Coping With The Hagen

We had a day off yesterday. The initial plan was to leave Hamburg after the final night with Social D there and drive to Lubeck, a small German city en route to our next tour stop, Copenhagen. However, on the last day in Hamburg I found out that the Weakerthans were playing in town the following night, so I hastily hatched a plot to hang around. In the event I spent the afternoon making friends with the guys in the band, and they even asked me to come play “Pamphleteer” onstage with them, which I duly did (and will post footage of if anyone has any?).

The guys were great and I had a fun night. In all honesty I was kind of holding it together; they are one of my all-time favourite bands and it was an enormous honour and privilege for me to be able to meet and play with them. It’s also spurred me to re-listen to their entire back catalogue (again). I’d advise you to check them out if you’re unfamiliar with their work. Quite an evening.

Now we’re in Copenhagen, which is great, but it’s our second last night with Social D, which is less great, and I have a tour cold coming on, which is fucking annoying. But I have some good tour-related news to impart as well, so I’ll soldier on.

The show at the Bowery Ballroom in New York on September 21st has now sold out. This is excellent news, and as it’s the first show to go, we’ve added another show at the Bowery on November 3rd (tickets here). We’ve also managed to add a show in Gainesville FL at the Double Down on September 28th (tickets here). Those are the last additions for the tour, and a number of the other shows are selling fast as well, so get your tickets while you can.

On a similar note, the UK tour is continuing to sell in a fashion I can only describe as bonkers (the Manchester show is nearly sold out now, and all the others are at least half gone). We were hoping they’d go by the time of the tour itself, not four months up front! You guys are crazy, haha. We have some more plans in the pipeline for the UK as a result.

Finally, two little bits of press news. Firstly, I’ll be playing a song live on BBC2’s The Review Show on July 8th at 11.45pm, so tune in for that one. And this month’s Spin Magazine have been saying nice things about me, so check that out.

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