Alright and Then Some

Find a Little Angle

MC Taylor

Mar 24, 2025

My Friends, I thank you all

for what accompanies me

My Lord take

me to the voice

and let it float

I will sustain you

the door is always open

Unlimited and Unceasing

like the sky

—Joanne Kyger, from ‘Going On’

Good people,

I finished the MC Taylor Goldsmith tour, a short run of shows in beautiful small halls with my friend Taylor Goldsmith (singer/guitarist/writer of the band Dawes), about a week ago. The tour was, essentially, two guitars only being amplified with condenser mics, and our two voices singing a bunch of songs, some that I wrote, some that Taylor wrote, with a selection of tunes that both of us performed together. It was a small revelation, a recentering, maybe. I’m no a stranger to trying to conjure whatever magic it is that makes the air crackle when an audience and performer are in the zone together, but it still continues to feel like a small miracle when it happens, and it seemed like it happened a lot on our tour.

I know Taylor a lot better now than I did before we climbed into a van together, and I’d say that I’m a bigger fan than ever now. I’ve always thought of him as a songwriter in the true and classic sense: He takes his craft incredible seriously, he seems like he’s not trying to repeat himself, he knows his way around a turn of phrase, and he’s an incredible guitarist and singer. He knows exactly how the harmony should go. He does real vocal warmups. He can write a bridge.

So I guess I’d say that I was, I don’t know, maybe a little anxious to get the first show done, to see how our songs might coexist, to see whether things that I’ve written could stand alongside true classics like Taylor’s “All Your Favorite Bands.” But every audience was so enthusiastic about the whole show that I stopped thinking about all that pretty quick and just totally enjoyed being onstage with this brilliant musical friend. I was trying to be a cowboy poet, so I wore ostrich skin cowboy boots.

This kind of tour sort of lives and dies by the vibe between everyone when you’re not onstage, and Taylor made it easy because he’s a deep soul, a humble dude, a devoted family guy, a heavy fan of music and books, cerebral and funny. He talked so highly of Thomas Pynchon that he convinced me to buy a copy of Vineland, a book I’ve never read by an author I’m a little intimidated by, and I’m halfway through it now and it’s great, a totally telescopic sort of California noir, not so dissimilar from something like Denis Johnson’s Already Dead, a book I love. I don’t know, dude, Taylor Goldsmith is rad, a good fuckin’ dude, and that tour was fun as hell. That’s probably the Yelp review I’d give it. Thank you all for showing up.

Since arriving home, I’ve been deep in writing and arranging new Hiss tunes, as I’ve been doing for the past year or so. I’m very excited about the record that I’m about to make, and everything that’s coming up. My son also just turned 16, and I’ve been deep in my feelings about that. Good feelings. What a miracle it is to watch someone grow from a tiny baby into a fully grown human. I don’t think you can get that experience any other way except to do that, and it’s so much work, so much emotion, so much everything. But what an existentially heavy thrill.

OK, I’m gonna turn my attention to some songs that are sweet-talking me right now. Below are a selection of beautiful photos from the MC Taylor Goldsmith tour and there’s a new mixtape way down below featuring songs recorded from my records at home, stuff that I’ve been really connected to for one reason or another. As usual, I’ve put a single long audio track down below that you gotta listen to like a radio program, but if anyone out there wants to assemble a streaming playlist, I’ll put the link in the comments section.

Onwards, y’all.

Michael Crow Taylor