For what I wonder

Some things I see sometimes.

Good afternoon, it’s been a little longer than usual for a website update. Let me play some catch up here as my dear augustus has arrived.

Well, let me start by saying that the frogs are growing up and the midnight chatter that filled my rustic dwelling under the oaks has dimmed and been replaced with summer spider web mazes, to many to count. I suppose the summer will be with us a little longer but there’s no doubt that the shadows of these oaks have started to cool already as autumn she has been poking her head around.

Enough of that.

With the "Breakers" Vinyl and CD pressings close to release and a few music videos on the way, I’ve just been busy doing other artsy things behind the scenes to support the Breakers record. I’m somewhere in a valley right now, hugging the Red River in BOK, licking wounds that will heal in 6 months’ time. I’m literally standing at the precipice of a very important moment of my life. It’s exciting. There’s an old saying I grew up admiring, it’s this very saying that would wake me at 4:00am to train before work when I was young. It’s what made me sit at my piano for hours for years for decades… singing scales… blowing out my voice and healing and doing it all over again and again and again. I just always believed that you need to be ready for anything, especially the things that dreams are made of.

Preparation + opportunity = success.

It’s a religion really. Once I was a solo artist with a manager and a song that was climbing the charts, and so my manager set up a few meetings with all the major record labels, publishing companies and entertainment lawyers in New York. It came after many many years of failed projects. So I flew into town with my long black leather and fur brimmed coat and strolled in and out of strange penthouse offices filled with executives all across the new York skyline. It was strange experience. I was in their world. I had prepared for many years for that moment, but you certainly could tell that something magic was in the air and that without all the countless hours of trying and trying and failing and trying again I don’t think I would have succeeded that day. I did sign with a major label and there was a lot of greasy palms and dirty contracts involved in such a thing, that’s pretty normal in this line of work, it’s almost a blessing that it all crashed and burned shortly after. So what’s the point of this tale? Well, there will be moments that define your time here on earth. You will get chances if you put yourself in the path of the storms. More than one perhaps. So, what are you waiting for.

Lately I’ve been preparing... not yesterday… not two weeks ago.. years and decades ago. For what I wonder. For a heart felt record to fall into obscurity or for a world tour that spans the entire globe. A rusted caravan of sharp witted characters drugged up on noisy passions, crossing the plains in a metal space ship echoing the nightly live electric reverberations of my breakers record to strange and distant masses searching for their own meaning out there in the darkness. Is that what I’m to do here..? Mr Evermore? Hello?

Well, thank you all for the recent comments and emails and for simply listening to “Beyond the Breakers”, I am forever grateful. LITR music video is coming soon.

Thanks

-j

Not Another More

The room was quiet. just the late light was spilling through the back room.. a cluttered place filled with things from broken towers.

 “Hello my lord”

Hadder was startled and jumped.

Hadder: “Hello? Mr Evermore? Is that you?… Where have you been?”

“I’ve been here.. watching... you fool. Do you think I wouldn’t see that fire in my Canyon. What’s wrong with you my friend.. I’ve been waiting to see who you would become.. the hole you dug was deep my friend. I wasn’t surprised. Did you smell the sage? How was your sleep?”

Hadder: “What do you mean?”

“The sage… it was poisoned you know.. Do you remember the fire? Have you had any dreams lately…”

(a soft laughter echoed off the wooden floors.. a low rumble that shook his very being)

Hadder  “Who are you?”

“Well.. let’s just say I’m from that place that never was.. even though you think you know. I am many things some of which you wouldn’t understand. I planted these oaks.. for you actually. Did you think I would leave you to die my little dead rabbit?”

(The oak branches tapped on the windows and scrapped the wooden roof overhead like a child dragging his fingers over a chalkboard.)

“It’s time I came back.. although it seems like it was so long ago… time really is nothing to me.. you’ve only just begun to awaken. You really weren’t ready yet.. for what is coming. But we started with small steps.. I’m proud of you although you really have been fucking around lately and I thought it was time to remind you again.

Hadder: Time for what? Remind me of what?

“Time to give you some more pages. Some more memories. You didn’t think you thought all this stuff up yourself, did you? Zabble, Evermore, BOK… dear lord Johnny or Hadder or who ever the hell you think you are today, a rabbit maybe who still believes he is imagining things under some oaks he accidentally stumbled into.

(A deep sigh rattles the twisted oak branches like thunder)

“I made this forest for you long ago.. it sat quiet for thousands of years. each tree was handpicked and sculpted from a tiny seed. “Master of the weeds”? Did you hear them last night? Have you noticed they follow you in the yard? Did you think these hadder tales were your doing? Ha my dear Johnny… when will you finally wake up. Oh you’ve hardly crawled from the twisted roots of your prison. It’s time to rise now and look around a bit more.”

Have you seen Zabble lately ?

(a strange laughter could be heard again. echoing in every room of this dwelling just as a large tree branch feel on the roof with a loud bang that literally sent chills up Hadders back. Jups took to the air and flew into a small hidden crack in the ceiling.)

Hadder: “Who are you?”

“The man behind that old door.. where you first started to remember.

Hadder: Remember what? Where does the door go?

“Hhhhh… young Hadder…. Enough of this “dilly dally”..  you should try to stay awake. The night.. oh she’s so dark just before the day light breaks. If you need me.. I’ll be inside the silver lights you hung. I’ll be watching your fire closely.. stay awake.. the things you need will come in due time.”

(The room grew very quiet and dark as the sunlight slipped below the horizon. Hadder sat in the dark thinking about that old place… and the doorway in the dream and the fire that changed his life. “Who’s the man” he still wonders. In the dark a few soft whispers could be heard… . “Not another more”... “Not another more.” They said… trailing off into the shadows of the day.)

Gold Rush and The lost ducklings

Image: A little graphic I was working on of my dear friend Klipso who sings to me each night here under the oaks. Who knows what he's eating out there each night.

Good morning in late April. It’s been a little longer than usual for an update, but, the wheels are still turning in the Hadder camp. How about a little update on some things.

I’ll be honest. I’m floating in the calm of the storm. The eye is above me. I might be enjoying my life under the oaks a little too much lately. I am a creature of nature and lately spring has been transforming my little mountain hideaway. A lot of what is happening to me lately has to do with what happened to me years ago. When I left my old mountain up on corral canyon and began this “Breakers” record, I always longed to return to the canyons. I was displaced, and in that displacement, I wrote the music for the first Diamonds Hadder record. But what now? I’ve come back to the oaks now but the wind she blows slightly different than she did before. Grief, she laid waste to the things I knew. The trees are grown up and wondering who the hell I am. There’s a great spirit here that I don’t really know. The nighttime here is filled with noises that make me want to sob in a happy way. The wolf certainly roams this land. I wander around in the yard cleaning the place up and repairing the towers that were here in the hopes of mending my soul. Hoping the blues and the birdfeeders will heal the broken heart I’ve carried for the last 6 years or so. Skinks and quails and tree frogs are invading my land. On the horizon I see a new record being born before my eyes, a record called “The Oaks”. A record about redemption and rebirth. Slowly I’ve been building the inside of this place. The center room, surrounded by the outer walls of this dwelling is where I’ve been spending most of my time. Designing the tower that will channel this new endeavor. My Noctua is ready now. In 1970, a record called “After the Gold Rush” was recorded in these very woods. This place also spawned The DOORS, “Roadhouse Blues”. It has a dark past as well, as its the place that Charles Manson called home when he arrived in Los Angeles. One thing is for sure, The lure of these oaks is mysterious and inviting and I can’t help but smile a twisted little grin at the thought of what I might create here musically in the coming months. Klipso sleeps very close these days and nights but the floors here they stay very cold as though they resent the warmth and coming of spring. I burn a lot of wood here and I think it's time I let the birds be birds.

Breakers Vinyl: As far as I know, the vinyl is in some stage of the manufacturing process somewhere in Europe. I've approve the vinyl remaster and it sound really good, much better than the digital release. You'll see soon enough. I wont say who did it just yet, but I'm very grateful for the work they put into it. They have now etched their name on this little breakers record of mine. I feel like during the making of the record “what was being recorded” always more important to me than “how it was recorded” and for that reason each song took on a life and sound of its own depending on what tower the song was recorded in. For that reason, the remaster was a bit tricky. The engineer had his hands full but he certainly reached for the gold and came away with some shiny stuff in the end. You can’t save every little ducking during a flood, but you can save most of them. That’s my philosophy on recording. Do your best to get it right, and don’t focus on the failures, instead… rejoice in the small victories and magic moments and move on to the next battle.

LITR: “Long Is the Road” Music video is in the editing stages. This is where I’ll be if you need me this spring. Knock loud because it’s noisy in here. I hope to be conjuring up something visually special. Something deserving of this record. Something maybe different than what we normally see. I’m in that world now and it’s a lonely but creative place where I’m painting the walls as I see fit and designing the rooms inside of the rooms without a single expectation. I aim to serve the thing that gave me this record. I serve the reasons this song exists and that’s all. Without a time limit and without a care about outcomes.

I suppose that’s all for now. Interesting times we are living in. Is it really that interesting or is this how it’s always been? Angry mobs and Sothern cross winds. Crooked politicians and hippie cults. Somewhere in the middle of it all, the Goat is hinting at a return to set things right and old music is growing ever more older under these same old twisted oaks that now have a hold of me. Ezra just grumbled, she grows tired of my philosophical meanderings. Ha. “Oh Really, girl. Go play with Jups.” I heard some advice yesterday, it was “Stay strong and hang in there.. I’m on it”, it came from above the trees. I’ll say the same to you.

Farewell friends

-j