So – the Secret Swarm tour went really well. It is wonderful, gratifying, and sometimes surprising that audiences exist for experimental, improvised, whatever-you-want-to-tag-it music all around the US, in cities large and small. The idea that the rest of America – that is, those who do not live in urban centers and/or live in the South – consists of a bunch of uneducated slobs is completely ridiculous and utterly false. And the idea that it is somehow “not worth” touring domestically is totally backwards, unproductive, and lazy to boot. There are interested audiences everywhere – it is simply a matter of inviting them.

a slightly blurry secret swarm @ All Day Records, Carrboro, NC

To take one example from this tour, our show at SquidCo Records in Wilmington, NC – one of the smallest cities we played and somewhere neither of us had ever been before – was one of our most well-attended shows. SquidCo, run by NYC transplant Phil Zampino, has only been in Wilmington for 7 months and had only put on one show before ours, but still managed to bring an enthusiastic, attentive, and diverse crowd to our show. These people did not suddenly appear in a cloud of smoke when Phil and his partner JM moved to Wilmington and opened an improvised- and experimental-music record store – they have been there the whole time. I’m not trying to get all Field of Dreams on everybody, nor am I trying to say that people in Wilmington have been slavering to hear me spit and hiss through a piece of metal for years, because they haven’t and building it isn’t enough; what I am saying is that these people came because they were invited, because Phil and JM have made a concerted effort to go out and meet people and invite them to come to their store and hang out and listen to music. On a somewhat related note, it was incredibly exciting to meet a gay couple running a creative-music record store, thus doubling the amount of gay people I know (including me), or at least can think of off the top of my head, playing or maintaining an active presence in the improvised/experimental music scene. Indeed, the total lack of an out LGBT presence in this community is worth a lengthy discussion. But I digress…

Post-show at SquidCo, Wilmington, NC

A brief summary of the future beneath the jump…