Adam Marsland was in Texas last week, spent the weekend in Tennessee and makes his way through North Carolina this week before finding his way to Galaxy Hut next Monday.
The singer, songwriter and keyboardist for Los Angeles-based band Cockeyed Ghost (named after a 1920s children's book) will almost be at the mid-point of his 93-day, 75-show solo tour of the states, when he plays his March 18 show in Arlington.
So far, he said, the shows have been mostly his own music, not many covers. But that still means readily accessible music, combining the sounds of Marsland's biggest influences: early Elton John, Brian Wilson, 1970s AM radio and early British punk music.
Marsland said he was looking forward to his stop at the Hut. "I like that club. It's a good size," he said, for the type of music he plays. The full band played there last in April 1999, the end of their last national tour.
It's an impressive tour to make, but it's not the only one Marsland's been on this year. "I will have done 200 shows in the course of a year," he said, including an 80-day tour this past fall, and a 40-day tour last spring.
"The one-word secret to touring is sleep," he said. "If you get enough, it's good. If not, it sucks."
He's been playing one-night shows in strange towns for years — Cockeyed Ghost formed in 1994. Marsland has been touring since, with various incarnations of the band and solo.
This tour's a little different though. Marsland made the decision to go on the road, supporting Cockeyed Ghost's 2001 album, "Ludlow 6:18," last fall. He had shows lined up, had his life taken care of, until the week before he was due to hit the road.
Then, his father died.
It was not a surprise, he wrote in an on-line journal, but still a blow. "It hasn't affected my performances, but it has affected my outlook, and my strength," he said. "It took the fun out of it. It made me less buoyant, more somber."
That was only the most recent blow to the Marsland and the band. In 1999, with little warning, their record deal collapsed as their label was sold.
The loss of a label, and the deaths of some acquaintances, led to a kind of annus horribilis for Marsland, the end result of which was "Ludlow 6:18."
The album mixes power-pop hooks with almost bleak lyrics — three songs deal explicitly with death, one is a mocking account of a winter depression, another documents the collapse of the label deal. But in each, Marsland holds out some faint hope of redemption, even if it does come too late.
The album is autobiographical, he said. "Nearly all of it was inspired by something real, then I hyperbolize," he said.
"Is Ginna Ling true?" he said. "Yup." The song tells of the suicide of a fan and friend, the object of long-distance infatuation for the narrator.
That song, and Foghorn, centering on the death of a father, have become central to many of the shows on the tour. They are the "most resonant," in light of his father's death, Marsland said. "They resisted interpretation solo. But I've been able to adapt them, and it has worked."