rapper and all-around nice guy, invited me to see a dress-rehearsal of some outlandishly funny plays, one of which he was directing. For the first time potentially ever, my gut-wrenching, space-filling laughter caused the cast to beg me to attend all their shows as opposed to the normal societal response which oftentimes proves me to be profusely unwelcome in most theaters and public spaces. In particular, Christopher Durang’s “The Actor’s Nightmare” had me laughing so hard I was suffocating, in part to its brilliant references to Hamlet, my all-time favorite.

New York
I tied my tour itinerary into a neat finishing bow by making a visit to the very Dream House I had read of during my time in the UW-Madison music library. I had to put my ear plugs in as the environment becomes aurally taxing after 10 minutes, but otherwise the ongoing performance of Young’s endless minimal drone composition coupled with Zazeela’s magenta lighting installations made for a calm and engulfing atmosphere.