News & Updates
JUNE 2025 NEWSLETTER
MY GRADUATION SPEECH*
One perennial, timeworn graduation speech theme revolves around the Dr. Seuss classic Oh, the Places You'll Go! After being stuck under your parents’ roof for most of your life, a lot of you may be more than ready to get out there and see where you end up. Maybe some adults in your life are telling you that high school is a magical time, that you will remember it and the friends you made here forever. Perhaps. Regardless, you should absolutely take a few days and relish this milestone.
But I’d humbly caution against thinking about your life in terms of some final desired position or plateau. I’d caution against dwelling too long on the place where you are or what you may have just accomplished. I’d even caution in general against placing too much importance on the nouns in your life. Your future is not out there, waiting for you to catch up. Even if you approach your life with such single-minded purpose, I can all but guarantee that whatever place you are envisioning will look different once you get there…and you likely won’t get to stay there for very long. Ideally, you will make your own future, one day at a time for the balance of your life.
There are powerful forces that will offer you shortcuts to a desired goal or destination. They will couch this offer in the cloak of increased efficiency, maybe even call it a “life hack.” Though they may seem harmless, these entities are likely trying to sell you something (or at the very least harvest your data and sell that). Even if the brokers of such shortcuts are benign, they are also misguided, at best.
It is not where you end up or what you accomplish—the nouns—that enrich or define your life. What will serve you best are the processes by which you make your way through the world: the verbs. In other words, the places are often less important than the going. Every Google search simply summarizes what is already known about a particular query. But what if there is more that could be known? And what if you could be the one to discover it? Patient observation, research, and critical thinking may seem tedious and time-consuming, and they often are. But these are the skills that will guide you from information to knowledge to wisdom, and they’ll help you teach yourself the kinds of lessons you’ll carry with you throughout your life. The world beyond the screen awaits, and the process through which you engage that world, more than ever, matters.
I hope you had a positive high school experience, but let’s hope it’s not all downhill from here! It’s a big world, full of beauty, wonder, and fascinating people you haven’t met yet. My hope for you is that you search, question, wonder, grow, love, create and that you never stop. Don’t outsource your personal education. Be your own teacher. Go ahead, climb a mountain and enjoy the view. But I already know what you’ll see from the top: more mountains in the distance, as far as the eye can see. If you can’t summit every mountain, you might as well learn how to enjoy the act of climbing.
A bunch of nouns is just a list. But when you throw some verbs into the mix, then your language begins to sing. Living actively, verb-ally, if you will, might not change the world. But this approach will change you, and there’s no telling where that will lead. So Godspeed, get out there with equal parts curiosity and humility, and may the best part of your life be the one that you are just about to live.
*NOTE: Okay, okay, I may not have actually delivered this speech to an auditorium of 17 year olds, but my oldest son just graduated from high school yesterday so such things have been on my mind.
LIVE IN ROCKPORT RELEASE SHOWS
Thanks to everyone who came out for the Live In Rockport album release shows with my string quintet! All the shows sold out, and one of them was the biggest headlining show I’ve done to date. Very humbled to be able to hear my songs married to Zachariah Hickman’s gorgeous arrangements, and the strings really shone on these performances. I’ll return to this format in the coming years, for sure, as time and resources permit. In the meantime…have you gotten your copy of Live In Rockport on CD or LP yet?
MP3 of the MONTH
By the time you read this, I’ll be up in New Hampshire on Lake Winnipesaukee for my annual songwriting retreat. It’s a magical place, and a magical community of songwriters that gather there to write. It only feels right to share a live version of “Moonlit Lullaby,” a little end-of-camp lullaby waltz that I wrote about my time there. It’s available for free for the month of June on my Bandcamp page. Enjoy!
TOUR DATES
Sat June 14 - The Fallout Shelter, Norwood MA - 7 pm
I love this place! You’d never know it’s there, secreted away in an industrial park, but inside is one of the vibey-est rooms full of high quality musical gear and video production equipment. I’ll be performing with the great James Rohr on keys, which means it will surely be a lively, spirited affair.
Live On The Lawn Series with Ward Hayden & The Outliers!
Sun June 22 - Groton Hill Music Center, Groton MA - 5 pm
Back to Groton Hill! Very excited to be a part of this outdoor series on the lawn at a family-friendly time, and sharing a bill with Boston’s country greats Ward Hayden & The Outliers. I’ll be joined by Andrew Stern on electric guitar and James Rohr on keys. I was just here with a string quintet, so this is gonna be a whole different ball of wax, I promise.
Lynda Cohen Performing Arts Series (free!)
Sat July 12 - AMC Highland Center, Bretton Woods NH - 7 pm
A free outdoor show in the heart of New Hampshire’s White Mountains? Yes please, sign me up! I’m playing with a very special band for this show, featuring Paul Kochanski on bass and Dave Brophy on drums, with my son Owen holding down the keys (but not all of them at once). Band shows have been pretty rare for me in the last year or so, so I’m super-psyched to let loose with this unit.
Thu July 17 - Firehouse Center for the Arts, Newburyport MA - 7 pm
Pretty hard to beat Newburyport in the summer! I’ll have Andrew Stern on electric guitar, and we’ll break out all the summer jams, maybe even “Boys Of Summer” AND “Summer Boys” in the same set? I mean, that’s just crazy talk.
Sun July 20 - Hayloft at the Dragonfly Barn, Bridgton ME - 7:30 pm
Never played this venue before, but I’m always looking for an excuse to return to Maine…especially when it’s not snowing. I think we’re pretty safe in July, but if the flakes start falling, rest assured I have plenty of depressing, seasonally-appropriate winter songs to play, plus all my Bill Morrissey covers. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, and we can all settle in for a nice solo acoustic set, the first I’ll have done in awhile.
A WORD ABOUT PATREON - JOIN OUR PATREON COMMUNITY!
One of my hopes for 2025 is to double my number of Patreon subscribers.
I know we can do it!
The best way to sustainably support my creative output is by getting a subscription to my Patreon. As you're thinking about what you want to support in the coming show, I'd be honored if you made my music one of those things. For as little as $5/month ($60/year), you can help me do things like release new songs, make new albums, and tour consistently. In return, you get early access to all new music, and starting in 2025, invites to quarterly virtual community events.
peace,
mark
Watch Mark’s performance from the 2019 Americanafest at the Ryman Auditorium!
You can check out a special episode of Austin City Limits featuring highlights from this year's Americanafest (like yours truly performing with Lori McKenna, Josh Ritter, J.S. Ondara & Shawn Colvin) on PBS starting this Saturday at 10 pm CT! Check out this teaser video & go to http://acltv.com/watch/tv-schedule/ & click on "check your local PBS listings" to find out exactly when it will air in your market.
