SPRING FLING
whirlwind sunrise fleeces the eastern sky
Hello Substack Faithful!
It’s been a little while since I wrote to you here, but that’s how life goes. I have felt extra busy lately with music, family, and friends, and I feel full-up and happy. In the last few weeks Chloe and I took my daughter Lucy to see New York for her very first time, we went to a buddy’s birthday party in Montana and another one back in NYC, I played TBT shows in Sioux Falls, Tacoma, Eugene, and Boise, a couple solo shows, went to Scottsdale to throw a ceremonial first pitch at a Cubs spring training game (a statement that still sounds ridiculous to me), did a podcast in Nashville, recorded new Trampled, Dead Man Winter, and More Light songs and got my kids to school mostly on time. I am staying relatively close to home for the next little while before TBT gets busy again, and though I like the bustle of travel, I am overjoyed to gain a little space from it. The part of my brain that just wants to go fishing has been getting a little fed up. Spring is eeking its green soul through the ground everywhere I look and though we really didn’t have much of a winter this year in Minnesota, this is still a very welcome sight.
Like a lot of you, I tend to purge mercilessly in the spring. My basement and garage, gone feral from months of winter mentality, are first in line. Every winter I treat those places with very little respect. I will just open the door to our garage and throw things in there, shutting it again before I hear them land. Whatever Spring awakens in me usually ends up correcting that behavior, but I often wonder why I can’t simply avoid the ride all together.
With the rising path of the sun my mind leans towards trout and turkeys. I love looking for both but regret that my dogs aren’t invited to hang out with either. If any of you dog-owning anglers out there have any tips for preventing a pup from chasing a fly like it’s something to be retrieved, I would love to hear about it. I’ve been seeing some ramps coming up, which are about my favorite thing to forage, and the dogs are more than welcome to come hunt those. Mud and green things. All the animals are horny and a cacophony of birdsong weaves the backdrop. What a time!
On the music front, I’ve been working on what, to me, has become an interesting project with both TBT and Dead Man Winter. I’m kind of leaning into the EP format these days as I’ve always loved a short album. I don’t want to take any part in the decline of the full-length record, but being independent offers a lot of freedom in how and when we release music. I’m not ready to share either band’s finished product or vision quite yet, but if you are interested in the rougher early stages of a song, I’ll include one of my demos at the bottom of this post for you generous subscribers to check out. (It’s not nearly too late to subscribe if you want to take a listen.) It sounds a lot different now, but I will always have an affinity for demos.
Thank you for checking in. I hope you’ve got an adventure or two on the horizon and that your last few drops of winter treated you kind.