Three dollars and 63 cents

Nels and Yuka Honda will be playing at the Stone (E. 2nd Street and Avenue C) this Friday at 10. As always with the Stone, no tickets will be sold in advance; it's all ages admission, $10 at the door. The place is tiny and will fill up, so get there early! I was supposed to be coming down for it, but I'm unfortunately not feeling well Looking ahead to summer, the Singers will be at Le Poisson Rouge for 7 and 9:30 sets on July 6, $15 per set. There's also a Philly show that's supposed to happen that week, but I haven't been able to find any information about it yet. Nels will be part of a

Scranton is really too small of a market for Wilco. Scalpers probably snatched up tickets and completely overestimated demand. Even though it's sold out, I don't expect it to be full, or else there will be a lot of tickets below face value on craigslist and StubHub in the next few weeks. I have to teach until 5 and have a two-hour drive, so I'm going to be getting there much closer to the time doors open than I'd like.

Speaking of Nels and Glenn...Nels' website is showing that he'll play with On Fillmore at the Cultural Arts Center in Chicago on June 28. Road trip!

What was the new song like?

This is such sad news. I've been going through a rough time over the last few weeks, and some of the songs on Dark Night of the Soul have been really speaking to me. Too many creative, gifted people have been disappearing by their own choice lately.

From Scott Amendola's email list: :dancing :dancing :dancing

Balcony seats weren't assigned last year. I was at the Saturday show, and we lined up relatively early and were the first ones up in the balcony. That first row has a great view, but you might want to think twice about it if you're tall, because there's less leg room there than in other rows. I was pretty squashed, and I'm only 5'8".

Thanks for a preview of the email that will turn up in my inbox within the next 24-36 hours. For some reason, I'm always a day behind with HQ emails.

Some good news posted on Nels' Twitter: "Entire studio CD of our new 2-CD set Initiate (Cryptogramophone) will stream on NPR's First Listen Series 4/5-13." Streaming on NPR will be a huge publicity boost for them! last.fm is listing a Singers show in Buenos Aires June 10. Nels mentions in his last update to his website that they're planning to tour South America in the summer, so that's probably when that tour will happen. If the new album is as good as I'm hoping it will be and that festival in California is their only U.S. show this summer, they may force me to embark on the longest road t

The ffwd story also confuses the Singers with Nels's previous trio, which he called the N.C. Trio. I'm willing to forgive the error--I'm just glad to see the Singers getting some press. I love that this is the picture so many Canadian media sources have been using. You have to wonder what the photographer said to them before he or she snapped this shot. "Okay, make a face like you're about to cut somebody. Yes, yes, that's perfect!"

Devin is amazing. Definitely go if you have the chance. I've been enjoying the new album by his drum and bass duo with Ches Smith, Good for Cows. Speaking of Devin and Nels, I've been meaning to post this. Friday, March 19, at the Stone in New York (corner of East 2nd Street and Avenue C), Devin's trio with Ava Mendoza and Weasel Walter, QUOK, will be playing the 8 p.m. set and Nels's new(ish) duo with Yuka Honda, Fig, will be playing the 10 p.m. set. This is looking to be Nels's only east coast non-Wilco show for the next few months, so I'm really looking forward to it. A lot more on the

Nels has his P.O. box in L.A. on his website. He's probably not home too often between Wilco and all of his other projects, but I think he does respond to fan mail when he has time.

The specs for the club in Jermyn say it holds 600-800 people, and I know the Westcott and the bar in Harrisburg are both really small, too. Between work and other travel plans, it's not looking good I'm going to be able to catch them this time around, though

The 13th is my birthday!

I can't believe I managed to miss both of their Ithaca shows last year, considering neither would've been more than a 10-minute drive The Westcott would be a no-brainer for me if I were going to be home that weekend. Have you been there yet? I haven't, and I'm interested to hear more about it. I don't know how far from here you are from Ithaca, but we're getting some pretty good shows in the next few months, mostly because of Dan Smalls. I'm planning to see the Avett Brothers and Deer Tick at the very least. Cornell is bringing in the Flaming Lips in April, too.

Some new tour dates announced today. A lot of really small venues, which will be fun: 04-02 Ardsley, NY - LIFE 04-03 New Haven, CT - Toad's Place 04-06 Northampton, MA - Pearl Street 04-07 Albany, NY - Linda Norris Auditorium 04-08 Woodstock, NY - Bearsville Theater 04-09 Jermyn, PA - Eleanor Rigby's 04-10 Syracuse, NY - The Westcott Theater 04-12 Rochester, NY - The Club at Water Street Music Hall 04-13 Cleveland, OH - Beachland Ballroom 04-14 Pittsburgh, PA - Diesel Club Lounge 04-15 Morgantown, WV - 123 Pleasant St. 04-16 Harrisburg, PA - Appalachian Brewing Company I'm hopi

I'm not really a fan of malty beers, but I'll buy a bottle for novelty's sake. I'm a fan of their cappuccino imperial stout, and their IPA is pretty good, too, though not quite hoppy enough for me.

Hope you have a great one, A-man.

Nels and Norton will be performing at DiPiazza's in Long Beach on Tuesday. I've seen them live before, and it's really mind-blowing. I can't wait to see the DVD.

Thanks Randall! I'm starting my Writing About Music class this semester with a unit of analyzing lyrics to help them sharpen their critical reading skills. They're choosing most of the lyrics, but I chose the ones for our first discussion to give them time to prepare. One Wing was one of the songs I chose, and they did a great job with it. One girl managed to find most of the stages of grieving in it, which was a really impressive reading of it. We ran out of time, but I'll probably show them this clip in class on Monday.

Last night I finished: This morning I started: I have a giant writer crush on Joan Didion. I absolutely love her style.

I'm very excited about this. In that same post, Nels mentions the Singers are planning a tour in South America this summer, and are hopefully going to Japan at some point, too. I'm reallllllly hoping for some U.S. shows, too, since South America is a little too long of a drive, even for me, even for a Singers tour

Yes, it's really true, for Wilco presales at least. Some venues may have their own presales, but there should still be plenty of tickets left for most shows on the day they go on sale to the public. In some cases, I've had better luck with the general sale than with the presale.

Evening with Wilco

Happy birthday to one of my favorite people! Nels and his brother Alex turn 54 today. Here's to hoping they have a great birthday and another terrific year of music-making. Also, for anyone who's interested, the new N.C. Singers double album (one studio disc of new material and a live disc) will be out April 13 from Cryptogramophone!