HOUSE FULL: Jon Dee Graham

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A close-up of Jon Dee Graham.

Jon Dee Graham

November 26, 7 pm (doors at 6) Jon Dee Graham, suggested donation $20

The self-proclaimed King of the Basement plays his long-awaited 25th KHoRM show, making him the first artist to reach the quarter century mark.  He'll have with him his new record Only Dead for a Little While, which will be released November 10 on Strolling Bones Records.

This show is full.  I have a wait list in case of cancellations: righteousmusicmgmt@gmail.com .

Reservations will be taken for this show at righteousmusicmgmt@gmail.com. On confirmation there is space available you can guarantee your spot by sending a check to Kiki Schueler, 1326 MacArthur Rd, Madison WI 53714.

Remember, there is no parking on MacArthur itself, the best place to park is on Duncan or Ellenwood one block over, then you can take the path up to MacArthur Ct and to my house.  Please don't park on MacArthur Court unless you are one of the first three cars back from the stop sign so the neighbors can still use their driveways.  https://goo.gl/maps/MdGwjhZWSqC2  

Bicyclists...  Check out the "I used to be a futon frame" bike rack by the back door.  OK, so it doesn't really work as awesome as I thought it would, only child height tires fit, but you can lock your grown-up bikes to either end of it.

All shows are all ages and BYOB, I'll have coolers with ice available. As always, all money goes to the musicians.

twitter.com/righteouskiki

Jon Dee Graham is sharing the second single from his upcoming album, only dead for a little while, out November 10 on New West subsidiary Strolling Bones Records. It's a full-circle album that brings Jon Dee back to the New West family, where the three albums he released after the turn of the century helped launch him as a solo artist. "lost in the flood" premiered at Americana Highways and is available at all digital streaming services HERE.

Jon Dee says of the song, "If hours were water we’d all be washed away…things are in a constant flow in this world and THAT is the flood I’m singing about. Eventually, everything is lost in the flood. But there is also endless joy and surprises and fascination in the cascade of time. Loss and change are the price of admission.”

It's been seven years since we've gotten a new album from Jon Dee. The 5th generation Texan's artistry and accomplishments are well-known throughout his home state and the music community beyond, as a seminal figure in Texas punk and Americana (The Skunks and True Believers), as a hotshot guitarist for other artists, as an explosive performer whose club sets leave no prisoners, and as a singer-songwriter whose range extends from a whisper to a howl.

Only dead for a little while is the album an artist makes when he has nothing left to prove, nothing to lose, nothing to hide. Think of Bob Dylan’s Time Out of Mind, but sharpen the blade and crank the volume. You might even think of Frank Sinatra’s September of My Years, though Jon Dee Graham is a very different sort of saloon singer. There’s a certain darkness, bittersweet, whenever you stare mortality in the face. And especially when that face is the one you see in the mirror. But there’s also the richness of being alive and in love and open to it all. And that’s where the magic lies.

“I want to do real magic in my songs,” says Graham. “I mean, I can do sleight of hand with the best of them, and, you know, alliteration, and make the words line up and dance. But I want to be one of those people who actually make the woman disappear. In this song, it’s like, hey, you know those people who are gone? They’re not really gone. Because way up ahead I see that glow. And we’ll all meet each other by the fire.”

The result is a full-force triumph that reflects the seismic challenges we’ve been through—the pandemic or all of us, financial and medical and psychological issues for some of us, a return from the dead for it least one of us—and reassures that everything will somehow work out.