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St. Louis shows this weekend & Wyldwood Radio

– I have two concerts this weekend in St. Louis, starting tonight! Click here for the info!

Doors open at 6:30pm tonight, and my free show in Tower Grove Par tomorrow, at St. Louis Pagan Picnic is at noon.

-Wyldwood Radio has a few hours left on their fundraiser! They’re hoping to raise funds for equipment that will allow them to go to more witchy events and interview more of your favorite witchy performers, like me. There’s a compilation disc among the perks that a whole bunch of us have contributed to. Check it out below.

June Concerts

Lots going on this month!

-I’ll be in St. Louis starting June 5 (that’s tomorrow), doing a big evening show with Brian “Boo” Greenway, Raw Earth, and Tuatha Dea! That’s this Friday, 7pm at The Focal Point.

–St. Louis Pagan Picnic is this weekend! It’s a free event in Tower Grove Park, which is a pretty nifty place. I’m on stage at noon on Saturday, sandwiched between two dance performances (see my complaining face? BRING ME THE SHIMMY). Here’s the full performance schedule. This is a free, outdoor event. Concerts, workshops, rituals and drum circles are all planned, and a whole bunch of talented vendors will be there, selling their wares! That includes yours truly. The weather’s gonna be great. It’s free. You should come. 🙂

-My big summer tour starts in a few days with Pagan Spirit Gathering in Illinois, and also Free Spirit Gathering in Maryland! After that, I’m bringing Tricky Pixie to New York Faerie Fest for the first time! It’s all on my tour schedule page.

Festival season has always been a good time for me, and I’m thrilled to have some many festival events scheduled for this month. Hope to see you along the way!

NOTE: I’m working on setting a few little shows up for July, hopefully in Chicago, MSP, and Missoula, MT. I’ll post when those are settled in, but I may opt to wait until Mercury goes direct again next week. 😛

Some of this week’s entertainers:

Down at the Crossroads Podcast Interview

Chris Orapello is one of my favorite podcast hosts. I also consider him a friend. He’s great to talk with about all things occult and witchy, as well as music and other inspiring stuff. Chris invited me back onto his Down at the Crossroads podcast recently, and he’s just posted the episode that includes our chat! He says I broke his brain a bit by the end of the session. I promise I didn’t mean to! 🙂 We did go pretty deep, talking about everything from my Stolen Season album, to Ginger Doss‘s music, to how to interact respectfully with the genius loci of any given place. It was time and energy well spent.

Chris has a great sense of how to put a playlist together, and so the episode also includes some really wonderful music. Download it directly here if you like, or visit the podcast website here to explore further. Again, it’ll be time well spent.

So Much Nerdy Awesome In A Single Post…

My friend Rob Carlos, illustrator and magic-maker, has super powers. He sees dragons, and knows how to draw them. He has a knack for showing the people he knows how cool they actually are, in his eyes. Basically, he can do anything he sets his mind to with the power of paper and paint, pen and pencil. Yesterday he turned my sweetheart and me into X-Men, just because he could. I would never have seen this coming, but wow, am I impressed and tickled and giddy and grateful!

…I also want to know how he figured out that these two are my favorites among all the X-Men ever, without our ever having discussed this particular fandom. 🙂 Sorcery, I tell you.

Check out his work here. He’s fabulous.

Ryan as Gambit, S. J. as Rogue by Rob Carlos

Down-time? Ha.

Betsy, Ryan and I all headed home this past Tuesday afternoon. Some people are under the illusion that musician-types just sort of loaf around when they’re not touring and performing, but that’s certainly not true for the three of us! If you know what it’s like to come home and do laundry (for days) after two festival weeks in a row, you know what I’m talking about. 🙂

Aside from laundry, I’ve been composing and submitting new tracks for the video game soundtrack I’m working on. Have you seen Dragon the game? It’s early access, which means you can play as the game develops! Be a dragon and fly around doing stuff? Yes please! This week I wrote a new piece of “flying around and exploring” music, which our game director told me he wants to put in to the game itself “as soon as possible.” I guess this means all those times as a kid (and not as a kid) pretending to be a dragon and wishing I could fly have actually paid off in my professional life! HaHA! Take that!

I also have some vocal tracks to record for Sharon Knight and Winter, to be added to a couple of songs on their upcoming Portals project. Both of the songs Sharon has asked me to contribute to are pieces we’ve done on stage together before. I’m honored that Sharon and Winter liked my seat-of-pants harmony choices enough to ask me to make them part of the “official” versions of these songs!

My songwriting prompt for my song-a-week group this week is “right or wrong”. Up to this point, I’ve gotten an idea for my weekly new song pretty quickly after learning the prompt. Not so this week. I think I have the glimmer of a beginning today, though, inspired by how wild the weather and seismic activity has been on the planet of late. Did I mention that the Arkansas River, about five miles from my house, is well past its thirty-foot flood stage right now? It’s snuggled up to its levees like I snuggle up with my sweetheart on movie night. So: The river doesn’t hold with right or wrong… That’s where my new song has begun. We’ll see where it goes.

The online PR campaign for Stolen Season continues apace, as well. I’m still soliciting new reviews and interviews, and I’m still largely pleased with the reception the album has had so far. Thank you all for listening and enjoying it! I have not yet posted my planned CD release concert vids for YouTube, but I have not forgotten about them. The trouble is convincing myself that the video performances I have for each song are good enough for y’all. Remember my post about holding onto what your loved ones say when they tell you that you’re awesome? Why is that so hard? 🙂

I hope everyone who reads this is faring well, worldwide, with all of the recent natural disasters. Earthquakes in Nepal, flooding from Houston to Oklahoma, drought in California; I am doing my best to keep aware of it all and to keep all of you in my thoughts. Please stay safe. The beauty doesn’t always balance the rough stuff, but I offer it anyway. In song, in image, in heart.

#fungi #delight #color #nature these little guys tho ❤️️

A photo posted by S. J. Tucker Music (@sjtuckermusic) on May 29, 2015 at 9:55am PDT

4.5 Star Stolen Season review from Heath Andrews

Believe it or not, it’s pretty rare for someone to give me an album review that includes any sort of constructive criticism and feedback. The first time it happened, the reviewer was a friend of mine, and he was worried I’d be so offended by his (very useful and not at all nasty) criticism that we wouldn’t be friends anymore. I reassured him very quickly that I could take it, and it actually is a thing I can appreciate. If people who like what you do don’t point out the things that would get them to like what you do even more, how you gonna grow?

Mind you, I love the hell out of any glowing praise I get. But Heath Andrews gives me more than that in his recent review. It’s clear to me that he really took the time to listen critically to Stolen Season, and I’m grateful to him for it! In spite of the things he found to be not quite as good as they could have been (lengthwise and mood-wise, primarily), he STILL gives the album 4.5 out of 5 stars, gives me all sorts of mixing and song treatment compliments, and states that the album “does this genre well and it does this genre proud,” meaning my interpretation of Southern Blues. Hardcore fans of mine may take exception to a couple of his statements, but me? I’m taking it all as input that I can really use.

Thank you so very much, Heath, for taking the time. 🙂

Read the full review here and check out the rest of his reviews on Tumblr while you’re at it. Good stuff from somebody who really listens.

Upcoming Shows in StL!

A sweet Memorial Day to each and every one of you today. 🙂

I get to spend a little bit of time in St. Louis, one of my heart’s homes, in a few days!

I’ll be performing with Tuatha Dea and other awesome peeps on Friday, June 5th at The Focal Point, and again on Saturday, June 6th at St. Louis Pagan Picnic, which is a free two-day event in Tower Grove Park! You may recognize the park from a certain recent music video. 🙂

Another fav shot from Monday’s #LittleBirdVid shoot. My audience: geese & ducks & grackles. Entirely apropos. Photo by Anna Bell <3

A photo posted by S. J. Tucker Music (@sjtuckermusic) on Mar 25, 2015 at 6:00pm PDT

Come and join us at the shows if you can! Everyone is welcome at both of these events.

4-star Stolen Season Review on Examiner.com!

Dan Macintosh has some truly glowing praise for Stolen Season. I am humbled and stoked to share his review with you!

Stolen Season is a strong, widely varying collection of songs. Tucker is both a strong singer and a smart songwriter, which is an unbeatable artistic combination. This is an album for anyone that appreciates stellar songwriting.

–read the rest at Examiner.com

Thank you so much, Dan!

I’m enchanted! 😀

*happy sigh!*

New song this week: Dragon in my Pocket

I’m still participating in my song-a-week commitment. I decided to turn up the cute for this one. I know I’m not the only kid who can relate to wishing we could have dragons around!

DRAGON IN MY POCKET c. S. J. Tucker, 2015

Some days I want a dragon of my own.

It’s a thought that makes me smile when I’m alone.

She’d have blazing breath and burning eyes

and always be able to change her size,

so nomatter where I went, she would be there,

hidden in my backpack or my hair.

And she’d frighten all the bullies

into nice kids

with a single giant swoop into the air!

But I don’t have a fifty-foot best friend

with a roar that tells my enemies to scram.

No, I don’t have a dragon in my pocket,

So I guess I’ll have to handle it as I am.

She’d be the kind of dragon you could trust.

We’d never ever have to take the bus.

She’d be brave and compassionate and just a little sly.

“A dragon ate my homework” would no longer be a lie!

Oh, and Mom and Dad would both have dragons, too.

We would never really need to see the zoo.

And our family reunions would always be the best

cuz the dragons would invite their family too!

But I don’t have a fifty-foot best friend

with a roar that tells my enemies to scram.

No, I don’t have a dragon in my pocket,

So I guess I’ll have to handle it as I am.

It’d be great to have a buddy several

times as big as me, but now

I’m thinking that a dragon is a

better thing to be

than lonely on the playground

every single day.

How could I be frightened of

the space beneath my bed

if a pile of gold and treasure

is the place I lay my head?

And how could I be lonely when I’m

flying

even if the sky turns gray?

I’d love to be the talk of the town

for burning my bully’s house down,

with blazing breath and burning eyes

a fair trade for the element of surprise.

And I’d love to be incredibly big and strong

but known far and wide for being kind,

so that even if my teeth were sharp and scary,

you’d feel perfectly at ease to tell me

what was on your mind.

But I don’t have a fifty-foot wingspan

or a roar that tells my enemies to scram.

And I don’t have a dragon in my pocket,

So I’m gonna have to handle it as I am.

Someday I’ll have a dragon in my pocket

but for now, I have to handle it as I am.

Shadow Grove Market and Gratitude Returned!

I have to share The Shadow Grove Market‘s post from yesterday, which is in response to my support and encouragement. Because this is absolutely delightful, useful, and true. Hope it encourages you!

This was a thought on my mind today as an outpouring of support for this page has happened. Thanks to SJ Tucker this…

Posted by The Shadow Grove Market on Wednesday, May 20, 2015