The world: it’s scary, but still beautiful.

I just was in Abiquiu, New Mexico, for a good chunk of this month, and I listened to the new Madonna album a bunch, and some of it definitely feels very metallic and bad, but a solid half of it weirdly hits, especially the second half – “Bizarre,” “School,” “Fragile,” etc – I’ve had those songs on repeat, especially in the car, and now I will probably emotionally connect the bumping bass lines of Confessions II with Abiquiuian vistas for the rest of my life, those instant camp classics, imbued with real heart and soul, Georgia O’Keefe and Madonna, mid-60s, at the peak of their careers, clubbing in Abiquiu, reflecting on their lives and the landscapes they inhabit, have inhabited. Clubbing so hard. Together.

Madonna has been on the brain in general. “Frozen” was also stuck in my head for at least a week. That song is literally mind-blowing.

I can basically map Madonna’s entire career onto my lifetime as a cognizant being. Her first album came out in 1983 when I was five years old. My older cousin owned a tape of her second album which came out in 1984 when I was six or seven, and that was around the first time I started feeling aware of pop music, and I knew the song “Like a Virgin” was probably about something naughty.

Her album True Blue came out in 1986, which is the year I turned nine, and that’s the year I went all-in on Madonna. I remember the cool school bus driver blasting that album while driving us to school, I remember hearing “Where’s the Party?” on that bus and thinking: where IS the party? It’s clearly not in this desert town in central Arizona. I should go find… the party !! I remember rollerskating to “La Isla Bonita” and “Papa Don't Preach.” The lifetime references go on and on – Erotica while I was in high school, Ray of Light while I was in college.

While I was still in Abiquiu, I wrote this:

There are huge black clouds north of where I am, and I can see them dumping rain on southern Colorado. But no rain here. Some wind, hot temperatures, very dry earth, very brittle plants. One strike of dry lightning might blow this place up. We drove here through northern Arizona, through Flagstaff where I spent all my childhood summers. We passed the JC Penney in the Flagstaff Mall where my mom used to buy me and my sister school clothes. Right now there’s a massive fire burning south of Flagstaff, near Sedona, and depending on the moment, the entire city fills full of smoke and obscures the San Francisco Peaks, then big gusts of wind happen, and the peaks (and air) clear again.

Right now I think a lot about two different ways to be in the world: loud or quiet.

A loud existence is full of busy schedules, keeping up on pop culture up to the very minute, making sure you’re totally up to date on all the podcasts and tv shows and movies and video games and memes, making sure your social calendar is filled with fun entertainment things, listening to Slopify in your AirPods while doing literally anything, just cramming all kinds of information in, scrolling social media or NYTimes app, making sure you’re up to date on all your Substacks, and just generally staying super tuned in to all the insane stuff the internet serves up. (Lemme be clear: Sometimes very fun, even life affirming to be this way. Read Patricia Lockwood’s No One Is Talking About This if you haven’t yet.)

And a quiet existence is really just about dropping the rope - turning the crap off. Letting yourself feel fine/calm about not having any idea “what’s happening,” about knowing where’s the party? etc. Mostly just doing your job, assuming you have one, and just living your life mostly otherwise as if it’s 1880 or 1980 – internet-free, at least. Making dinner, playing with the dog, going for a walk, sitting outside, drinking coffee and watching the clouds.

I can’t really totally hang with either of those existences exactly as stated. This libra rolls somewhere in the balance. But it is kinda fun to just let go of needing to “know” everything sometimes.

Right now there is basically nothing better than playing with my dog.

Lots more to say, but peace for now ……….

I just got back from the gym where I didn’t really push myself at all on the elliptical machine. The gym had the Bravo channel on mute with closed captions, and I got sucked into a show I had never heard of before called Below Deck Down Under, which appears to be a Real World-esque show about hot twenty-somethings who work on a huge yacht, and - I’m guessing here - set in Australia. The captain called a meeting of the crew to discuss crew-member-Danny’s behavior from the previous night, calling [whatever happened] a fireable offense, but instead of firing him, they punished him by divvying up his tips from the season, which totaled 20k USD.

While watching this show, I was listening to music on my airpods in the borderline psychotic way that I do, which is, when I find a song I really like, I place it on repeat and just keep it that way for as long as I can physically stand it (which is a while). In this case, it’s the song “From Down Here” by Lola Young and James Blake, which was only released a few days ago. It’s a beautiful song with beautiful production. Barely squinting, I’m seeing Q Lazzarus covering Frank n Furter’s “I’m Going Home.” Check it out. Try it on repeat.

More scattered culture stuff, seen from my perspective, and you might not like some of it:

• Most people wear clothes made of plastic to the gym. (I don’t, but I’m a freak like that.)

• I just discovered there’s a karaoke version of “drop dead” by Olivia Rodrigo on youtube. IMO this song is very Chappell coded, and it reminds me a lot of summer/fall 2024 when I didn’t listen to anything else except Chappell. Can’t wait to karaoke this song.

• The song “Bruiser” by Igwe Aka has beautiful production. Apparently the producer goes by the moniker Saint Patrick. There’s very little to be discovered about this producer online. If anyone knows this person, please let me know.

• My fave song on the great new Wendy Eisenberg album is called “The Ultraworld.” Check that beautiful melody and guitar line, wow.

• Did you know that Alison Statton from Young Marble Giants was/is a chiropractor? (In Wales, I’m guessing.) Some of us have to work, yall!

• Charli “Rock Music” is honestly pretty funny. One of the coolest things about Charli is that she uses humor in songwriting. I wish more people did.

• Anna Wiener’s New Yorker article called The Life and Times of an American Tween - also wow, couldn’t put it down

• Rollerblading appears to be back in. I’m in full support of anything that gets people off their screens and moving their bodies.

• This is somehow so deeply mainstream, but also oddly so niche, but the Drop Your Buffs podcast commentary on Survivor 50 was pretty fun to listen to. Sean Ross and Evan Ross Katz make good calls. Mostly criticism, but occasionally credit where credit is due. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, just know that the official description of their show is: “a very gay deep dive into all things [ostensibly about] SURVIVOR.”

• I’m doing the audiobook of Dekonstructing the Kardashians by MJ Corey and, while far from perfect, it’s tight to hear an academically driven excavation of this deeply multifaceted subject that somehow affects culture that reaches all of us, whether we want it to or not.

• There’s a coffee shop on 9th and Bedford in Williamsburg that put a small sign that says “no laptops” on 80% of their tables, and - check this out - people have conversations with each other there, and read books there, and write in journals there.

• Shout-out: the brand 18 East. They make very soft, good looking pants, shirts, and jackets. No one is paying me to say that, I’m just saying it. Small businesses rock.

• Last thing (before I do an ad for my last NY show), have you ever listened to Ivy Queen, aka Reina del Reggaeton? What a voice! Obsessed.

I’m not posting any links here because I’m doing my part in helping you not further exacerbate your already completely fractured attention span. Shout-out anyone who is still reading this. But I’ll post some links in the comments. And please post your culture recs.

FINAL NYC RESIDENCY SHOW IS THIS WEDNESDAY MAY 27 AT THE VENUE CALLED CASSETTE IN RIDGEWOOD, QUEENS. You can buy advance tickets on their website if that is your jam.

I’m mostly at a loss for words about how it has felt doing this residency, and getting to hang with the kindest Dear Nora heads every week, and getting to play whatever songs I want to while people pay attention. It’s boring to talk about stuff like this, so like usual, I’ll just say: thank you. 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

Upcoming live shows -

• Friday, March 27 - Los Angeles, CA, USA, w/ Tommy Peltier

• Monday, April 20 - Paris, France, Les Oreilles Curieuses fête w/ Maëve, Asara

• Wednesday, April 22 - London, England, w/ Tai Haf Heb Drigolyn

• Friday, April 24 - Oslo, Norway w/ ML Buch

• Saturday, April 25 - Stockholm, Sweden w/ Linn Edman

• Sunday, April 26 - Gothenburg, Sweden w/ Joanne Robertson

• Saturday, May 2 - Providence, Rhode Island, USA, Popfest

• Wednesday, May 6 - Queens, NY, USA, w/ Ruth Garbus Trio

• Wednesday, May 13 - Queens, NY, USA, w/ Franz Charcoal

• Wednesday, May 20 - Queens, NY, USA, w/ Tara Jane O’Neil

• Wednesday, May 27 - Queens, NY, USA, w/ Koleżanka

• Saturday, August 22 - San Francisco, California, USA, Popfest

Link for tickets/info at the bottom of the page.

LOS ANGELES is at 2220 Arts this Friday and we’re playing with this legend:

This one’s gonna be a Dear Nora duo - me and Zach. We’re gonna meet this bleak dystopian moment with some playful bleak upbeat dystopian melodic riffs. We’ve been practicing and it sounds good. Come hang, LA!

DEAR NORA EURO TOUR (Maybe I am punking you with an anagram?)

This is huge. I’m so excited. Duo Nora with me on guitar/vox and Zach on bass/synth. Dear Nora has never played in Paris or Oslo before.

London, remember Stokey on a Monday? Let’s roll it back baby! Or pay it forward. Be here now. I’m here for you. Find yourself here. Taking requests. Post in comments.

The last time Dear Nora played in Stockholm and Gothenburg, it was 2003. George W Bush was president and there were no iphones.

Spread the word to the Europeans in your life.

(Huge thanks to Ingeborg, the engine behind the Dear Nora/ML Buch Oslo museum show.)

After these shows i’m going on VACATION. If you’ve got a cabin on the Oslofjord sitting empty April 27-30ish, hmu.

Next up. Providence Popfest. I’m sorry, I think it’s sold out. But damn this is gonna be fun. I’ve been buds with Mirah and the Softies for 20+ years.
Solo Nora performance but will there be a guest collaborator?

(Shout out Coyote Dry Lake and Owlette in this pic. It was cold, windy. Photo by Andrea Zittel.)

Next. Ridgewood Queens New York residency at Cassette.

I’ve got so much to say about this. So I’ll do another post fully dedicated to this soon. But for now here’s my austere flyer. I recommend buying a ticket that will get you into all four nights. Career spanning set lists + a lot more.

Then, late August, we’ve got a never seen before Dear Nora lineup playing at the San Francisco Bay Area Popfest.

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I know there are typos and bad grammar above and I don’t care.

Tickets/info HERE.

Unsubscribe if you don’t wanna be here, all good!

A lot more good stuff coming on this substack soon-ish.

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I like this song.

Thanks ear for putting me on the list to your sold out show.

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Peace.

Love.

Don’t examine that age too closely. The Three States comp includes some recordings I made between 1997-99 that preceded the band name. And we played a few shows at the end of 1999 under the name Dear Nora, which would actually make us 26 ish... (“You wanna know what to do with your life, cuz you are…”) The first Dear Nora recordings came out in 2000, and we also did our first real tours in 2000, so I’m using that year as the starting line. Oh and also don’t forget about when I quit the band in 2008 after playing a final show in West Palm Beach, Florida, and didn’t restart the band until 2017, a full nine years later, by playing a tour kick-off show in Olympia, Washington, in support of Orindal’s Mountain Rock reissue. Only lord knows what I did during the lost years, those non-Dear Nora years.

But keeping a musical project basically alive for a quarter century seems significant enough to commemorate somehow. And I’m still alive, so I can do it.

For those of you who didn’t get your hands on the Three States 3LP reissue, I’m posting the deep-dive memoiristic section from the compilation’s booklet below.

But heads-up, there’s so, so, so much more where this came from. One of the ways I think I’ll use this platform is to slow-drip out more memories.

Before you get into the booklet text, I’ve got a request for the long-time heads and I’m really hoping y’all can mobilize for me. I’ve got a modest archive of various old school Dear Nora media things, but the archive is kinda thin because half of this band’s existence happened before social media, digital cameras, smart phones, etc.

So, if you have it, I’d like to ask you to please email any/all of the following to dearnora at gmail dot com:

• Any photos, videos, or audio recordings of Dear Nora, Lloyd & Michael, or Key Losers performing between 1999-2016. Big bonus points if it’s Dear Nora media between 1999-2008.

• Does anyone have any merch that we made between 1999-2008? I’d love to see some photos.

• Does anyone have any show flyers from 1999-2008? Will you please send me a photo?

Let’s start there. I appreciate you. Include your name so I can credit you if I ever publish it anywhere.

Ok here are some excerpts from the booklet. If the text is too small to read on your phone, try a laptop instead. I’m drafting it now and it looks great.

Ok back to the present -

IG feels a little bit like a dump now, right? At least a chore. I find the performative aspect exhausting. And the contortions you must do to please the algorithm completely annoying if not totally disturbing. (I mean……. sometimes it’s fun, ha.)

No platform is perfect. I know Substack has its issues. But maybe it’s the best way to reach you for now.

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING.

UNC STATUS DEAR NORA FEELS GOOD.

I’M PLAYING PROVIDENCE POP FEST ON MAY 2. Such a great lineup.

MORE AWESOME NEWS COMING.

I leave you with a few questions:

• What do you want from this newsletter?

• What do you want from Dear Nora?

• Anything else? Light up the comments section would ya!

Ciao for now.

Peace on Earth.

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