future, past, and present
Mount Eerie tour announcement
Hello. Here I am to tell you about a bunch of shows!
It’s exciting. Tons of new songs from an in-progress album. For the shows in early May we’ll be a duo and those rehearsals are happening now. I’m growing concerned that we may be already too tight as a band.
Here are the shows you can now buy tickets for (with links):
Fri. May 5th, 2023 - Philadelphia, PA - First Unitarian Church Sanctuary (with Karl Blau and Country Gravel)
Sat. May 6th, 2023 - Brooklyn, N.Y. - Pioneer Works (part of the Long Play Festival, put together by Bang On A Can)
Sun. May 7th, 2023 - Round Top, N.Y. - Glen Falls House (with Emily Sprague instrumental)
Tues. May 9th, 2023 - Chicago, Ill. - Old Town School of Folk Music (as part of the Chicago Humanities Festival: "an evening of song and conversation", playing some and talking with Hrishikesh Hirway)
In Brussels, to celebrate the 100th birthday of Harry Smith
Sun. May 28th, 2023 - Brussels, Belgium - l'Ancienne Belgique (participating in a talk and some film screenings with Bret Lunsford and Rani Singh)
Mon. May 29th, 2023 - Brussels, Belgium - l'Ancienne Belgique (a Mount Eerie concert, with "the Golden Glows")
Weds. May 31st, 2023 - Genk, Belgium - Sint-Albertus
Thurs. June 1st, 2023 - Cologne, Germany - Urania Theatre
Sat. June 10th, 2023 - Cork, Ireland - Seanie Buttons
Sun. June 11th, 2023 - Dublin, Ireland - Whelan’s (with Goodtime John)
Tues. June 13th, 2023 - London, UK - Grand Junction
Thurs. June 15th, 2023 - Helsinki, Finland - Temppeliaukio Church
Thurs. June 22nd, 2023 - Copenhagen, Denmark - Poesiens Hus
There may be some more added later but maybe not. You can always get the most up to date stuff directly at www.pwelverumandsun.com
the past:
In the last newsletter about a month ago I posted some old pictures of when I lived at the Track House in Olympia during the years recording Microphones albums at Dub Narcotic Studio. Then on March 19th it burned down! My phone starting dinging with friends on the ground there watching it happen. Even though it’s been 20 years since I moved out, friends still associated me with the place. It was such a powerful location, an old house right downtown, a holdout in the industrial zone. They were fruitful utopian years for me personally and many many others I’m sure. It was a hard and weird and magical spot.
The place had changed vibes drastically in the last decades as it went through its incarnations. The site had many lives. Calvin wrote an excellent piece in the K newsletter about his deeper history as a passerby. This article from a couple years ago gives more of a picture of its later phases. I never went there during the intense black house period that most people now probably think of. I was pre-that. It wasn’t much of a house show spot when I was there, not counting the Rock & Roll Pee My Pants festival in the yard and the occasional party. It was a downtown refuge. The cheapest place I’ve ever lived. Cold and dank but somehow nourishing and clean feeling. RIP Track House. Now it’s wet wet mud.
personal update:
Should I talk about this? I just got back from a week long meditation retreat on a nearby island. It was a very lucky thing I got to to be a part of. Also: it was so hard! I think I found my limit. The schedule was brutal: 19 hour days, long sits, minimal food, etc. I was not as much of a jock about it as the other participants and I was definitely the straggler in the small group (if you can straggle while sitting silently). It 100% felt like I’d been away for a year, not a week. To stretch the days like that legitimately feels like time travel. I’m so grateful to have had the chance to sprawl as deep as that into the mind, to sweep that much dust away. It’s a lifelong thing I’ll do. The dust builds itself back up.
But it was really hard. Though I didn’t bail, I left deeper in the mind mud than when I arrived. It’s probably a sign of some kind of progress, right? I’m still going down this path, but now in my less-of-a-jock comfort zone, gentle and fluid.
Here’s a haiku I wrote even though I wasn’t supposed to:1
when I leave I'll leave
apple blossoms on the floor
bright green sweatpants dust and here’s a cool car I saw:
That’s all for now. Thank you for reading. Talk to you later.
Phil
one of my jobs there was sweeping, and I wore shedding green sweatpants the whole time