And we all know what opinions are worth...

Like everyone, I have opinions about stuff. How I think the world "ought to be." 

As a Christian, I'm constantly looking out into the world and the ways in which we "do" church, ministry, etc., and a lot of times, I get fired up about how things are not, in fact, as they "ought to be," but what I really mean is that things are not as I think they ought to be.

On one such occasion earlier this year, I asked myself whether I thought a particular entity/person/church/whatever was selling snake oil or legitimately trying to draw people closer to Jesus. And despite the fact that the ways in which they were "doing" everything was the exact opposite of how I would prefer these things to be done, I truly didn't feel that they were trying to do anything but share the gospel. I've tried to keep coming back to that, to give my family some grace for crying out loud.

Having any measure of faith is hard all on its own. But trusting that someone's heart is in the right place when everything they're doing looks "wrong" to you is harder, I think. There are many times that I wish judgement belonged to me... but the world would be a much more messed-up place if it were.

Not saying I can't have any opinions, or that I shouldn't be on the lookout for snake oil salesmen; just trying to move beyond my own prejudices and limitations to see the truth more as it is and not as I think it should be. 

For the world was not made in the image of Jason, but that of Jesus.

Let's not forget how awesome this is

I've been spending a lot of time trying to commit the 12th chapter of Romans to heart. I think Nada Surf kind of nails the last part of the chapter right here. "Always love. Hate will get you every time."

I'll keep trying to remember that.

Writing patiently for the words to come

I am a stay-at-home dad. Well, kind of. I stay home for part of the day - the morning, specifically - while my lovely wife goes to her job, and then we swap out somewhere around lunch time so I can go to my job (yes, internet, I do in fact have one of those). My son and I have gotten into a bit of a morning routine, which mostly consists of him taking a large nap and me drinking coffee, attempting to achieve some manner of coherent thought.

I've been somewhat surprised - and cautiously optimistic - that in that space somewhere between asleep and awake, new bits and pieces of music have begun to show up. Fragments, thoughts, words, tiny melodies, all showing up when I have least expected them. Most of it makes no sense (and I'm not going to lie, it's kind of dark), but it's nice to feel creative, something I have not felt in a while. It's bizarre that though music has always been a part of my chemical makeup, I tend to fear that it will leave me. That every song could be the last one. This year has been kind of exhausting, but when music begins to show up, it's like the ice is beginning to thaw.

I hesitate to mention it for fear that the words will become shy and go back into hiding, but I did want to share a little excitement (however tempered it may be) that hopefully in the not-so-distant future there will be new music to share with you. I hope so.

Until then, I'll keep putting the pen to paper, writing patiently for the words to come.

And a 1.... and a 2... and a 1, 2, 3!

       
Click here to download:
And_a_1...._and_a_2..._and_a_1.zip (3646 KB)

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of my first legitimate jam session with my daughter. And while she enjoyed the guitar option, she really preferred Mr. Davey's drum kit. I think it's because the only guitar laying around was the old Washburn. At any rate, she kept tapping the sticks and saying, "And a one! A two! A one, two, three!" before tapping the cymbals.

Her rhythm needs work, but she's got moxy. And tons of heart. One of my favorite mornings this year.

My Utmost...

This morning, I read this from Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost For His Highest." I love that square one is finally admitting our inabilities and weaknesses... that's something Jesus can work with, and I can relate:

"Beware of thinking of our Lord as only a teacher. If Jesus Christ is only a teacher, then all He can do is frustrate me by setting a standard before me I cannot attain. What is the point of presenting me with such a lofty ideal if I cannot possibly come close to reaching it? I would be happier if I never knew it. What good is there in telling me to be what I can never be— to be "pure in heart" ( Matthew 5:8 ), to do more than my duty, or to be completely devoted to God? I must know Jesus Christ as my Savior before His teaching has any meaning for me other than that of a lofty ideal which only leads to despair. But when I am born again by the Spirit of God, I know that Jesus Christ did not come only to teach— He came to make me what He teaches I should be. The redemption means that Jesus Christ can place within anyone the same nature that ruled His own life, and all the standards God gives us are based on that nature.

The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount produces a sense of despair in the natural man— exactly what Jesus means for it to do. As long as we have some self-righteous idea that we can carry out our Lord’s teaching, God will allow us to continue until we expose our own ignorance by stumbling over some obstacle in our way. Only then are we willing to come to Him as paupers and receive from Him. "Blessed are the poor in spirit . . . ." This is the first principle in the kingdom of God. The underlying foundation of Jesus Christ’s kingdom is poverty, not possessions; not making decisions for Jesus, but having such a sense of absolute futility that we finally admit, "Lord, I cannot even begin to do it." Then Jesus says, "Blessed are you . . ." ( Matthew 5:11 ). This is the doorway to the kingdom, and yet it takes us so long to believe that we are actually poor! The knowledge of our own poverty is what brings us to the proper place where Jesus Christ accomplishes His work."

buy a record save a life

via youtube.com

We shot this before I put Rebuilt to sleep, but I'm glad to be able to continue to be a part of what the Goodfight is doing with the Goodfight10000 project.

If you're in Athens, we'll be doing a show at the historic Seney-Stovall Chapel in November with some stellar musicians. More to come later... we're nailing down details in the next couple of days.

It is what it is, it was what it was

This past weekend, we celebrated Independence Day, our country's birthday, on the 4th of July. This comes one day after July 3rd (of course), which is a much less significant birthday - that of Rebuilt Records. I spent much of my time this past weekend away from the world, and most of my thoughts revolved around freedom, independence, and that pursuit of happiness our forefathers declared to be an inalienable right. At some point in the six years since Rebuilt became my full-time activity, I feel like I misplaced these things. And so it is a bit poetic perhaps that here is where we end Rebuilt Records.

I remember July 3rd, 2003 pretty well because I was scared to death. Jana and I arrived that afternoon in Corona, California at the Fireproof house that was to be our office and home. Our furniture and other personal items wouldn't arrive for another week or so (after our moving truck drivers took a "small" detour up to Sturgis, South Dakota for bike week), and so we spent our first night there alone in the dark of our living room, eating In-N-Out burger (because that was the only place we knew to get food), and sitting in office chairs because those were the only things we had to sit on. We sat out on the back patio, listened to the neighbors get drunk, and wondered what in the world we had done.

I kind of miss that feeling. It was scary in that we had committed to do something we had no idea how to do, and we'd essentially put ourselves up to be the ridicule of our families if it didn't work out. But I felt so alive, so free. It was a different world then - literally and figuratively. Musically, the Internet hadn't yet helped make buying music passe´ or leveled the playing field for independents, and there was a very real need for Rebuilt to help artists raise money to record quality albums. As you no doubt know, things today are a bit different. Today, artists can use something like Kickstarter to raise money on their own and manage their own careers through free or next-to-free tools available online. It’s a good time to be an artist and a bad time to be a label.

From the beginning, we wanted Rebuilt artists to have the freedom to grow, create, live healthy, balanced lives, and to take whatever time they needed, but this also created a tension for the label. Rebuilt was born on the notion that for most artists, incessant touring and living on the road is not a healthy way to live, but on the other hand, the label needed our artists to sell enough albums to cover our expenses and pay a few bills. What were we to do, push our friends to “work harder” and “sell more?” Were we to take an increasingly popular stance and sign our artists to 360 deals, essentially collecting money we didn’t earn from every stream of income (like door money from shows)? As we move into a world where music is free, artists will need as much income as they can muster to that they can grow and develop their art into something sustainable. Others certainly feel differently, but we felt to do so would be to become exactly the opposite of what we wanted our label to be.

At the end of the day, Rebuilt was an organization that lived and died on the sale of its recordings, and pinning the blame on “downloading” or “the internet” or whatever is completely asinine. Sometimes the world just changes. I imagine there were a lot of angry scribes in the world when Gutenberg rolled out the movable-type printing press and effectively wiped out their “industry” essentially overnight. But in doing so, he also played a major role in ushering in the Renaissance (look it up). In an age where we’re hell-bent on bailing out all kinds of things, I am of the opinion that sometimes old models need to die off to make room for new and more effective ones. In Rebuilt’s case, we saw no way to retrofit an old model into a new world, at least not at the expense of the people we were actually trying to help.

Certainly, the fact that people are choosing to buy less music these days is a large factor in our decision to close Rebuilt's doors, but that's more of a symptom than the real ailment. While I can deal with losing money (understanding that Rebuilt was always a risk), I became aware that I was in pretty bad shape elsewhere. I was bitter at the way things had been, angry that I didn't do a better job, and hopeless that it would turn around. In truth, I had become a slave to this thing I loved so much. Having no foresight to set boundaries (and not even knowing how), I was never able to break my livelihood from its livelihood. Financially speaking, when Rebuilt took a hit, so did my family, and since we operated as a nonprofit, there was no real way to get back any money we put into it. It follows, then, that as our income from album sales dropped, the financial pressure on the company (and on us personally) only continued to intensify.

Over the last few years, I had come to resent Rebuilt for the ways I had allowed it to drain not only my personal finances, but also my joy, my spirit, and my willingness to want to serve and help others. For a while, I tried to push my nose to the grindstone harder, to raise more money and find some folks to help out; but as the expenses mounted and the income slowed, I found that I just had nothing left when I "hit the gas." This was not how I wanted to live. This was not freedom.

And so freedom is what we have granted our artists. Effective August 1st, all master rights will transfer to the artists themselves and all remaining recoupment debt will be canceled. Our artists are free to do what they will with their recordings with no further obligation to Rebuilt Records. We will continue to offer remaining stock for sale via Rebuilt’s online store as a one-stop outlet for the label’s catalogue and to help pay down our outstanding debt on these recordings, but apart from this, our artists will receive 100% of the income derived from the sales of their recordings. This seemed like the right thing to do - our own little “year of jubilation,” if you will.

Six years ago, we sat in that empty house in Corona because we felt God had asked us to, not knowing how or when it would end. It was a wonderful leap of faith that has changed the course of my life forever. Rebuilt continues to teach me about commitment, community, giving, and service.

In looking back on the days since California, there are certainly things I would do differently. This is to be expected, I guess. And depending on the day, I go back and forth on how I view these six years, whether they were success or failure, accomplishment or defeat. But I feel pretty strongly that each one of our artists is better in some way for having been a part of Rebuilt Records, and I am thankful to have had the opportunity to float alongside them in their journeys. Even six years ago, we made a promise that we would "ride the wave until it hit the beach," and here we are. Just as we felt God calling us to California, it is clear to my heart that he is asking us to put Rebuilt to rest.

Thank you to so many who gave and gave and gave to the vision of Rebuilt Records – financially and otherwise. Because of you, Rebuilt raised nearly $130,000 that went directly to help make the 14 albums baring the Rebuilt hammer. Through your support, our good friend and artist Paul Reeves built a professional-class studio that will continue as a place to document artists’ work and care for them as they grow and develop. Your support helped to encourage the discouraged, and your emails, letters, phone calls, and attendance made us all feel that what we were doing mattered. I could never say thank you enough.

I’ll end here by raising my glass to Jon Black, Micah Dalton, The Goodfight, Paul Reeves, Natalie Moon, and David Herndon, to our family of dedicated donors, and to all who continue to support independent artists; here’s to finding the next wave. It’s been a pleasure.

Jason

Some Unacademic Thoughts On Good Friday

I cut my grass this morning (last neighbor on the street to do so... sorry, neighbors), which always gives me some uninterrupted time to think. Being Good Friday in the Christian faith, I thought a lot about death - my own, of course, since I'm a self-centered American - but also that of Jesus'.

I also want to be clear that I am not making an attempt here to tell you how to think, feel, or live. I rarely trust my own opinions, though I do know a few things to be true.

Here's some completely unacademic things I considered while mowing the lawn:

1. The process of crucifixion is an especially heinous way to die. What does this say about a God who would choose to die this way? And what does is say about him that he went through with it? I think he must really hate sin, and he must really have wanted to fix the brokenness. He spared no brutality nor did he spare any part of himself.

2. If I was to truly get what I deserve, my death would surely look like Jesus'. But the power of sin died with him, and if I am to truly believe this, then I am to also believe that I have been forgiven, healed, and restored. So when God looks at me, I am holy and blameless as if I'd never sinned at all. If this is true, why then do I continually strive to wallow in my own guilt, shame, and failure when God himself does not see me so?

3. Society likes a murderer. The crowd chose to set free a killer instead of Jesus. Somewhere in there is a distortion in perception. Would an individual, if given the choice, choose to set free a murderer over someone who had been convicted of nothing? I wouldn't think so generally. But our weird world is such that when a bunch of us get together and people are all shouting things at each other, killing innocent folks seems like a perfectly legit idea.

4. Jesus let a murderer off the hook. Under the penalty of the law, Barrabus deserved death; if Jesus was truly who we say he is (the son of God), then he could have saved his own skin. Instead, he let a killer go free. He gave him his life back and with that, Jesus gave Barrabus a choice of what to do with it. Jesus didn't walk around proclaiming his "rightness," and he didn't push himself on anyone. Does this square with what we do as a church in America (me included)?

5. Truth is truth. While not brow-beating others to accept, follow, or worship him, Jesus did speak a whole lot of truth. And the thing about truth is that you can love it or hate it, but it does not change. If something is true, it is not subject to popular opinion, data, or persuasive bantering. Like death. Love it or hate it - you're going to die. And me, too.

6. So what about our own deaths? We are certainly good at using the word "sin" to do whatever we want it to, and much like the word "love," it has lost its effective meaning. Sin is not a list of "Do Nots;" it is more like a condition, a way of being. It's dying a slow death on the inside without even realizing it. It's having no way out of the hole our lives are born into. It's the outcome of the first bad decision being compounded by every other bad decision everyone else has made for the last gazillion years. To say sin is simply using curse words or drinking alcohol excessively is like saying breast cancer is just an illness. Sin is way broader, deeper, and inside our bones than refraining from harsh speech or excessive drinking can fix.

I've been dying since the day I was born. No one taught me how to lie, to hurt, or to hate. Those options came standard. I don't know why deep down I am so angry; by all accounts, my life has been way easier than a lot of folks'. But these things have always been there, and if Jesus is who he says he is, if he truly took all that deep-seeded crap that has always been there and got punished for it... and if I truly am no longer bound to this broken condition... then I pray to see what's on the other side of his death.

For I am familiar with dying; I'd like to know more about living.

People From Way Back Are Excited...

What a hectic few days! March is just like that, I think. The weather is inconsistent at best (we had 5 inches of snow one weekend and then 75 degree sun the next), the college community is in full spring break mode, and the music community loses about three weeks around SXSW (one before, one during, and one to recouperate).

I've been shooting a lot of video lately (look for a Warm Fuzzies video soon), screenprinting the Goodfight's new album packaging; printing, assembling, and mailing pre-release copies to press; and giving what time I can to helping Jon and Micah on their current tour. It's amazing how quickly I allow these good things to take me away from my own artmaking.

On April 3rd at Eddie's Attic, then, I'll be doing something that is becoming more and more rare... I'll be performing. Just me and my acoustic guitar, no Warm Fuzzies this time, "Just Jason." I'm looking forward to it, and at the same time, I am kind of terrified. I'm going to try and bring out some of the new music I wrote for the RPM Challenge back in February for the first time ever. Heck, if the songs suck, it might be the last time.

You can buy tickets online at EddiesAttic.com, and know that I'll be joined by more amazing artists - Paul Reeves, Bethany Dick, Bonnie Bishop, and the aforementioned Goodfight, who'll be celebrating the acoustic side of his new album, Good & Evil.

The other side of the album is more rock and roll, and as you see below, even people from way back are excited about it.

I hope to see you on the 3rd!

Waxing and Waning...

It's getting on towards 2am, and I just got home from the Warm Fuzzies show here in Athens with the really wonderful Spring Tigers. I'm really too tired to write a whole lot (for once), but I know that if I wait until tomorrow it won't be the same.

You just never know, you know? We recently played a show with some really great bands, bands we love, and no one really showed to see anyone. It was bizarre. We all thought that show would have been a homerun. Tonight, on the other hand, we didn't expect much; it's the tail end of spring break, it's cold and raining, and the venue is a little off the beaten path. But it was awesome.

Were there a ton of people? There were enough. And I have no idea how it really sounded. But standing there after our set in this tiny room lit only by a spinning disco ball and some Christmas lights while listening to the Spring Tigers, I really felt like I was doing something I've really always longed to do. Good grief, we know there's enough bad shows, so when one of those "special" ones comes along, you have to really record it in your mind to help when things get discouraging.

I've spent a lot of time this week working on social networking sites, uploading label stuff and working towards the Goodfight's new album release. I've spent hours reading blogs by really smart marketers and music business thinkers. I've poured over the words to use in other folks' press releases, bios, and cover letters. I've set up accounts with Twitter, Ping.fm, ArtistData, Spotify, etc. and I'll probably set up an account with whatever comes next. And to be honest, I'm kind of exhausted from all that. Seems a lot like chasing the wind when you feel that what you're putting in doesn't have any effect on what comes out.

But to play a song that you helped write with some of your good friends and to look out and see people nodding and moving along with smiles on their faces... yes and thank you.

Small things mean everything.