New post in the blog section discussing the controversial topic of the viral social cause Kony 2012

I apologize for the lack of updates recently, but promise I will be more faithful to you in keeping up to date.  I know that you are all vastly fascinated with every piece of my life.  Its riveting.

You can check out the “BLOG” link to see random thoughts and stories that I encounter from time to time.  The latest is an account of epic dodgeball battles between myself and 10 year old children.  Pulitzer type stuff right there.

Also, I will be coming back around with a bunch more shows and hopefully some collaborations.  Until then…

Typically I hate it when my favorite artists turn Christmassy, but recently I’ve heard some awesome renditions of old tunes and creative new ones (Dustin Kensure-”This is War”, and Andrew Ripp-”Joy to the World”).  So I’m in the holiday mood.  Therefore here’s a little video taken of Bozeman, Denver, and Christmas partying.  The song is called “Fast Train” recorded with the aid of Kevin Butler again and Jillisa Smith’s angelic voice.  Enjoy.  Merry Christmas

In the interim of waiting for another studio recorded tune, here is an oldie recorded on garage band back in the day.  If you listen closely you can here each time I slam the spacebar to stop recording.  The fact that its still in there is either a product of my overt laziness or a specially crafted musical “watermark” that i personally imprinted.  Let’s agree its the latter.

In The Ground

Its always a good idea to rally people with common interests for a common good.  Details of the event can be found here.  Basically I’ll donate up to 200$ if we get that many pictures.  If you’d like to donate 1$ per picture up to a certain amount please let me know at info@jonrandmusic.com.  It can be 5 bucks it can be 20 it can be whatever you’d like.  100% will go to charity:water.

After all the optimistic promises and stalling we’ve got one track up for your listening pleasure.  When you get halfway through and start worrying that you are hallucinating the presence of angelic voices around you, don’t fear, that is Jillisa Smith’s voice.

Big thanks to Kevin Butler for putting this together too.  Don’t be afraid to share this or visit soundcloud.com/jonrandmusic to download the track.

More music to come.  For real.  Trust me.

Carried (lyrics)

Meet Daniel.  You don’t need to know much about Daniel, except that here he stands on top of an 18 foot bridge suspended over the Gallatin River looking down into the rushing waters.  We took a youth group trip out to go bridge jumping and it was a beautiful hot summer day.  The bridge was busy with all sorts of people slinging themselves off into the crisp snow driven waters.  Already most of our group had jumped atleast once or twice.  And as Daniel peered over that edge, he could not convince his body that it would be alright.  He stood there, frozen.

Eventually, most of us on the ground began to become aware of his hesitation and we started up a rallying chant.  ”Daniel! Daniel! Daniel!”  Even strangers were cheering him on.  Everyone loud with advice.  We must of had atleast 6 false start counts.  ”1-2-3 jump!”" and then Daniel”s knees would bend ever so slightly with a small arm swing ready for a tentative leap, until he straightened himself up again to reconsider everything.

After a while, a man from another group climbed up to give him a pep talk.  He tried to pump him up.  Told him he’d go with him.  He even tried to high five Daniel, to which Daniel cautiously and slowly stretched out a shaky hand and forced a smile.  As this man kept talking to him, it seemed that Daniel might finally leap, but then he’d straighten up again shaking his head no.

Finally, the man walked closer to Daniel saying a few more comforting words, then, suddenly he lunged forward off the bridge grabbing Daniel in his arms and pulling him off the ledge, their bodies twisting together as they fell into the brisk river.  As Daniel popped up from the water, it confirmed what all of us knew: He was fine.  But you could see the shock on his face, both at the fact that a stranger had just dragged him off a 18 foot bridge, and that he had done it.

Later Daniel went to jump again and had a similiar bout of fear.  This time I tried to offer up ill fated advice that has served me well for years.

“Hey man, just shut off your mind and step over the edge.  Your mind won’t let you believe the truth that you’ll be alright so you have to just ignore it.  Shut it off…step off and then deal with the reality of the fear when you can’t control it.”

I realize this is kind of stupid, but it is true.  If you know fear is not a valid deterrent in the face of an opportunity or choice, then overwrite it.  Dumb it down.

Leap, and once you have, the fear might come rushing in again screaming “what happened?  I thought we were gonna talk about this!  How did we get here?”  But that voice can’t hold you back anymore because you’ve got the momentum.  And slowly when it realizes it is futile, the fear will shut up.

But Daniel stood there fighting his inner dialogue back and forth.  Finally the same man who had grabbed Daniel earlier began climbing up, and at the immediate sight of him, Daniel lept into the water.

You see, the problem with fear is that it relies heavily on what it deems to be rational thinking.  And so when you walk up to someone locked in fear and try to unravel an impressive 20 minute power point presentation on why they shouldn’t be afraid, it typically fails to motivate.  And thats because our minds use the exact same tactic to cave to fear.  Fear in turn presents its case in a similar bullet point fashion, and then instead of moving anywhere, our mind is stuck in a 3 hour long business meeting deliberating between two headstrong partners.

For as many logical pros you can think of, fear will roll out a list of cons to match.  Rarely does fear finally give up to sound reason and say, “oh, now I see.  Lets do this!”  And thats because fear is an emotion and emotions don’t often make good bedmates for rationality.  Which is both great and terrible.

I would call this faith.  You may call this blind faith.  I look over that bridge and firmly believe that no matter what happens in that water, I am in the care of someone.

But even at the heart of the matter it actually becomes a necessary compulsion more than anything.  I can’t sit still anymore.  I have to move.  I must move at whatever cost.  Its as if you arrived at Robert Frost”s fork in the road and set up a tent and made your home right there, never stepping on either path.

If you let fear control you before you decide, you will never move.  Your pros and cons list will grow and grow and grow until you are the only left with all the lights off and the opportunity long gone.  However, if you step, turn the switch off in your brain, you have nothing left to do but act.  The fear may still be there, but it cannot lock you up anymore.  It can only quicken your heart rate.

Think about asking someone out on a date.  You can let fear roll out its laundry list of possible outcomes; rejectioin, humiliation, lonliness, awkwardness.  But when you shut up your mind and simply blurt out “so I was wondering…” then the rollercoaster has clicked over its final uphill track and is free falling in motion.  Now, no matter what you are moving.  There is no more discussion of “should I or shouldn’t I.”  She can say no, she can laugh, or she can smile with an emphatic yes.  But all of these outcomes are still worth the movement.  Fear’s powerpoint presentation holds no water and we know it.  We just need to step.

Obviously, it’s never black and white.  So many decisions need much deliberation and consideration.  But when you find yourself cement shoed in the face of opportunity, sometimes  you just have to move.  Think for just a moment about all the experiences you might never have taken part in if you had listened to the “rationality” of fear.  Think of your possibilities.  You can’t always feed fear with rationality because rationality is what gives fear its strength.

I realize that much of fear is actually irrational, but your brain doesn’t accept that truth, otherwise their would be no fear.  It wants to engage in a battle of reasoning. It wants to have an ongoing discussion so that you can delay your decision entirely.  It wants the sun to go down so you have nothing left to do but give up the debate, left only to wonder what if you had simply jumped.  Sometimes thats the biggest thing you can do.  Just simply step out amidst the roaring noise of fear.

And sometimes, when it becomes most dire, you need that person who is going to take hold of you suddenly and plunge off that bridge with you.  Otherwise we’ll never move.

Let me tell you why I like to play the Haufbrau.

Typically when you play a bar the crowd always demands covers.  They want a place to hang out with their friends and suddenly hear “its too late to apologize” out of the speakers.  They don’t want to hear original content.  To be clear, this isn’t a terrible thing.  Music is music and I love trying to conquer a cover like “Feel Good inc” or put a spin on “Rolling in the Deep.”

But at the Haufbrau people not only are genuinely interested in what you play, but they also love to encourage you and give you feedback.  Its a community, how music should be.  Yes the sound quality is similar to talking out of a fisher price tape recorder and the crowds aren’t flowing out the front door, but its a community of people that enjoy each other’s company, and love the music.

In every community there are people.  And within those people are hundreds and hundreds of stories of success, pain, loss, joy, excitement, fear, restoration and brokenness.  But who speaks to that?  Music does.  That is why music is so powerful.  And when you can bring some light with your music to hopefully lift others up, then the good that you can do far outweighs what millions of people accomplish in their lifetimes.

Bozeman is a city with an incredibly rich musical community.  On any given night you can walk into a restaurant, coffee shop or bar and hear any genre that fits your tastes with mind blowing originals and hilarious and innovative covers.  This type of musical climate breeds musical explosions.  Any major movement in this vein has its roots to a region or location where local bars, clubs, coffee shops and hangouts all opened their doors to the budding musicians.  It strengthed the bonds between creative artists until collaborations and group creative processing produced notable acts that took their music out into the rest of the world.

But a wealth of gratitude goes back to that local environment.  Everyone, and I mean everyone has the local music scene to thank for their success.  So it is our mission to foster this environment here in Bozeman.  Ask any active musician in the area and they will tell you.  They can feel it.  Somethings is happening in this city with the musicians.  Maybe its the fact that they actually believe they could do something with their craft, maybe its the opportunities all the local venues give them, or maybe its just the love of the music.

But it is our goal to create a festival celebrating and showcasing the original singer/songwriters in this town and providing them with a catalyst that can produce incredible talent.

Addo Fest.

info@jonrandmusic.com if you are interested in being a part of that catalyst.

I’m sitting in a coffee shop as I type this which I never do so you know this is for real.  Lets “word of mouth” this music thing so I can have a show with Elenowen and woo Nicole Johnson just in case something happens to her husband.  Don’t worry, its all good. I’ll wait.  I’m no home wrecker.

We’ve got 4 shows coming down the pipes. One on September 22nd, and 3 more in October.  Email me if you have any suggestions of places to play, feedback or virtual tomatoes  to sling.  I do not discriminate.

Currently we’ve  got one song recorded, and hopefully coming your way soon, with 4 others to follow.

See you September 22nd at the Haufbrau at 10pm.