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Tuesday
Nothing less about this beautiful Gibson Les Paul. Brought out the big guns tonight for a secondary rhythm track on a brand new song for the EP. It’s fitting because the new song, “Las Vegas” I wrote on this lovely guitar over the weekend. And you can’t really fake the tone and texture and special sort of crunch you get out of a Gibson Les Paul. You can’t fake the tone and texture and special sort of crunch you get from a USA Fender Strat either, but you can compliment it–especially with a secondary track played on a Les Paul. These are top line guitars…they’re designed for a specific purpose–to sound super fucking deadly. It’s no wonder writing on them is such a pleasure. I can’t say I wasn’t influenced in some way by the Stone Roses 1989 album while writing Las Vegas. I’ve been listening to the Stone Roses album on repeat over the last week while jogging up and down the beach–it’s an album I’ve known since the 8th grade…but this most recent revisiting has been profound in a inexplicable way. I can tell already this second EP is going above and beyond.
Saturday
Adjusted the intonation on my Strat tonight before heading down to the studio. Big night…tracking all guitars for ‘Girl Like You’, a new song that ain’t messing around. When I first heard the pattern of the snare drum I was taken by surprise and now can’t imagine the song without it. Likewise, the guitars are going to be set in stone by the end of tonight. There’s something magical going on with these new songs…midnight alchemy and technicolor dreams. I know now that the poets weren’t wrong.
Friday
Been fully devoted to working on the second Penthouse Killers EP. Surprising even myself with this new batch of songs. Only a couple months ago, I wasn’t sure if the San Andreas album was perhaps a one time thing. However, four new songs are now officially recorded, mixed and mastered. The songs are seemingly writing themselves. I’ve spent countless hours living in the studio with these songs…and strangely I’ve managed not to get too close to them. Strange indeed. After listening to the masters yesterday I laughed to myself in the studio…because I know these songs are silly good. One in particular…Front Page Tragedy…I mean, really, I’m not sure how much better we could have nailed it…composition wise, production wise, performance wise. There is also one called Draw the Line, which is a rocket ship to mars…traveling at the speed of sound with a Fender Strat strapped to it’s back. Really, when you plug a USA Fender Strat into a Marshall Stack and crank that shit up…something magical happens. When you add to that a freak-out drummer who pounds the living daylights out of his Pearls and then throw on top of that psychotically busy bass lines that would impress even Karl Alvarez…you can smash through fortified walls with the strum of a chord–you can leap skyscrapers in a single bound. Three more are in the works…EP will probably have seven or eight on it. We want to have a couple EPs in the bag before we start hitting the live venues with this project.
Sunday
Well, I guess I have a blog for a reason…to roll off some free form thought. Did a close to finished mix on the new song…which is yet to be named. It’s part of the 2nd EP with the Penthouse Killers project…which by the way just got booked for another show for the end of the year. This one in Santa Barbara. I’ll keep ya posted on those new shows–when we get closer to the dates. We’d planned to shoot a 2nd video for the San Andreas EP this week. We secured a spooky farmhouse out on the range for this new video. We were going to shoot the video for the song ‘San Andreas’…however, after hearing this close mix on the newest yet to be titled song everyone figured we should shoot a video for it immediately. I’ve always felt that shooting videos chronologically makes the most sense–go album by album…but I’ve been told a chronological video plan isn’t necessarily the only option–especially if you have a killer new song. People don’t listen to albums or EP’s anymore they say…it’s all about singles…it’s the wild west out here man! Right.
These new songs feel like they’re writing themselves…it’s me writing them…but it feels like the guitar is speaking to me through the blazing Marshall Stack. I don’t think I’m developing Schizophrenia…or smoking it up any more than I usually do…no…it’s something more like the guitar speaking to me through the stack. So of course I have the production in mind while I’m writing the songs…as if the production is somehow a second or third part of the actual songwriting process…it’s not I realize…but it’s certainly an important accessory to the composition process…there’s a zone I need to get to and it starts with the composition rather than the tracking.
So, I’ve been in my studio for days…lost track of days actually…one night I thought it was Monday and they were like, dude it’s Saturday. Really? Fuck. Real music production is an art-form though…so it takes a lot of personal investment. Our drummer man brought a video the other day…it was a black death heavy metal band doing a production in their bedroom on a laptop. Probably the funniest shit I’ve seen in months. I laughed so hard I had tears. I mean fuck sake…you’ve got this horrible noise going through a fucking Casio synth. The drums are a disaster, like one long grind core fill. They all have Sebastian Bach hair and they’re sitting around this laptop banging their heads…one asks for a playback…then suggests that the death screams need more bottom end. The vocal track is literally a guy death screaming into the mic and it’s clearly in the red…I think we all pissed ourselves laughing at that point. It would make a great SNL skit for certain.
I guess the point is friends is that you can over think even the shittiest shit if you’re not careful. With this production, which is as real as it gets, I’m trying not to over think it…or overthink any other album I produce–but there is a special magical zone where a wall of music sounds nearly angelic and I guess I’m not satisfied until I get a song there. Last month I started working on a few songs with a singer/songwriter out of Culver City. She’s about the most unpretentious person I’ve worked with…very low drama…and super creative vibes…super chill artist. Her songs have a magic to them because she’s the real deal…and I have a tremendous amount of respect for people who are the real deal–there are so many pretenders–too many. We’d talked about me reworking her songs, instrumentalizing them and producing them.
I’d caught that last song of her acoustic set in February of 2020 at an intimate venue in Santa Monica and knew it was real pretty much instantaneously…she eventually sent me a vocal and acoustic guitar track and I’m sitting there listening to it in my studio thinking–ya know…this person could be doing the usual goofy shit with her time…like running a fans-only page out of her bathroom or trying to pass herself off as an ever popular ‘intuitive’ who does online fortune telling tricks…she could be posting dilettante selfies on social media while wearing various ironic t-shirts…she could be identifying as a DJ…indeed, she could be faking it up…but no–she’s for real–the songs are for real…and I was completely stoked…because…you don’t come across real material like that much these days. To me, the value of that is immeasurable. It’s out there, but unfortunately, most great artists are complete fuck ups and so are usually better at making art than selling it. So the waters get muddied with pretenders and art sellers and it’s harder for the great artists to get recognized…but they are out there.
Monday
Check out the video for my new project The Penthouse Killers.

Tuesday

Now Available on Spotify and bunch of other platforms. Check it out…it’s like a good warm sativa buzz.

Wednesday

Check out the new video for Fallout Shelter. Shot around my hood in East Hollywood. Complete with a surprise Creepshow ending.

Saturday

Traveling from Los Angeles to Vancouver to Seattle, Jarrod Tyler and crew investigate the endangered state of contemporary arts & culture in the digital age and showcase the many citizens who fight to keep arts & culture alive in their neighborhoods. This is my public service announcement contribution to the arts.

Tuesday

Me, Ols and Jer the gentle giant before the plague…chilling after hours at one of my fave hangs in Hollywood–iconic Canter’s deli on Fairfax…24/7…west side baby…

Friday

This is a photo of me standing outside the Satellite…I guess January of 2020. R.I.P Satellite Silverlake…you were my favorite live music venue in Los Angeles.

Friday

This is a documentary I made about North Bend Washington, the eccentric town in which the Twin Peaks series was filmed. Check it out.

Monday

This is an interview I did with journalist Nick Pannu at Civil Radio. We talked about my new documentary “Road to Twin Peaks: A North Bend Story”.

Monday

Didn’t make it to Austin this year, however…we are doing a “live stream” performance for the SXSW after party, hosted by EMA. Stoked…looking forward to it. Follow the link at the bottom of the poster for free tickets.

Sunday

Standing outside the Echo in Silverlake one night when we played there with some friend’s bands back in 2016.

Friday

All I need is some tasty waves…a cool buzz and I’m fine…

Wednesday

Immortal beloved

Sunday

Saturday

Anyway, this photo was taken a few weeks before the pandemic hit…and only after being at Beverly Center for twenty minutes…my girlfriend hung about four more bags on me by the time we left.

Wednesday

Hanging at my fave coffee shop…House of Pies on Vermont and Franklin.

Monday

Franklin.

Sunday

So, my bro got me a bunch of 90’s movies I haven’t seen forever. Short Cuts is first on the list baby.

Friday

The special bond between a man and his Schwinn.

Thursday

It’s about living the art for real…method writing…enveloping yourself in a perfect atmosphere to create the extraordinary…something that went out in the 90’s.

Monday

Santa Monica BLVD traffic is alright when you got 90’s Oasis on the stereo.

Wednesday

Ah, my favorite place in LA to hang out and play music. We did many shows at the Kibitz…the only mad house in town that serves alcohol. On any given night you’ll find some of the best, most well schooled musicians in Hollywood at the Kibitz–you never know who’s going to walk in. One night I wound up sitting at a booth with some people and there was Tom Waits sipping a drink under his fedora. Only in Hollywood.

Thursday

Never Mind the Bullocks–here’s a bottle of exotic juice.

Sunday

Evenings with my USA Strat. 

Wednesday

I want to share this song with y’all. This is pretty much my most requested song at live shows. It’s a pretty little ditty about a woman I called Audrey. Since I wrote it friends of mine have asked me who it’s about. I’ve never really given an answer but recently I was asked by a few friends about the song and I told them the real story–so I figured I’d post it here as well…for all my other friends who have asked.

At the time I wrote Audrey I was hanging around at Cafe Audrey just off of Hollywood Blvd. They had a real nice upright piano in there…and I liked to go in and play it or hear someone play it. This woman used to come in and sit in the corner and sip tea and sketch in her sketch book. She had these really intense grey eyes…almost like the eyes of a wolf. To me she looked like Audrey Hepburn…and dressed like Audrey Horne with the skirts and knee high socks…and because she hung around at Cafe Audrey–I started calling her ‘Audrey’ though that wasn’t her name. Obviously I’m not going to say her name, but I’ll call her “K”.

One evening she told me she was originally from Ottawa, which surprised the hell out of me because her accent sounded more like something from the Carolinas. We chatted about Ottawa–a place I’d briefly lived in another life…she felt it was a strange coincidence that we’d met in LA though we’d lived only a few blocks from each other in Ottawa. One afternoon I met her at the La Brea Tar Pits and when I showed up, she was writing in a book…when I asked if she was writing poetry…she told me she was writing prose–that she was an aspiring writer. I told her I wrote prose in a memoir style…and this became a major curiosity of hers. She asked to borrow the manuscript so she could read it on the bus…I was hesitant but eventually gave in and printed a few chapters for her. She read it and called me insane. I never did figure out why. I heard that she left Los Angeles shortly after. Anyway, I wrote the song in an afternoon and the name Audrey kept sticking. I guess I kind of regretted writing a song about a chick who dismissed me as a crazy writer boy–but like I say–it’s a snapshot…where I was at the time and as far as I’m concerned, one of the best rock songs I’ve written to date. So, for anyone who’s asked me about the story behind Audrey–now you know…and guess so does “K” if she reads my blog. Ha. Enjoy it.

Sunday

It was nice to see this photo from better times; a great night with some badass homies playing the Mint in Hollywood.

Monday

Friday

Looking north up Gower st.

Wednesday

Monday

The Sun Also Rises.

Saturday

Chilling at the Red Lion Silverlake.

Wednesday

Studio City.

Wednesday

Not messing around…will be watching this tonight. I have this film on a drive, but there’s something about watching films on a moving reel with the trailers and all.

Monday

Just posted a **revised** version of Tales from Truman Park episode 6–original draft I posted wasn’t the completed one. Buckle in…it’s a barn burner.

Wednesday

Yo, check out the new music video for ‘Mary’.

Wednesday

What he meant to say was: Realizing we’re standing on the Strip next to the tragic spot where River Phoenix died. Grinning about a comment made about the dude with woman hair in the background. Smoking blunts like they’re going out of style…a wondrous madhouse Hollywood is and there’s no place I’d rather be.

Friday

Me in the 90’s…skater boy, showing off my new Sex Pistols shirt.

Monday

Silverlake freedom.

Wednesday

I spent a couple years writing a novel called Waiters. I was working on revisions with a mainstream literary agent who is from NYC…did that for 8 months. Here is the author’s cut–the raw cut and you’ll only find it here.

Wednesday

‘Before long I was back on the 10 heading east…I passed the 405 and instead looped through downtown and swung back up onto the 101 to get back into Hollywood—I needed some time to think…I needed some time to fit things back into rational perspective. I took the Vermont exit and followed it north until I was finally feeling a bit more level. Hollywood; she knew what I felt as she always had and I could feel her breeze through my window, soothing me as the darkened shop fronts went by on either side…at least I still had her, my beloved Hollywood—though she changed, she was always the same and she always knew just what to say to me.’

–excerpt from ‘Waiters’. Coming soon.

Sunday

Unbelievable…was looking through a box in storage and found this photo of me with my first guitar. I didn’t realize I had a photo of that guitar. I’m 12 in this picture, playing along to a Sex Pistols album in my mom’s basement. I was totally obsessed with the Pistols at that point…learned Never Mind the Bullocks on that guitar and started writing my own songs as well. I remember how nice that guitar felt…intonation was perfect…low action…so easy to play. No idea where that guitar is now. She was the first though, and very special.

Monday

Not sure about Spotify…I don’t even bother with a proper Spotify profile…still, here is my best of album…in case you don’t want to pay for it on iTunes. I’m not a used car salesman, or an art dealer or a real estate agent–I’m an artist.

Tuesday

Tuesday

Brentwood Country Mart

Tuesday

I’ve received a few emails about this show…assuming this is going to be rescheduled. I was waiting for the booking agent to get final word from the organizers and alas…I regret to inform that this show is going to be rescheduled.

It wasn’t just this show though…there were other shows  in the coming months we had booked in Santa Barbara, Long Beach, San Diego and one was lining up in Vegas before the world was infected by the virus that originate in China. Fuck…a…duck…

Tuesday

Echo Park

Sunday

Hello, hello…it’s good to be back, it’s good to be back.

Sunday

Getting off work on Melrose…what to do…too many options.

Friday

Saw this at the Satellite on a week night…these guys were pretty good…they looked like UCLA frat boys but then they started playing crazy punk rock–sort of reminded me of punk bands I used to go see in college…the singer pulled off his hoodie during the first song…he was wearing a Beyonce t-shirt…he jumped down into the crowd and started a mosh pit. He sang a song about growing up in Virginia and crashing his car and how the crash rattled his brain and made him crazy. I’d hoped they’d kick over their amps at the end, but I guess amps are expensive. They were selling shirts afterward for a buck. I assumed punk was dead…guess I was wrong.

Wednesday

Tuesday

Monday

One of my favorite things about LA is that you can wander into a live music venue on a Sunday or Monday at midnight and the place is packed for freaky indie bands.

Tuesday

Us lefties are forced to exist in a world that is largely designed for the right-handed majority who all seem to have drunk the same Kool-Aid. How can anyone blame us for being complete misfits?

Sunday

Great show last night in Encino…thanks to everyone at VCF for putting this one together and also my band of badasses who rocked out in the SoCal heat.

Thursday

Stoked.

Tuesday

Coolest high school ever; Jack Tripper and Jeff Spicoli went here…

Monday

I posted a montage from the Warner Park show yesterday.

Thursday

My good friend Rhys Moody passed away on Wednesday evening last week. I didn’t even find out about it until Tuesday night. I’m still a bit shocked. Rhys was an engineer at East West Studios in Hollywood and a damn fine producer. He co-produced three of my albums, “Fides Veritas Eruditio”, “Don’t Let It Go” and “Auburn” and really helped bring them to the next level. I learned so much about music production from Rhys…he had a way of passing on knowledge. Last year when I was in LA playing the club circuit, he rented a room in his house to me and so we were sort of like frat boy roommates for a number of months. Man, we had some great laughs and some epic bike rides around Burbank…lot’s of smoke breaks in between.

They held his celebration of life last night in Studio One at East West. Such a nice service, he’d have loved it; his friends and family in such a legendary room telling stories and playing music. Though it was sad, I’m glad I was there. He’ll be missed.

Saturday

Rhys and me, touching up some of my songs in Studio 3 at East West Studios Hollywood. Studio 3–where Brian Wilson recorded Pet Sounds. Abbey Road studios is the only other studio in the world that carries that sort of history and you can feel it when you in there; the wood grain surfaces have absorbed spirits of legends past.

Thursday

People didn’t believe me when I said this was the last show I’d agree to play in Vancity. However, it most certainly was.

Monday

I was into the Replacements when most of you were probably still pissing in your diapers.

Thursday

All you have to do to understand what’s gone on in Vancity is google search ‘live music venue closures in Vancouver’. It’s part of the reason why in the last year, the bulk of my shows have been in LA, or Seattle or Portland…by the way they don’t start bands at 7pm and have them off stage by 10pm in those other cities–all bands all night.

Monday

Here’s a video of me and the boys tearing it up at the Silverlake Lounge in Los Angeles. The place has been one of my fave hang outs since I can remember. A great venue that is a true supporter of original live music.

Wednesday

Sunday

It felt real good to rock out for a couple thousand people on Kits Beach last night for the fireworks.

Wednesday

Sunday

Check out our new video for Audrey–it’s one of the songs we will be playing tonight at TR!P. If you’re looking for a great night of music, TR!P is the place. For my friends in Hollywood who said Santa Monica was too far to drive–uh, you’re pussies…and I guess I’ll see a few of you at the Kibitz later–I may be sitting in on the piano for a song or two with one of the bands. What did Jackie Wilson say?

Thursday

A friend of ours snapped a few pics of our show at the Kibitz Room. One for the books!

Wednesday

We are playing a set at TR!P Santa Monica this weekend–July 15th. Our last show at TR!P was a bit ill-fated…had to cancel on grounds of a bad cold.  Hard to sing when you sound like Al Pacino from Sea Of Love. If you’re driving in from Hollywood on the 10, it’s LEFT on Lincoln; had someone email me saying they tried to find TR!P and wound up in Brentwood. So, head south on Lincoln…or just do what everyone else does and use GPS?

Tuesday

Great show tonight at the Silverlake Lounge. Thanks again to T-Roy for having us…was a blast. Silverlake Lounge is another of those venues that has a history. Mostly you don’t really think of the history–then you realize; holy shit…that all went on here. Pages in time–snap shots. Tonight we played hard and sweat all over the stage–literally; took our place in those snap shots.

Monday

We are closing the evening with a set tonight at the Kibitz Room; a truly legendary venue. What can I say about the Kibitz? If Barbara Eden popped out of a bottle and told me I could pick five venues to play at; the Kibitz would be on that list, just under the Bronze in Sunnydale. The Kibitz is beyond illustrious, yet it’s got to be one of the most unpretentious, coolest bars in LA.

Anyway, we’re on at 11pm. If you miss it–catch us tomorrow night at the Silverlake Lounge–gotta love this town.

Sunday

To our LA friends; don’t miss us July 10th at the Silverlake Lounge – one of LA most legendary live music venues.

Saturday

Walking by Y-Que on Vermont today, I saw these two books on the shelf outside the store–was meant to be.

Friday

Yes, this is for realz.

Tuesday

We are looking forward to this Thursday at The State on Sunset. Thanks to our pal Kelly McGarry for including us on this bill.

Sunday

Great rehearsal at our usual jam space this afternoon. Yes, it may be ‘hood’…but the guy who runs the place is a real mensch and often gives us a nice deal. Today we even got a room with A/C; appreciate the simple things.

Thursday

Our latest single Audrey is selling like hotcakes on Apple Music/iTunes. Just when I thought nobody is buying music anymore.

https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/audrey-single/1356634307

Saturday

A cool photo sent to me from a woman who’d been in the audience at our Mint show.

Friday

‘Listen, Jon, if I worried about what the people cared about I’d never write anything.’”

-Charles Bukowski, “Hollywood”

Tuesday

Another great night at the Echo. Man, Echo Park crowds are my kind of folks…they are die hard live music fans…a week night and they’re out in droves to see a four band bill and they stay until the end, grooving out to a band they’ve never even heard before. That’s what I call supporting your local live music scene. What’s more, there’s a serious 60’s 70’s vibe going on at the Echo these days…I can only hope this trend catches on and spreads to the rest of this vast continent…it’s an exciting thought. Gotta love this town.

Monday

Snapped this photo last night while walking back from a movie at El Capitan. Though I’ve walked by the Chinese Theater many times, I’ve never stopped and looked at the hand prints before…most are recent and whatever. However, this one struck me. Natalie Wood; one of the most beautiful and enigmatic ladies of cinema. Such nice writing too. What struck me was how tiny she was–tiny but mighty somehow. Who would have thought she’d pass away two decades later under mysterious circumstances. Tragic.

Sunday

‘The chest opens with a creak and from it Nancy produces a number of glasses bearing stained glass designs which catch the sunlight like a prism, casting a colorfast over the beige wall as she talks calmly, looking him in the eyes as she always has. The world is lost without her kind and that is why her kind is recreated time after time; someone has to maintain values. For this he feels an admiration creeping into his chest, where Nancy so easily fits.’

Wednesday

We’re gearing up to play a show at TRIP in Santa Monica on the 19th. They feature burlesque dancers once a week…and bands pretty much every other night. We’re going to rock the hell out of that place–beach style.

Tuesday

Man, did we ever have a great time last night at the Silverlake Lounge…Next stop TRIP in Santa Monica February 19th!

Thursday

Wednesday

Sunnydale – Class of 99′

Sunday

Busy week…aside from recording–played a set at the legendary Kibitz Room on Fairfax–one of my fave places to hang out…Jakob Dylan used jam there back in the day, before he wrote Bringing Down the Horse (produced by T-bone Burnett)–one of the best albums of the 90’s. Anyway, about piano singing, there is something about the way the voice and piano tones blend–the sound is like an instrument unto itself. Really enjoyed it. Also, started rehearsals at the Musician’s Institute on Hollywood Blvd. Amazing atmosphere to rehearse in.

Friday

Only in LA…

Thursday

Back in LA… Will be doing some writing and recording in the coming weeks and will post some updates. It’s amazing how bright it is here…especially after all the weeks and weeks of rain up north. By the way it’s my birthday December 31st…so a big shout out to my fellow Capricorn/Tigers–feliz cumpleanos.

Thursday

Thanks Substation…last night was a blast! Four bands, no noise regulations…gotta love Ballard.

Wednesday

Had a great time playing at Dante’s last night. Such a great sounding room–ideal for live music. See you again soon Portland!

Back wall of club

We’re not in the habit of traveling with a photographer…but a woman who was in the audience last night was nice enough to email me a couple snaps she took…