Chicagossance

Back home and feeling like it

It’s been so long since I wrote I barely know English.

When I think about what’s gone down since then I see a fever dream of Dalí-esque mountains in San Sebastián and at least two airline employees glaring at me with Corporate Medusa face.

I see the sweet people who put Case Oats up in their apartments and the club managers who paid us even when we didn’t beat the bar ring. Some sold-out crowds in Europe singing Casey’s lyrics, and not-so-sold-out crowds in the US, both helping us feel like keeping going.

Train from Oslo to Trondheim.

A hotel concierge in Barcelona who, after Casey got clocked by an automatic door, offered a frozen chorizo to soothe her face instead of ice.

I see Nora Guthrie playing cowbell during “Hoodoo Voodoo” at Solid Sound two weekends ago, and singing “This Land Is Your Land” with Wilco, the Tweedy band, and Gang of Four.

Myself crying during the Tweedy band set, as per usj.

I see a blood-stained mattress at the Days Inn outside Stansted Airport in London, where Case Oats slept in order to rent a car at 5:30AM and drive to our radio session at the BBC the next morning. And the sun-soaked, medieval restaurant in Halden, Norway, where we were served the best artichoke soup of our lives.

Bloody mattress. Artichoke soup. So lucky the scale is usually tipped soup-ward.

Casey wrote an excellent tour diary for Paste Magazine!

We’re home now just in time for Chicago renaissance, the time of the year where the sky is so blue and the sun is so sunny and the lake is so lakey that everything, all your projects, everything inside your mind, your body, your lawn, your pets, all blossom. There’s nice weather anywhere but it ain’t Great-Lakes-nice. Something about thawing after freezing.

My own summer burst might have less to do with the sun and more to do with playing music again, at home, for fun. It’s a pretty common experience, I think, for people who play a lot of shows, to lose touch with the really sustaining true freedom of making something up, even if they love the shows they play. Even if the performances are wild and partly improvised, it’s not the same as waking up and making something that wasn’t there the day before. It makes life feel better in a way that maybe nothing else can, at least nothing that doesn’t also destroy you.

I think it’s important that the playing isn’t tied to a goal. The thing you make could end up getting broken down and used or even released someday. But that can’t be the point. The point is to go. Surprise and delight yourself, etc. I’ve been amazed at how much energy it gives me which, by the way, you can then use to go do the dishes, reply to emails, or do whatever needs doing.

(My dad has a book about this called How to Write One Song. And I have a book about recording at home.)

And it does all that even when you don’t feel like doing it. I don’t know if anyone has ever regretted spending 20 minutes farting around with a guitar or a DAW. Maybe if something incredibly tragic happened while they were playing, that they could’ve prevented if they weren’t? Like, they were about to take their dog for a walk, they played guitar instead, and when they walked their dog a little bit later, a raptor swooped down and stole it? Chihuahua paws clawing at the air? Wouldn’t have happened if they walked earlier? (Sorry, Casey, that’s a disturbing image. I won’t let Basil get raptor-stolen.) Or their cousin was in the Cash Cab, used a phone lifeline to call them, and they couldn’t hear the phone ring? Are there still new episodes of Cash Cab? Why does their cousin only call them in a time of need? And why didn’t they know the answer to What was the tallest building in the world from 1973 to 1998?

I don’t know, seems worth the risks.

I hope you’re having your own Chicago renaissance, wherever you are.

Spencer

Announcements

• [Chicago] ICE is escalating again. I recommend joining the rapid response text alerts so that you can respond to abductions in your neighborhood. More info here.

• Casey and I are going on tour with my dad this fall.

• My publisher found a bunch of copies of Mirror Sound in their warehouse and gave me the chance to buy them before they go to the pulper. So I did. They’re available here if you’d like a copy.