Long story short: Web site gets hacked in back July. I stare at the computer for hours trying to fix it, give up after much frustration, and swear to spend less time in front of the computer and more behind the guitar. Months go by. You send me nice emails inquiring about my silence. After slowly realizing how lucky I am that you actually care, here I am once again staring at a computer when I could be playing guitar. In any case, nice to see you again too, and a lot has happened since then. Where to start?
First and foremost, the new Glorytellers album called “Atone” is finally out on Southern Records (CD/LP/Download) in the US/Europe, and Afterhours (CD) in Japan. This one’s got everything I love: harmonizing guitars, vivid narratives, the supple rhythms of drummer Gavin McCarthy, and the clinical production values of engineers Andy Hong and Jeff Lipton, all wrapped up in gorgeous original artwork by Sonnenzimmer. It represents 2 years of work (much of it Andy’s), and I’m quite proud to see it finally hit. Here’s a 5-star review on the UK’s Rockfeedback, more kind words from the UK at the 405, and the Line of Best Fit, a recent interview at The Voice of Energy blog, and a recent interview/performance I did for ScannerFM in Barcelona. And this kinda-funny-kinda-sad BBC review came out of nowhere and just about says it all!
Atone was not without its birthing pains: apparently the first batch of CDs were pressed with someone else’s music in our package. Unfortunately they made it to Amazon before anyone caught it, and my label tells me there are still a few that escaped the dragnet. If you receive a bum Atone CD, contact me and I’ll forward your complaint to the appropriate parties. (Since the Karate 595 2xLP was shipped with the wrong song order listed on the jacket a few years back, I’ve became fine customer service rep.)
We also have a nice chunk of road time coming up: On November 7th we’ll share the stage with our pals Ida at Union Hall in Brooklyn. Then we’ll be out with Curtis Harvey for a couple weeks of Midwest/East Coast shows in early December. Curtis has a new record out on Fat Cat, and it’s been quite a while since I’ve seen him play, so I’m looking forward to the tour. Chris Brokaw and I will open Philly, NY, and Boston with our set of old-time/ragtime/blues tunes we’ve been chewing on for the past few years. (Those will soon be available on Chris’ Capitan Records.) Then in February of ‘10 we’ll be off to Spain and Italy with bells on, and later in the year to northern Europe. More on that soon. As usual, tour dates are posted here, at the Glorytellers Myspace page, and at the Southern Records Glorytellers page.
The last bit of news some of you may already know: my wife and I recently moved to a beautiful little New England town called Hallowell, 3 hours north of Boston. We live a few hundred yards from the mighty Kennebeck River, in the Hallowell Row House, a Federal-style worker’s residence built by Isaac Gage in 1846 that housed some of the area’s early textile workers. We made the move last July after Caterina finished her PhD and got a teaching gig at nearby Colby College. I’ve also been teaching a seminar on post-1958 jazz at the University of Maine, and I’ll teach a blues history course at Colby this winter. The pace is quite a bit slower than in Boston, and in many respects Hallowell reminds us of the small town in Northeastern Italy where Caterina and I spend a month or two each year. With the leaves changing to every shade of gold, Hallowell is also stunningly beautiful, and has provided a wonderful setting to work on some new music. So things are working out just fine up here. More soon….
