long post alert! : reflecting on the past year...
photo by nina rädel for bands on film. london, july 2024
i’ve been back in chicago for about a month and planning for my next departure this fall (hitting the road but no shows.. just writing, traveling, staying where friends + opportunities pop up, unraveling the deep mysteries of creative practice). but amidst the neverending movement is the need for stillness and reflection. so,,, here we go:::::
just finished a solid year of touring my album ‘tomorrow’s fire’, july to july, with little breaks in between and blessed compatriots helping me play+ travel all over the world. i tour managed myself the whole time and managed myself for over half of it. i’m tired, but full of awe at the last year— i’ve never toured this much before and didn’t know i was capable of it. i pushed myself to the limit but it was also easy in many ways. some moments of breaking down, lots of moments of rebuilding, mostly moments of coasting and feeling shocked by how easy it felt.
i really can’t believe how many people actually came, how many shows were sold out, meeting people in tears telling me stories of how my music helped them through hard times or soundtracked their falling in love, how many new friends i made, all the bands who opened for me, all the bands i opened for.
along with my ever-rotating backing band, i played diy fests next to train yards in kansas city, ecofests on the atlantic coast of france with woodchip portapotties and mimes, benefit shows in my hometown, my college reunion in iowa, crossed the country 4 times and went to europe twice. did band tours, solo tours, opening tours, headlining tours, and on and on and on
photo by muriel margaret, lodge room in los angeles, february 2024
I want to highlight this food diary i wrote for the talkhouse magazine back in january. it's sort of a time capsule and i want to share this snippet of a tour that was a catalyst for many beautiful changes in my life. here’s a link to it, as well as some honorable mentions below that got left out of the final piece
A few honorable mentions
-I got a “living bowl” in Portland that emptied my guts in a way I didn’t know was possible
-dinner at the LA venue’s attached restaurant (checker hall) was so good, they gave us delicious orange wine and some raw honey with honeycomb, pollen, and propolis that changed our lives. Jacob ate a whole branzino
-one venue we played had a “black sludge explosion” from a sewer pipe “all over” their kitchen right before load in. Half the band still ate the food, it was delicious.
-menthol cigarettes + electrolyte beverages (michael drinks monster energy “recovery rehab’”.he says it’s "mostly coconut water, full of so many minerals and fuckin milk weed thistle and vitamins.")
-Lao restaurant in Weed, CA called ‘Lao’der Phet’s Kitchen Farm to Table Style’. Night of an insane wind storm. Farm to table, everyone got Dungeness crab curry feasts. Truly incredible food.
-unbelievably good Bahn Mi and Vietnamese iced coffee from Bahn Mi My Tho in Los Angeles
-I dissociated and had a panic attack in the Twin Peaks diner while everyone else had pie and Carolina had one glass of red wine
-cigarette inside of soft serve ice cream in Denver
-incredible Italian food from Caffe Molisse in Salt Lake City that we ate like vultures at the merch table. “Yeah we sopped that shit up with bread”-Chet
-CBG (yes, cbG) joint from phoenix az that got me accidentally high as shit
-best wings ever from Some Random Bar in Seattle (thanks Miles from KEXP for the rec)
-post-show Mulitas from Taco Zone in Los Angeles in a Von’s parking lot
-Jacob eating white anchovies over a trash can at 9:30AM in rural Oregon
and….here are some documents from my journeys over the summer
journal entry from 6/17
driving south into salt lake city
by the great salty lake
by the big great mountains
pastel green shrubs
the cowboy is empty
the mountain is hollow
i got time to pass
la distance
wish i had my straw hat
try to not smoke cigarette
everyone is quittin
but i’m just picking them up
journal entry from 6/22
I90 east sioux falls to st paul
the ground is pregnant with water. and still it falls from the sky. a deluge to start cancer season. full to the brim of sloshing rippling water, throwing around the boat that is my heart, engorged and dripping and still it continues to rain
photo by sofia jensen. promontory point, chicago, august 2024
and that’s that. lots more to share but it would take many more hours to parse thru it all , so here is a small and delicious taste. i turned 28 last month and i can’t believe it’s all still going, everything turning over.
i will leave ya with some things i’ve recently delighted in
-quote from a kafka short story i read last night, called ‘children on a country road’
‘they never sleep’
‘and why not?’
‘because they’re fools’
‘don’t fools get tired?’
‘how could fools get tired?’
-this account of biking in chicago at the turn of the 20th century
-and this, one of my favorite albums to listen to in the fall
the winds of change are upon us. can’t resist, must bend with them. lots changing in my life right now for sure. trying to wade through it all with curiosity
as always, free palestine
with so much love,
ella
71 year old man that I am, I am chagrined to admit I was unfamiliar with you and your music but when I read that you led the opposition to South by Southwest because of their US Army affiliation, and so many artists, especially Irish musicians, withdrew, I decided I owed you some respect, so I sampled a bunch of your songs on iTunes, now, So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings is on my top playlist and moves me to tears/makes my day every time I hear it. Hope you find your way to the Lehigh Valley, PA sometime so I can catch you live. Artsquest in Bethlehem runs shows all year along with the 10 day free open air Musikfest every August (no US Army). All best! You go Grrl!
a year ago, right about now, after 6 months of running away from the loss of my wife [to cancer], your voice found me. It pierced my hazy gray void with color, it re-connected me...to the last days of summer sun, to backroad drives with all of the windows down, to life. Listening to your music grounded me...it coaxed me to ask what I wanted in my life...from my life...my life as it now was. What a formative time for me last fall, your music lifting me up, setting me on my feet to take my first steps into a new epoch. So powerful. I told my best friend, in Barcelona, what I found in your music. A few months ago he texted from your show, unexpectedly weeping at the foot of the stage. I told him! Hahahaaa...thank you for putting your music out into the world, Ella. I know I'm not the only one who needed it in ways we couldn't have ever predicted.