on Thursday, July 10th, i’ll be performing at the House of Miracles, in Cambridge, Ontario, with Stony Lonesome.
impossible to overstate how important this building is to me (and countless others, i’m sure), after so many years spent recording and mixing inside its walls – it’ll kind of be like performing a show inside one of the chambers of my own heart (minus the darkness and torrents of blood). though it’s most familiar to me as a quietly magical recording studio, Andy’s set it up to be a beautiful live space, with mind-bogglingly good sound, and it’s longing to be filled up with people, including you.
album #6 will need more time. hoping to connect in person through my music now and then over the next months, rather than continue to only lock myself away with it.
i’ll be performing solo concerts in some very special places in 2025; one at the House of Miracles, in Ontario, Canada (where i record my albums) over the summer, and later this year, in Bamberg, Germany, on September 13th, where i’ll be singing inside a lovely little chapel. i’m also working on arranging a concert in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, for October. and more.
a lot has changed since i last toured in Europe, in terms of venues and contacts i once had, so i wanted to gently ask: if anyone has any serious ideas/contacts for small and intimate venues (likely in eastern Europe, because of logistics, though if i can find the means, i’ll go just about anywhere) that might be interested in having me in October, or knows someone who could use an opener (i’m more than happy with a short set), could you please get in touch with a message or email, including the information? though i have very limited resources (unless one can count determination as a resource), i’d like to do what i can to string together a few more shows.
at the riverside stage in ERBA Park in Bamberg, Germany, where i performed in September 2021, sitting with Baerbala, a good friend who has endured my singing and pacing now and then over the past weeks, as i continue work on album #6 (though as a statue, she hasn’t had much choice).
getting closer to finishing the album, and hoping to announce a couple of live performances soon.
(1) fifteen years ago tomorrow, on january 11th, 2010, i released my second album, no ghostless place, which i wrote over a period of four years, using a borrowed ADAT machine (thanks again Andy), an old drum machine (now so dust-choked it’s like a relic from a tomb), the bass guitar i bought when i was 14 years old (stolen ages ago/forever missed), a weirdly tiny, malfunctioning keyboard that i eventually traded to a guy in an electronica band for a case of beer, a cheap acoustic guitar that i started writing “old fires” with on the same day that i found it, and of course, my “one and only”, my beloved japanese telecaster that’s been my sole electric guitar since the dawn of time, and which a team of even the most skeptical medical professionals would have to begrudgingly conclude has become a living extension of my body, were they to scan it – shared nervous and circulatory systems and all. if you were to press your ear against it, you’d hear my heartbeat, like a seashell holds the sound of the sea.
sitting here flooded a bit dangerously with too many memories of recording at the original location of the House of Miracles (if you listen carefully, you can hear a lone truck pass by on Wellington Street before “north of light’s end” begins; that’s always gotten to me, in an odd way). and of those four years, and of the people i love, who’ve helped and supported me over the years, in so many ways. it’s all too much, especially when one is sitting alone in the history section of one’s local library, with only a laptop and a half-eaten apple as company. so i will stop there.
i’m a day early in posting this, but happy 15th anniversary to “no ghostless place”. CD copies are still available through bandcamp (link), and can be mailed almost anywhere in the world; all sales of any of my CDs will go towards helping in all sorts of important and very appreciated ways as work continues on (2), below.
someone wrote a few days ago to remind me that i’d not posted the lyrics for the final song from volume 2: run with the silent wildfires. to complete a 20-part series that began a year and a half ago. for an album that came out in early 2023. it seems an apt one to break a long silence with. and to start anew from. on that note: i’m writing album #6, and hope to release a song or two from it before the end of the year. it will be relatively compact – nine songs, maximum. love, eric.
storms while we’ve slept
drink from the river let the river take something from me somehow as sure that it can swallow me that i am pure
blank stares on the subway tired reflections the illusion of speed flow under ice no one will follow me end of the line
but i did it and i’d do it again take my heart out to the hollow where the moon is a friend just as tender and as troubled as the world it resists as its fingers trace the ocean and the ocean submits
secret duets storms while we’ve slept lay down beside the river’s edge woke as the dragon i had left for dead
drink from the river let the river take something from me flow under ice no one will follow me end of the line
but i did it and i’d do it again in the distance there’s a hollow where the moon is a friend pouring silver over lovers silencing their regrets there is music in the darkness that the darkness protects
secret duets storms while we’ve slept lay down beside the river’s edge woke as the dragon i had left for dead
(from “raised by swans is the name of a man, vol. 2: run with the silent wildfires”. available now. all lyrics and music written and performed by e. howden)
tickets are available now for a very special triple bill on Friday, May 24th, at Room 47 in Waterloo, Ontario, featuring Raised By Swans, By Divine Right and Hyness.
this is the second of only two concerts i’ll be playing with a full band accompanying me until autumn 2024 at the earliest, as the day after the show, i’ll be heading overseas for the summer.
thrilled to be sharing the stage with By Divine Right and Hyness, and to stoke up the fires the Rivoli show lit – can’t bear to have them fade away just yet.
eric.