I’m about to celebrate my birthday while sitting in an airplane seat 30,000 feet over the North Atlantic. Celebrate in quotes. I’ll be squirming through an overnight flight, freshly 45 years old and on the way to do some electric guitar and singing at a string of shows around Europe’s cities, arranged in a geographically counter-intuitive sequence, ping ponging the continent for a month.
When I was a kid I only remember my dad having two birthday parties. One was when he turned 33 1/3 and one at 45. These are the speeds that records play, he’s that kind of nerd. (And his 78th birthday is creeping closer.) They were huge parties, uncharacteristic for the recluse he usually seemed to be, working away on the family home at the end of our dead end road. People had to park in the neighbor’s giant field. There was volleyball and a stage with bands playing (I think).
Here’s what my parents are like now:
Me, I’m not having a 45 rager. I celebrate enough in my quiet daily way, enough for me at least. But in many other ways, without trying, I took after my parents. I am now writing this newsletter from the end of a different dead end road, working away on my own different family house. Generational wheels turn and we are all sequels.
the last trip
It was really wonderful getting to travel in the northeast USA for a long weekend recently and play shows with my extremely offline fisherman guitarist friend. To get off the island and blast the psyche with steel and glass and food and noise, it’s necessary. Thanks to everyone who came to those rare shows. Here’s what it all looked like:
the next trip
My daughter is missing the last few weeks of school for this. I think it’s fine. She’ll learn how to say thank you and please and many other things in French, Flemish, German, Croatian, Irish, Finnish, Polish and Danish, at least. Regular school can bow down.
It’s just me solo this time. I’m playing new Mount Eerie songs, and old ones too. Electric guitar with crackle. We’ll see what happens. Some of these shows are sold out, but most aren’t yet. Please clock the name of the venue and find out. You are personally invited to come:
Sun. May 28th, 2023 - Brussels, Belgium - l'Ancienne Belgique (participating in a talk about Harry Smith and some film screenings with Bret Lunsford and Rani Singh)
Mon. May 29th, 2023 - Brussels, Belgium - l'Ancienne Belgique
Tues. May 30th, 2023 - Paris, France - Eglise St-Eustache (Spriritus Sancti series)
Weds. May 31st, 2023 - Genk, Belgium - Sint-Albertus
Thurs. June 1st, 2023 - Cologne, Germany - Urania Theatre
Sat. June 10th, 2023 - Cork, Ireland - Seanie Buttons SOLD OUT
Sun. June 11th, 2023 - Dublin, Ireland - Whelan’s (with Goodtime John)
Mon. June 12th, 2023 - London, UK - Grand Junction (2nd show added)
Tues. June 13th, 2023 - London, UK - Grand Junction SOLD OUT
Thurs. June 15th, 2023 - Helsinki, Finland - Temppeliaukio Church
Sat. June 17th, 2023 - Warsaw, Poland - Ephemera Festival at Studio Koncertowe Polskiego Radia S1
Weds. June 21st, 2023 - Aarhus, Denmark - Voxhall
Thurs. June 22nd, 2023 - Copenhagen, Denmark - Poesiens Hus
Tues. June 27th, 2023 - Faaborg, Denmark - Rus og Riller
Harry Smith’s 100th birthday
The seed that grew this trip to Europe is the occurrence of Harry Smith’s birth centennial on May 29th, 2023. This little issue of the newsletter is insufficient to convey the breadth of who and what “Harry Smith” is, but I’ll try to summarize.
Harry Everett Smith lived his childhood in the same small town as me: Anacortes, Washington. A lifelong explorer of the peripheries of knowledge, he would go on to change 20th century culture profoundly, in mostly hidden ways. I personally, humbly, see what I do as falling along his obscure lineage. Artists and thinkers and poets and seers whose devotion falls outside of the usual modes of their time. There have been researchers who have attempted to highlight and clarify the Harry Smith threads that weave through the international underground from his eras and through ours. One of these historians is my friend Bret Lunsford who wrote this book about Harry’s early years, and writes this newsletter about it too. We are going to Belgium at the invitation of curator Kurt Overbergh to commemmorate this 100th birthday. Now please, if you can, order Bret’s book and go deeper.
We’ll likely be doing some more Harry Smith related events around the Pacific NW later this year. There’s another great biography coming out in August by John Szwed.
this one other thing
I contributed a (previously released) song to this worthy benefit compilation.
BONUS: an unheard recording
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