Can one show be called a “tour”? Sure. It’s dumb but sure why not? One time I played 5 shows in 5 different places (in Portland) all in one day and called that a tour, which it definitely was. What about if I go on a trip and not play any shows? Should I make a poster for that? One time traveling by train/backpack alone in Europe I had some days off between shows and went as far as I could into the Swiss Alps by train and gondola. With nobody around, at the edge of a glittering thawing lake near the summit, I arranged my merch on a cold rock. No sales. Was that a tour?
I’m not doing any of that right now. Here I’m announcing a different barely-tour: 2 shows spread far apart in space and time that hang together as a “tour” just because I’m driving from one to the other with my guitar. Tickets will go on sale this Friday, April 26th at 10am local time.
Saturday, June 22nd, 2024 - Missoula, Mont. - “the Show Room” at Zootown Arts Community Center (with Sung Mountains and Dylan Running Crane)
Weds. June 26th, 2024 - Winnipeg, Manitoba - West End Cultural Centre (with tofusmell)
Here are some artworks:
Returning from a trip and announcing the shows that will happen on the next trip. That’s been my life for a while now. I keep thinking I’ll knock it off and sit still, focus on one thing for a long enough time to get to the bottom of it. Or maybe instead of all these strange little clumps of regional shows sprinkled through the year, maybe I’m supposed to go on a “real” tour for a grueling length of time, the kind that people go on who hate touring afterward, because of it? I like it like this. The world is too big and full and maybe now I’m finally figuring out how to drop the FOMO and just play when and where I can, with peace and health and enough slowness.
Funny to be typing that today when I’m fresh in deep jetlag, having flown home from Japan yesterday. I’m back here in this quiet forest place with the crush of the Tokyo subway a quickly evaporating dream. It really did happen… yesterday! Here are some pictures:
I probably have many thoughts about being in Japan. They haven’t really taken form yet, and maybe they won’t. It was like being submerged in pure fine aesthetics for weeks and I’m still a little bit gooey. Plus, the base level of mutual courtesy and surprising and normalized consideration was such a luxury to get used to. While dropping our baggage at the Tokyo airport, the American man having a tantrum at the ticket agent next to us was like a “welcome back” message. He seethed and thrashed, an emissary of the USA feeling, bottled up and exploding at innocent bystanders. Our young and brutal country is a wound, and it wounds. Still, I am so happy and lucky to be back here on this green hill, stoking the last of the late spring fires.
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I haven’t done this as much as I intended when I started the newsletter, but today I have a new song to share with paying subscribers. It’s an alternate version of a song that will appear on the upcoming Mount Eerie album that I’ve been working on for a couple years now.
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