About this project

Big Baby Tour + Big Baby Album + Big Baby Documentary

We are planning our first tour ever! our first major excursion into the "wilderness."  It is a big baby, and we want nothing more than to make our way across the states to the coast and swap stories with yon travelers, settlers and all the pretty little horses. But we need your help!!

Your Help      =      Fuel!       [for our van, for our bodies, for our spirits]

Honest Abe is a kind of creative project not exclusive to music-making and comparable to free-writing -- a pre-drafting exercise that might preclude even brainstorming [pen to paper and go]. Without hesitation and without a plan, ideas spin out purely, unadulterated by our natural desire to present only our best. We dig deeper to pull the stuff not apparent immediately. Our musical translation differs from its wordy counterpart in that we choose to frame and stage this preliminary, most vulnerable stage of development. A beautiful feature of this performance style is real-time realization of a variety of raw fodder, a collective ego suggesting routes, many of which end dead, some of which develop further, in a spur. And all the time, the listening quota is strict, and we beg to be tuned-in. The expression is totally honest. How far might one go?

The purposes for this tour are many.

Of course, we look to develop both the minute and overriding themes of our musical endeavor, through which we may discover a bit more about ourselves, about the nature of sound, and about the effects of this particular style of music-making.

But, because of the nature of our performances, which are rooted in improvisational folk music, we can be extremely fluid in the way we approach each show. The performing space, the community of performers and supporters, the weather, the dialogue we engage in with each person, the questions we ask ourselves and each other each day -- all will inform and shape our music. By doing so, we carry every story, every melody in our bag of seeds, as we spread out over this country.

We also seek inspiration regarding new and creative ways to live -- for ourselves, and for each other. This may be the heaviest, most energizing quest of all. How do we live? How do we live well, modestly and prosperously, as musicians and as part of a community? Through our travels and interactions with the many communities [both intentional and accidental] we encounter -- which have birthed themselves in order to live in accordance with their own beliefs, rites, and ways -- we hope to gain a deeper understanding of these questions, and of ourselves.

Let us not fail to mention that all of this raw bumping and rubbing with the essence will be documented to the fullest extent. Like the soldier home from battle, the stock broker home from the office, we shall return with glorious bacon. We're talking about a finely seasoned, sizzling album and video documentary. What happens to your experience of the music when you know of the minute fibers of the day in which it is created? We invite you, humbly, to see how we weave and ultimately, how we are woven. We thank you for your help.      

Yours and ours,

Honest Abe

+++++++++++++++++ + +  +   +      +     +       +             +                   +           

A Working Itinerary

July 9 - St. Louis.

10 - Norman, OK

11~18 - Albuquerque/Santa Fe. 

19-21 - LA

22~29 - SF/Oakland. 

30 - Redwoods. 

31 - Eugene. 

Aug. 1 - Portland. 

2/3 - Seattle. 

4 - Missoula.

5~7 -  national parks.

8/9 - Minneapolis.

10 - Oberlin.

11- Cincy [home].