I’ve got two tours coming up that I feel are pretty notable. Since getting vaccinated against COVID-19, I’ve gone on three tours. Tentative first steps were taken with Brigid Dawson & the Mothers Network (a.k.a. Sunwatchers) in November 2021; our precautions paid off, and we made it onto the road and back without illness or incident. Later, in May 2022, I went out with Modern Nature, and we had a good run of shows until a freak accident involving a detached retina sidelined us for the last four gigs—but no coronavirus. Most recently, I did two weeks of gigs playing bass guitar and saxophone with the un-categorizable band Kayo Dot, celebrating the 20th anniversary of that group’s debut album.

The two tours coming up will be different, though. Because all of those tours were overseas, and these tours—with The Electric Nature in April and Sunwatchers in May—will be in the United States. I’m not saying that it will be different because Europe is supposedly in great shape and the U.S. is, by contrast, a mess. I know a global polycrisis when I see one. I’m saying it’s different, for me, because the United States is my mess.

I’m excited to go on these tours for the reasons I’ve always been excited to go on tour. I’ll be getting reacquainted with beloved friends and peers, free of the static of internet mediation. Real encounters! I’ll get to see what kinds of autonomous environments are blooming these days, playing generous host to quasi-marginal music making. I’ll get to eat new foods.

I’m also wondering what kind of disasters have befallen the cities I’ve been to so many times before. Maybe I’ve read about them on the news but maybe I haven’t; maybe they’ve been underreported, or too gradual to be observed. I’m wondering what kind of fucked up evil laws have been passed to terrorize trans kids in the places I’ll be visiting. It feels less safe in the States. It won’t keep me from going out and seeing them again, but it’s hard to not notice.

I’ve hoped for a very long time that musical communities can be the places where people can gather to find the good in one another, to agree on the realities we’d like to share and shape, and to temporarily escape from however much hell surrounds us at present. I’m continuing to maintain that hope and it’s my wish that you’ll join me at these gigs to help me do so.

The Electric Nature (Michael Potter, Thom Strickland, Michael Pierce, Jeff Tobias)

3.31 Bolo Bolo (Athens GA)

4.01 All Day Records (Carrboro NC)

4.02 The Music Resource Center (Charlottesville VA)

4.03 Normals Books & Records (Baltimore MD)

4.04 Century (Philadelphia PA)

4.05 Cafe Nine (New Haven CT)

4.06 P.I.T. (Brooklyn NY)

(The Electric Nature tour continues without me in Washington DC at Rhizome and Boone NC at 641 RPM Records.)

Sunwatchers/Smoke Bellow Spring Tour

4.30 Current Space (Baltimore MD)

5.01 P.I.T. (Brooklyn NY)

5.02 Government Center (Pittsburgh PA)

5.03 Outer Limits (Detroit MI)

5.04 the Empty Bottle (Chicago IL)

5.05 Milwaukee Psych Fest (Milwaukee WI)

5.06 Tone Deaf Records (Chicago IL)

5.07 Cafe Bourbon Street (Columbus OH)