today’s audio comes from a show i played a couple days ago at revolution hall in portland, oregon while i’m on tour with my wonderful pals, welcome to night vale.
the first song, “today / sex” comes from my latest album #KISSOFFKISS. it’s a song that when i wrote it, i didn’t think i would ever sing it for anyone. it felt too vulnerable, too dirty, but i also loved it with my whole heart and couldn’t stop playing it for myself. at the time i wrote it, i thought, “well, i’ll never play this for anyone, but i know what i want to write about next.” the rest of the #KISSOFFKISS songs came quickly. following the lead of “today / sex”, i knew they’d be different from my other songs, they’d tell a very personal story, and i knew they would scare me.
eventually i got up the courage to play the song for my friend natalia. she loved it. natalia suggested i try playing it at a show under the guise of “this is a song i wrote for and about someone else”. like a show of support for an unnamed friend. that worked, and i was able to perform the song a few times. my confidence grew, the other #KISSOFFKISS songs started to appear in my sets, and that context gave me the courage to drop the ruse.
i think “today / sex” shows a side of me that not everyone knows. a side that expresses intimate desire, and speaks more explicitly about sex than i usually do. i prefer to speak frankly about sex, but that’s usually something i keep for myself, my friends, and partners. i love that the song is playful and direct and fun, hopefully what i am like as a partner. i have also grown to love playing it live and hearing people laugh. this song was never meant to be solemn, it was always meant to make everyone smile, me most of all. the audience in portland really got it and you can hear it in the recording.
now i’m sitting in a hotel room in san francisco. it’s a beautiful day outside, so you’ll hear some birds chirping, and you’ll likely also hear the sounds of the folks working to run the hotel. this is all part of life on the road, outside the pristine comforts and quiets of home. i want to thank my friend disparition for sending me the show audio, and for lending me his rad little interface so i can record this essay with relatively good sound. here we go!
there’s nothing like travel to reveal… just how tired you are from raising a puppy!
greetings from the road, a less common occurrence for me these days. i usually write these essays from the comfort of my couch with carl curled up beside me. on the day i left, he did, adorably, climb into my guitar case and promptly fall asleep.
but now here i am in a very nice hotel room, and carl is likely wrestling or sleeping with his best friend, eleven. i miss him terribly, but i’m not sure how much he misses me. this is fine because he is a dog.
it’s interesting to do the thing you’ve done thousands of times after not doing it for quite awhile. this thing being performing for people, hauling your self and instruments across the country. my paternity leave for carl has been a basically unbroken string of days where i have spent a lot of time caring for him, then the rest of the time learning to play the violin. i’m not complaining. it’s been tremendous.
and it’s given me some time to reflect, as was the plan when i arranged my life this way. i wanted to pause the show. i wanted to untangle the impulses of making something, then showing it (and me) to people. i was very happy writing #KISSOFFKISS, as happy as i have ever been writing songs. and i became very unhappy when i took the record out into the world, as unhappy as i ever had been on the road, not to put too fine a point on it.
why this huge swing? why when i make something that i love, do i not just keep it for myself, who loves it best and most and feels a cosmic sense of satisfaction in the moment of creation? only to see that satisfaction slowly erode over the public life of a project?
hence this 5 month pause. i wish it were a year, but this is the most i could afford.
i’ve spent a lot of time thinking about my small fry self, all of our young creative selves. even the smallest fry, doing the most ordinary thing, scans the world around them for humans, and finding one says, “hey watch me!” and we do, oohing and ahhing and supporting the small fry as they go down the slide or hand us a sheet of paper covered in abstract scrawl. in those moments, the human circle is complete, right? i make a thing, someone sees the thing and says, we see you. cue the heart warmth and social cohesion.
i’ve written about this before as it relates to #KISSOFFKISS. i asked everyone ahead of time to hold me in this project, to echo back, to help out. and many of you did. but somehow not enough for my small fry and my adult bank account, both.
so i am trying to take this apart by pausing. i am trying to take this apart by continuing to make things that i don’t show anyone. i don’t mean to be a tease or an asshole about it, but of course i have been making things these last several months. lots of things! music, poems, prose writing. and the point is for you not to see it. i am trying for no one to see it. i am trying to see how it feels to show what i am making to one or two people or no one at all, not some undefined number and faceless group who have a lot of other stuff going on. sometimes this is called an audience. or misleadingly on social media, followers.
hey y’all - i’m out right now on the road, maybe coming to your town. go look and see at erinmckeown.com/shows. if i your town isn’t listed you have a couple options. you can always check back another time. new tour dates are always being announced. or write me to organize a show in your living room or community. erin@erinmckeown.com is the best way to reach me and i love hearing from folks!
i won’t say i have any answers yet, but it has been hard, this pausing and taking apart. i have noticed how my mind, a natural producing mind, turns to budgets and grants and logistics and rehearsal schedules, and all the things necessary to show the work i’ve made. but i am not doing these things. i am not sending these emails. i’m not contacting collaborators. i am not even editing or shaping what i’ve done. this is probably really really healthy for me, but man, is it a mind-fuck.
i feel like i am undoing the last 25 years of my life, maybe longer. i feel like i am stripping my creative self down to the studs and evaluating the shape of the house i have lived in. if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, am i still an artist?
instead, i am channeling my public creativity into these newsletters and after all these months i’m back to showing myself by going on a short tour. and showing myself in the most showy way imaginable, with very nice clothes, big hair, makeup, lights and due to the blessing of my talented and popular tour family, welcome to nightvale, a whole lot of people. many hundreds, some nights over a thousand.
it feels weird to hold all this in me right now, what i show you, what i don’t show you. it feels like a new calculus, but one that could perhaps be more sustainable for me in the future. because if you’ve been reading these essays, between the lines and really the lines themselves, you’ll see i am trying to figure out how to keep going with a public self. how to keep going with the part of me that wants to show you what i made at school today and wants you to put it up on your refrigerator. and is also not devastated when you don’t or didn’t even know that i drew a new picture at all.
x erin
ps - here’s another song from my portland set. this song, “the business of show”, is another fave of mine from #KISSOFFKISS. as you’ll hear, i was a bit rusty and definitely figuring things out as i went
¡ME GUSTA! : SOME OF MY FAVORITE THINGS!
i’ve just finished the first season of FLOWERS, a brilliant british TV show that i would describe as surreal and heartbreaking and a riot. i am a sucker for shows about flawed families that still really know how to love each other.
you’ve never heard “walk like an egyptian” quite like this.
i never knew about the tradition of hobo nickels. it’s pretty rad.
library activism is my jam!! the brooklyn public library is offering a library card to any student, anywhere, so that they have access to banned books.
omg do i love fake food models.
a japanese trade delegation welcomed the new zealand prime minister in truly mesmerizing and epic fashion. i can’t look away.
my friends o’hooley & tidow are responsible for the pitch perfect theme song of HBO’s “Gentleman Jack”. hear them tell the story of how it happened.
i’ve been thinking a lot about hotel rooms for obvious reasons.
not to bury the lede, but turns out jeffrey epstein’s cello was played on my record MANIFESTRA. i don’t blame you for not reading this article. i generally avoid anything about jeffrey epstein. but for god sake, a sexual predator’s cello is on one of my albums. horrifying.
2022 IN-PERSON SHOWS
** volunteers always needed to sell merch. you get 2 free tickets and minimal time commitment before and after the show. email erin@erinmckeown.com for more info
May 4 - Highland Park CA
appearing as The Weather with Welcome To Night Vale
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May 5 - San Diego CA
appearing as The Weather with Welcome To Night Vale
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May 6 - Phoenix AZ
appearing as The Weather with Welcome To Night Vale
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May 7 - Santa Fe NM
appearing as The Weather with Welcome To Night Vale
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May 9 - Boulder CO
appearing as The Weather with Welcome To Night Vale
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May 12 - Waltham MA
Museum of Industry and Innovation
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Jun 3 - Fayetteville AR
Erin will be performing in-person to celebrate the opening night of T2’s production of “Miss You Like Hell”
Jun 11 - Ashburnham MA
Scenic Songs: A Hiking Concert
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***
Jun 1 - Jul 17 - Fayetteville AR
Miss You Like Hell at Theatre Squared
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Nov 17 - 21 - Richmond VA
Miss You Like Hell at University of Richmond
MORE INFO
If you have further questions or concerns about COVID protocols, please contact the venues directly.
Reminder, Erin does not appear in productions of Miss You Like Hell
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