upcoming

Peter Mulvey

What:

The Recumbent Guitarist.

Some thought guitarist/songwriter Peter Mulvey stole the show when he came through town in the spring of 2008 on a tour opening for Patty Larkin. Mulvey is a hell of a flat-picking guitar player, and the relaxed banter between his well-crafted songs seemed to click with the local folk audience. He’s the kind of guy who would be right at home at an Arcata Green Wheels benefit, in part because he’s been doing regular tours hauling his guitar from town to town on a recumbent bicycle.

How did he end up being a bicycling musician? “What happened, I was playing music at this place called Café Carp in Fort Atkinson, Wisc. about 55 miles from my house,” he recalled, calling from his home in Milwaukee. “Quite a while ago I’d reached the point where I can do 55 miles on a bike. I thought, if I could figure a way to attach my guitar to the bicycle, I could ride to work. That was a relatively innocent thought; then I had the second thought, which was, ‘Boy, then I’d only be 35 miles from Madison, and I could bike there and do a little tour.’ So I arranged a little Wisconsin tour, maybe seven or eight shows, 400-500 miles, and it went great. I did it again the next year, then this last September I did a tour that went from here in Milwaukee all the way to Boston - a thousand miles.

Of course he doesn’t just bicycle for his health. “Obviously there’s a statement being made: If I can bike to work, hundreds and hundreds of miles, then anybody can bicycle to work - but the truth is, it’s just a spectacularly fun way to travel and see the world. The tour I just did, I had four friends with me and it was an amazing experience. It was like something from an old storybook about a band of travelers - like a gypsy caravan, if it had GPS devices and a tour schedule.”

His 12th album, Letters from a Flying Machine, intersperses songs with spoken word sections, letters to young nieces and nephews (written on airplanes) with his thoughts on the state of modern civilization. “The entire record is about time and love and responsibility - great big ideas. I’m the kind of guy who thinks a lot about why we’re here and what we owe each other. Frankly, it’s all tied up together.”

Why are we here? “Good God, I don’t know,” he says with a laugh. “I have figured out that I’m unlikely to get an answer - I’m willing to bet the farm on that.”

Mulvey hops on another plane this week, flying to Seattle to begin a tour that will take him down the coast to San Diego. He’ll be traveling (not by bike, in some sort of environmentally friendly motor vehicle) with Krista Detor, an HSU grad who spent part of the summer living in Charles Darwin’s former home in Shrewsbury, England working on The Darwin Song House project, which culminated in a BBC documentary and a CD.

*The Mulvey/Detor tour hits Arcata Tuesday, Nov. 10, for a concert at the Arcata Playhouse (in the Old Creamery Building, 1251 9th St.). Showtime is 8 p.m. For further details go to www.arcataplayhouse.org or call 822-1575. To hear some of Mulvey’s music go to www.petermulvey.com.

When/where: