Here’s the next installment of My First Time, the interview series that gives a little peek into the musical firsts of some bands I’ve been crushing on as of late. This go-around it’s Doveman, who is gearing up for a big North American tour in support of his record With My Left Hand I Raise the Dead.

MP3: Doveman – Chasing Clouds

My First Time …with Doveman

First record you bought
Martin Hayes’ self titled record. He’s an Irish fiddler, one of the greatest musicians I’ve ever encountered.

First record that changed your life
Dave Matthews Band Live at Red Rocks.

First concert you attended
A gamelan concert when I was four. I crawled onstage and in among the musicians and lay there listening.

First concert that blew you away
Laurie Anderson performing “Stories From The Nerve Bible.”

First time playing live
The first Doveman show was a horrifying fiasco at CB’s Gallery.

First tour (horror stories, unexpectedly great shows, etc)
We drove across the country in the DoveVan with our friend David Thomas Broughton, listening to Mariah Carey all the way.

First memorably bad/good show
We once played the opening of a mall.

First instrument you learned and/or first piece of equipment you loved
My piano, a turn of the century Steinway A, which I’ve had since I was 12.

First band you were a part of
Sam (Doveman banjoist/guitarist) and I were in a contradance band called Popcorn Behavior that we started when we were 12.

First time getting press and/or being interviewed
Noah Adams interviewed me and Sam on All Things Considered when we were 15.

First song you wrote and/or recorded
Struggling to get over what felt like an insurmountable block against putting my own words to music, the first song I ever wrote was a setting of the Wallace Stevens poem “Of Mere Being”:

The palm at the end of the mind,
Beyond the last thought, rises
In the bronze distance.

A gold-feathered bird
Sings in the palm, without human meaning,
Without human feeling, a foreign song.

You know then that it is not the reason
That makes us happy or unhappy.
The bird sings. It’s feathers shine.

The palms stands on the edge of space.
The wind moves slowly through the brances.
The bird’s fire-fangled feathers dangle down.

First reactions from your family when you played them your music
Confusion.

First musical obsession (band, song, singer, genre or otherwise)
As a very small child, my obsessions were Mozart, Tom Lehrer, and David Byrne.