Breathe Owl Breathe New England Tour 2007

—Posted on June 6th, 2007—

Thanks in part to Fox on a Hill, Breathe Owl Breathe was able to head out east for their first ever national tour, a musical marathon leading up to lead singer Micah Middaugh’s run in the Boston Marathon. Packed into and on top of Micah’s Volvo were all the instruments, the gear, Andrea Moreno-Beals, Micah Middaugh (Breathe Owl Breathe), Susan Fawcett, who helped with the booking, and Yoni Goldstein who had received funding from Fox on a Hill to shoot a documentary film of the tour, and Micah’s preparation and running in the Boston Marathon.

In some miraculous coincidence, all the dates of our tour lined up with the dates of fellow Earthworker, and Fox on a Hill artist Daniel Kahn and the Painted Bird

In some miraculous coincidence, all the dates of our tour lined up with the dates of fellow Earthworker, and Fox on a Hill artist Daniel Kahn and the Painted Bird, (his klezmer punk band from Berlin). We were in all the same cities on the same nights, and in a couple cases, even playing the same venue. On our way east, we exchanged riddles, driving through the Pennsylvania night.

The first night of the tour we went to Pete’s Candy Store, a unique venue in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg. We were booked by Jake Silver, the bass play from the Mammals who were touring Aulstralia when we played. A fella from Switzerland named Coal, opened up with some Americana tunes. Susan Fawcett somehow managed to light her hair on fire during his set, not heeding a candle, and the smell lingered for the next couple hours in the poorly ventilated room. We never had more than 9 people in the audience, but new people were constantly coming in, and Micah spontaneously put some of Daniel Kahn’s riddles to music for the bewildered, mostly German crowd. This ended up being one of the most lucrative evenings of the tour, and had the highest CD sales to audience members ratio.

micah

After spending some time getting to know the city, we played at the Galapagos Art Space, a large, dark, candle-lit room with a reflecting pool in the entryway. Special guest Joseph Keckler opened up with his own style of operatic blues, and video performance art. Joseph was an old friend of Susan’s from her queer performance art days with Holly Hughes at the University of Michigan. He kindly put up the whole crew in his loft apartment in Bushwick.

Micah spontaneously put some of Daniel Kahn’s riddles to music for the bewildered, mostly German crowd

After our New York shows, we rendezvoused with the Painted Bird at a little diner with rain coming through the ceiling in Brooklyn, and drove through a torrential downpour until we reached Vermont, at which point the precipitation turned into freezing rain and snow. As we drove through icy mountain roads, we saw a handful of vehicles upside down in the ditches. Though we were greeted by a blizzard, we were all still thrilled to be in Vermont, though Andrea had been dreaming about the spring. Turns out gas seems to burn a little quicker climbing through the mountains, and somehow we ended up running out of gas just as we crested the top of a hill. We managed to coast to an exit, and that exit happened to have a gas station a few hundred feet away. Andrea hopped into the drivers’ seat, and Micah, Susan, and Painted Bird bassist Michael Tuttle rushed to push the vehicle through ankle-deep puddles of freezing slush to the Mobil station.