New post up on Tikkun. 

Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.
— Martin Luther

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Chirp Radio is giving away tickets to our show at The Hideout with Judson Claiborne this coming Friday.  Grab them here, and make sure to donate to the lovely people, such a great radio station.

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Holy Cats!  Our first song from the unreleased album we’ve been working on at Pieholden Suite Sound with Matt Dewine is on the Chicago Mixtape this week!  Hooray for Casey Meehan! 

We’re going to be playing this Friday night with Judson Caliborne and the Counterpane at the Hideout Inn and so the timing is just great. 

Love this track, Burdensome and Rich, a totally new sound for me on record, and one I’m really proud of.  Download it for free here, and join the Mixtape, free music in your inbox every week.

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New essay on the Civil Twilight blog, Loblolly, about the summer when I found out I had kidney disease.  Nostalgia and bonfires and mortality and the sea.

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We just finalized plans for the show in February.  Josh is back in town and we’re practicing for the middle slot on Friday night, February 10, 2012 at my beloved Hideout.  We open for Judson Claiborne, who’s been working on a new record, and The Counterpane plays first.  This will be a fantastic show, really, you shouldn’t miss it.

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New essay up on Tikkun.  A love letter the the Hideout, Martha Bayne and all things Soup & Bread.

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Amazing show lined up for November 3rd at the Hideout.  Josh will be coming back from his dance film score work in Iowa City just for this one.  We’re opening for Thomas Comerford’s record release and for the fantastic Panoramic & True.  Can’t wait.

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Another essay up on the new blog.  This one about the song Brass Tax.  This is an old song, one of the first I wrote.  This version was recorded in 2005 with Josh Chicoine, Joey King and Lawrence Peters at Experimental Sound Studios under the kind care of Jacob Ross.  The story of this one is so far away now, but the music brings it right back home.  I didn’t release this until Civil Twilight came out in 2009.  The boys all did such great work on this record, what an honor.

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October 2011 is International Year of the Bat, and there’s a big conference this month at the Field Museum called Battle for the Bats.  White Nose Syndrome is decimating bats populations in my native Northeast, and the illness is spreading rapidly south and west.  Bats are the only flying mammal, incredibly important for natural pest control and pollination, and we’re losing them at a terrifying speed in the US.  I’m going to go and geek out at the conference, and I’m writing about the fight to protect bats in this month’s column for Tikkun Daily.  Read about why you should care as much as I do about the fate of bats.

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The essays for my last album, Civil Twilight, are now being put up on a new blog, slowly.  

After a show once, a friend, who was admittedly a little drunk, told me that there was no reason for me to tell the stories of the songs when I performed.  

“Let me make my own pictures,” he told me.

Clearly, I am terrible at taking direction.  

I like the idea that I can take the same memory and filter it through two kinds of writing: songwriting and memoir.  If you want in on the context of my lyrics, dive in, you can read them as they’re posted or subscribe.  And if you want to make your own pictures, just go to bandcamp to buy the record.

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The lovely and amazing Josh Dumas, the warm guitar heart of the band, broke his leg this summer, and to keep from going crazy while he heals from a painful surgery, he’s been recording friends in his living room.  He’s calling the record the Broken Leg Duets, and I sat down with him last month to record the heartbreaker/slow-burn make-out song Help Me Make it Through the Night.  I love that it has come out, broken, strange and tragic.  It aches with need and regret, like all the things I love the best.  Photo by Chad Leverenz.

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Garfield Park lost much of its roof to extreme weather in June of 2011.  They need money and help.  We need to understand that these terrible things will be happening to beloved places more often in the era of climate change.  Read my Tikkun Daily essay about looking at the broken.

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New essay up on the blog for Tikkun Daily.  Every year Dex and I get to go to Maine for a few days - we sit by the sea and watch barnacles eat.  Here’s my meditation on the ocean, home and faith.