BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//360exp//Calendar//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH X-WR-CALNAME:360exp REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H X-WR-TIMEZONE:America/Los_Angeles BEGIN:VEVENT UID:5f9cdfa1-04f2-4314-a088-00a2ed19205c@360exp.net SEQUENCE:29843046 DTSTAMP:20260928T150700Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260928T080605Z DTSTART:20261008T030000Z DTEND:20261008T060000Z SUMMARY:Dean Johnson\, Emily Hines LOCATION:Zebulon DESCRIPTION:**Dean Johnson**\n\n**Emily Hines**\n\nWith I Hope We Can Still Be Friends\, his debut for Saddle Creek\, Dean Johnson makes a pact with the listener: He will sing you his truth in the most heartfelt and charmin g way possible\, if you promise to keep an open mind.\n\nThe title partly stems from the playful way the Seattle-based singer\, songwriter and guita rist communes with his audiences at concerts. “I hope you’re not afrai d to talk to me after the show\,” he’ll say\, sweetly\, before launchi ng into “Death of the Party\,” the album’s seventh song. Centered on the “energy vampire” archetype — the exasperating windbag we’ve a ll encountered at some point — its lyrics are at once intellectually bit ing and unmistakably hilarious. His tender voice rings out like the ghost of Roy Orbison or a misfit Everly brother.\n\n“Words don’t come easily to me / I notice you don’t have that problem / It sounds to me you cann ot stop them\,” Johnson sings over acoustic guitar strumming\, and gentl e bass and drums\, like the narrator in a dark comedy whose coming-of-age misadventures have made for an excellent film.\n\nJohnson spent years tend ing bar at Al’s Tavern in Seattle’s Wallingford neighborhood. There\, he encountered folks of all stripes\; and regulars enthusiastically murmur ed about his budding musical greatness — There’s the best songwriter i n town! Johnson was a kind of local lore\, a long-held family secret\, bef ore the singer finally broke out in 2023 with his debut album\, Nothing Fo r Me Please\, at age 50.\n\n“‘Death of the Party’ is a great example of that\,” he says of the sociological experience of bartending. “Bei ng in that environment\, lyrics did solidify. If I was working on a song\, it wasn’t unusual for some new aspect of it\, or a line that was too va gue\, to suddenly come into focus.”\n\nI Hope We Can Still Be Friends is essentially an anthology that bridges Johnson’s earliest days as a song writer with his present-day outlook and abilities. There are songs that ha ve been in his setlists for years\, and others that will be new to fans. E ach of its 11 tracks contains jocular social commentary or lovingly render ed affairs of the heart. The album’s songs about love and relationships offer another way to interpret its title: as a parting thought to an ex.\n \nLike all of Johnson’s cable-knit writing\, the title is a clever banne r for the album’s dual nature\, the thing that binds its tragedy and com edy masks. Johnson explains that he didn’t set out to make a concept alb um. It’s a coincidence that about half of the album’s songs are a bit sardonic\, and the other half are more lighthearted. The singer playfully refers to the former as his “mean” songs\, which is why the album’s back cover is adorned with a warning that says “Beware of Dean.”\n\nLi ke John Prine or Kris Kristofferson’s country-adjacent sound\, devastati ng humor and economical profundity refracted through a barroom’s haze\, the album is filled with easygoing twang\, sad characters\, universal trut hs and the absurdity of everyday life. “Carol” recounts the numb consu mption and dissipating cultural attention that is besieging America. There ’s a search for optimism amid meditations on dying in a plane crash in “Before You Hit the Ground.” Romance that is best forgotten steers “ So Much Better” — only Johnson could weave electroconvulsive therapy i nto a gentle\, chuckle-inducing missive on unbearable heartbreak.\n\nI Hop e We Can Still Be Friends floats in a liminal plane between timely and tim eless\, its minimalist instrumentation elevating Johnson’s affecting voi ce to new heights. Recorded at Unknown Studio in Anacortes\, Washington\, the record was produced by Sera Cahoone — the Seattle-based singer-songw riter Johnson describes as a “soulmate sibling.” Overdubbing took plac e at Seattle’s Crackle & Pop!\n\nFor the sessions\, Johnson assembled a small band of friends including Abbey Blackwell (bass\, backing vocals)\, multi-instrumentalist Sam Peterson and Cahoone (drums\, backing vocals)\, who created a familial tone on the already intimate album. I Hope We Can S till Be Friends\, with its sharp observations and stirring personal insigh ts\, holds space for both intense reflection and emotional release. You ma y laugh\, or cry or both. In this sense\, the album is powerful medicine — a way to both expose yourself to and inoculate yourself against the ug ly\, absurd\, existential and heartbreaking. At its core rests a basic tru th that is often difficult to remember or accept: Happiness wouldn’t exi st without sadness as its counterpart.\n\nOn his uncanny ability to so cle arly see and then encapsulate humanity in all its messy glory\, Johnson of fers this core memory\, drawn from his childhood on Camano Island in the P uget Sound. “I was raised on a bluff\,” he says. “I’m not trying t o make it sound dramatic\, but I did have a sweeping view.”\n\nBoletos: https://dice.fm/event/oe7r2y-dean-johnson-emily-hines-7th-oct-zebulon-los- angeles-tickets URL;VALUE=URI:https://360exp.net/events/5f9cdfa1-04f2-4314-a088-00a2ed19205 c STATUS:CONFIRMED END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR