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New LIVE Contenders video & Tour Dates, Solo JN dates in NYC & MD

New LIVE Contenders video & Tour Dates, Solo JN dates in NYC & MD

Wow. “Summertime done come and gone…my oh my!” ;-) What a summer it has been. We are still riding the emotional high from The Contenders’ Summer tour of Netherlands and Germany. Our hearts are overflowing with gratitude to everyone who helped organize the shows and makes them such an incredible success. Our first show of the tour felt like a ‘home run’ and we even said to each other on the drive…

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Spring 2016 Tour Dates - TFDI at SPACE

Spring 2016 Tour Dates – TFDI at SPACE

N   E   W   S   L   E   T   T   E   R I wish that I could report that Spring has sprung up here in the North. This morning, I woke to find 4 inches of fresh snow, a balmy ambient temperature of 55 degrees fahrenheit in my bathroom and a frigid 5 degrees above zero, outside. Weird weather. Oh well. Springtime is the right time for making the rounds and making music and we have much to be excite…

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  N   E   W   S   L   E   T   T   E   R       CONCERT WINDOW – MON 3.7.16 – 10:30PM EST / 7:30PM PST   Just in case you haven’t been following the storyline at home, these online broadcasts are the best thing to happen to music since electricity. This coming Monday, I’ll play the ‘over you’ EP along with ‘all the stars in copenhagen’…in their entirety. The broadcast is FREE for all to enjoy…

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December 2015

Hi there.   First off, I must convey massive and sincere gratitude for making this solo acoustic tour such a joy so far.  Any bit of trepidation that I might have had about setting out on the road on my own after a year’s worth of Contenders gigs, was quickly obliterated by your support. Thank you…a million times.   CYBER MONDAY: I am fully familiar with the excitement (an anxiety) that the…

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I returned home just a week ago from Europe after three weeks on the road with The Contenders. As much as I’m enjoying this time home in Vermont, I have my sights set on what’s to come later this fall.   FREE MUSIC:   If you’re new to the mailing list, thank you for signing up! If you’ve been here for a minute, thanks for reading this. As a small token of appreciation, here is some free music –…

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Tour Diary, 10.7.15

After a few days at home with my family, and a couple of stolen moments to look back and reflect on three weeks of non stop running, my heart is full. We ( The Contenders) played one thousand seat theaters, we played packed clubs, we played empty clubs, we played living rooms, bars and and a German television station. We traveled by plane, train, automobile and even managed to sneak in a boat…

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New EP with Garrison Starr: 'Eyes of a Dreamer'

New EP with Garrison Starr: ‘Eyes of a Dreamer’

  Last July, during the week of rehearsals leading up to Rock for the River, (the benefit concert that I produce each year around the fourth of July in support of the non-profit, Save the River), Garrison Starr and I spent some time working on finishing a song that I had started the week before.  Garrison’s voice is one of my favorite voices in the world and, in a lot of ways, she is the sister…

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Summer 2015 Update

Lots to report here.   IN LOS ANGELES, AUGUST 19TH WITH GARRISON STARR:   I am very excited to announce a special, one night only event in Los Angeles.  On Wednesday, August 19th, my soul sister, Garrison Starr and I will be returning to our old stomping grounds, Room 5 on North La Brea Avenue to share songs, harmony and undoubtably, laughter.  We will also be celebrating the release of an EP…

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Goodness gracious. Fall is off to a spectacular start. . I hope that the same is true for you,…

Goodness gracious. Fall is off to a spectacular start.

. I hope that the same is true for you, wherever this finds you. For me, fall has become touring season and so now, the road calls. I returned home to Vermont last week from an incredible couple of weeks in the Netherlands and Germany, where I played eleven concerts in eleven days, with a few radio and video tapings thrown into the mix for…

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Spring 2014

THE LATEST AND GREATEST:

Since wrapping the tour with Martin Sexton** at the end of March, I have been working away in the studio here in Vermont.  I am just now putting the finishing touches on a beautiful full length record for Montreal’s ‘Sweet Talking Liars’.

  (Yes…they named themselves after one of my songs.  So…how could I not agree to produce their record?)

  I’m also deep into the…

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Thanks for an incredible Winter tour

Thanks for an incredible Winter tour

Thank you guys for showing me such an incredible time to kick of 2014. This last month and a half has been an unforgettable experience. Thanks especially to Martin Sexton and crew for sharing his audience and music with me for 17 shows on his juggernaut Winter Tour.  

After 28 shows and tens of thousands of miles, I’m back at home in Vermont, working on new music and in the early stages of…

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Greetings - I hope that you had a beautiful Thanksgiving with people you love and survived Black…

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New Daytrotter Session, February 2014 Tour Dates

Greetings!  

2013 has been a truly rewarding and memorable year of touring and making music. As the cold weather approaches, I find myself looking back on so many great moments making music in clubs, bars, churches, theaters and festivals, and at music…

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A few thoughts on Rock for the River

The 1000 Islands is a land lost in time. Not a whole lot has changed up there in the last 100 years or so. Back in the late 1800s, it was one of the most popular vacation spots in the Northeast for residents of not only upstate New York, but also NYC, Boston and Philadelphia.

  Almost every positive memory from my youth and formative years came from the time that I spent on the St Lawrence River.  I grew up and went to grade school in Manlius, a small village, just outside of Syracuse, NY however, I spent much of my summer and nearly every weekend from May through November in the 1000 Islands in Clayton, NY.

  I remember the feeling as a  child that it almost seemed impossible for the River and Syracuse to exist on the same planet...let alone the same state.  The 1000 Islands seemed to be a place almost entirely insulated from the negative trappings of everyday life.  It was just the opposite - with people running around in boats, permanent smiles plastered upon their faces and the constant soundscape of boats, breeze and the gentle echo of water kissing the shoreline.

  The 1000 Islands is not only a natural wonder with its 1800+ islands scattered over roughly 40 square miles.  For it's natural features alone make it like no place on earth.  But, the relationship between humanity and the place make it even more special.  Walt Whitman summed it up nicely back in 1855:

  O boating on the rivers, The voyage down the St. Lawrence, the superb scenery, the steamers,      The ships sailing, the Thousand Islands, the occasional timber-raft                and the raftsmen with long-reaching sweep-oars,      The little huts on the rafts, and the stream of smoke when they cook                               supper at evening.

  — Walt Whitman, A Song of Joys, 1855.

    Not a whole lot has changed since then.

  Except for jet skis.  They are a bit of a sonic nuisance.  I'll leave that diatribe for another blog.

  The only other major change that has occurred since the mid 1800s is the advent of the St Lawrence Seaway.  In the 1950s, the army corps of engineers built the seaway, by blasting out rapids downriver from the 1000 Islands and installing a series of locks that would allow large lake and seafaring freighters to travel between the Atlantic Ocean and the Great Lakes.  In some ways, this was a bit of an environmental disaster.  Many would argue that it was a necessary collateral loss in the interest of industrial progress.

  As you can imagine, the interests of the Seaway carry an incredible amount of influence.  This is where Save the River comes into the picture.  Started in 1978 by activist, Abbie Hoffman, who was actually living in exile at the time, Save the River is a non-profit, member-based environmental organization whose mission is preserve and protect the ecological integrity of the Upper St. Lawrence basin.  In practice, a lot of what they do is actually stand as a voice for the people of the River community and hold in balance the interests of the Seaway with the environmental AND socio-economic interest of the River faring public.  In 2004, STR joined the Waterkeeper Alliance to become Riverkeeper of the Upper St. Lawrence.

  The way I like to simplify it is that Save the River is the sole organization striving to preserve and protect the place that I grew up loving, so that my children…and their children may experience that same sense of wonder from the place that I did.

As Riverkeeper, Save the River leads an international effort between the US and Canada to restore the health and ecological diversity of the St Lawrence River.

  So hopefully, this gives some insight on my motivation for producing that first Rock for the River concert back in 2004.  I found myself then in Los Angeles, immersed in a beautiful family-like community of songwriters and musicians there.  It was a great time to be in Los Angeles.  But I missed the River and I had a sense that there was some unfound bridge between these two worlds that I just had to find.

  I have to admit that my excitement, as the first concert grew near, was tempered by some nervousness that these Los Angeles based musicians would not be as enamored with River life, River Times and Riverfolk as I imagined that they would be…and vice versa.

  As it turned out, my initial hunch was correct.   Each and every one of those artists fell madly and deeply in love with the place AND the people.  The first Rock for the River concert at the Clayton Opera House became a night that none in attendance would ever forget.  It was a kick off of summer, a celebration of the place that we all held so dear and it was a great coming together for kids of all ages.

  Nine years and ten concerts later, not much has changed.  The evening still feels as magical as it did that first night.  We just sell a whole lot more tickets that we did nine years ago.

For more information about Save the River, please visit: www.savetheriver.org

To purchase for the 10th Rock for the River Reprise! click here.

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a few thoughts on audience dynamics...

The other night, before the show in Fort Worth got underway, David Ramirez and I were talking about the phenomenon of audience members talking during concerts.  We spoke about the pro and cons of bringing the topic up with audiences themselves and whether the best move was to say nothing at all or to make a good natured quip about it to the offending parties.

On this tour, the crowds were exemplary. They have been almost universally attentive.  In a very few cases however, there have been small isolated groups of people in the audience that seemingly suffer from 'voice imodulation', with no apparent control over the volume at which they speak and without any apparent regard for the hundreds of other people in the room who have paid good money to see and hear the show without distraction.  In the past, I have made comments or snarky jokes to the offending parties, and I have always tried to keep things light. (a lot of my songs are sad enough, so I believe that levity is important).  

On this tour, I elected to keep my mouth shut on the issue and allow the music to steer the vibe in the room where it needed to go.  In all honesty, there wasn't a single show where it felt like much of an issue to me.  However, if there is one take home lesson for me from this tour, it is that when I do not address the loud people and leave the audience to regulate itself, chaos may ensue.  People get fucking pissed.

In a couple of circumstances, where I was completely unaware of any errant noisemaking in the audience, I learned after the show that certain talkers had been aggressively scolded by other members of the audience, to the point where they (the talkers) were truly shaken and offended.

Shortly before I went onstage for the last show of our tour together, David Ramirez shared a story with me that totally trumped any account I had on the topic.  He actually had a show in an intimate theater where one member of the audience tackled another another and held a bowie knife to drunk guy's throat because the guy had been running his mouth throughout the show and had ignored audience member's pleas for him to stop.  Incredible. Nobody got really hurt.  Drunk guy quickly submitted and so knife guys let drunk guy up off of the floor.  After which, drunk guy ran out of the theater screaming like a stuck pig.

So during that last show of the tour in Fort Worth, when I looked out and saw about 95 percent of the room giving their undivided attention, I also observed that the remaining 5 percent was lost in drunk conversation (it was Friday night, after all…), I thought it appropriate to share David's story and my thoughts on the issue.  The moral of my story was that it was a rock n roll show after all, and not a lecture.  So I certainly did not expect complete silence…just respect for your fellow audience members.  Furthermore, I advised to heed caution and keep all weapons sheathed.

Not five minutes later, from the stage, I observed a man being forced out of the venue in a headlock by whom I assumed to be the venue's security guards.  Apparently, he had been repeatedly asked to keep his voice down by the people around him and insisted upon blithering on in a bellowing drunken slur. 

Astonishing. Oh, the irony.  I'd never heard a story like David's before last night and I had never made such a warning to an audience before.  And of course, I have never, ever seen someone escorted out of one of my performances in a headlock before.

Here's the bottom line.  Come to the shows to listen and have a good time.  As a performer, I think I speak for all, when I say that we truly love you for that and owe an immeasurable debt of gratitude.  The reason we play music is to connect with you and to connect you with one and other…it is supposed to be fun.  It's supposed to feel good. Absolute silence is not expected or required, however absolute respect is.  

Respect the artist on stage who is working hard to give you the show that you paid good money to see. Respect your fellow concert goers who have also shelled out their hard earned dollars to experience and enjoy the concert.  It's that simple.

…and please leave the weapons at home.

I love ya. 

thanks for listening.

j

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Letters from the Lost

Thank you all who made it out to the shows for the last 6 weeks. You made this tour one that I will never forget. Thank you also for the overwhelming support of the new album. If you haven’t had a chance yet, the album is available on iTunes and both on…

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Letters from the Lost Tour and Pre-Order

It was a strange week in America for sure and so it feels a bit odd to be promoting a tour and a record. If nothing else, I hope that this week’s events remind all to hold our loved ones a little closer and to take every opportunity that life gives us to…

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