Hiss Golden Messengerwith Color Green $25 adv / $30 dos All ages Doors: 7pm / Show: 8pm$1 from every ticket goes to support the Durham Public Schools Foundation whose mission is to foster community support for public schools and invest in our students, educators, and families to ensure success and equity for every student.Itâs spring of 2023 in the North Carolina Piedmont, and songwriter and singer M.C. Taylorâleader of the band Hiss Golden Messengerâis feeling alive. Joyful. Eternal, he might say. For the Grammy-nominated musician, whose albums have traced an internal path through adulthood, fatherhood, spirituality, and depression for well over a decade, this is something new...
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Hiss Golden Messengerwith Color Green $25 adv / $30 dos All ages Doors: 7pm / Show: 8pm$1 from every ticket goes to support the Durham Public Schools Foundation whose mission is to foster community support for public schools and invest in our students, educators, and families to ensure success and equity for every student.Itâs spring of 2023 in the North Carolina Piedmont, and songwriter and singer M.C. Taylorâleader of the band Hiss Golden Messengerâis feeling alive. Joyful. Eternal, he might say. For the Grammy-nominated musician, whose albums have traced an internal path through adulthood, fatherhood, spirituality, and depression for well over a decade, this is something new. âThe tunes on Jump for Joy were composed in free moments throughout 2022, a year during which Hiss was on the road more or less constantly,â explains Taylor. âAnd perhaps because the post-pandemic energy out in the world felt so chaotic and uncertain, I found myself thinking a lot about the role that music has played in my life and how exactly I ended up in the rarefied position of leading a band and crew all over the globe through dingy graffiti-scrawled green rooms, venerated music halls, dust-blown roadside motels. Sometimes playing in front of 5,000; sometimes 200. Sleeping sitting up. Laughing until my stomach hurts. Not being able to fall asleep at 3 a.m. in some anonymous bed because my mind is spinning with anxiety or depression or adrenaline, or because my ears are still ringing. Robbing Peter to pay Paul, then robbing Paul to pay Peter back. Over and over again. Itâs an outlaw life but one, Iâm coming to realize, that makes me happy.â The songs that make up Jump for Joyâthe sharpest and most autobiographical that Taylor has written under the Hiss nameâread as a sort of epistolary, postcards between the present-day songwriter and his alias Michael Crow, a teenaged dreamer very much like Taylor himself, who trips his way through the 14 tunes that make up the record. In this way, Jump for Joy is a meditation on a life lived with art, and the ways that our hopes and dreams and decisions bump up againstâand, with a little bit of luck, occasionally merge withâreal life. âCreating this character became the way that I could explore these vulnerable, tender moments that were so decisive in my life, even if I didnât know it at the time,â explains Taylor. He continues: Through Michael Crow, I was able to get inside these places that exist so deep in my sense memory: Me at 16, knowing intuitively that there had to be something out there for me, something mysterious and divine that wasnât full of fucked-up, confusing pain; me with my hardcore band, age 18, wandering the vast expanses of Texas beneath a big, fat tangerine moon, scrounging change to fill the gas tank, trying to make a soundcheck for a show that never happened. Thereâs me at 30, having kids, writing songs as though they were gravestone epitaphs, not yet understanding that nothing is so permanent and serious and that I needed to be gentler with my spirit. Thereâs me at 35, still chasing the thing because Iâve touched it once or twice and I know itâs the only way for me to feel whole and real and useful, but in the rear-view mirror, I can see everyone who gave up in search of something easier and not so heartbreaking. Produced by Taylor and engineered by longtime Hiss compatriot Scott Hirsch over two weeks in the late fall of 2022 at the fabled Sonic Ranch studio in Tornillo, TX, just a short walk from the Mexican border, Jump for Joy dances with joyful, spontaneous energy that feels like a fresh chapter in the Hiss Golden Messenger oeuvre. Taylor is accompanied throughout the album by his crack live band: guitarist Chris Boerner, bassist Alex Bingham, keyboardist Sam Fribush, and drummer Nick Falk, a collection of musicians that have helped make Hiss Golden Messengerâs live performances legendary affairs. Consider opening track â20 Years and Nickel,â a thematic preamble that finds Taylor reckoning with the 25 years (or, â20 years and a nickelâ) spent trying to write some kind of masterpiece over a rolling second-line groove that wouldnât sound out of place on a Meters record. Three songs later, âShinboneâ contemplates the spanâgeographically, temporally, and emotionallyâfrom Taylorâs childhood fence-hopping days, the smells of sage and eucalyptus in the air, down the winding road to the present. âYou ever had a storm talking to you?â he asks, the rhythm locked in a four-on-the-floor groove over a slippery synth line before hitting the mantra-like refrain: If you lose it all, can you love whatâs left? The band finds a righteous stepping rhythm on the anthemic âNu-Grapeâânamed after a saccharine grape soda available throughout the Southeastâas Taylor, speaking through the metaphor of a gravestone cutter, considers the futility of working towards permanence: âCutting stone ainât easy,â he sings, âbut itâs how I earn my way. Some want doves and marigolds; give me a stone that says, âDonât cry, itâs only a joke.â Does that feel true enough for you?â Friends Aoife OâDonovan and Amy Helm (daughter of drummer Levon) join in on the Mary Oliverâchanneling chorus: I was fire. You said I couldnât live without water. You were water. Water to put out the fire. Iâm just a nail in the house of the universe, drinking Nu-Grape with a five-dollar bill. âThe Wonderingâ is classic Hiss Golden Messenger, an emotional meditation on art and memory (and housebreaking) set to a heart-rending riff, over which Taylor recalls, âBack in the day I was Michael Crow; Iâd go creeping through the houses. Oh, the things Iâd see through those country windows were enough to make you cry outâ before being joined by OâDonovan and longtime friend (and Fruit Bats leader) Eric D. Johnson. âIâm still hereâjust canât quit wondering,â the trio harmonizes. âIâm still here with my back to the wondering.â Jump for Joy, perhaps more than any other Hiss record heretofore, is an elegant and nuanced melding of everything that makes Taylor and companyâs work unique and beloved, colored with an outward-facing elation and sense of openness that elevates the album into something truly timeless and special. âI knew that I needed this record to be full of joy because if weâre standing at some kind of finish line of human civilizationâand Iâm not saying that we are, but some days it sure feels that wayâthen I want to go out dancing,â laughs the songwriter. âThatâs what I wanted Jump for Joy to feel like: Dancing at the end times.âTerms And Conditions:Important notice re COVID-19: Please note any interaction with the general public poses an elevated risk of being exposed to COVID-19 and we cannot guarantee that you will not be exposed while in attendance at the event. By attending this event you are assuming risk and releasing Crowbar from any liability. You must adhere to local social distancing, mask, and all other preventative care guidelines. No backpacks or large bags permitted. Clutch style bags are permissible. Cameras allowed with artist permission. All sales final.If you choose to attend we suggest you wear a mask for your safety. Whether youâve been vaccinated or not; if you are not feeling well please stay home. Additional restrictions may be required on a show-to-show basis per the artistâs request.
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