Langley, BC: wherein we reconvene for the final leg of this tour.
When we see the end.
The view through the smoked glass window in the back of The Black Mamba 2 (what I call the current wheels carrying us) as we leave Langley, BC, headed for Nelson and then the US. And then the end of the tour.
It had only been 2 and a half weeks since we played in Minneapolis, but the consensus in the green room was that it had felt longer. We had obviously all missed being in the thrall of the the thing, and I must say it showed up for us on stage. It was a good Night. The more I tour like this, the more I come to understand that we essentially playfor free. It’s the travel and all the out-front work that we get paid for. That’s the work of it. It’s no secret, and it’s not news to you, probably, but the time on stage is the payoff.
To the good people who filled the hall in Langley, the good people who wrangled the whole thing for their town, and the good people who gave us their backs and arms and food and help of all kind: thank you. Your presence makes all the in-between worth it.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: wherein we confront all manner of things on the way to this gem of a moment near the end of the Night’s proceedings. The final Tour Trailer for this tour. All it is missing is an explosion.
But all we have is this.
“If we could , you know we would: We’d accompany each of you to your door this evening.
We’d see to it that the key still worked, that the door still opened that it was still your house.
We’d close the door behind you but before we did, with your kind permission, we would kiss our lips, kiss you on the head, and bless you.
Dubuque, Iowa: wherein gh wonders about old songs in a new life as we saunter around the continent on these Nights of Grief & Mystery.
Crucible
So, you write a song for the right reasons, you record it, and give it as many chances at a “meaningful life” as you can. But you can’t control outcomes, so the songs and the recordings float out there in the wide, wide world beyond your reach and influence. Best to leave them alone and to practice letting go.
Maybe one day –unknown to you– they make their way into someone’s life and weave themselves into a story not of your making. They adapt and transform, and maybe you hear about it in an electronic note or a handwritten letter, or a voice from a crowd or a chat after a concert. Suddenly, this old thing has a new meaning and you stand there amazed by it, humbled by it, moved by it, mystified by it, grateful to it.
I’ve been wondering lately why I haven’t been rushing to play solo shows, why I’ve thrown my lot in so emphatically with Nights of Grief & Mystery for the time being: I think it is because the Nights give the songs a container to be in, a context where they mingle with other elements and undergo some kind of alchemical transformation, become a part of something unseen when I wrote them. The collaboration has us going through my song catalog to see ‘what-might-fit-where’ in the Night, and so some songs get a new lease on life while others see the light of day and get put tenderly away again because, though it is clear there is a good line or two, they don’t quite stand on their feet when it comes to carrying a heavy load. There are more of these than I care to admit, but I’m grateful to those songs, too.
The Nights run hot…what drives them has nothing to do with entertainment and everything to do with everything that is not distraction. Thus, the ego is burned away from the songs over and over again and all that is left is the ineffable intention I had when I wrote them. Sometimes the song and the singer are left standing. Sometimes they are cinders.
Turns out Nights of Grief & Mystery is a crucible.
Wherein we keep you apprised of making our way down the dark roads and dark, dark woods on our saunter around the continent on these Nights of Grief & Mystery.
Humility on The Dark Road
In a truck stop in Marion, Illinois, just north of Clarkesville—the Clarkesville that the last train goes to, I think— we pulled into a no parking zone to have a “picnic”. This is a code word for “let’s make a meal from the green room food we didn’t eat last night.” In this case, last night’s green room was in Nashville and the leftovers consisted of an amazing fish stew, Mulligatawny soup and some apples. One or two of us crossed the parking lot to the fast food joint that was there, but the rest dug in, standing huddled around the food bin, trying to stay out of the substantial wind that had been blowing all day.
Across the same parking lot came a man, his eyes locked on us and our van and trailer, and I was sure he was coming to A) tell us to move the illegally parked van/trailer or B) to get an autograph from Willie Nelson (happens in airports all the time).
He heads straight for Stephen and says, “I was at your show in Nashville last night and had to say thank you.” Stunned us all. More than 200 miles from last nights’ show, in a no-frills truck stop, this man explains he is a palliative care nurse, that he lives and works in Chicago, and that he drove 4 and a half hours to come see The Night in an intimate theater in Nashville. “I just couldn’t believe my eyes when you pulled up…you and this fella, “ he said throwing his head towards me. “Everyone who works in my field should see this show.”
In a truck stop on I 64 under a threatening sky, with a serious accident unfolding just ahead that will close down the interstate and change the lives of those involved (unknown to us as we huddle around the food bin) and more hours than we counted on to get to the next hotel, I was reminded why you never hold back when playing for people.
Nine hours on the road to see us…almost 1000 miles…with no clear expectations or promises of what the evening would be.
Wherein we keep you apprised of making our way down the dark roads and dark, dark woods on our saunter around the continent on these Nights of Grief & Mystery.
Wrestling Old Ghosts
Theater 80, NYC
Sunday
New York City: You write those three words down, in that order, and there’s a feeling of having written a tight, picaresque novella. They have that weight, no doubt. They do for me, and I don’t favour the place. It has always been too much for me, all at once. But to play there: I’ll admit it on behalf of the band, was and remains a BIG FRIGGING DEAL. This is largely because I have a strong sense that everyone there HAS SEEN IT ALL, BABY, SEVENTEEN TIMES. So, if at the end of one of these most unlikely of evenings, undertaken in a speakeasy of previous times/now an off off Broadway atmospheric and odoriferous black box owned and operated by what is surely a bejeweled, silver cane-wielding aristocrat of a failed city state of yesteryear, the crowd’s generosity of spirit alive in their laughter, alive in their silences rises, and they rise en masse to bless you as you take leave of them … well, then, it seems you have truly stood and delivered, and served the Muses their portion, and kept to the covenantal jangle of the bardic road life. And we shook that monkey of last year’s NYC audio debacle off our backs. Mercy prevailed.
Inside This is Red, Pittsburgh, PA
Tuesday
Pittsburgh: An eight hour bus ride down the highway to a lapsed and former Slavic Cathedral (I know. We did put ‘NO CHURCHES’ in the contract. Nobody seems to read the fine print. Myself included.), now one of the craziest, most seductive and tricked out high tech venues I’ve ever heard tell of. A three story high vaulted mahogany ceiling, Byzantine tiles set in the walls, spectacular Oaxacan-style brickwork, moody lighting, a green room where the priest once prepared for mass. A few ghosts from the Old World, wondering what became of their heirs. Grief and Mystery, alright. Now, perhaps you’ve made rash but entirely necessary promises to yourself as your days have gone by. Vows, even. And if you lived through the eighties, those promises might have included something like this: “No matter what, I’ll never do a music video. Never, no matter what.” If you did, we have that in common. I had no reason to make such a vow, no lifestyle choice, no skill that would ever lift that strange vow to the realm of possibility or likelihood. But in truth, back in the day, I’d watched enough of those crude novelties – added up, whole days of my lifetime that I’ll never get back – that the vow at least made some kind of moral or artistic sense. So you know what I’m going to tell you now. An hour before show time last night, the Grief and Mystery ensemble is on stage for a three-camera video shoot of various takes on what we do. At first it seemed like a record, a kind of archive thing, like recording a live show. But there was just enough ‘lights/camera/action’ to the business to give me the bends, morally or artistically speaking. Mr. Hoskins (‘Hoss’, we might come to call him), the dervish of detail in such moments, drove the film crew to fits of precision, focus and unwavering technical prowess, himself calling for retake after retake. With patrons for the evening’s show already lining up outside and looking through the stained glass for a glimpse of the shenanigans, the band hit their mark. They were tight, model musical professionals. I blew my lines several times, ludicrous because I wrote and crafted all of them some years ago, and the order and the cadence of them were mine, and barring neurodegenerative disarray should have come to me easily. But I’m no actor. That much self understanding was renewed.
Fifty minutes later its time for ‘Ladies and Gentlemen …’, and we reach into the mortal depths once more, and we believe in these strange nights. And we earn our keep. Tears and applause enough, and enough ribaldry from the Steel City crowd, and three hours later weare sipping smokey whiskey with the owners and the local organizers in the emptied hall, all of us beginning to lie with alarming and escalating confidence about the epic edges of our lives, and for a while, as the Old Man, the patron saint of this operation unawares, so properly put it: The whole damn place goes crazy twice. And its once for the devil. And its once for Christ.
Wherein we keep you apprised of making our way down the dark roads and dark, dark woods on our saunter around the continent on these Nights of Grief & Mystery.
Prevail #2: by Lisa Hodgson
In the This Is Red venue, Pittsburgh, PA. Photo: Gabe Jenkinson
Prove more powerful than opposing forces; be victorious.
“We prevailed” has been the most commonly uttered first words spoken after walking the dark road from the stage and back to the temporary shelter of our greenroom.
Ahhh…the mercy, the kind labour’s of our many hosts providing us with a sanctuary, may you ALL know how immeasurably important and crucial your offerings are.
You see, we DO prevail….over and over again. And the opposing forces? Well…they are there, EVERY SINGLE TIME. Do we prevail because we are more powerful? No. We prevail because each one of us is willing to saunter along this dark road, sometimes crawling on hands and knees, other times with arms outstretched and a knowing glance to the mystery, all ragged and breathlessly whispering… “Shall we Dance?” Nights of Grief & Mystery…We asked for it, They deliver…and then some.
Wherein we keep you apprised of making our way down the dark roads and dark, dark woods on our saunter around the continent on these Nights of Grief & Mystery.
Sometimes you are asked to prevail.
Load In: NYC
Some nights you are just asked to show up and do your thing. Other nights, you are asked to prevail. New York always asks the latter of us.
Wherein we keep you apprised of making our way down the dark roads and dark, dark woods on our saunter around the continent on these Nights of Grief & Mystery.
The Church of What’s Happening Now
In The Maine Irish Heritage Hall. Photo by Adam Bowman.
We made a deal with ourselves, with each other, with whatever brought us together a few years back, that – having tried, mind you, tried and tried again – we wouldn’t play churches. Call it bad faith: I’m not sure I’d argue. Call it a fall from whatever grace would have us: a case could be made. But we put it in the contract: No Churches. No Used-to-be-Churches either. Obviously a good number of people have associations with such places that won’t or can’t be overcome, and so are deeply dissuaded from darkening the doorways. Given even the documented histories, that’s understandable. And I for one have spoken or played or performed under more crucifixions, tormented stick figures, metaphorized and raptured butterflies rising from the rack, back lit by incontestable stained glass vignettes, than is wise. But the tactical strategy for the prejudice is this: for reasons unknown to me, they built these places in the old days so that people in the pews couldn’t quite make out what was being said at the front of the hall. The sound, almost always, is swimming, turgid, swampy in all the ways you wouldn’t want, and unwarm. And entombed.
So we pull into Portland, Maine yesterday, and we adjust the set list to bring back one of our operatic favourites: Never Be a Poet. We’ve done so because we’ve been booked into the Maine Irish Heritage Hall, and the story is about my first trip to Ireland, and about all the weather of fatherhood and frailty, and because Portland has a noble history of welcoming ragged survivors of The Famine in the mid-1800’s. Beautiful confluence. Until we pull up to the Maine Irish Heritage Hall. And it is a proper Gothic pile, a nineteenth century used-to-be-a-cathedral, in fact. Oh oh. Without our man in the house, Charles, we’d have been in the shit, in every way that can be imagined. But his chops with the knobs, and a way-too-long sound check, and a quick dressing room revamp of the set list to accommodate the utter lack of light on stage and cut down on us moving around, and a band that trusts itself now to rise, and faithful Erin-led local organizers/workers, and especially a curious, slow to warm but beautifully locked-in crowd of the children of the children’s children who Came From Away in those ruinous days: all of that wound itself around this once and only night granted to us to grieve and be mystified, and for a while all was marvellous and well. Street legal devastation of the uninvestigated life proceeded. The people in the book signing line testified to it, were strangely grateful for it. Elegant praise. Generosity of spirit. Burgundy in the back room afterwards. Reasons to live.
Wherein we keep you apprised of making our way down the dark roads and dark, dark woods on our saunter around the continent on these Nights of Grief & Mystery.
Highjacked, held hostage.
End of Night, Turners Falls
Some nights more than others, the emotional current seems to run higher. There are a lot of reasons for this and I don’t know them all, and last night in Turners Falls…a full house, an old theatre, an absolute crack team of young people on the ground there (led by the intrepid Erica) setting the scene for us…was properly a high-octane Night, a perfect way to start this tour.
Sometimes, fatigue is the the crack that emotion seeps through for me. I’m not a fan of tears on stage, but occasionally I’m highjacked, held hostage by the moment until it relents. Last night was that kind of night for me, both in the dressing room and on stage. There was a different kind of fatigue in the house, too: the one that makes itself known living in these times, in this country specifically: people tired of carrying a weight they didn’t realize they were carrying.
So the wreckage was deep and very much in evidence for us in Turners Falls last night. I was lucky to be a witness.
Wherein we keep you apprised of making our way down the dark roads and dark, dark woods on our saunter around the continent on these Nights of Grief & Mystery.
4 Years On…
The Faces of The Great American Diner
According to the elves that live in silicone chips in my cell phone, 4 years ago today I was sitting in the El Quijote bar (right beside the Chelsea Hotel) in NYC. I was drinking not-so-great red wine and expensive but equally not-so-great gazpacho. Still, I was geeking out: it was THE El Quijote attached to THE Chelsea Hotel. I was waiting to meet up with Stephen at the venue a few blocks away for our first official gig…just the two of us.
Tonite, I’m in a Days Inn in Utica, NY.
SJ is here, too.
And 7 others who in various capacities have thrown in their lot with us on dark road: Lisa, Charlie, Adam, Gabe, Colleen, The Spaniard, The Choirmaster. The packing, the repacking, the driving, the rendezvous-ing, the driving again, the border crossing, the border fingerprinting/picture taking/question answering, the driving, the diner stop, the driving…all leads tonite to a Days Inn in Utica.
Tomorrow we begin. Tonite, we were driving on dark roads in America.
Wherein we keep you apprised of making our way down the dark roads and dark, dark woods on our saunter around the continent on these Nights of Grief & Mystery.
Another Kind of Light
Soundcheck at La Tulipe, Montreal.
You begin in the light and you end in wisdom, if the gods prevail. But otherwise, light.
SJ
There are some songs you can play in the morning or afternoon and there are songs that need the night. Some kinds of performative work live happily on a sun-drenched stage and others wilt under that kind of light. I’ve always felt more at home singing my stuff knowing that night has fallen, or at least is about to. The dark helps to contain things. Like being tenderly cupped in giant hands, the way we do with an insect we’re trying to transport out of the house to freedom without hurting it. The dark helps deliver a performance in the same way.
Clearly, the world changes at night. Behavioural patterns of all kinds shift in flora, fauna, and town folk. “I said, the night is a dangerous thing,” I once wrote. I was afraid of the dark for a long time. But then again…
If you look deep, deep enough, into the heart of night, you’ll see that it is just another kind of light, if you look deep enough into The Heart of Night.
From Take A Little Walk, gh
I wrote that once, too.
So, this tour, its not Grief & Mystery: its NIGHTS of Grief & Mystery. Because that is when grief, mystery, and all their relations show up at your door, insinuating themselves into your kitchens, living rooms, and beds, without your permission but probably with your blessing.
We turn the house lights down, affording you a kind of privacy and inviting the blurred edges the dark offers, and we bring up the lights on stage hopefully just enough that you can see the kindness in our eyes. We don’t use the light to illuminate us, per se. We use the light to accentuate the dark.
Sometimes we are lucky enough to have someone at the lighting console who helps in this regard. Like Jeremy in La Tulipe in Montreal. Thank you, Jeremy.
Wherein we keep you apprised of making our way down the dark roads and dark, dark woods on our saunter around the continent on these Nights of Grief & Mystery.
Charlie
Charlie Scaife at the console, Kingston, ON.
This is Charlie. Charlie is joining us on the road as Front of House Sound Engineer. Charlie is gold. Charlie is a godsend.
We have learned the hard way that we need to have someone at the soundboard who knows and cares for what we are doing on stage. We were lucky enough to have Joe Meekums with us in the UK for a few shows and we quickly learned how to love the soundman. We needed someone from this continent for this tour, though.
Enter Charlie. He is young and, shockingly, wants to be an FOH guy. He has no hidden aspirations to be in a band and is not a budding recording engineer who is just biding his time as a live engineer until he can get a studio gig. No, Charlie wants to be a live sound guy. Chances are, a few years from now, you’ll be at a massive concert somewhere and it’ll be Charlie at the board.
So we have traded the lean touring machine of the duo back in The Day for a bigger machine that boasts nine (!!!!) people on the road. But this machine has a proper mechanic tuning up the engine with Charlie in tow. I know (and you can hear my sigh in this) that not everyone will be satisfied with the sound at the concerts. It’s always something. Having Charlie at the console is our way of doing everything we can to ensure what we are doing on stage gets to your ears in the best possible way.
And he is a ginger. So, he’s in good company in this band.
Wherein we keep you apprised of making our way down the dark roads and dark, dark woods on our saunter around the continent on these Nights of Grief & Mystery.
The Choir
The Choir during soundcheck in Montreal. Photo by Dianna Sutherland.
They spin gossamer with their voices and drape it on to the rest of us. They are a projection from somewhere else…not quite earthly. Skilled and passionate, we in the band quickly became addicted to them.
“We’re not gonna get used to this, right?” was the cautionary phrase thrown about during our run in Ontario and Quebec. Turns out they are joining us on the rest of the tour.
Wherein we keep you apprised of making our way down the dark roads and dark, dark woods on our saunter around the continent on these Nights of Grief & Mystery.
Loading in, London, UK.
You’ve heard the expression: Life on the road.
That’s the fabrication of someone who wasn’t there, or someone who is trying to fool their family or friends. The road is no kind of life, not really. It’s what you’re doing instead of your life, something you hope your normal life tolerates on a good day, survives on the rest of them. Part piratical ensemble, part motorcycle gang, part asylum choir, your companions on the road close ranks to stay sane and pliable, and you are wise to draw nigh to their care-laden ministrations. Mostly heavy weather, obliging you to peak just at the time of day that almost everyone within five hundred kilometres is cooling down, you strangely privileged and burdened and shanghaied by your fate, the road is stern and lacks moderation or compromise. It can be a riot of adamant joy, too, and redeeming. But that’s not the general weather of the thing. How to duck and avoid blinking at the same time: that’s the strategy.
Once in a while one of your confederates peeks out from under the teflon veneer, gains something like focus, and takes the measure of things. What you have here is Gregory Hoskins doing that as the Nights of Grief & Mystery erupt and ebb across the UK, and Canada, and the United States, in 2019. I for one rely on these notices from the fray, since my position in the scheme banishes whatever chance I’d have to attend one of these nights and see for myself. They are chance and momentous encounters with Our Times, and Mr. Hoskins is just left-of centre stage to get the hang of the thing. So I recommend his glimpses of the road. Saves you the ordeal, and lends you gratitude for the ordinary days.
Gregory Hoskins 