here we go again?
traveling through america amid rising case numbers
in case you missed it, last week i announced my new record for pre-order and released the third video from the project. please check it out!!
i’m spending the month of august on the road with one of my favorite bands, the mountain goats, playing electric guitar and keyboards. i am having a blast, but… a kind of qualified blast. which is very 2021.
today i’m writing to you from austin, texas, which is currently in a state of emergency due to the delta variant. we just left shreveport, louisiana after days in atlanta and birmingham, alabama. it’s like traveling through an apocalypse that is happening out of sight. everything out here looks like the usual, but the news is dire. behind the storefronts and front doors, people are suffering. and everyone is wondering when the dominos will start to fall faster. when will the shows get cancelled? when will the public spaces shut down?
it all feels very familiar. the sense of “march 2020 all over again” is palpable.
i suppose for me the one thing that feels different is that i know it will no longer be the end of the world if i don't tour. we’ve all experienced the end of the world once, so we know we can survive it again. which reminds me of one of my favorite books, The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe, part of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. in that fictional universe, there is a restaurant called Milliways where through a manipulation of the space-time continuum, you can witness The End Of The Universe while fine-dining. the mix of luxury and callousness, of voyeurism and comfort, of anxiety and absurdity feels very relevant to this moment.
in or out of a pandemic, i am constantly asking myself the question, what am i doing out here? what are we doing out here? touring is such an enormous waste of resources, it’s terrible for your body, and often spiritually bereft except… for the transcendent 90-some minutes of the stage show. which are goddamn transcendent, ecstatic, deeply communal, whatever extreme word you want to use to try to articulate a feeling beyond words. kind of like watching the explosion of the known world. what a fire-works show!
at this moment we’re all sitting at our tables at The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe, waiting. we’ve seen it all before, but are we about to see it again? as a vaccinated, healthy, privileged person, i keep asking myself, is it wrong to have a comfortable seat at a moment like this? should i carry on as normal?
as of right now, my fall touring is still on. as the dates get closer i will be talking with venues about their protocols and requirements of show-goers*. please trust that i will make choices for the safety of all and not for the bottom line. as i said above, i know i can survive without touring.
meantime, everyone please stay safe and be kind to those fellow humans who are stressed out and navigating yet another uncertain moment. and please check out my new music from the comfort of your phone or computer. it might be all we have together for awhile!
x erin
*my friend brandon’s voice-to-text app recently made the mistake of writing “show-goers” as “sugars”. i like this! you are all my sugars. see you at a show, sugars. hello sugars of cleveland!
¡ME GUSTA! : SOME OF MY FAVORITE THINGS
i am late to the ted lasso bandwagon, but what a bandwagon it is
need a laugh? then how about a coffin flop
i love a weird food invention story
this photo series featuring drum majorettes in south africa is everything i love
did i mention my new album? or the (one) (two) (three) singles that have been released so far?