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Monday, September 08, 2008
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September 8, 2008: "Electric Picnic" - Josh’s Irish Times Blog 04
Tonight I'm back in my kitchen, listening to the Republican National Convention going on in Minneapolis. There is something truly surreal about the proceedings, not the least of which, John McCain's Vice Presidential candidate was educated in my home town of Moscow, ID. Just when I had started to dream that my state would one day go Democratic...
The band and I had a completely whirlwind trip to Co. Laois and the great Electric Picnic festival. Our flight landed and we jumped into a people mover driven by...
To read the complete post from Josh on the Irish Times, visit here.
Thanks! And be sure to leave a comment!
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8:19 AM
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Tuesday, August 12, 2008
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August 11, 2008: "Two Feet Deep in the Roiling Maine" - Josh’s Irish Times Blog 03
I'm just back in the door from a great trip up to Maine for things various. What an incredible state that is. It was fiercely contended for between the British and Americans during the War of 1812, and any trip there will make you happy or sad at the outcome, depending on what side of the English tongue you may favour.
The first reason for going was the Shangri La Festival in Blue Hill, Maine....
To read the complete blog, click here! And be sure to leave a comment there.
Thanks folks!
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6:50 PM
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Friday, July 25, 2008
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July 25, 2008: "From Denver to Targhee" - Josh’s Irish Times Blog 02
The ride down from Telluride must have been beautiful, but by the time we packed up and had a beer at the saloon next door to the opera house, it was 1am and we piled into the bus and settled in for the seven hour trip across the mountains to Denver. This has been, hands down, the most scenic tour I've ever been treated to...
For the complete blog entry (and photos), click here
Thanks!
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1:44 PM
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Wednesday, July 23, 2008
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July 23, 2008: "Phoenix, Salt Lake City, and Telluride" - Josh’s Irish Times Blog 01
The mountains all around us are as enormous as the mountains surrounding Salt Lake City have a habit of being, and the hotel billboards along the side of the road have grown bigger and more insistent in the last hour, so I'll assume that we're getting fairly close to our destination.
My band and I are beginning a short run of what promises to be some really, really fun shows. We're doing...
...to read Josh's complete blog post - with pics - visit this page for the full entry on The Irish Times website.
Thanks!!
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10:19 PM
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Wednesday, July 16, 2008
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JOSH’S BLOG: "My Uncle John" - July 16, 2008
My uncle, John Ritter, is a teacher.
For 28 years Uncle John has taught English at Parkland High School in the Lehigh Valley area in which he (and my father), his grandparents, great grandparents, and great great grandparents and ancestors have lived, worked, and raised families since 1732.
I admire Uncle John because he teaches and believes in the potential of individuals to find their passions, take risks, and to do good works in their communities. He felt called to be a teacher, and he is as proud of that role as he is to be a husband and father.
John feels strongly about families, neighborhoods and communities. He has served his teaching profession as an association leader and as president of his 600+ member local association to make sure that teachers could do the job they loved with dignity. Since that time he has decided that he can do even more for the place he loves, and when he decided to run for Pennsylvania State Representative (187th State House Seat) representing Lehigh County several months ago, I played the first ever political event of my life to raise money for his candidacy (see below.) Uncle John wanted to keep it simple so we didn't "send out the word;" I came in three hours before show time and played two shows at the Schnecksville Grange. I have to tell you that I got to meet many of the supporters that enabled John to win his primary by a 2 to 1 margin. I probably could have played chop sticks and John's friends, colleagues, parents, and students would still have clapped; they were just having such a great time being together.
A few days after the event, John was diagnosed with Leukemia.
As determined as any man who teaches English to high-schoolers, he has decided to continue his campaign. Between chemotherapy, the host of ailments that derive from it, and a fragile immune system, John's door to door visits will be limited. But anyone who knows John knows that as soon as he can do it, he will.
Around the area my family called home there are thousands of old stone walls, some dating back to before the Revolutionary War. Some have crumbled into disrepair and some stand tall as if they had been built only yesterday. But the truth is that a stone wall is always being built. When it stops being built, it quickly becomes just another pile of useless rock.
There are a lot of things in our communities that need repair. Some are hard to see on our drive to work or standing in line at the supermarket, but we all know they're there. This is a tough time. The work ahead will be tremendous and will need all of us.
I am, as I believe it is best to be, a hopeful cynic when it comes to politics. Our ship has been drifting for some time now, and sometimes it seems the leaders we need - those people of Herculean effort, great deeds, and greater humanity - seem present only as statues lining our State Houses.
But they are not statues. I know one, and he is my Uncle John.
I'm no politician. No doubt a letter like this can be torn apart fairly easily by those who do that sort of thing for a living. But it is a hopeful time in America and I'm writing hopefully. Not just because we are hopefully seeing the end of a dark era in American history, but because there are individuals among us like my Uncle John Ritter who can show us the kind of light worth the working towards.
John may be sick, but he's out there fixing the walls that need fixing in his community. If he's doing that now, even as he is fighting for his life, just think of what he'll do when he gets better.
This is not a solicitation for funds. If you're interested in John's work, in finding out ways that you can get involved, or in just sending him a note to say hello, please visit www.citizens4ritter.com .
Thank you for taking the time to read about a man who is a hero to me.
My Very Best,
Josh Ritter
Moscow, ID
special concert announcement from this past April
3:35 PM
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15 Comments - 18 Kudos
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Wednesday, July 09, 2008
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JOSHS BLOG: Vol. 25 - "A Pops Dream" - Jul. 9, 2008
Hello All!
I had a dream last night that my band and I had a gig the night after our concert with the Boston Pops. We were to be in the same building (Symphony Hall), but somehow things felt different. When I arrived for the show, the band and I got into a deep discussion about what songs to play; so deep, in fact, that we forgot we had a show to put on. We were laughing away at the songs and ideas we were coming up with when suddenly I heard "Girl in the War" being played over the Symphony Hall sound system. "Hmm," I thought, "Well, that song's off the list." Then for some reason I found myself out on stage with a tambourine and nothing else. But the weird part was that I was standing on a trampoline...
Our actual show with the Boston Pops was also a dream, but thankfully one that came true. While the details are fresh in my mind I'll jot a few down.
Symphony Hall, one of the greatest acoustic spaces in the entire world and a place that seems brimming over with the collected strains of music over the last century, was the setting. To walk the corridors and stand in the balcony is like climbing a high mountain and look back on how far you've come.
The project of bringing my songs to the Pops was undertaken by some folks at the Pops, my manager and booking agent, the arranger Sean O'Laughlin, my band, and myself. Zack Hickman in particular did a good deal of work with Sean to get the music to go smoothly. In most ways it was like any other show, but in a few crucial ones it was different. Firstly, Symphony Hall is big: 2,300 people is a lot of people. Secondly, this was a one-off show. If I forgot words or if the arrangements felt wrong or the sound system went out or the guitars were out of tune, that was that. Thirdly, alongside this incredible crowd our families were all going to be in attendance. I was pretty nervous for the rehearsal. Here, after a great deal of work on arrangements, set lists and set-up, we would see how the whole thing hung together. The orchestra was friendly, but not overly, still when the opening chorale written by Sean for "Best for the Best" began, I realized that the only way to enjoy the evening fully was to accept whatever was going to happen unconditionally. During the rehearsal the rain began to pour down Biblically on the Boston. "How Biblical," I thought. The thunder sounded truly enormous as well, and continued until the man tuning the timpani was finished.
We finished the rehearsal and I went back to the hotel, pressed my suit and paced around for an hour or so. The great poet Robert Pinsky had agreed to come back from Aspen to read a couple poems over my instrumental piece "Edge of the World," but because of the rain he and his wife had been unable to land.
Whatever fears the band or I had strangely melted away as show time neared. Symphony Hall was lit up and the sound of the house getting full drifted up into our dressing room. By the time we stood side stage and the orchestra tuned, the prevailing emotion was elation. That didn't subside for an hour and a half. "Idaho," which I played solo seem to fill up the hall, and from there, the orchestra swelled into "Best for the Best" and then "Other Side." "Monster Ballads," "Rumors," "Kathleen," "Adam" - every song was like unwrapping a gift. My friend, the violinist Hilary Hahn, told me once that the best place to listen to music is standing in the middle of an orchestra. She's right.
Midway through the set, Robert Pinsky, who had made it to the ground against all odds, read two beautiful poems and truly stole the night. Standing to the side of the stage and listening to him recite was astounding.
The audience was likewise astounding. It felt like we had won something before we even got out on stage, and in a very major way, we had. This sort of victory doesn't come around for free. It takes a lot of uncertainty and a lot of miles, a lot of sleep-starved nights and even more coffee, and it takes people who not only believe in you but are willing to show it.
all photos by Neale Eckstein
The show went off without a hitch and we floated back up to the green room where there was champagne and slaps on the back. By the time we got back to the hotel it was 2:30 in the morning, but sleep came nearly instantly and there were no trampolines in it.
6:26 PM
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Friday, May 23, 2008
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May 23, 2008: "On The Road to Bellbrook Jamboree" - Josh’s Small Town Tour Blog 06
Sometimes I find myself thinking, as I travel, "when I get off the road in a week, I'll get back to my letters, I'll go to the library, I'll put some time into making bread right, I'll go for a run along Paradise Creek, I'll fix the step..." and my mind careens off into all those lists upon lists of stuff to do that aren't related to playing music and writing...
To read Josh's complete blog - with photos - click here!
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1:26 PM
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5 Comments - 9 Kudos
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Friday, May 09, 2008
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May 9, 2008: "On a Roll (Nashville and Knoxville)" - Josh’s Small Town Tour Blog 05
Thursday afternoon.
Weather.com shows an enormous bloody rent through eastern Tennessee, and so we sit here in a Knoxville bar looking out at the rain pounding down in the square and wondering if we're going to be able to play today. The event is called "Sundown in the City," but from the looks of the weather, the sun went down around 11 a.m...
Click here to read the rest of Josh's blog
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4:07 PM
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6 Comments - 9 Kudos
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Monday, May 05, 2008
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May 5, 2008: "Real Long Distance" (New Music Video) - Josh’s Small Town Tour Blog 04
"Real Long Distance" (a New Music Video)
A few months ago, leaving for a tour of Canada and Europe, my band and I found ourselves with a few extra hours before the bus left.
Sam Kassirer had a video camera and a vision, the band and friends had costumes, and I had a song called "Real Long Distance"....
To read the complete blog and SEE THE VIDEO, click here
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11:17 AM
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Sunday, May 04, 2008
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May 4, 2008: "Nearly Scraping Death in Birmingham, AL" - Josh’s Small Town Tour Blog 03
"Nearly Scraping Death in Birmingham, Alabama"
Hey Everyone!
If it's Sunday, we're in Birmingham, Alabama, a town that in the past has furnished numerous quasi-dangerous post-show activities. Among the carnage: amateur boxing, "martinis" made from some kind of black sludge, and today it's a near death experience delivered at the hands of a nearly blind and racist taxi driver...
To read the complete blog and see photos, click here
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10:05 PM
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