february update
No Hideout show this Monday, February 13. I see the last item here dates from December -- what the dickens has been going on? For one thing, it's hard to accomplish much long-form essay-writing while there are still Rockford Files episodes on Hulu to catch up with. And Red Oaks. But if only to keep the blood properly boiling, let's give at least a minimum of attention to the present moment. I'll be at the Folk Alliance in Kansas City next week, networking with the Anglo-Saxons there, and playing about a dozen shows in fetid boudoir-like chambers and conference rooms normally given over to panel discussions on "Whither The Laffer Curve?" Also I'll be performing a few shows with my friend (though, thank God, we've never had a single intimate discussion), Sahib Cobb. Sahib and I will be bringing the dour strains of my 2016 effort Upland Stories to Kansas City (north of downtown and by the hobo jungle), Columbia MO, and -- don't laugh -- Effingham, Ill.
And speaking of the Grammys, this weekend in L.A. bids fair to be an all-guns-blazing charivari of merriment and unpopular music! On Saturday, after receiving the Légion d'honneur medal (the coveted "candidat improbable" citation) from NARAS, it's off to the Cabaret Troubadour to render some laudatory yé-yés to grande dame Loretta Lynn on the occasion of her birthday (quatre vingt cinquiéme, because gentlemen don't say "85"). I'll be dusting off Miss L's ode to unmediated orgasm, "The Pill," and duetting on a Conway/Loretta tune with my dreaded competitor for Folk Emperor of Last Year, Lori McKenna! Sparks!
Meanwhile, sweat issues from my pores by the cupful as I pound away at the music for Last Night of the Jabez Opry, a fine play for which auditions will begin toward the end of the month, just after I lose at the Grammys. Staged reading with music at the Steppenwolf in March, and please be on the lookout.
And not a word about regular old songwriting and music recording? Yes, these go on, but is a personal website really the forum for crowing about that? I wouldn't want to accidentally promote anything. Or misrepresent my daily focus, which is on a regimen of physical health (emphatically not exemplified by the binge-watching of Red Oaks). By the time you on the coasts see me next, this late spring and summer, you are going to behold a sinewy and chiseled RF, more like a model for an Outward Bound flyer than the oyster-like lump you have come to admire and vainly cheer on. Songwriting may be good for almost winning little trophies now and then, but for the sternocleidomastoid -- sheer hell! Speaking of which, what am I doing slouched over the laptop? See you at the gym, suckas.