“Conor Oberst and Friends” LA & NYC residencies for spring 2024
Conor Oberst has unveiled solo residency plans for spring 2024. Dubbed “Conor Oberst and Friends,” the shows will take place each Thursday in March at Teragram Ballroom in Los Angeles and each Thursday in April at The Bowery Ballroom in New York City. Kicking off on March 7, each week he will present a special show with a discography-spanning set-list, surprise guests, and a rotating backing band Full dates below. Tickets will go on sale this Friday, November 17 at 10am local time HERE.
A letter from Conor:
I am very excited about these residencies. This is something that me and my booking agent Eric have talked about for years but the timing was never quite right and now the stars have finally aligned and couldn’t be happier. It will be a lot of work putting together a different band and set every week but it’s a challenge I think will be rewarding. Luckily I have lived in both New York City and Los Angeles off and on for many years and so I have a lot of musician friends to help me out. It will be an experiment for sure. Looking forward to it. Not completely sure how it will all turn out but that is the best part about it.
July tour dates
In July, Conor will tour the Northeast and Midwest with Joanna Sternberg as a special guest. Check your inbox for fans-first information. Tickets are on sale Friday, April 19, 10am ET.
Conor Oberst has partnered with Plus 1 so that $1 from every ticket sold will go to contributing to direct legal and social services for detained men, women, and children under threat of deportation. www.plus1.org
Full dates available on the Shows page.
“The Rockaways” / “No One Changes” digital out now
Buy or stream the new tracks via all digital platforms: “The Rockaways” / “No One Changes”
Seven-inch vinyl pre-order, double A-side is scheduled to ship on/around 2/1.
Two dates with John Prine in November
Conor Oberst has the honor of supporting John Prine for two dates in November as his special guest. General onsale starts 4/18 at 10am CST.
Nov 16 Arvest Bank Theatre at the Midland - Kansas City, MO Find tickets here
Nov 17 Orpheum Theatre - Omaha, NE Find tickets here
photo: Lindsey Best
New Year’s Eve 2017
Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band will play at the Lodge Room in Highland Park, CA, on New Year’s Eve.
Tickets on sale Friday, November 10, Noon, Pacific.
Charlie Rose interviews Conor Oberst
Conor talked to Charlie Rose about songwriting, the making of Salutations, and living life.
The episode features two performances, “Till St. Dymphna Kicks Us Out” and “Mamah Borthwick (A Sketch),” with help from Greg Farley and James Felice on vocals, violin, and accordion.
Tonight he headlines WXPN's Xponential Festival with Hop Along and Wilco. The European and UK leg of the tour starts August 4 with A Summer's Tale.
In memoriam: Denny Brewer
Dennis Teel Brewer Sr. passed away on April 23rd, 2017 at 7:23 pm. He was 73 years old. His family is his wife Norma, daughter Helen, and sons Dennis Jr., Josh, Jesse and Buck. Denny was an amazing man with an amazing life that touched many. He was a professional welder, star athlete and a fantastic musician. Denny was born in Houston, Texas on July 2, 1943, but he grew up in El Paso.
He attended Ysleta High School and was a star football player under coach 'Red' Coats. He graduated in 1962 and attended Texas Western College of the Mines under coach Bum Phillips after turning down a chance to play professional football for the early Dallas Cowboys. His father had warned him that he would probably end up in a lot of trouble on his own in Dallas after all of the wild experiences he had had in El Paso and Juarez at that time. The pay for the Cowboys was only $1600 so it didn't seem like that much of a loss. During his teen years Denny built hot rods in his dad's garage. He built a 1930 Plymouth coupe he nick named “Tweety” that sported a cool yellow paint job, his dragster was nicknamed “Mojo”, after the old blues song “I got my mojo working, but it just don't work on you.” The motor was so hot, he seemed to always break an axle. Probably his fastest car was his 1955 Chevy 4 door station wagon painted black with a Corvette 327 V-8 and 4-speed that could beat dragsters even though it was his tow car. He also built custom chopper motorcycles. His 1967 Shovel Head was built off of a wrecked California Patrol bike he chopped, raked and ran. It was fast. One Arizona Patrol officer clocked him at 120 cruizin' I-10 back from California. He was not a member of any clubs, but he knew the outlaw bikers from these early days, and they respected his custom bike work. He also had a career as a professional boxer, but injury sidelined him before his last fight against Randy “Tex” Cobb.
Denny traveled out to California in the 60's to try and make it in the music industry. He met Mama Cass of The Mamas and the Papas through his artist friends and ended up as a bodyguard instead. He ran with some of the wildest guys of the 60's and 70's like Eagles' Album cover artist Boyd Elder, Grateful Dead artist Rick Griffin and experienced some really incredible adventures in altered realities as well. He shared his experiences through song and story telling. He came back to El Paso and started a family with his wife Norma in the 70's and built his own house on some irrigated farmland in the lower valley. He raised kids, donkeys, hogs, goats, chickens, bulls, dogs, cats, and parrots. He had a natural green thumb and loved to plant fruit and nut trees every year.
He always played music, his grandmother gave him one of those little cowboy guitars in the early 50's and he sang folk music with his sister in the 60's. He loved the Blues, which he learned from watching Long John Hunter and Little Joe Washington at the Lobby night club in Juarez, Mexico. He formed a band with friends called Gasher in the 70's, and then formed his band Refried Ice Cream with his sons in the 1980's. They started playing motorcycle parties and recording their music. They put out cassette tapes and handed one to Stevie Ray Vaughn which led to an invitation to the Memphis Blues Festival, but lack of money held them back. Refried Ice Cream began releasing cds with their studio Lion's Den Productions in the 90’s, albums like Fat and Free, American Dreams, and That State of Mind. All of the songs were played for the first time direct to tape no rehearsal, all spontaneous, as he liked it. On the edge of creativity. Through a good friend, Sonic Ranch studio owner Tony Rancich, he met musicians like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes. He really liked these folks and entertained them with his wild histories and theories. They let Refried Ice Cream open shows for them and Conor Oberst had Denny record some of his intriguing wisdom for his Bright Eyes Album The People's Key. Denny's wild tales are found throughout this awesome album. Team Love Records put out three albums of Refried Ice Cream and it was a great pride of Denny that the album Witness to the Storm received a 4 star rating in the Sunday Times of London in 2011, one of the songs, “Vampires” was also featured in the movie Electric Children also from that year. Denny loved to talk about his wild adventures and the state of the world. He didn't trust the government at all. He always insisted that it is very important to pay attention and be aware. He had been witness to some crazy stuff in his time and he knew how on the edge everything is. He had a strong belief in other realms of existence, something he had already witnessed. He believed in Love and the freedom to live life like you want to. He was an inspiration and a Great Man. He will be missed for a long time.
Denny Brewer is a legend.
New Video for “Barbary Coast (Later)”
Conor’s music video for “Barbary Coast (Later)," directed by Cris Gris, is out now. The song is from his latest album, Salutations, which was released on March 17 via Nonesuch Records.
New tour dates have also been announced in Omaha, Knoxville, Washington, DC, Milwaukee, Chicago, Cincinnati, and more. Fan pre-sale begins on Tuesday, April 4, at noon ET; general on-sale begins on Friday, April 7th at noon ET. Conor will also perform on The Late Late Show with James Corden on May 10. Full tour dates on the Shows page.
New music video for “Till St. Dymphna Kicks Us Out”
The music video for “Till St. Dymphna Kicks Us Out,” which was filmed at the very same bar in Manhattan’s East Village that inspired the song, is out. Its director, Greg Marinaccio, also directed Conor’s “You Are Your Mother’s Child” video.
Conor’s new album, Salutations, will be released on March 17 on Nonesuch Records.
With The Felice Brothers as his backing band, Oberst will tour in support of Salutations beginning March 9 in his hometown of Omaha, with stops at LA’s Greek Theater in May and Celebrate Brooklyn in July. Full dates on the Shows page.
New album “Salutations” coming March 17
Conor Oberst will release a new album, Salutations, on Nonesuch Records, on March 17, 2017.
Pre-Order Salutations Amazon | Nonesuch Store | iTunes
The album is a companion piece to 2016’s Ruminations. When Oberst wrote and recorded the songs on Ruminations, entirely solo — with just voice, piano, guitar, and harmonica—he intended to ultimately record them with a full band. In the midst of putting together that band—upstate New York’s The Felice Brothers plus the legendary drummer Jim Keltner (Neil Young, Jackson Browne, George Harrison, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, and many more)—the passionate responses Oberst was getting to those first solo recordings, from friends and colleagues, encouraged him to release the songs as-is, in their original sparse form, as his seventh solo album: Ruminations, which was released in October 2016.
Meanwhile, Oberst simultaneously moved ahead with his plans to record with the band, heading to the famed Shangri-La Studios in Malibu to record Salutations—co-produced with Keltner and engineered by longtime musical compadre Andy LeMaster. Guest contributions come courtesy of Jim James, Blake Mills, Maria Taylor, M. Ward, Gillian Welch, Gus Seyffert, Pearl Charles, Nathaniel Walcott, and Jonathan Wilson.
Track List:
Too Late to Fixate
Gossamer Thin
Overdue
Afterthought
Next Of Kin
Napalm
Mamah Borthwick (A Sketch)
Till St. Dymphna Kicks Us Out
Barbary Coast (Later)
Tachycardia
Empty Hotel by the Sea
Anytime Soon
Counting Sheep
The Rain Follows the Plow
You All Loved Him Once
A Little Uncanny
Salutations
Salutations includes full-band versions of the ten songs from Ruminations, plus seven additional songs, some from an additional session at Five Star Studios in Echo Park in fall 2016. With The Felice Brothers as his backing band, Conor will tour in support of Salutations beginning March 9 in his hometown of Omaha, with stops at LA’s Greek Theater in May and Celebrate Brooklyn in July. Full dates on the Shows page.
New take on “Ruminations” track “Tachycardia” with unreleased “Afterthought”
For Record Store Day Black Friday 2016, Conor released a new, limited-edition 7" single at independent record shops in the United States.
That single is now available digitally on Apple Music, Spotify, and the Nonesuch Store, where a very limited number of the 7" vinyl is now available as well.
Conor to perform at Sydney Opera House
Conor makes his Sydney Opera House debut with an intimate, solo performance spanning his prolific career.
General ticket information
Tickets on sale at sydneyoperahouse.com
Wednesday 7 December, 9am Sydney Opera House Artist Pre-sale
Friday 9 December, 9am General Public On Sale
Matt Berninger (The National) talks with Conor Oberst for the “Talkhouse” podcast
Listen to Conor on Talkhouse here.
“Jimmy Kimmel Live!” tonight
Conor is the musical guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live tonight. 11:35pm est on ABC. Check your local listings!
Nonesuch to release exclusive vinyl 7-inch for Record Store Day Black Friday, November 25
A new, limited-edition, black 7″ vinyl will be released on Nonesuch Records on November 25, 2016, exclusively as a part of Record Store Day’s Black Friday event at independent record shops. The vinyl features a new full-band recording of “Tachycardia,” a song on Conor’s just-released solo album Ruminations, paired with “Afterthought,” an unreleased track from the Ruminations recording sessions. The disc is being pressed at Record Industry in the Netherlands.
The Black Friday release follows the October 14 release of Ruminations on Nonesuch. “Ruminations is one of Conor Oberst’s most personal records,” says NPR Music‘s Bob Boilen, “a collection of brave, dark songs … that are unmistakably moving and contain some of Oberst’s best lyrics and imagery.”
To get Ruminations now, head to your local record shop, iTunes, Amazon, or the Nonesuch Store, where CD and vinyl orders include a download of the complete album at checkout; the album is also available to purchase there as 192kHz/24bit HD FLAC files.
NPR First Listen Live, album stream, and “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
To mark the release of his new album Ruminations, Conor will perform the record in its entirety to an audience of contest winners at New York City’s Housing Works Bookstore Cafe on the album’s release day, Friday, October 14, 2016.
The performance, co-presented by NPR Music’s Bob Boilen and WFUV Radio’s Rita Houston, will be simultaneously webcast via NPR Music and NPR Music's Facebook page. WFUV.org will host an on-demand audio stream of the concert in the days to follow.
Ruminations will be available to stream exclusively on NPR Music's website beginning September 30 as part of its First Listen series.
Conor also will be the musical guest on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! on October 24th.
“Ruminations”
In the winter of 2016, Conor Oberst found himself hibernating in his hometown of Omaha after living in New York City for more than a decade. He emerged with the unexpectedly raw, unadorned solo album Ruminations, available October 14, 2016, on Nonesuch Records.
“I wasn’t expecting to write a record. I honestly wasn’t expecting to do much of anything. Winter in Omaha can have a paralyzing effect on a person but in this case it worked in my favor. I was just staying up late every night playing piano and watching the snow pile up outside the window. Next thing I knew I had burned through all the firewood in the garage and had more than enough songs for a record. I recorded them quick to get them down but then it just felt right to leave them alone,” says Oberst.
Ruminations is available to pre-order now from iTunes and from Nonesuch.com. Oberst will perform songs from the album at a handful of special solo shows this fall at venues including Carnegie Hall and the Ryman Auditorium.