today’s audio begins with a live version of my song “cupido stupido” from my recent visit to mountain stage, the venerable radio show from west virginia public radio. later we’ll hear a little bit from my recent new york city anti-holiday spectacular at joe’s pub in the public theater. you can hear my entire mountain stage set here and watch our anti-holiday spectacular here.
i recently played my hometown venue, the iron horse, and invited awesome young artists The Snap Dragons to open. we sold out the place!!
tomorrow i head out to LA to begin a west coast run of spectaculars: hollywood, sacramento, the bay area, olympia, seattle, portland, and eugene. come one come all! dates and tickets at erinmckeown.com/shows.
as the year wraps up, i’m feeling grateful to get to play in such cool rooms like the mountain stage and joe’s. you’d think because it was my 3rd time on mountain stage and at least 15th time at joe’s that it would be old hat or ho hum. not so!
i’m in a new phase of acceptance about my career. for the last decade i have been consistently questioning if i should do something else with my life, in order to make any money at all. and it has been an epic wrestling match of pervasive asking. i have kicked the tires on a few new careers here and there. i even took the postal worker exam… and failed it!
allow me to explain: it wasn’t the kind of exam you’d expect - can you process these addresses, can you remember these computer steps - it was more of a personality test. they had questions like: if your co-worker doesn’t understand something, what do you do? and then they offer a set of actions to choose from. basically i consistently answered that i wanted a job with clear boundaries that i could do and then leave. FAIL! a neighbor told me the test is really to find out if you can handle the hellscape of christmas. i guess i am not cut out for that. which we actually already knew.
anyway! i have enjoyed many music adjacent jobs in the last decade - professoring, producing records etc. but the question of should i go back to school for an entirely different career has been a companion for many years. speech language pathologist? priest? social worker?
i recently resigned from the debating society, as they say. singer-songwriter-ing is just what i do. it is the core of my artistic expression, whatever other avenues i also explore. over and over again, i think of what my late friend jill sobule would say to me, when i would share my wrestling with her: “you and me, we’re lifers.”
promo flyer from 2001?? it’s now wallpaper in the new dressing rooms at joe’s.
so lately i have been feeling grateful for every opportunity to perform my own music, to spend time in my own worldview. and to share it directly with you. that’s what i have always done, that’s what i’ll continue to do. having made this decision, it’s given me a lightness and patience for the day-today bullshit that comes with being an economically challenged artist.
hey yall! last round of touring for the year!
it’s time once again for my annual Anti-Holiday Spectacular, the world’s first anti-capitalist, pro-queer, suspicious of christmas-as-patriotism, sex-positive, not safe for work, multi-ethnic, radical leftist Anti-Holiday show.
starting this week, i am hitting the west coast of the US with shows in hollywood, sacramento & bay area CA; olympia and seattle WA; and eugene and portland OR. if you’d like to be a cranky caroler at any of these shows please email me erin@erinmckeown.com. its super fun, easy, and you get to wear your worst holiday gear, and for some shows i can offer you a free ticket too. as always tickets here.
if you can’t make these shows, please consider giving the gift of Anti-Holiday cheer via my online store where there’s a few CDs left and the revised 2nd edition Sacred Hymnal among other goodies. at the very least, i hope you’ll stream my albums F*CK THAT! and F*CK U TOO! as you cook or clean or gift or host or decorate. tis the season!
finally as we wrap up the year, i’d like to remind you how much your subscription to this newsletter helps. at any amount you are contributing to my monthly nut and helping me maintain my artistic practice. if you’re already subscribed, thank you and please consider continuing your subscription for another season at the same level, or perhaps more. you don’t get any special content or access for doing that, other than my true gratitude and thanks!
this episode will wrap up the 4th season of Fax Of Life. i had said from the beginning that i would do 5 seasons and then be done. i think of making my (mostly) bi-monthly posts as an artistic practice. i am someone who thrives on deadlines and structure. give me a production calendar, and i’ll give you a fully-realized musical, on time!
i hold entire tuesdays to write and produce Fax Of Life. they are some of my favorite days each month. and even on other days, i am scoping for Fax Of Life topics and ¡me gusta! recs. when i think of something or run across a piece of culture i want to share, i note it in my cal and then on these tuesdays i have a trove of ideas to sort through.
when i started the pod i had intended to put much more new music in front you then i have in these last 4 years. writing the essays is the easy part, like opening a water faucet or dipping my hand in a cool, flowing creek. the music takes more effort and time, and those have been in short supply in the last few years as i have been tied up on creative projects that don’t make sense to share piecemeal or without context, ie the musical i am making in chicago or my long-gestating musical memoir of my virginia childhood.
i feel quite proud of the accumulation of the writing here. maybe someday it’s the starting place for a book or a memoir. or maybe it just stays right here. i would love to embrace the idea that not everything, all the time, must be pushed into some kind of commercial form. what if i could really lean into the idea of consistent artistic practice as it’s own reward?
to that end, when i think back on all the perseverating about changing careers, i see so much effort. so much spinning in circles, so much doing that added up to being back where i started, as a touring singer-songwriter. wrapping up 2025, setting intentions for the new year, i think i’d like to just do less of that perseverating, and i think i’d like to just do less of everything in general.
for 2026 what is the least i can do and still make my monthly nut and maintain my friendships and professional ties? there was a window of time in the pandemic where i was very much doing very little. out of it arose the songs that became KISS OFF KISS. this is not to prize the commercial album that came from that doing of nothing, it is to say that doing nothing was incredibly nice and nourishing, and i was able to get back to my true essence of expression.
in that spirit, i have been “clearing my decks” so to speak. i think of it like trail maintenance. every once in awhile, it’s helpful to go along and rake leaves away from the path, chainsaw the logs that have fallen and block the way, freshen the blazes on the trees. right! now i can see where i am going again.
i always take january and february off from this pod and from social media, a kind of forced digital meditation. sit still, stop scrolling and promoting, and see what arises in the silence. and i do have an inkling about a theme for the final season of Fax Of Life. but don’t worry, i wont work too hard on it.
have a good winter and i’ll see yall in march!
x erin
¡ME GUSTA! : SOME OF MY FAVORITE THINGS!
you know i am a football nut, and this time of year is a rich text! here’s a deep cut article about the lions + packers fanbases in the U.P.
i had no idea norah jones had such a baller podcast!!
this latest episode of heavyweight is exquisite pod listening.
pour one out and eat some lettuce in honor of this 141-yr old tortoise, who finally passed.
very helpful smalltalk starters for parties!
the best sitcom ever (FIGHT ME) has a new documentary. nothing revolutionary here, but i’ll take any new time with jennifer, joanna, julia, and jane
NFL great and skittles lover marshawn lynch delights us (and himself) as he visits the houston symphony.
my friend has one of these pick-ups, and i think it’s the best mid-life crisis purchase in history!
and finally, candlemakers after my own candle-hating heart.
UPCOMING SHOWS
2025
now - June 2026 - Fredericksburg VA
Fredericksburg Area Museum
Out And About: The Walk-in Closet
VISIT
December 5, 2025 - Los Angeles CA
F*CK THAT! Anti-Holiday Spectacular
TICKETS
December 6, 2025 - Sacramento CA
F*CK THAT! Anti-Holiday Spectacular
TICKETS
December 7, 2025 - Berkeley CA
F*CK THAT! Anti-Holiday Spectacular
TICKETS
December 10, 2025 - Olympia WA
F*CK THAT! Anti-Holiday Spectacular
SOLD OUT - email me for a waiting list
December 11, 2025 - Eugene OR
F*CK THAT! Anti-Holiday Spectacular
TICKETS
December 12, 2025 - Seattle WA
F*CK THAT! Anti-Holiday Spectacular
TICKETS
December 13, 2025 - Portland OR
F*CK THAT! Anti-Holiday Spectacular
TICKETS
2026
Jan 23-24, 2026 - New Orleans LA
Folk Alliance International
i’ll be there! hmu to hang or play or chat
April 10-May 10, 2026 - Chicago IL
World Premiere of OUT HERE @ Court Theatre
TICKETS & INFO
