gutter sinatra: Denver Tour

gutter sinatra is the music you expect to start blaring out of an abandoned 1977 Ford Bronco. Bit dusty, nostalgic, and a little melancholy. Like Jackson Browne meeting up with Beck for coffee.

gutter sinatra, the musical moniker for acclaimed songwriter and producer Don Miggs, will hit the road for the first time beginning January 20th, supporting singer-songwriter Stephen Kellogg.

The tour will begin in Pittsburgh; roll through the northeast and southeast to include stops in Boston, Philadelphia, Charlotte, and Atlanta; climb the Rocky Mountains to Denver and Boulder; cross the Midwest including the Twin Cities, Milwaukee, Cleveland, and Evanston, IL (Chicago market); before wrapping up at the end of February with shows in Washington, DC and New York City.

The idea of gutter sinatra was born during COVID. The world shut down, and Miggs found himself with time on his hands. After it seemed like things would never return to “normal,” he slowly began drifting back into his studio, and wound up writing words about looking for normalcy in chaotic times. Inspired by ‘70’s radio (because his wife wouldn’t turn off Sirius FM’s “yacht Rock” channel), he’d get an idea; play some drums, drop a little bass and suddenly these shapes were taking form. But the songs weren’t fit for any of the artists that Don was working with pre-pandemic, and they certainly weren’t the positive-forward anthems of his other band, Whole Damn Mess.

Eventually he had a few complete ideas and decided to see if his friend, the legendary Bob Clearmountain, was free to mix some tracks. As luck would have it, Bob was just finishing a project and had a strict ten-day window before beginning another. If Miggs could start immediately and commit to approving one mix per day, he was in.

Ten days, ten songs. Easy. Except Don had only four songs done, so now he had to write, perform and produce six more. Being on the east coast with Bob on the west, Miggs would have a little extra morning time to deliver each day’s song, while getting an extension at night to approve mixes. Wake up and repeat. In the blink of an eye, the project was done.

Then the world woke up and Miggs sought out famed photographer Randall Slavin to take some promo shots and even shot a video for the track “I Kind of Want to Call You”. Then he put it all away for five years.

He explains, “It all just felt too personal. Like something Bob did just for me when we didn’t know if anyone would ever play songs live again or make records. There didn’t seem to be a place for whatever this is, I got busy making other people’s records, and time just passed. Then the fires in LA took Bob’s house and studio, and I realized that we are losing days we won’t get back. We did this thing, and I want to share it. My mantra is “conceive, create, commit, continue” so I had to take my own advice and let this record go.

“These songs were going to sit in the trash before Bob, so when he said yes that gave me the courage to see them through. In the end, I did this record to save my sanity. It was a selfish act of preservation.”