Badlands at TreePeople (photo by Adam Corey Thomas)
Once a month we gather with the heroic environmental stewards of TreePeople to love on live music and hot tea on a ridge trail of the Santa Monica Mountains. Once we’ve held time together to share in meaningful art, warm tea, a sunset, and some conversation, TreePeople’s eco educators split us into three different hiking groups for peoples of all ages and abilities.
Soundtracking the sunset this evening is our old friend David Franklin Courtright. On August 8th David brings their new record Brutal Tenderness into the world, featuring contributions from Julianna Barwick & Chrome Sparks & Ariel Loh & more friends, and we’re grateful to be treated to a first preview of these songs. This is David’s first public performance in a very long time & the first under their own name. Bring a blanket, pour some tea, and bliss in.
Check-in starts at 6:30pm, music shortly after 7pm, and we split into our hiking groups promptly at 8pm. Parking is limited so we ask that you please rsvp with us in advance.
David Franklin Courtright is an LA-based singer, songwriter, musician, poet, writer, and baker.
In 2009, David began writing and recording under the moniker Suno Deko, which was the name he attached to early demos while living in New Delhi, India. For this release, David is stepping away from that project and releasing music under his given name. The reasons for this are many, but the main impetus was a desire to reach new levels of vulnerability and authenticity in his work—to be as sincere as possible. To do that he felt that a nom de plume stood in the way of that desire for connection and expression. In his striving for greater intimacy in the work, with the listeners and in the world, he felt it necessary that it come directly from him, no filter.
While making music under Suno Deko, David had the chance to tour Europe with Wye Oak and Angel Olsen, and has toured and played shows with Hundred Waters, Mitski, Moses Sumney, How to Dress Well, and Julianna Barwick. In 2014, he played the inaugural FORM: Arcosanti festival in Arizona. He has collaborated with Alex Somers, Chrome Sparks, Nicole Miglis (Hundred Waters), and more.