Hello Dahlings!

I’m back in Detroit, the city where I was born and raised, and I plan to live here for the foreseeable future. My house is now habitable (meaning we got plumbing and electrical mostly figured out, working doors and windows, and a good furnace installed) and looking great, although there is a lot of work left to be done. I’m staying home to work on the house, work on the upcoming tours, and most importantly meet people, make friends, and find out where the music is happening around here. Just today I had a fine time with my friends Ben, Ben, and Rachel of Behind The Times, who opened for us Corn Potatos this past Wednesday at PJ’s in Corktown. (That’s in Detroit.) And Lindsay and I got to play some tunes with them and meet a bunch of their great musician friends. And tomorrow we’re going to the Hamtramck Festival to see polka bands, Breezee One, and who knows what else.

In the coming month I have absolutely zero gigs to announce. The next big thing I have coming up is a US State Department Tour in Eastern Europe with Tumbling Bones. I’m looking forward to that a great deal, and it will be followed immediately by a two-week Corn Potato tour in England with Luke Richardson in December. (Some of those dates are already posted on the old band calendar.)

After getting back from Europe I spent a few days in Detroit and slept in my own house for the first time in my life. Then we went straight to Galax where we met with Luke and dozens of other great friends. This year was particularly good. Lots of really good jams and the weather was the best I’ve ever seen, until the last two days when it rained nonstop. Ah yes, then we got home from Galax and the rain followed us. Torrential rain resulted in minor flooding in the basement. And then we were off to Minnesota for a beautiful square dance weekend in St. Croix State Park. What a great little gathering that was! Great food, great music, great people and great dancing. Who could ask for more? After that we hung out in Minneapolis for a few days and made our way to Lindsay’s home town of Dubuque, Iowa, where we played at Monk’s Kaffee Pub, indulged in Rainbow Lounge karaoke and Paul’s Taxidermy Tavern burgers. Legendary stuff.

I’ve been posting some videos from our summer tour on our Facebook page. I also made a youtube playlist in case you want to see my favorites all at once. We have a new album to release in the fall, which I will spend some time working on in the next weeks. Still looking for a title — Suggestions are welcome, but send them soon! And plans for touring, though still vague at this point, are looking something like Midwest in March, mid-Atlantic in April and then back to Europe for May-July. The tour this past summer was the best ever and I hope to recreate that as closely as possible.

I haven’t been reading many books but I have been reading The New Yorker and a book of short stories by Alice Munro, which apparently won a Nobel Prize. And last night I watched a Russian film called The Return that was quite good.

I’m not used to being in one place for such a long time (two months!) so it will be interesting to see what happens. I’m very excited to fix the house up nicer and nicer, and to host parties and have out-of-town friends stay over (for example, our great friends from New Orleans The Leveetoppers just played in Detroit and stayed with us). Let me know if you’re ever coming through Detroit!

Until next time,
I remain,
Yours Faithfully,
Keepin it classy,

Aaron Jonah Lewis