on the road again

hello from Denver! it’s been a summer of travel so far which has kept things exciting. how about that outage that took out just about every major airline for about a week? luckily I missed the worst of it but either way that’s old news at this point.

honestly right now there’s not much to do but keep plugging along. I’ll spare the details, but there’s a bit of uncertainty in a few areas of my life (not to mention nationwide as well), and so I’m just trying to keep the boat steady.

I used to really struggle with uncertainty—I would attach myself to an outcome, and then invariably develop extreme anxiety as soon as things stopped going according to plan. that’s been a major goal of mine for this year: to be more comfortable not knowing how things are going to wind up.

I think it’s working, but I’ll have to let you know how it turns out. 🙂 

the show at Shrine earlier this month turned out amazing. the venue itself is full of juju, papered from wall to wall with records from every corner of the globe.

interspersed throughout the bar were cultural artifacts that lent a mystical, otherworldly feel to the atmosphere. I got the feel that many, many incredible artists had graced the stage before me and that I had access to that energy and history to take my playing to another level.

sometimes I look back at a show and am very conscious of the areas to improve upon. not so this time—I felt very satisfied with the entire experience. I’m not necessarily sure I played any better than usual, but this is another thought pattern I’m trying to shift for myself: acceptance of the outcome and gratitude for the opportunity.

I debuted a few new songs off my upcoming album (listen to one at the bottom of this email!), and played some older favorites. it was a lot of fun to get up there just me and the guitar—I love jamming with other folks, but it feels like such a personal expression to have that level of vulnerability up on stage.

luckily I did have my friends Charles and Trevor join me for the last song, a rendition of the final song off Spring Cleaning titled “On the Banks of the East River”. I was able to get a few videos! have a watch:

on the album front, all songs are officially written—not a huge change, as I’d just been a few lyrics away for a month or two, but a fun milestone nonetheless.

I’ve got about half of the songs packaged up and over to my drummer in Brazil for when he’s got a chance to get started on them. these versions are pretty straightforward—I’ve linked one further below for you to check out—with a scratch vocal, bass, and guitar.

I don’t want to pour too much time into them, since I’m going to be re-recording them all anyway, but I still want them snappy enough that my man Esmute can put down a final take over them. and that’s the process: iterate, destroy, iterate, destroy, iterate, until I’ve reached a point I’m happy.

Speaking of Esmute, his band, 69 Enfermos, has a show in Sapucaia do Sul right outside of Porto Alegre on August 4th, so they’re busy at work rehearsing. if you’re in the area you should stop by!

in the meantime, here’s another sneak peak of one of the demos I’ve sent over to him. it’s a reggae track titled “Spinning in a World of Love”. hope you enjoy!

note: for kicks I typed in “reggae song called spinning in a world of love” into Suno AI music generator. here’s what it came up with. if you’d like, send me a reply with your POV on the comparison between the two songs—I’d love to hear what y’all think.

note #2: now I’ve asked this machine for a Brazilian baile funk song about technology taking over our lives and my goodness I might have to do a full separate post on this.

“there is one rule in the garden above all others. you must give to nature more than you take.“ -Alan Chadwick