Kickstarter

Wake up now, Bluebird. Rise and shine.

In October of 2010, we loaded up a ’75 Bluebird school bus with world-celebrated raconteurs and brilliant musicians, and took to the highways of Georgia, performing shows to packed houses in towns as big as Atlanta and as small as Zebulon. It was a gorgeous journey.

But last summer, on a journey to Charleston, South Carolina, the Bluebird decided to pull over to the side of the road and take a long, long nap. We had to tow her back home.

Now it’s time to wake her up again. We need $10,000 for a new motor, for new gauges and a general sprucing-up.

Then we’ll hit the road. Again we’ll be ferrying the purest arts—handmade music and the voice of the raconteur—on the back roads of Georgia. But this time we’ll be be rolling much farther. We’ll be traveling all over the Southeast, and we hope soon to take trips to New England and the far West, and eventually, perhaps, to the whole continent.

We’ll be riding on behalf of old-fashioned porch-style gatherings. We’ll be campaigning for independent bookstores, for local gardens and restaurants and flavors, for getting offline, for getting off the grid. For vivid, unvirtual, flesh-and-blood living.

What your pledge will do

Your contribution will help buy us that new motor, and pay J.R. the Mechanic to get the Bird fit and fired up for her next tour: the 1,714 mile barnstorming astonishment which is slated to begin February 2012.

Who we are

The Unchained Tour is the brainchild of George Dawes Green, bestselling author and founder of the acclaimed storytelling group The Moth, which has featured such accomplished raconteurs as Salman Rushdie, Garrison Keillor, Malcolm Gladwell and Sam Shepherd. There are now regular Moths in New York, Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago, and other cities. “The Moth Radio Hour” is carried by more than 200 public radio stations, and is the proud recipient of a 2010 Peabody Award.

The Unchained Tour is not affiliated with the Moth, but we’re deeply inspired by it. We’re picking up on the Moth’s raconteuring concept and taking it on the road, in the stunning illustrated school bus that Edgar Oliver calls ‘a rolling Greek temple.’

The cast of the upcoming tour will include Mr. Oliver, Savannah-born playwright and raconteuring star of the Edinburgh Festival; Peter Aguero, a multi-talented artist currently hosting The Moth and leading NYC's improvised storytelling rock band, The BTK Band;  Elna Baker, famous Mormon, comedian, author and contributor of This American Life;  Joan Juliet Buck, the novelist, actress (Julie & Julia), and esteemed former editor of French Vogue;   and Shovels & Rope, a Charleston based "sloppy tonk" band consisting of Michael Trent and Cary Ann Hearst.For more information, please visit: 

http://theunchainedtour.org/

https://www.facebook.com/TheUnchainedTour