Tour Diary #1: Our Private World
A dispatch from my American tour with Fat Tony
The past two weeks have been an absolute whirlwind. I had Polaris and then two shows back to back in Toronto. During the day I shipped out dozens of records before I had to leave the country for tour with Fat Tony and his crew. Flew to Denver that Thursday, played there that night, flew to Chicago the next day, played there. Cleveland on Sunday and then made it to New York for a few days before flying down south to Atlanta. And now? I’m in Houston, Tony’s hometown. I’ve tried to enjoy it and soak up as much as possible because it can be easy to let it all drift by you. Touring has a strange way of simultaneously taking forever and going by too quickly.
It’s been such a joy to be immersed in so many strong African-American music cultures one after another. Having DJ Taye open up our Chicago show with a blistering footwork set where he rapped, mixed and danced raised the energy level for our shows early on. NYC always feels like home. My friend Jessica invited me to Fotografiska New York and I felt recharged after seeing Andy Warhol’s candid photos of Grace Jones and Basquiat. I got to see my sister Gena for the first time since Christmas 2019. In the Big Apple, it felt like I was getting a glimpse of what a post-pandemic future could look like. Gena took me to what she described as a work party and then this happened:
I spent a few days in Atlanta and absorbed that city’s rich African-American history. I went to the National Center for Civil and Human Rights and read some of Martin Luther King Jr.’s personal letters and saw a replica of his bookcase. I stopped by For Keeps Books, a store that stocks rare and classic Black books, where I ran into the amazing musician keiyaA who had also been magnetized to the promise of this particular business. There’s a strong underground in America where there’s enough people in the subculture to create a critical mass. It’s been inspiring to see how many likeminded folks we’ve just happened upon from city to city.
One thing I missed about touring is the secret language that forms amongst your touring party. The in-jokes, motifs and recurring themes that make up our private world as we hurtle across the country are often what I most fondly remember. I love when certain songs become associated with a particular tour. We’ve been playing a lot of PinkPantheress on the road and I suspect I’ll always associate her music with this time period.
Touring during the pandemic has turned our van into a mobile lab. We’ve got masks on masks. We’ve done countless rapid tests. My joke for the C and T markers that let you know your results on the test is that C stands for Continue and T stands for Terrible. It’s been challenging having to navigate inconsistent mask mandates from city to city. Vaccine requirements at the venues have shown me the ideological divide within America firsthand. Fans have hit me up directly saying they couldn’t come out because they aren’t vaccinated. I can’t help but juxtapose this with how I couldn’t get vaccinated fast enough so I’d be able to come back out and play these very shows as soon as possible.
The venues have done an admirable job dealing with our new reality and I’ve appreciated their commitment to the safety of the artists, audience and staff. This occupation that I once lauded for its lack of structure and rules has suddenly become much more serious. That said it’s a small price to pay to get to play music for people in real life again. The shows themselves have been incredibly cathartic, they’ve been everything I dreamed of when I was making this album.
Come join us for the rest of these shows!
10/13 - Houston, TX - White Oak Music Hall (Upstairs) - Tickets
10/14 - San Antonio, TX - Paper Tiger - Tickets
10/15 - Austin, TX - Far Out Lounge - Tickets
10/20 - Los Angeles, CA - Zebulon - Tickets
10/21 - San Francisco, CA - Bottom of the Hill - Tickets
10/22 - Portland, OR - Polaris Hall - Tickets
10/23 - Seattle, WA - Clock Out - Tickets
You can find me at my website, updating my playlist, DJing on Twitch or hanging on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok. You can listen to my music on Spotify, Apple Music and Bandcamp
Did I see your name in the Rothko Chapel guestbook? Because that's the kind of deep I was talking about.
Welcome to Houston, too bad you won't have a bit of time here. It's a deep city.