Bellows Tour Diary 2026: Part 2 - New England Heat Wave
Boston, Maine, and New Hampshire
On the road drumming for Bellows in support of our new album “Que Bello!”. Read Part 1 here.
7/1 - Boston, MA
I order one last bagel breakfast sandwich (“The Joker”) from Bagel World and walk to Oliver’s place. It’s the classic Bellows foursome in the car, so we’re blasting The Derberts by the time we reach Connecticut. As we trudge through North East traffic the Ferrn Discord channel lights my phone up like a Christmas tree in response to The Seat Of Loss essay I posted earlier that morning. It was only after I posted the link to the piece that I learned it was a long-winded justification for using generative AI to write music. Whoops! I spend the drive ruminating on my feelings about Brooks’ heel-turn. I will probably have to write about it.
God is it hot. The car is air conditioned but even walking from O’Brian’s (the venue) to the Burmese restaurant that Emily and Julian suggested as a meeting place makes me feel like I’m going to melt on the pavement. We indulge in some good noodles. O’Brian’s always has sports on the two TV’s behind the bar. This allows me to see the news break about The Celtics trading Jaylen Brown to Philly in real time along with a grip of Celtics fans, including Emily and Julian. As I set up the drums I chuckle deviously under my breath at their sports misfortune. Later during our set I watch the USA survive an elimination match against Bosnia in the World Cup.
Tonight we’re playing with Hello Shark for the first of a three show run. We’re also joined by People Person Puzzle Tree. Two years previously when Bellows stayed at PPPT’s singer’s house I encouraged him to stick with Gravity’s Rainbow. At O’Brian’s I ask if he stuck with it and he informs me that after a hiatus that took him through Inherent Vice and The Crying of Lot 49 he’s back at it and having a great time. I encourage him to keep going again. The opener are an acoustic emo duo. Hello Shark are the best I’ve ever heard them. Julian fills in on drums for PPPT, who play a great set with lots of inventive sounds.
Bellows has never had a bad show at O’Brians. The room always fills up and we typically move a solid amount of merch. The place feels like a relic of an older, grody version of rock clubs. No QR codes in sight, but the bathrooms could use an update. It never sounds great, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Fresh off the release show we play a little longer than we typically would on a four band bill and the energy palpably wanes in the middle. We end strong and load back out into the brutal heat. Oliver drops Jack & I off at Emily & Julian’s for the night. He and Frank continue on to PPPT headquarters a few blocks away. I am delighted to hang out with the trio of cats and cool off. I pass out quickly.
7/2 - Portland, ME
Emily does not fuck around with the air conditioning. The apartment feels like a commercial gym when I wake up, so I get in the first workout of tour. Julian’s cat Buddy waddles over and leans on me between sets of bicycle crunches. Once Jack wakes up I send him the Seat of Loss essay that troubled my thoughts the previous day. We agree that the tone of the essay feels like the speech a villain in Resident Evil gives before revealing that they’ve already gone zombie. Julian is training for a marathon so he heads off for a run, which in this heat seems like a terrible idea. When he gets back he turns on classical radio while Jack amuses us with goofy remixes of the “Que Bello!” tunes. Oliver & Frank arrive while Emily gets started on a massive vegan breakfast. Julian throws on Jetrho Tull’s Aqualung. We all geek out about bands, records, songwriting, talking shop basically. This steadily devolves into playing “Shreds” videos on YouTube while we pack up.
We take two cars again. Emily & Julian trail behind in order to tidy up their apartment. As we hit the highway Frank sparks a conversation about what qualities we find redeeming in America on the eve of its big 250th weekend birthday bash. We settle on the country’s relentless “fuck it, do it live!” forward motion, its possibility of reinvention and improvisation. We talk about jazz, stand up comedy, rap music. Frank puts on Kurt Vile’s “Pretty Pimpin’”. Haven’t heard it in years, what a tune!
We pull up to the Aphohadion early, so we get a late lunch/early dinner at a similarly be-slashed American Bistro/Distillery/Sports Bar/Classy Business Event Space. Jokes about the decor lead easily to earnest conversation about the multitude of weddings on our calendars. You’d think we’d run out of new conversations after spending so much time together, but life provides. The chicken sandwich is good, but doesn’t go well with the cajun fries that Oliver offers me and my gut feels a little weird for the rest of the night. Maybe it’s just the heat.
The Aphohadion is a funky DIY joint with a kind staff and a powerful AC. They have cafe seating in front of the stage and a projector aimed at a far wall that displays The Guns of Navarone during the set up and opener’s set. They switch to Alien: Resurrection before our set. The Guns of Navarone looks great. Alien: Resurrection looks… interesting. When I was a kid I somehow convinced my parents to buy me a figurine of the aquatic Xenomorph that shows up at the climax of the movie from the sketchy-as-heck local nerd outlet Comic’s Plus. I can’t remember what drew me to the hideous bastard as a kid, but I remain similarly transfixed at age 35 to the point where I nearly blow an entrance during one tune. Emily suggests a tweak to our setlist, swapping out “Dawn At Central Park” for “Zoomin’ Aston Martin”, which leaves us with no old material in the set. We close with “Give You All My Love”, a Springsteen-style wedding jam that I love playing live. After our set the sound guy puts on a local acid techno artist and Julian, Jack, and I collectively lose our minds while packing up.
A light rain finally breaks the heat. Emily and Julian are staying with a relative. The rest of us drive to Kittery where we’re staying the night with Linc from Hello Shark. The heat makes a Knicks-esque comeback as the night wears on. Concentrating on sleeping, living and dying by the mechanical grace of a rotating fan, is exhausting work.
7/3 - Exeter, NH
So exhausting in fact that I’m surprised at the sun’s position when I finally wake up. We settle into an easy morning drinking coffee in the shade while Linc’s partner tends to their garden. Linc leads us into town toward breakfast sandwiches. The place is packed, families stocking up on pastries in advance of the 4th. As the line curls past itself I make eye contact with the singer of an indie rock band Bellows played with back in 2019 and 2022. The rest of the crew confirms my “wait… is that…?” and we all decide to be discrete about it. Indie is a small world. We get our sandwiches and eat them out in the heat. A woman walks past us and tells her child “it’s a popsicle day, not a donut day”. Back at Linc’s the rest of the gang plan a trip to dip into water. I stay inside to work on the tour diary and to take notes for my Gravity’s Rainbow book club. Immediately after typing that sentence I pass out for half an hour, by which time the rest of the band has returned from the water. Linc throws some dogs on the grill. We chow down, pack up, and drive off to Exter.
The Word Barn stage is outside, a tall wooden A-frame facing an open field. The barn itself is an AirBnB that functions as a green room on show days. I’m going to be 100% with you, I’ve never had an AirBnB host treat me the way The Word Barn did, to say nothing of the comparative perks offered by the average American rock club. We’re treated to a full dinner for both meat-eaters and vegans alike, a shower, comfy couches, a wide range of bevs, watermelon slices, and most importantly air conditioning. It feels great to watch Hello Shark play in the open air. Their bassist notes from the stage that it’s the first night of the year where the smell of bug spray dominates, as sure a sign of summer as any. We all sweat buckets during the set. The minute its over we rush back into the AC.
After the show we drive down to Woodstock, NY to spend the night in the same house where we recorded “Que Bello!”. Once again it’s Emily & Julian in their own car and the OG quartet in Oliver’s. Three hours in the dead of night with no traffic. We listen to hype rap music. Inspired by the revelation that Julian is a Beatles fanatic we listen to Rubber Soul with frequent pauses to digress about the music, about making music, about Beatles trivia, about our own trivia, anything to keep us sharp. At a rest station where I inhale a chicken wrap we pass by a group of tourists in matching Argentina kits. Somehow their presence here confirms that Argentina had triumphed in that night’s match, as if a loss would have made this group vanish in a puff of smoke. We’re old pro’s at this kind of night drive by now. We pull into Woodstock and I pass out immediately.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Listening Diary ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Listen to this year’s diary on Apple Music.
“L’Equilibrio” by Le Orme (Felona e Sorona, 1973)
More Italian prog, which I gather views electric guitar as a garnish at best. The carbs here are the keys, bass, and drums. They also typically go through the steps of the average British prog epic at pop length. Each of these sections could conceivably be stretched out into a pattern of statement and development, but Le Orne give you the most pleasing version of each motif and then keep it moving to the next one.
“Dead In A Post-Truth World” by Hen Ogledd (Discombobulated, 2026)
Wild that the Richard Dawson bits are the most straightforward stretches of this absolute jam. Stick around for the absolutely killer sax solo. It’s quite the magic trick they pull off here. The band stays consistent but the arrangement feels like a constantly shifting amoeba, never the same shape from one moment to the next. We communicate on uncertain ground.
“The Bryden 2-Step (For Amphibians) (Part 2)” by National Health (Of Queues and Cures, 1978)
We have all suffered greatly by the VH1 narrative that punk instantly killed prog in 1977. Surprise! There continued to be superlative prog records on market even after The Sex Pistols and Ramones hit the shelves. It’s only the big names that dropped off or morphed, seek beneath the surface and you’ll find bands raising the bar well into the end of the decade. Some insanely sharp playing on this track, especially in the middle section where the guitar cedes the stage to the keys and drums.
“Deface the Currency” by The Messthetics (Deface the Currency, 2026)
Buck wild jazz rock that to my understanding is Fugazi affiliated and jazz certified. Music that makes you want to punch a referee, but for the 30+ crowd.
“El Viaje de Anabelas” by Bubu (Anabelas, 1978)
The late 70s prog scene is also rich with great records from outside of the Anglo-sphere, particularly from the reigning World Cup champion Argentina. I gather that enjoying anything about Argentina is kinda a bad look amongst South Americans and the worldwide soccer community. I’m sorry, but they had some great bands! I’m American, I can’t judge anyone!