Thursday, July 19 — The Sound Academy, Toronto, ON
Saturday, July 21 — The Cabooze, Minneapolis, MN
Monday, July 23 — The Burton Cummings Theater, Winnipeg, MB
Wednesday, July 25 — Edmonton Event Centre, Edmonton, AB
We are featured on the new episode of Noisemakers this week at Sonic Boom record store in Toronto, with an interview and performance of “Your Radio” with the Arcade Fire’s Richard Parry on drums/vocals and Marcus Paquin on guitar/vocals. Click here to watch
Dear friends,
Well I’ve had a whopper of a year and I haven’t written much over the last few months. I’ve been all over the world since September. Well at least all over Europe and North America. I plan to be all over North America again in March (tour dates to come). But people might wonder ‘what are you doing with yourself until then?’
Valid question, I would say. I am holing up in the winter wonder of Montreal, making tiny paintings of my heroes, working on a documentary about people who are preparing for the end of the world (with my keyboard player Kaveh), and writing new songs for my next album. If you would like a preview of it, subjects of my new songs include:
- the cruelty of children
- non-denominational devotional stuff
- people who are preparing for the end of the world
Hope that sums it up! And for those of you who were wondering if the geodesic dome thing was real, IT IS.
But it’ll be quite awhile before its ready. Til then, here’s is some recent show footage from Rock Shop Brooklyn.
TTYL!!!
XO
LS
We filmed this while in Toronto in Trinity Bellwood Park. Check it out
I’m so stoked about things coming up!
On September 2nd I’ll be doing an audio-visual collaboration with Ian Cameron (of national parcs) at the Musée d’art contemporain in Montreal. Jamie Thompson (ex Unicorns, ex Islands) will be Djing between my two sets. I’m gonna have stuff projected all over me, and I’m gonna be ART.
Not long after that I’ll skip down to Hopscotch Music Festival in Raleigh, North Carolina, then head out for a tour of Europe, where I’ll be reunited with my awesome driver Sabine (pictured here on our visit to Blitz House in Oslo). I’ll be announcing dates for North America soon!
A limited number of golden tickets have been placed at random inside of cds and vinyl distributed across North America. A little while back we started sending out the first round of golden ticket prizes (which are signed and numbered copies of miniature oil paintings, by me!). There are still golden tickets out there (at local record stores…hint!)…so happy searching!
And wow this seems like forever ago, but in case you didn’t see it, here’s a link to a cover of a Fine Young Cannibals song we did with Sharon Van Etten for the Onion’s A/V club.
Here’s some live footage from a show back in March with the band in Montreal, shot by Ian C. The Lamb
and if you haven’t had enough of the links, here’s one of some otters holding hands. (Ha! tricked you. It’s a laughing baby!!!)
The “Tour” Page of this website is currently un-update-able. Until we’ve got the fix, here is an updated list of upcoming shows. Whoot!
Sept 2, Montreal QC – Musée d’art contemporain (A/V collaboration with Ian Cameron)
Sept 10, Raleigh NC – Hopscotch Festival
Sept 13, London UK – Hoxton Bar and Grill w/ Handsome Furs
Sept 14, Manchester UK – Deaf Institute w/ Handsome Furs
Sept 15, London UK – Windmill
Sept 16, Paris FR – Festival Eldorado at Café de la Danse
Sept 17, Tilburg NL – Incubate Festival at Cul de Sac
Sept 20, Nijmegen NL – Merelyn
Sept 21, Brussels BE – Witloof Bar at Botanique
Sept 22, Hamburg DE – Reeperbahn Festival
Sept 23, Berlin DE – Club NME at Magnet Club
Sept 24, Barcelona ES – BAM Festival at Plaça del Rei
Sept 26, Munich DE – Kranhalle w/ Handsome Furs
Sept 27, Stuttgart DE – Schocken w/ Handsome Furs
Sept 28, Innsbruck AT – Weekender
Sept 29, Vienna AT – Waves Festival
Sept 30, Winterthur CH – Kraftfield w/ Solander
Oct 2, Amsterdam NL – Paradiso
Oct 5, Laval QC – Salle Andre Mathieu
In Dallas, TX tonight on tour with The Antlers and just thought I’d send a note to Toronto, Ontario. Toronto, you out there somewhere? We are headed there on June 13th, just a little too early for NXNE I’m afraid, but looking forward to it nonetheless. On the 13th at 7pm me and my awesome band will be playing a little in-store at Soundscapes (572 College St). Then on the 14th, we’ll be at Studio Q at CBC Radio nice and early. Tune into your radio! After that, we’ll do sessions with Southern Souls and Blogotheque and cap the day off with a show, opening for The Antlers at Mod Club (772 College).
That’s a lot for 24 hours. We’re tired just thinking about the day after. Looking forward to seeing you TO!
Yesterday in D.C., I got a fortune cookie that asked “What is the speed of darkness?”. What is the speed of darkness indeed, fortune cookie?
On Tuesday night, after our first show opening for The Antlers, we got a flat tire in the rain at around 1 a.m. You know you are with a good group of people when you can turn a situation like that into an impromptu street party. Marcus Paquin and Kaveh Nabatian went and bought chili dogs for us all while Jamie Thompson did a fine job of dj’ing. We finished up the YuengLing and the root beer left from our green room stash and fixed the flat. Way to go, us! We’ll be on tour in the US with The Antlers on and off for the next month (with Adam Luksetisch and Jess Robertson also joining us on stage), check out the dates on the tour page.
This morning a little old blog named PitchforkTV premiered the video for my song Red Hunting Jacket (CBC Radio 2 and 3 premiered the video in Canada). This video was created by Rachel Granofsky using a very labor intensive process of stop motion animation. Rachel and I spent hours last summer taking photos of me jumping in the air to create the illusion that I was flying. A typical conversation we’d have during that time would go something like this:
Me: ‘Wow, I’m totally out of breath! I’ve been jumping for 2 hours straight. We must have gotten a lot done, right?’
Rachel: ‘Yeah, we got a lot done. At least 10 seconds of footage or so.’
I believe I can fly.
I’ve been traveling for more than 2 months straight, but will be returning ‘home’ to Montreal next week for my record launch at Il Motore on May 25th. A few of the people who collaborated on the album will open the night (and join the full band after) including Jess Robertson (aka November May), Becky Foon, and Marcus Paquin. I’m really looking forward to this big old Montreal reunion party!!!
There are lots of thank you’s I’ll be writing up soon, but in the meantime, I want to thank Bryce Dessner and everyone who participated in MusicNOW festival last weekend for making it the most magical musical experience I’ve had in a long time; And I want to thank Timber Timbre, Jose Gonzales + Goteborg String Theory, and the real little miss sunshine Sharon Van Etten and crew for taking me on tour with them over the last weeks and months. I’ve had such an incredible time.
Oh, and here is a photograph of a giant baby costume sitting in the back of our van as we stopped to change our flat. ‘Why would you travel with a giant baby costume?’ you might ask. ‘What is the speed of darkness?’ I might reply.
Giant baby bisous,
LS
