Journal

Music

Nields

Karl Wallinger and Our Midwest Tour

Music has a power that I don’t understand. I feel it sometimes when I experience the loyalty of our own following. But it took Karl’s death for me to remember its sway on me. Lately, I’ve avoided listening to music. Why? Music makes me feel. I can’t have it playing in the background. It’s distracting––not so much to my mind but to my heart. Listening to music, I become a sea creature, at the mercy of the waves. When I get fearful, I pull myself out of the water and sit on a rock, my knees to my chest, glowering at the fickle ocean.

posted March 29, 2024

Journal

Nields

Parenting/The Full Catastrophe

Digression from Book Talk

When we were first starting out, of course, we were in our twenties, with the bodies and immune systems of oxen. We thought nothing of spending nights on peoples’ couches and floors and subsisting on peanut butter and jelly, coffee and pizza. After shows, we drove well past midnight and then rose in the morning and drove another eight hours to the next gig. Back then, touring seemed inevitable. We were here, we had wheels, there were roads, and there were venues. There were radio stations and local papers who would play our music and announce our shows and people would show up to watch us play. It didn’t occur to me for a long time that everything rested on our human bodies, and that these bodies were not after all, the bodies of oxen.

posted October 18, 2023

Journal

Music

Nields

River Roads

Here’s the strange thing about me: I can completely forget I’m a musician until I arrive at the gig. It’s as though that part of me is a set of clothes for another season, kept in a moth-proof box in the attic, out of mind until the weather changes.

posted September 23, 2023

Nields

The Barn Project

Day 22: The Nields Rehearse a New Song

Katryna and I sang “Tyrants Always Fall” yesterday at the Women’s March in Northampton. So many people, so many pink hats, so much courage and strength! 2018 is our year,…

posted January 21, 2018

Nields

The Barn Project

The Big Idea

Writing Process

Day 19: Why Write Songs in the Age of Free Downloads?

My house is full of writers. I am sitting in Couchland North; two others are in Couchland South. Writers are at my dining room table, in my music parlor and…

posted January 13, 2018

Music

Nields

Parenting/The Full Catastrophe

Day 7-Abbey Road

The rest of the trip could have sucked, and because of this, I still would have been glad for every penny and pound we spent. We did NOT stop traffic,…

posted July 26, 2017

Music

Nields

Parenting/The Full Catastrophe

Suzuki

Me and the Sarge Are Fifty!

To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on…

posted June 8, 2017

Music

Nields

Parenting/The Full Catastrophe

Writing Process

Post-Iron Horse. Can I Sleep Now? Please?

After our big 25th anniversary shows at the Iron Horse last weekend, I was so tired I thought I would never recover. As I age, it seems performing takes more…

posted June 27, 2016

Music

Nields

Twenty-five Years

This band started as a dream, like most bands do. Two girls, born 10 years too late, pouring over the cover of the Beatles Blue Album, which is not even,…

posted June 7, 2016