Playing with the band!
“As the Bombs Rain Down” was the first song I wrote after October 7th, as it was becoming abundantly clear to me and growing numbers of observers that the intentions of the Israeli leadership were to kill everyone in Gaza, or drive them out.
This song will be one of the tracks on the upcoming album, iUteurki vs David Rovics, to be released in October, 2024.
I had the great pleasure of spending much of February, 2024 in France, recording an album and doing a couple of live gigs with a wonderful array of musicians from France, the US, Scotland, and Australia.
The band behind the project — iUteurki — are all residents of southern France. Gregg Weiss, Léa Desplats, Thibaud Pfender, and Paul Gonet. Between them they play a wide variety of instruments — guitars, basses, electric dobros, keyboards, all kinds of percussion and more. We were joined by a bunch of other singers for the project, who people may recognize from previous projects such as Strangers and Friends and Killing the Messenger, Lorna McKinnon and Kamala Emanuel, as well as my daughter, Leila, and Kamala’s daughter, Ro.
The photographer, Isabelle Souriment, took the picture below, and lots of others. She filmed some of our recording sessions, and some of that work appears in the video above, which is otherwise a creation of Gregg Weiss, who is also the producer of the album as well as its sound engineer.
Given that this wonderful band is based in Europe, where I tour often, I’m hoping I might find the sorts of gigs that would warrant bringing a band with me. We’re open to suggestions!