7/17/24 MODERN TRAUMA SUMMER TOUR

Hey, hey, hey friends, it's the return of The Big Lonesome Tour Blog!  (Remember these?)

I don’t even know where to begin on this one… Feels like the last several times I have tried to promote our work, a global event happens; in early 2020, we released Payphones and Ashtrays; this time I write to you with a heavy heart for the people of Palestine and Ukraine, and less than three days from an attempted assassination attempt on Trump, and a little over two weeks since we watched Biden’s clear and obvious decline on (inter)national television.  

… but yesterday, it mattered a little less, at least for a few hours.  After six or seven years of pointing to our Detroit bud, Jack Oats’s sailboat in various backyards around Michigan (the Ferndale house, the Saline house, and now the Ypsilanti house), and making vague future plans to use it on the river, the day had finally arrived.  We spent the laziest day with friends, floating, talking, sharing, loving.  I don’t know if there is such a thing as a “Classic Michigan Summer Day”, but it must be something close to this.  I can still feel the lake water pushing and receding on long dried ankles, and the squint of golden sun in middle aged eyes as I write this to you, between sips of my cooling americano.  

We’ve had nothing but great shows so far - we’re doing a mix of intimate house shows, and traditional venues on this tour, with a heavy focus on connecting, talking, listening and sharing.  I feel like every tour has always had a deeper meaning to it for me, with a message I would like to share.  We’re touring behind our new record, Modern Trauma, and while Andy and I both wrote songs on this one, I wrote mine from the lens of generational trauma in my own family, with sub themes of love and reconciliation, addiction and recovery, and healing from past wounds and just “moving on down the road” to something that serves you better.  

While I certainly have a tribe, I have always felt like people were more similar than not.  I try to listen to people, and believe their experiences, and sit with them.  I am lucky to have a wide range of friends across the US and Canada of all ages.  I enjoy talking to children, to people my own age and to the oldest person in the room..  I have liberal friends and I have conservative friends. I have Christian friends, I have Jewish friends, I have Atheist friends, I have Buddhist friends, and I have Muslim friends.  I have straight friends, I have LGBTQ friends, and I have asexual friends.  I have friends that like to party, and I have friends that are straight edge.  All of these friends have one thing in common - they are compassionate, and loving people who are doing the best they can in a less than ideal world; and that’s the only way I see out of this… to love one another.

I have been so incredibly grateful for everyone that has come out so far - it means the absolute world to me that you care enough to read this friend.  We’ll see you down the road!