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Claire Evans on Life on the Road

22 Jul 2013

The band YACHT, pictured in Mexico in 2011. Photo courtesy Claire Evans.

The band YACHT, pictured in Mexico in 2011. Photo courtesy Claire Evans.

Tipped to this by the estimable Tim Johnson: Claire Evans of YACHT writes a great article about life on the road, “The World Turns Blurry When I’m on Tour with the Band”:

It’s taken me 10 years on the road to realise this. Just as it boggles me to imagine that the places I’ve visited continue to exist in my absence, the audiences we play for firmly believe that we are ephemeral. To admit that we perform in other cities, night after night, violates the terms of an unspoken covenant in which we exist solely for them and they for us. But we must keep moving, and so must they, countless trajectories of human life careening outwards from the moment the lights go down. A concert, in this sense, isn’t kinetic: it’s stillness itself, a world briefly paused.

In other news, on repeat, with joy: “Oh Come On” by The Julie Ruin. Their record Run Fast is out 9/3 on the Julie Ruin’s TJR Records. (If you haven’t watched the “Friendship Game” with Kathleen Hanna and Kathi Wilcox, watch it now.)