It’s the last week of Half Winged, the choral installation in surround sound at Wasserman Projects in Eastern Market in Detroit. It’s free to attend. Pop into the gallery between the hours of 12-5pm. The work is on a continuous loop so whenever you get there, it’s the right time. The cantata features singers Mikaela Bennett, Sam Amidon, Daniel Bubeck, Robert Wesley Mason, Hanna Benn and yours truly along with choral performances by The University of North Texas.
Outtake photo by Sarah Small.
In the meantime, I’m prepping for next week’s 20th anniversary show of the My Brightest Diamond album “Bring Me The Workhorse” and will be joined by original bassist Chris Bruce and my co-producer Joel Shearer. Special guest Chris St. Hilaire on drums, since Earl is out with Tori Amos right now. (I experienced Tori’s show in Detroit this last week and it is wonder how those songs are in my bones! I hope some of you can cheer Earl along the road as they finish out the next month of tour.)
We’ve got some tickets left for the MBD in NYC 9 o’clock show, so snatch em.
I’ve just added a show in Michigan at the Ypsilanti Freight house Sunday September 27th. I moved to Ypsilanti in the 7th grade, so there will always be a very tender place in my heart for Ypsilanti. When I got to Ypsi high school there was a truly world class choral program there with Bill Boggs directing, and by the age of 13, I was traveling to Europe and we were winning global choral competitions. The world opened up for me because of a music program in the public school, so I think in some ways I feel this permanent state of gratitude for Ypsi that I always want to express when given the chance.
Architecturally the Freight house itself encourages audience engagement and these kinds of wooden spaces are incredibly rare, old trees soak in the sound alongside the hand placed bricks… so from a physical acoustics standpoint, it’s a thrill to play as well. As a teenager it always felt like the train station was off-limits, or haunted, or somehow unavailable to me, so my inner 14 year old is thrilled to get into this space that seemed so inaccessible at the time.
In terms of what MBD has planned, we will be celebrating the 20th anniversary of Bring Me The Workhorse and travelling through a kind of review of all the albums, so it has a retrospective kind of feel and playing a few unreleased new songs too! For the un-initiated I hope it’s a friendly introduction. We have Justin Snyder on piano, Marion Hayden on bass and Joe Becker of the DSO on drums. ELECTRIC!
August 15th Detroit, MI Half Winged closing day
Sat Aug 22 NY, NY Joe’s Pub Bring Me The Workhorse 20th anniversary show
Thur Sept 24 Minneapolis, MN Walker Art with Nels Cline & Yuka Honda
Sun Sept 27 Ypsilanti, MI Freighthouse
Sat Oct 11 - Sun Oct 12 Berlin, DE People festival 180 musicians gather. It’s all a surprise what happens.
