i said all these cities look the same without you
Greetings from a Hilton by the haunted Denver Airport
I use the word haunted literally and facetiously. I adore Denver as a city and I abhor the airport but that’s all I’ll say. I’m boring myself already. We’re here playing Outside Festival but by the time you read this I’ll be packing and pacing my house anxiously preparing to fly to Barcelona. I sit here now, Pacers Knicks game playing in the background. Pascal Siakam is an Aries which only just occurred to me would be a very good thing to be on the basketball court.
Today marks 7 years of sobriety for me. It’s interesting how much it all continues to shift around and feel alive. One minute it’s deeply embedded or ingrained, thoughtless and inherent, the next it requires a lot of effort or stings like salt in a wound. This time of year is always a little rocky for me. I will have been on autopilot for months and then something will force me to face my relationship to my sobriety and examine it. I wish I had more wisdom to impart. I always want to make the whole thing look cool and effortless, make it feel like its own type of myth-boosting mystique. The truth is that it’s always hard, it's never completely effortless but it made my life a lot better. I feel happier. I’m closer to the person I want to be than I was and 7 years is a really long time. It’s something to celebrate and I shall.
A couple of days ago my old friend Jenn Pelly published a long form piece she’d been working on for over a year about me in Oxford American. In many ways the whole ordeal has been extremely unique. I’ve been friends with Jenn for 13 years. She’s one of the first people who ever interviewed me properly. She’s my exact same age with an identical twin sister and a younger sister, exactly like me. She’s deeply known every phase of my work, seen my smallest shows and my biggest. A lot of the things Jenn reports I don’t plan to speak about anywhere else or with anyone else. It’s been a bit of a raw experience to have some of it out in the world but Jenn was the only person I think I could have gone there with and I’m really happy I did. That’s all I’ll say about that. Feel free to go read it here.
Our time in Colorado has felt sort of slap happy since we barely got to wind down from tour with Wilco and we jet away again tomorrow. We drove to Boulder to hit Dry Storage and Cedar & Hyde and Canoe Club. Our show got pushed later due to rain and we were only able to play for 30 minutes but I like to think we really made it count. The crowd was amazing. Rain at an outdoor show does something to people. Everyone’s energy is ramped up and chaotic in a way I kind of think is exciting.
I have nothing else much to report. 48 hours in Kansas City so naturally last night I had dinner with Caleb and Tara which was a salve on my weary little soul. I land in Spain on Thursday in time to see Charli, This Is Lorelei and Momma at Primavera. My sleeping patterns have strayed from their typical repose so I’m hoping my body will be too confused to be jetlagged. I sit here now listening to a Midwestern rainstorm, at peace with where I am and at peace about where I’m headed. Can’t wait to get there, can’t wait to play for you on Friday. Check the dates out here. Hitting the UK with Merce Lemon next week.
That’s all I got. More soon.
KC
