April dust storms that block out the stars bring…

Ok… I’m sure you’re wondering about that click bait title! I could give it to you right here and now but I’m going to bury the lead. This month has been busy, revelatory, and not at all boring!!!

I just got home from a couple of trips out west to sit among the rocks, friends, and rainbow colored lizards and am looking around bemused at the happy mess of art supplies, instruments, notebooks, show flyers, recording equipment, dog stuff, student stuff, and doodles that is my life.

It’s called Yerba mate

I have been doing Song a Day with

Wilson Marks

and

Garrett T. Capps foo

for the entire month of April. This has not been an easy thing to do. If you know

carolina (hemlock) online

, you know that they have an incredible archive of Song a Day releases on bandcamp.

Extreme respect for Carolina for doing so many of these and RELEASING THEM. I could never! I am barely hanging on with just finishing them but so far I havent missed a single day and there are 8 to go. I will say, the act of showing up every single day and compiling whatever energy, time, and tools I have at hand to write music has been life changing. Some days I lean deep into my tropes, using my trusted chord changes to weave something Lindsey-esque sounding. Some days have been about hitting record and improvising with whatever instrument or friends are around. I have been playing banjo, cello, bass, guitar, dancing around to my Casio drum machine, and finding different things to hit the glockenspiel with. As the month goes on, nothing is off the table from rants about my day and its frustrations, a late night recap of the plot of Terminator 2, and reading instruction manuals aloud in dramatic operatic tones. To finish something every day you have to say a whole lot of Yes to yourself which feels awesome. Yes yes yes. Please more yes. Here’s some selections from the Yes Files. :)

04/06 ‘Rooting for the Underdog’

04/09 ‘Find a Way’

04/18 ‘Crypto Dad’ (with Wilson)

Ok so now for the dust storm. Saturday night in west Texas we weathered a dust storm as part of a series of adventures which included a brush with swimming snakes in the Rio Grande and shooting fireworks down an abandoned cinnabar mine shaft to illuminate its seeming endlessness. The dust storm went from a rumor, to a looming darkness that blocked out the stars, to a howling entity you could literally taste. We all survived.

Touch rock bro

Every time I visit the desert it becomes more difficult to return and someday maybe I just won’t.

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ANNOUNCEMENTS SECTION

This month I have so many Announcements I needed to make a section!

1. My new album ‘Mustang Island’ is available for pre-order :) on vinyl and ‘The Gate’ is out there to stream and listen to over and over. I invented a term for what kind of song The Gate is and I am calling it a grief anthem. Among other things I will work on until I die is making friends with grief and walking together with it. You can preorder and listen to The Gate here.

   

   Mustang Island cover art by Lee Barber

2. I am joining Advance Base and Al Scorch for a few more shows in June. If you know anyone in Chicago, Milwaukee, or Minneapolis, give them a GOOD MUSIC ALERT we are headed that way!

   

3. I think it might be too early to spill the beans on this but you read this far so you deserve it, my beautiful friend Dana Falconberry made my Cosmic Space horse print into a fine art chainstitched patch that has blown my mind. It’s a little piece of art you can stitch onto a jacket or frame on the wall. It’s a limited edition of 20 patches and I’m just going to quietly place them here for now along with the original print.

   

4. While not a religious person myself, I have been touched by the final words of Pope Francis and his vigilant calls for peace and an end to the war in Gaza. I continue to hope for peace and an end to the horrific suffering and genocide in Palestine and I want to continue to talk about it, write about it, think about it, dream it and believe.

Many more things to share but this is it for now! Peace to you, peace everywhere. Sending love from here. Xo Lindsey