I just arrived in Detroit last night after driving for two days from New Orleans. Had a nice visit in Nashville on the way. And New Orleans was everything I could have hoped for. Life-changing parades, great concerts and so many wonderful people I got to meet for the first time and I know it won’t be the last.

When I wasn’t playing music on the street or in some great venue or in somebody’s backyard I was working on the upcoming UK/Ireland/Europe tour for the Corn Potato String Band and finishing up our debut record. That tour is coming along nicely and will commence in late May. That record is off to the printers, set to be released officially on May 31 but YOU, my dear subscribers, get first crack at it! Here is the link for listening to the whole thing for free on bandcamp. You can download it for $7 or more if you like — The price will go up to $10 after the official release. (Or more. Should it be more? Or should I just make it a free download, pay what you like? What do you think?)

While in New Orleans I celebrated the release of our Roochie Toochie & The Ragtime Shepherd Kings record. This is the project we recorded to wax cylinder and it turned out great. We played two shows in New Orleans and we’re excited to find more opportunities to bring our music to the world. You can hear the new record for that band here.

Right before I left New Orleans I went to NYC for a whirlwind rehearsal and audition with Tumbling Bones. We tried out for a spot with American Musicians Abroad. If they pick us then we’ll go on tour in some faroff location next year and it will all be set up and paid for by the U.S. State Department. How about that? I hope we get it, and if we don’t then I know the other bands that tried for it must have been amazing because we really did our best and I think we did a great job. We even learned how to play this song from Kyrgyzstan and made a medley of it with an American fiddle tune. What a great song!

So now I’m in Detroit and I have one last show to play with Lindsay as the Corn Potato Duo before I leave the country for the whole summer. We’re playing this Thursday at PJ’s Lager House in Corktown, Detroit, in honor of PJ’s birthday. Local folk heroes Lac La Belle will open the night up for us and our favorite local jug band, Shine On Kentucky Moon, will close it out.

The only other excitement I have to look forward to is getting the water turned on at my new house, installing plumbing and more electrical wiring, and possibly even moving in there before I leave for Ireland. And I’m getting physical CD’s for the new Corn Potato record soon! So if you want a physical copy you can order one from me or from CDBaby or bandcamp (Those links will be ready in a few weeks. Downloads will be available on iTunes and everywhere else after the official release date of May 31). What else? I’m still working out lots of little yet important details for the upcoming tour, and before you know it I’ll be in Ireland with Tumbling Bones (my tour dates with them are here), and then Germany, then England, and then the Corn Potato tour begins. I posted all our tour dates to the band website as well as to mine so you can see where we’re playing — Please tell your friends overseas that we’re coming! More dates will be added as well. I’m so excited to come to Ireland, UK and Europe again soon and see so many great old friends and meet so many great folks I haven’t met yet. I’ve been missing these places so much.

Sorry no book reports this time, the only reading I’ve done was from an Isaac Asimov science fiction digest I found on the floor of a warehouse in New Orleans. And occasional skimming of Shakespeare’s sonnets and of Joseph Campbell’s Occidental Mythology. It’s very good for prompting dreams. Love the dreaming. Keep up the good dreams everyone, and loving your fellow humans and creatures all over the world and everywhere, animals and plants and minerals and everybody. Spring is just around the corner!