TCE NEWS ARCHIVE
Volume 1, Issue 6
15 November 2025
The Postcard
The term “organic” is like “rockstar”.
Both have been co-opted into different fields as modifier’s to make thing sound like something they’re not.
“He’s a Sales Rockstar.” No, he's a guy who sells computer software.
Our band evolved “organically”, meaning we had no idea what we were doing until we were 3/4 of the way in it. We wrote a bunch of songs and recorded
them. When they sounded good to us, we started thinking that they deserved to be heard by other people. We played them for our friends, who liked them. We spent our own money to make a record. We spent our own money
to go on tour and play them in front of other people. It’s a work in progress. Organic.
1/2 way through our path, we were driving to Seattle and I saw the exit sign for Cle Elum, Wa. (population 1926) It looked cool and i took a picture of it. I though it would look cool on a record cover. It looked like a cool band name, even though I didn't know how to say it.
When I talked to Sarah about it, she told me how to pronounce it and said she used to go camping there all the time when she was growing up. I said I think we should name our band The Cle Elum. She loved it. Organic.
We spent 2 months this year touring around the world, playing our songs and telling people in Norway, Helsinki, Pittsburgh, and all over how to say the word Cle Elum. It means running or flowing water. We told them it’s Kittitas' Indian term. Organic.
The other day we stopped in Cle Elum on our way to Vancouver to start a tour with another band. Our friend Mark has a vintage shop there. He was out of town.
Stewart Lodge had enough room to park our bus and plenty of vacant rooms, since it’s the “off season” We went into the Downtown Association and introduced ourselves.
“Hi, we’re a band and we’re called The Cle Elum” said us.
It made people happy. Organic.
We went into Sunset Cafe and it was free pie Wednesday! FREE PIE. Amazing pie.
The next morning we went looking for a postcard and stepped into most of the shops along the mile long main drag.
Every person we met was wonderful. No postcards.
When we finally stopped into The Jam Shop they had a small handful of postcards from a local artist www.ilovecleelum.com
We wanted to send ourselves a postcard, To The Cle Elum, From The Cle Elum from Cle Elum, postmarked Cle Elum.
A postcard.
A town of 1900 people is small.
Too small for Hallmark. Which means the perfect size.
If Hallmark cards, or whatever giant corporation owns it, is making postcards for the place you live, you are probably in too big a place.
The postcard of we bought in Cle Elum was made by a local artist in Cle Elum.
She built a website. She has an instagram page.
In my view, this is how The American Dream was supposed to go. You find something you care about, you work hard, you earn enough to take care of your family. Once you do that, you chip in to take care of the people around you in your community. The term community has become
like “organic” and “rockstar”.
For a community to survive, it has to exchange goods and services with people outside of that community.
I don’t know how much a mortgage is in Cle Elum. I don't know how many postcards you would need to sell to pay that mortgage. I don't know how many slices of the best pie or how many jars of the best jam you’d need to sell in order to pay a mortgage in Cle Elum.
What I know is that its the right amount.
I know there's amazing hiking and fishing and camping there. I know there's a seasonal economy of people coming in town to experience the perfect balance of a small town and perfect nature.
There's lots I don't know. I know it’s hard, because life is hard for everyone.
When we were touring Europe, we would tell hundreds of people every day how to pronounce Cle Elum, our band name. People were happy about our songs. At one point, I realized that it would be great to be able to say and know that our band is “big” in Copenhagen, or Helsinki.
I don’t know if there's an American Dream left in playing music. I just know it’s important. Playing songs to a room full of people is important.
What I didn't know until now is that we are representing something. It dawned on me, organically.
An unintended consequence of naming our band after a place where Sarah went camping.
We don't live there, but when you go around the world with the name of a small town as your label, you are the diplomats for that name.
We owe the people of this small town a debt. They’d never ask for it, but we’re borrowing a small part of them and taking it around the world and putting its name on our records and t-shirts and singing songs under its banner.
If anyone asks me, I’m going to tell them that Cle Elum is a magical place where you can buy jam and postcards made by real people and if you show up on Wednesday they’ll give you free pie.
It’ll find its way into our songs like any magical place should.
The dream of Cle Elum is our dream, too, now.
ian
Volume 1, Issue 5
15 October 2025
The Couch.
Disclaimer: I don’t think materialistic goals and consumerism is really taking us anywhere we want to go.
Having nice things is nice, but I’ve slept on floors in strangers' houses and been the happiest I can recall.
We’ve been in our house for 3 years and I hate our couch.
It’s always been a placeholder in the main living room. We call the room “the great room” or I say “the room that sold the house”. It’s the center of the common ground of our home. It’s the place where Sarah and I come together and hang as people sharing a life together do.
Our current couch is a nice model from IKEA.
We had just bought our home, had renovations still to do and we were in a creative mode with the phase of creating a home that fit our visions of how we wanted to live; in other words-the future. Which has become now.
Which has revealed that our couch sucks.
It looked good enough in the store and fit our measurements we had for where we wanted to put it, but a great couch was at the low end of the priority list.
It’s functional like IKEA shit is. It’s sleek and modern enough for our “style” but it sucks.
Fast forward a few years and we're on tour in Europe with our buds, Nada Surf.
Now, when you’re on tour in Europe you might find a record or a t-shirt or pair of shoes you like and you buy them because you’ve never seen anything like them in America. In your town. You’ve only got so much space in your luggage and you’re already overloaded because of your guitars and merch and all that.
The last thing in the world you’re going to buy on a European tour, is a couch.
But here we are.
Sarah and I both love this couch we found in Copenhagen.
This couch is so perfect I can’t even believe it exists.
It’s weird. It’s a color I’ve never really seen on a couch and it’s the perfect shape ...and size ...and style and it’s insane how comfortable it is.
I haven't bought it yet, but I’m going to. I can’t stop thinking about it.
The main problem with our current couch is that it’s not really comfortable enough. Definitely not for 2 people to be fully comfortable on: it’s a metaphor for a band and a team and a couple.
Neither of us are comfortable on it and we both have our ideas about what to do about it.
Life is about little things like: do I have a place where my love and I can just sit and touch toes and read our books and not say much?
The challenge of "how to pay for a quality, perfect piece of furniture so we can be even more happy and comfortable watching Netflix together" allows us to come together and problem-solve to get to our goal.
Will it make a better Cle Elum record? Maybe.
The people in every country we’ve played in are absolutely beautiful.
The fans, the staff at the venues, the baristas we find every morning. The day to day people of Europe, the people who I think of as I think of myself, the everyday people, are perfect.
Beautiful, wonderful, perfect examples of human beings.
It’s impossible to get outside of the box of our own thinking when left alone with ourselves, in our own bubbles. I don’t think of myself as closed-minded, but this experience of playing our songs on the opposite side of the world has shown me a kind of language-transcending connection that has restored my faith in both humanity and in the power of music.
Every band says they have the best fans and that it’s all about the fans.
I always just thought the bands were saying what they felt obligated to say. Now I know it's not an obligation, it's a truth.
“Fans” is a succinct way to say “people like me who listen to my songs and feel a connection with them”. I want you to know that I don’t think of people who come to our shows or listen to our music as fans. I just think they’re like me-people who are trying their best to get along in the world: Friends.
I made a lot of friends (you) in Europe.
You mean more to me than I could ever show you and I hope to see you, all my friends, there again soon.
love, always love,
ian
Volume 1, Issue 4
16 September 2025
Newsletter #4
Hi Friend of The Cle Elum Rock Band Project.
I’m writing to you from the dressing room of a venue in Lucerne, Switzerland called Schuur. We, The Cle Elum, are over here in Europe supporting our pals Nada Surf.
They’re on stage right now and sound amazing as always.
We’re three shows in and, between us girls, we’re killing it.
IS IT OK TO IGNORE THE WORLD?
Yesterday, I looked at my news feed and saw an article about the government of France kicking out its Prime Minister or something and that the country was collapsing. This was happening while I was IN France!!!
It was supposed to be happening today.
We were driving from the south of France across the country to the north, while all the American news feeds on all of our phones were saying that the country of France was collapsing. And there it was, the country of France, quietly existing outside our bus windows.
Each night, all over the world, people get together in buildings and sing songs and laugh and cry and hold hands and sing and scream and create their own reality, independent from the outside world, at this thing called a concert.
We’re thousands of miles away from home in a country that speaks a completely different language than the one we sing in and a guy came up to me last night to say “Your songs, they are good, like about life and a story about human connection, yes?” The fact that our music holds this power to transcend language… I wish I had recorded what the guy said.
So, the question is: can we ignore the fear-mongering and simply create the world we want?
I kinda think we can.
Love You,
TCE/Ian
Volume 1, Issue 3
15 August 2025
Newsletter #3
Hello associate of The Cle Elum Rock Band Project.
Over here in TCE land, we’re in the midst of prepping for our upcoming European Tour supporting our pals Nada Surf. Kind of mind-blowing that we have these amazing opportunities to go all over the world playing our songs.
If you haven't yet, check out our new hit single Something In The Water. It’s like a TED talk. It’s got all the positive reinforcement you need to tackle your day.
Use the Force.
Catching the Big Fish
Recently, Sarah read something to me from David Lynch’s book Catching The Big Fish that’s been bubbling under my skin for the last few days. In it Lynch writes that it’s not the job of the film maker to explain the film to the viewer; if the film doesn't say what you want to say then the film is not complete. In other words, the moment the film maker has decided that the film is complete is the moment the film maker is done explaining the content of the film.
My day job took me to the Newport Folk Festival - one of the truly magical musical experiences left - where I watched Sammy Rae and The Friends play and they floored me.
Absolutely one of the best live bands I've ever seen… and I’ve seen a lot.
Sammy Rae is an absolute superstar. One of the most engaging front persons I’ve ever seen. Their music is positive as opposed to hipster, jaded, too cool. Their energy and obvious joy in what they’re doing made me examine my own paradigm. Sammy Rae was not what I expected. Their genre is not usually my kind of thing. Caught me totally off guard. I literally hugged and cried on their shoulder after they walked off stage. They cried too. It was really special.
Afterward, I was telling someone about the experience and how through it I recognized that I was feeling a kind of burnt out, weird bummed out feeling over the past month or so. I was telling them that I had to fight from becoming jaded within myself. Struggling to pinpoint exactly what I was feeling, I used those heavy words, but started cracking up with the realization…. The first line of our song Old Fucks is “I don't know if i was jaded, or if i just faded.”
It made me laugh. I’d already articulated exactly what I was trying to say in a song that I had written.
The newsletter format fits in with what I think my core philosophy is: that all of the answers we seek are inside of us and they are universal.
When a person comes up to me to say that a song of mine helped them or touched them in any way is incredibly validating. It proves to me that my ideas exist inside other people. That the truth I’m communicating in the isolation of my studio is awakened in a stranger on the other side of the world.
I realize that I say things like this over and over in the newsletter partly because I like it, but partly because I never quite get the holistic response I crave from the pure writing of the songs. So, with that I've got a new chapter of this newsletter I’d like to launch here called
All The Right Questions.
This is a further attempt to create the connection and community that we all crave, but around our band.
SO, you - the readers of this here newsletter - are the first wave..
the early adopters
the core competence(..s?)
the most aware
the leaders of the pack
I’d like to introduce a special insider project.
I’ve set up an email that is only going to be available inside this newsletter.
A confidential one that I’ll put at the end of this section if you promise to keep it between us girls.
This is the email straight to my heart.
Me.
Ian.
The use of this is going to be for me to pose a question on something that I want to get your feedback on.
Open source; Open line of direct communication.
So question #1…. (Just put the question number in the subject line and hit me with your response.)
Question 1….
What do you think the optimum size of a group is (how many people)?
Why do you think that?
No right or wrong. Just an open invitation to conversation. No assumptions. Just a sincere, unloaded question.
Hit me.
Here’s the secret email addy. _____ SHHHHHHHH: LudwigStreetDrummer@gmail.com
ian
Volume 1, Issue 2
16 July 2025
By the time this newsletter comes out, it will have been announced that The Cle Elum will be opening for Nada Surf on the September leg of their European tour. (hell yeah)
For a full list of Nada Surf Tour Dates and ticket links click here
Newsletter #2
Went to sleep then woke up at 2:30 am and started reading the Tom Beaujour Lollapalooza book. [Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock’s Wildest Festival by Richard Bienstock and Tom Beaujour] Then I decided to jump out of bed and document my thoughts for you, the reader, as a glimpse into the life of a touring person.
I’m in King of Prussia, PA, outside of Philly. I just drove in from Billings, Montana after dropping off a band called Amble from Ireland. We were supporting the artist Hozier. Now I’m on tour with the band Dawes.
I texted Sarah earlier and was looking for something to eat. She said that King of Prussia has a famous mall. I ate in the mall food court.
This is some overlap between my bus driver hat and my songwriter/lead singer of The Cle Elum hat. I run my bus company and drive bands around to pay my bills and keep our life going.
The Lolla book. Which I’m enjoying partly because it's about the influence of Lollapalloza on our culture & partly because it's about the touring and how it evolved… and I’m on tour right now.
The book, chapter 4-ish:
Nine Inch Nails. At the cusp of their success. Playing an aggressive mid-day set.
If you’ve seen the Head Like A Hole video then you get the picture.
​
In the book, Richard Patrick from Filter (originally in NIN and on that early Lollapalooza tour) says that in the middle of all the self-destructive anarchy - of smashing guitars, throwing beer at the audience and breaking shit - they became aware of the opportunity that Lollapalooza was giving them by putting them in front of larger audiences than they could pull on their own.
NIN knew that this show was a turning point, an opportunity for them, and they were not going to waste it.
The Cle Elum opening for Nada Surf is not unlike NIN playing in the middle of the day at Lollapalooza. Thankfully, without the self-destructive anarchy, we recognize these tours as an incredible opportunity and we’re not going to waste it.
Obviously, NIN accomplished exactly what they set out to. It's inspired me to want to succeed in connecting with every single person who comes across our path with these songs and our band. And it made me realize that playing for people is an opportunity to connect for life.
​
Which is what I want to keep doing
so we can keep hanging
​
Love,
TCE/Ian
Buy the Lollapalooza book. It's a compilation of first hand accounts.
Read it and enjoy it.
Volume 1, Issue 1
13 June 2025
Welcome and What Will Never Change.
Hi friend of The Cle Elum. This is Ian.
Welcome to the first issue of our band newsletter. Thank you for subscribing to it.
In a world of constant change, I want to start off this first issue by just promising you, the
recipient, of a couple things that will never change.
1. we wont sell or give your data away to anyone unrelated to our little rock band.
2. we wont try to sell you stuff that doesn't have anything to do with our rock band.
3. we will try to be respectful of your time and only give you stuff we think you wanna read.
Unlike clicking like or follow or whatever social media buttons you might push, giving us your email address is a special kind of first date. I use a burner email for this kind of thing, but even still, if you’re anything like me, you don't give it away to just anyone. So thank you.
What Happened:
We just finished our tour of US cities supporting Nada Surf. Hopefully you caught one or more of the shows. They were life changing for me and us. To be honest, I still don't fully understand why.
A little back story about myself. I was once a drummer. Still am technically, but as you see, Sarah is the drummer in The Cle Elum. She's also my life partner/soul mate.
As a drummer myself, I’ve played hundreds of shows to all sizes of audiences. I know what it's like to get on stage behind a drum kit and bash.
What you might not know, is that this batch of songs that make up our debut album are just that, the first batch of songs that I’ve written with the help of Sarah on drums.
Writing songs is sort of a new experience to me, so I still find it fascinating and engaging and incredibly satisfying. The writing and creation of the songs is one subject and the performance of the songs is another, separate subject. At least in my mind they are.
I’ve been playing in bands (drums and singing back up harmonies) for over 40 years.
The world and life seems somewhat isolated to me. How about you? Do you feel that too? I speak to its of people and it seems most people feel this way-Isolated.
I can tell you that I never used to feel this way ever, and I can also tell you that i started to notice it around the time that the internet and smart phones became more and more common. Today, I can see that the more this has continued, the more people feel isolated.
This seems like it should be the opposite.
What I know is that i used to carry songs with me all the time in my head, and I never felt alone.
I’m not sure that I do that as much any more. Why would I? I’ve got Spotify! Weird right?
I have a hunch that i didn't know what i wanted to say until now. Thats why I started writing these songs. Way past the point where I had awesome hair, but when I had awesome hair, I don't know what I would have said. Funny how life seems to work that way.
During this tour I had many things happen to me that most people in the world would think are irrelevant. I didn't go viral. I didn't make millions of dollars. I didn't change the world. We didn't get a record deal.
What happened was this:
I saw you mouthing the words to a couple of my songs.
I saw you smile.
I saw you stop talking to the person next to you and look at me and listen.
In a couple of cities, you shouted out requests of songs. Our songs.
You came up to me and told me you had been listening to our record.
After every song in every city, you cheered and clapped.
When I walked through the crowd of you’s, you took the time to tell me that you liked the show. Shaking my hand and fist bumping because you're a germaphobe (kidding).
These interactions were the most meaningful experiences I’ve had with other people in easily 20 years. About the amount of time that the internet has taken over our lives.
You might have known or read that we have a bus business and we tour with other bands as their crew. You might have bought a shirt from Sarah at a Nada Surf show or one of the other bands we work for. This is our day job and its incredibly satisfying to work as support staff for artists we are deeply about. We are incredibly lucky to have built the life we have.
It is nothing compared to the gifts you have given us with your attention to our songs.
These songs are the most important thing I’ve ever done. Some are silly, some are tongue in cheek. Hopefully they're all stuck in your head. That's where I want them to live. I want these songs to be there for you if you hit a rough patch.
I never thought that I was getting older until i hit my mid 40’s, when i started wearing reading glasses. That shit sneaks up on you. I don't think I ever plan to accept age. I promise to dress like a 15 year old me until the day i die.
I’m going to try to write these types of thoughts down once a month into this newsletter and I hope you get something out of them. I hope you write back.
I’ll send you updates and new songs and tour announcements and all that stuff too. You can buy a shirt or mug if you feel so inclined.
Mostly I want you to know that your attention means everything to us.
When the internet explodes I hope you carry our songs in your head until we find our way back to each other.
Until next month
ian TCE