HELLO!!!
It’s been a very long time since I sent out a newsletter. I have been wanting to resurrect the Isa newsletter for ages, and now I have a solo show coming up, which I suppose is a good time to start writing to you all again.
So let’s throw the headline out here right away: This Saturday, July 8, I will be playing at One Longfellow Square in Portland, Maine (where I live)! I’m part of an excellent bill with Eliza Edens, a writer of really good songs currently based in New York, and Dead Gowns, a local indie band here in Portland who — if you can even believe it — also write really good songs. I’m very pleased that they asked me to join this show. I haven’t played a solo set in almost two years, though, so I’m kind of nervous. I kind of don’t want anyone to come to the show but I also want a lot of people to come to the show. I’m planning some fun things for my set. You can get tickets here.
You may wonder, why is there no Isa Burke solo project other than one show roughly every 18 months? I mean, fundamentally, I like being part of a band more than I like being a solo artist. I am addicted to the feeling of being one interlocking piece of a larger thing. I like being handed a really good song and the mandate to expand on that song, to embellish and amplify it, to make it feel more like itself. It’s like someone has built a beautiful wooden table and then they say “Hey Isa, I want you to paint this table, and you can paint it whatever colors you want.” What a gift! I don’t have to build the table myself! And I usually don’t want to! It’s too hard! Thank god that some people are table builders who don’t like to paint.
HOWEVER.
I keep picking up all these pieces of wood that would make really good tables. It’s really weird. I’ve been doing it for years and I can’t stop. Figuratively speaking, I have SO much wood in my house. I keep saying I’m going to take the time to build some tables and chairs out of all this wood, but every time I try, it doesn’t come out right, so I take it apart again. And the metaphorical woodpile keeps getting bigger. I could get rid of it, but I don’t want to. Because fundamentally… I do want to build tables. And then I could paint them. Imagine if there was a bunch of furniture in the world that I built AND painted. Are you staying with this metaphor? Building furniture = writing songs. Painting furniture = being a producer/side musician.
Anyway, I’m working on it. It’s a slow, slow, slow, slow, SLOW process for me. And it’s healthy for me to make myself play a solo show once in a while so that I remember to not let the future possibility of Isa Burke’s Handmade Hand-Painted Furniture Emporium completely slip away. In the meantime, I find being a side musician incredibly fulfilling and rich and challenging in a fun way.
Speaking of which, guess what I’m doing this summer? Playing a bunch of shows with a bunch of musicians that I greatly admire! Reuniting with my beloved pals in the Aoife O’Donovan band after many months apart! Playing at the Ossipee Valley Music Festival, a festival I’ve been going to since I was a tiny child, with my old-time band, the Snowglobe Stringband! That’s me and Dan Klingsberg on fiddle, Matt Arcara on banjo, and Ethan Hawkins on guitar. We’re sometimes joined by Dan Bui on bass. We do have a record coming out soon :)
I’m also doing something really insane this summer and playing a bunch of gigs on ELECTRIC BASS. What?!??!! M. Night Shyamalan plot twist! I too am surprised by this. I’m not sure who started spreading vicious rumors about me being able to play the bass, but two separate bands who are both friends of mine asked me if I can play bass, and for some reason (smash cut to my empty savings account) I said yes. Those bands are Darlingside and the Brother Brothers! Buncha sweet boys who are great at songs! I am really looking forward to playing with them.
Veeeeeeeery funny how I will literally say yes to gig offers on an instrument that I barely play because “I can practice a lot between now and then,” but writing one single song is like “nah, too hard, shan’t be doing that.” You have to laugh.
Anyway, thanks for reading. Maybe I’ll see you out there. Please scroll down to see where I’ll be and when I’ll be there.
xo, Isa
Above: a portrait of the author enjoying a summer’s hot dog
WHERE I’LL BE AND WHEN I’LL BE THERE
July 14-16: Playing at the Vancouver Folk Festival with Aoife O’Donovan and the Age of Apathy Band
July 19: Playing at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA with Darlingside (singing harmonies and playing BASS and other instruments)
July 23-27: Teaching at the Ossipee Valley String Camp in Hiram, Maine!
July 27-30: Hanging and playing at the Ossipee Valley Music Festival with the Snowglobe Stringband!
August 2-12: Going on tour with the Brother Brothers, playing…… bass
August 12-13: Playing bass at the Edmonton Folk Festival with — in a brilliant logistical stroke of luck — both the Brother Brothers and Darlingside!
August 25: A duo gig with my dear pal Owen Marshall on Peaks Island in Portland!
September 5-9: A little Southeast run with Aoife O’Donovan and the BAND :)
HYPERFIXATION CORNER
This is going to be the little bonus area of the newsletter where I share my latest hyperfixations with you all. My brain likes to become really obsessed with things for concentrated periods of time. Many thanks to ADD, the king and the court jester of my brain. The last six months’ hyperfixations have included chess (for the 3rd or 4th time), YouTubers who make videos about hiking and backpacking, electric guitar pedal demos, trying every language-learning resource on the Internet to improve my rusty French, and Talking Heads live shows circa 1980 (immediately pre Stop Making Sense).
But one is currently rising above all others: I gave in to the hype and started watching Succession. Folks, it’s every bit as good as they say. Haven’t felt this way about a television show since the literal fucking Sopranos. Can’t stop reading Succession thinkpieces and watching Youtube clips of interviews with the cast from late-night TV. I think about Kendall Roy every day. He’s so sad. I watch Jeremy Strong and I’m like… truly, what would it even be like to be this good at acting??? My friend Carolyn and I have been discussing Succession astrology — I’m Gerri sun, Kendall moon, Shiv rising. Let me know yours. Ok gonna go watch Succession now goodnight :)
Isa: I was unaware that Lula Wiles had disbanded until I read your post and then read some articles about why it occurred. Although it saddened me, I now understand it better - at least as much as someone outside the band and their respective friends could understand it. OTOH, I am gladdened that each of you has kept recording and performing music. Your letters are fluently written and always interesting, so like the first commenter, it was a pleasure to see your missive in my email in box.
If you'd allow me this purposeful digression. I recently saw Natalie Merchant backed by the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in DC. Merchant has likely has lost a few high notes but otherwise her voice is in great shape, still powerful when she wants and she has full control of it. She moves the same way as she did in the late 1980's, flowing with the music.
But most of all, she still is joyous when she performs and her listeners feel it and reciprocate.
Which made me think, joy is not often a criterion used by music reviewers, critics and columnists. But it should be. It doesn't matter what kind of music, be it Neil or Jackson or Joni, hip-hop, R&B, blues, Americana, old or new folk, country, the latest pop boy group, Beethoven or Bach, opera, jazz or what-not. If it gives the listener joy, then its good sh*t even if you don't feel the same way.
And after my one and a half hour drive from DC back to Baltimore, I remained suffused with joy. Of course, the next morning I woke up with my problems, but it sure is nice to have some unfettered joy for a bit. I write this to tell you that your music has brought me joy which is priceless, and I am very grateful. Thanks!
Yayyyy!! So happy you’re newslettering again! ❤️❤️❤️