Let’s start with the positives. RINSE has a new song featuring Hatchie and it is LOVELY. As is the video.
Collaborations featuring Hatchie are a thing of joy, as evidenced by my favourite song of 2022, Winter’s atonement. Dreampop that coulda come straight outta 1993
When Belinda Carlisle sang of Heaven being a place on Earth, she very well could have meant anywhere a Hatchie record is playing. I’ve been in love with her music since I first heard Not That Kind, the first song on her first album
I drove down to Nashville last week to do a reading. The trip down took - despite maps telling me only 15 - in fact 21 hours in the car. Driving back this weekend, thankfully was only 16. I listened to A LOT of Cheap Trick. I realized that, except for Heaven Tonight, I didn’t know their albums that well. So I listened to the first ten. Yes, 10. I’ve decided that One On One is their strongest record. It may not have the biggest hits, but taken as a whole it hits the hardest.
I also listened to 3 1/4 Wodehouse novels. Summer Lightning, Frozen Assets, Full Moon, and a quarter of Heavy Weather. Stephen Fry reading the first and last. It’s strange, when I first attempted Summer Lightning last year, I couldn’t get into it with Fry’s voice. I was so used to the magnificent performances of Jonathan Cecil, that I stopped the Fry and returned to Cecil’s audiobooks. There being no Cecil recording of Summer Lightning, I gave Fry’s another go, and of course Fry does an excellent job. Though my initial perception really speaks to how excellent Cecil’s versions are. As for the books themselves, the opening chapter of Frozen Assets at the Parisian police station is very funny, I was in hysterics at one point. And the plot of Full Moon is one of Wodehouse’s most amusing, and really furthered my fondness for Galahad.
The Nashville reading was AMAZING. One of the best I’ve ever done, and someone in the audience told me it was one of the best sets they’ve ever seen. I’m still on such a high from it, I really wanna do as many readings as I can this year. If you want me to come to your city, let me know and let’s make it happen. The show was at Random Sample, a cool little arts space on the west side of town. Taxiway did a little set, then I read, then Taxiway came back on to finish off the evening. At the end of which, I joined them for a cover of the old Boys Next Door song, Shivers.
I felt my dear departed friend Andy Shea’s presence in the room during this and it was a wonderful feeling of being with old friends and new. I came to know Taxiway thru their drummer Emily G finding Nick Cave’s Bar at Grimey’s and adding me on IG. She and Mike then came to my reading at Grimey’s for Ballad Of Buttery Cake Ass, I wrote the press release for their latest album - check it out, lovely Americana dream pop - and then we did an awesome gig together at Pete’s Candy Store last November. It’s been a great friendship so far and I hope we do many more gigs together. Other folks who found me thru Nick Cave’s Bar at Grimey’s came to the gig too, and everything that’s followed on from that book has just been awesome. I’m thrilled that it’s becoming a circuit, that I got to hang with folks who came to the reading last year and came out again this time. Some of us went to Dino’s afterwards and I thought once again of how this is what I like most, hanging out with friends in different cities, performing and making music. Long may it continue.
Now you may say ‘Aug, you started this year with a concussion that you’re still recovering from today. Isn’t that enough for one year?’ And Fate would step in to reply with a dismissive shake of the head and a big ‘OH NO’. I got into Nashville late Wednesday night, after covering 600 miles that day. Staying with a friend from my hometown. And woke up Thursday morning covered in insect bites. They itched pretty bad and looked unpleasant but I got out and started getting Sporting Moustaches into shops as was my plan for the day. Grimey’s now has it, and the very cool little Taylor Street Arts & Books. I met Emily and Mike for dinner at Sunflower Cafe, one of my favourite places to eat. But by this point I had noticed that the tell-tale bullseye had appeared around one of the bites, that indicator - though hopefully not - of Lyme Disease. So after dinner I hightailed it to the ER. Not exactly what I had in mind for this trip. There the doctor was concerned enough to give me a tetanus shot - in case it was spiders - and antibiotics - which should knock out the Lyme if it is that. I had washed all the bedding immediately after waking but it did make for uneasy sleep the next two nights. And I did see a brown recluse spider on Friday after the gig. The pharmacist warned me against sunlight with this particular antibiotic, that exposure could cause severe burns. And I had a 16-21 hour drive back to Connecticut to get through. Friday was spent planning. I was supposed to do a reading on Saturday too at a gig at The Dangerous Method house and leave on Sunday. But with Monday looking bright and sunny, and Saturday and Sunday being overcast, I decided it best to curtail my trip and start home Saturday morning. So vampire-style - sunblock everywhere, hoodie, baseball cap, shades, and driving gloves, oh yes, vegan leather driving gloves, inspired by Tony Curtis’ Danny Wilde in The Persuaders - I made the 16 hour drive back over the weekend.
I feel ok. I think if it was Lyme, I’d be a lot sicker. And I don’t even mind all that much as the show really was fantastic. You can watch the set on IG here. It reminded me of the old stand-up days, where I kept having to wait for laughter to die down before I could continue. People told me they weren’t expecting it to be so funny. And oh yeah, I got to open with this “In 1986, Van Hagar released the Live Without A Net home video, recorded in New Haven, Connecticut. Sammy Hagar renaming the city for the night ‘New Halen’. So in honor of that, tonight I redub this town Tascheville’.
May Dates:
May 18th - Cleveland, Mac’s Backs 5 PM
May 19th - Detroit, Book Suey 7PM
May 21st - Chicago, The Whistler 6PM
May 23rd - Columbus, Prologue 7PM
Tomorrow, April 24th, is my birthday. If you’d like to get me anything, please treat yourself to a copy of Sporting Moustaches. Or if you’ve already read it and would like to leave a review anywhere, that would be most appreciated.
Thanks for reading!