Dear friends,
Happy mid-spring! Jeez, those first 4 months of 2019 blew by… Hope you’ve all had a great year so far and are enjoying the energy of things growing around us again…
A lot has been growing so far this year here in my little Nashville studio… I produced an album for Delta Rae in January, one for Megan Slankard in February, and one for Paul Freeman in April. It's been exhausting but also incredibly energizing as they are some of my favorite artists around and I feel like we pushed each other to do some of our best work yet. I can’t wait for you all to hear all the new music!
There is also quite a bit of motion in my solo album world right now that I’m very excited to share with you soon, but I wanted to focus this missive on a couple of very special events coming up over the next few weeks…
NYC SOLO SHOW MAY 14 - “ON YOUR RADAR” SPONSORED BY WFUV
I’m excited to get back to NYC with my solo music for a special show at Rockwood Music Hall (Stage 3). The evening is curated by John Platt of WFUV and features Jesse Terry, Alan Fish, Emily Mure and myself. I will be playing songs from my solo album as well as premiering songs from my and Jesse's upcoming duo EP. Here are the details:
TUESDAY MAY 14 7PM
ROCKWOOD MUSIC HALL STAGE 3 NYC
GET TICKETS HERE
For those who don’t know, Jesse and I wrote and recorded an EP inspired by the story of Kivalina, a town in Alaska that has the unfortunate distinction of being one of the first places in North America that will be completely submerged within 10 years due to rising sea levels.
After reading this article on Kivalina in late 2015, I was compelled to learn more, and what I found had a strong emotional impact on me. I was really affected by the personal stories of the inhabitants of the town who are being forced to face a strange and tremendous decision... do you abandon your homeland and the spaces that define your heritage or do you try to preserve your culture in spite of your land literally disappearing before your eyes? It seems likely that that the same questions facing these villages will soon be confronting some of our biggest coastal cities as well, such as the one where my family lives. It is painful to imagine having to make these life-altering decisions about my own home and loved ones.
The record doesn’t come out until September, but you can learn more about the project and preview the album now when you sign up to my Patreon page.
THE PAPER RAINCOAT MUSICAL DEBUT PERFORMANCES - JUNE 1 & 2
As many of you know, I’ve been writing a musical called The Paper Raincoat for the past 5 years with two of my favorite co-writers, Amber Rubarth and Devon Copley. I am absolutely thrilled to announce that the show has been selected to be produced by Bay Area theater company Musical Cafe for two full-length concert performances on June 1 and 2 at the Osher Studio in Berkeley CA. This is the first time ever that the show will be performed in its entirety. We will premiere 14 brand-new Paper Raincoat songs and present the entire story. If you’re in the Bay Area, we would absolutely love for you to join us. Here are the details:
MUSICAL CAFE PRESENTS THE PAPER RAINCOAT
JUNE 1 at 8PM, JUNE 2 at 6PM
BAY AREA CHILDREN'S THEATER, OSHER STUDIO
2055 CENTER ST BERKELEY CA 94704
Reserve your tickets here!
This premiere has been over ten years in the making. For those of you who don’t know the story of the project, Amber Rubarth and I started the project back in 2008 and wrote an album based on the beginning of the story that would eventually become the musical. We toured as a band for several years and our songs found their way into movies, TV shows and commercials. We’d always hoped we’d get a chance to tell the whole story of The Paper Raincoat, and we are so grateful to theater companies like Musical Cafe and TheatreWorks in Palo Alto for supporting new work, for taking a chance on a bunch of singer/songwriters with very little theater experience and allowing us to develop this show under their expert guidance.
You can learn much more about our creative process behind the show and our journey up to this point on my Patreon page!
NEW PODCAST INTERVIEW!
I was recently interviewed on a podcast here in Nashville called The Slow Drag. The show focuses on people working in the creative community and discusses their experiences, struggles, successes, etc. It was a really fun talk and we covered a lot of unexpected ground about my creative process, perspectives in the studio, how I work with synesthesia, and how I (attempt to) battle perfectionism. Hope you enjoy it, and check out their other episodes as well!
Thanks as always for reading to the end and for your continued support of what I do. I am so grateful for all y’all!
Much love,
Alex