[Not that two performances can really be called a tour, but for the time being, this is the best my compadre Scott and I can do: traveling to one town or another for a single performance before returning home to grumble and snort through our daily rituals, waiting until our next chance to talk and sing at you.]

After convening at my house in Saco for a steaming feast of empanadas and too much George A Dickle, we performed our release event at the Apohadion Theater in Portland, Maine where: my almost-wife Genevieve made her on-stage debut singing backup on two songs, two songs were transformed into grungy anthemic rockers due to the guest drumming of our buddy Will (pictured above playing some jaunty keys on “Howard Says“), and I in my incidental hangover gave what might be the most tongue-tied reading I’ve given in years (thanks, George A Dickle, you rye-steeped bastard). Overall, a succulent welcome into the world for our new creation.

The following week’s show in Rockland was a much smoother, and thus a far more celebratory, event. The venue—a desanctified church that Steel House Projects’  Donna McNeil has converted into a home and occasional performing space—proved to be one of the most acoustically rich spaces within which I’ve ever had the fortune to perform. Our soundcheck was surgical, our outfits were boss, and our dinner was salad. The closest thing to a heckler we had was a bottle of champagne being popped mid-set. Our chops were tight and our flubs were jazz. It’ll be a tough row to mow for any future show to top this. But I am completely willing (in fact, eager!) to be wrong.

Our next performance from In the Mines will be Friday, September 14th, at Engine in Biddeford (8 pm). If you are proximate and free, we would love to see you seeing us. And if time and geography conspire against you, there are still copies of the project’s limited pressing available directly from Pilot Editions.

As always, thank you for reading and for sharing and for your daily incentive to get up, get moving, keep working, keep trying. If you are a current Patreon subscriber, thank you for keeping the carrot just beyond this homely beast of burden’s reach. If you are not a current Patreon subscriber, please feel free and, in fact, encouraged, to dangle sweet reward just beyond my prehensile lips by becoming a member today. And if your view of the future looks as dire as reason dictates, thus rendering any kind of subscription unfit to warrant consideration, perhaps contemplate making a one-time donation and getting the equivalent rewards (handmade things, small-run booklets, etc.) for one month.

You are the modulator tremelo-ing my keys so very, very sweetly.