20th Anniversary of The Hereafter!
Holy moly here we are barreling through the summer and into the fall and before we know it we’ll be moving the clocks back and getting ready for the holidays. Speaking of TIME…it has been twenty years since The Hereafter album came out! This is a recent revelation that plunged me deep into the external hard drive archives via FireWire adapters and a clutch assist from Justin in the IT department. Suddenly, there I was in Los Angeles driving eighty miles a day to work, rehearsal, and back home to Rose & 3rd Avenue. Intermittently depressed, writing and recording an avalanche of songs, playing every venue in the Southland, burning CDRs of demos, driving everywhere and dreaming big. YOUTH. If you want to hear me monologue about it for probably too long, check out Audiode 94.
Holy moly there are a lot of unreleased recordings from 2005-2006. A somewhat enjoyable revelation was that the best fourteen songs ended up on The Hereafter (it was the CD era so that sucker clocks in at 55 minutes). It probably remains my biggest “hit” album? Two tracks on “Grey’s Anatomy”! Another on “One Tree Hill”! Multiple thousands of compact discs sold! And the streams continue to this day.
I will save you and the world the release of a “deluxe” version of these outtakes (though I will note that my two-year-old has requested “Football & War” approximately five thousand times since first hearing it a couple weeks ago). But I did discover five songs that serve as a beautiful special bonus extended play to celebrate the 20th anniversary of an album and an era that really kicked me out of the nest and into this journey of making music, ready or not. The full EP will be out September 7th to accompany your autumnal musings, corresponding with the precise 20th anniversary of the album release show at the Hotel Cafe (RIP). And today (my birthday!), a single is streaming right now: “Before The Setting Sun”.
Just look at those pictures of me and Andy as the sun set on Los Angeles once upon a time twenty years ago. And listen: I know twenty years is actually nothing in the scope the universe, but it’s 20% of a human life if you’re lucky. Forgive me if I’m feeling a bit nostalgic this summer. Hurray for new (old) music!
And hey Los Angeles: I’m taking my bike down there via the Amtrak train next week to play the Yearning Man house festival on August 22nd! Reply to this e-mail or message me on social media for the details. If you wanna roll to the festival with me and some friends, I think we’re putting a group ride together! :) Please enjoy this enjoyable festival poster:
Also, since I guess I’m writing a long e-mail, I’ll just share that I’m feeling so sad about the suffering that is being inflicted on millions of our neighbors and fellow human beings by the United States government. The violence and cruelty is unforgivable and unacceptable…and yet, what can we do? How to grapple with the horrors we are witnessing?
An essential wellspring of solace for me has been the literary magazine “The Sun”. My friend Robert threw a tattered copy in my suitcase once upon a time before a European tour and eventually, bored and without phone service on a train ride somewhere, I grabbed it and began an ongoing love affair that has only deepened over the years. It arrives in your mailbox in palpable physical form, a monthly orb of light, a celebration of being human and all that comes with our brief and tumultuous time on this planet together. I recommend subscribing. It’s the best $59 you’ll spend in 2026.
I will leave you with a poem from the August issue, “Unheld” by Shreya Mandal, which concludes with an image I cannot get out of my heart or head. Helpless as we may feel (and in fact are?) to affect change in this moment, maybe the best we can do is become aware of the brutality around us, recognize our complicity, and ponder how we can begin to make it better.
Sincerely,
John
