Darker Matter//Mixtape 2
Hi Friends-
Today I'm putting up my second release, Darker Matter//Mixtape 2, for free download. I put it up for you all with gratitude. Not only am I grateful for your continued support all these years, I'm grateful to be alive.
It's been widely publicized that I was recently robbed at gunpoint. You can see stories on it here, here and here(nice awkward walking shots for the camera, Geoff). So many of you helped me out with a few dollars where you could. Some of you were far too kind. Thank you.
This isn't why I'm so thankful to be alive, though. Less widely known, is that this has been the most unbelievably difficult year of my life. My health has been in question, my outlook has been bleak and my heart has been a broken city. I've stayed busy touring, meeting people, playing music... But, even then, I feel, 'I am carried in my shadow like a violinin its black case," as Tomas Transtromer said.
The steady support and devotion of my friends, family, and bandmates, has kept me going: trying to place one day simply in front of the next.
This is my record of that time. It is difficult. And different from anything I've done before. I'm so grateful to still make music on my own terms, anyway that I want... even as I miss my old bandmates more than I can express.
So, yes, this release is free. If you'd like to pay for it, I will gladly except the help in replacing some of what I recently lost. Either way, if you are excited about continued free music, please check out the All Ages Movement Project. Because DIY, community-based scenes will always be the life's blood of music AMP a great resource for it.
As I release this "mixtape", I'm packing up to leave for a West Coast tour with my true friend Vinnie Caruana, whom I've toured with since the early days of The Movielife and Thursday. Come see us. Have a drink. Share a story. The shows are going to be very small and intimate and we'll even be closing every night with a bunch of old songs together.
Here are the dates:
- Jun 22
- Backspace
- Portland, OR
- Jun 23
- The Vera Project
- Seattle, WA
- Jun 25
- Thee Parkside
- San Francisco, CA
- Jun 27
- Cobalt Cafe
- Canoga Park, CA
- Jun 29
- Backstage Bar & Billiards
- Las Vegas, NV
- Tina says what if dark matter is like the space between people
When what holds them together isn’t exactly love, and I think
That sounds right—how strong the pull can be, as if something
That knows better won’t let you drift apart so easily, and how
Small and heavy you feel, stuck there spinning in place.
...
Tina says dark matter is just a theory. Something
We know is there, but can’t completely prove.
We move through it, bound, sensing it snatch up
What we mean to say and turn it over in its hands
Like glass sifted from the sea. It walks the shore,
Watching that refracted light dance back and forth
Before tossing whatever it was back to the surf.
...
How else could we get things so wrong,
Like a story hacked to bits and told in reverse?—
...
Tina says we do it to one another, every day,
Knowing and not knowing. When it is love,
What happens feels like dumb luck. When it’s not,
We’re riddled with bullets, shot through like ducks.
-Tracy K. Smith, (excerpted from Life on Mars)