I have a new record out today and there is a lot on my mind so I thought I’d write it down and share it with you. I’m in the backseat of a giant, rented black Chevy Suburban somewhere in New Hampshire, headed south back to New York - we play the Tarrytown Music Hall tonight.
My drummer and one of my best friends, Jon Langmead is driving. We’ve been playing music together since 2004 and we’ve been through so many things together that he feels like a brother to me. Tom Beaujour is in the passenger seat and though we haven’t been playing music together quite as long, he is also one of my best friends and is also the reason why my last couple of records have sounded as good as they have. He has really helped me figure out how to make the records I’ve always wanted to make.
We are on our way to play our 6th of 7 shows on a tour with Neko Case, which is pretty amazing really, and that is not lost on me. I am beyond grateful for this experience and all I am learning from Neko - who is a truly great and one-of-a-kind artist and person.
But there is something bittersweet about the release of this record, I have to say. It was only last summer that we were touring with Neko, when in the middle of the tour, my mom went into the hospital. She died about a month later. There is a familiarity about moving through these landscapes with this band on this tour, sitting in this backseat. It’s painful - but it’s also beautiful. This record that’s out today is very much about my mom and her illness, my own struggles with it, and with my own path in and out of the depressions and anxieties that waxed and waned through the making of the record, related and unrelated to her. I love her and I miss her and I’m happy and I’m sad and I’m growing and I’m stuck and it’s all ok and it’s all there. This one really is a record, in the truest sense of the word.
I’ll wrap this up. I started writing this - whatever this is - because I was looking for a picture of the record cover in my phone to post online to promote the fact that the record is out today as one does when it’s record release day - and I came across a photo of me and my mom a couple of days before she died. It really got me. This is my first record I’m putting out without her around to hear it and ask me questions that make me laugh and smile and bug me and all those things that moms do. And it’s sad, but then really, it ultimately made me realize how incredibly grateful I am. That I am here. Living this life. That I am still doing this. That I am with some of my best friends in the world. That I get to play these shows with Neko Case and see how shit can really be when you just stay the course, do the work and are nice to people - yourself and others. How we are all so lucky to be here on this planet for however long we get to be. Thanks for reading this and I hope you like the record. Oh yeah, if you want to buy it or hear it, pretty much all the info you need can be found here:
kiamrecords.com/jennifer_oconnor