Hello friends,

       What an incredible next couple of weeks. I’m going to throw that out there in advance. I have the enormous privilege and pleasure to play with three people I respect and admire, and quite frankly, I think they’re all kind of cute.

Joey Ryan, Lelia Broussard and I were sitting in a hot tub eating bbq and being cool cats a couple of months ago, we said to ourselves, “selves, we should play shows together.” I’m so glad we decided to act on it. So we’re gonna do a couple of shows together up the coast of California. I’ve thought of names for the brief tour, but any and all ideas I have make me sound way too excited.

“the totes awesome-possum tour”

“the ridiculously good looking tour”

“Why there’s hope for music tour”

“Knock knock, who’s there? Your face is melted…tour”

 

You can weigh in on your favorite and submit some of your own ideas. I’m going to have key chains made, or better yet, commemorative plates, Franklin mint style. I’ve invited Jamie Drake to play with us on some southern California dates as well. If you haven’t heard her do pop over to her myspace, she’s got a song called, “plumbline” that will wreck you.

 

So here are the dates and specifics. I can’t wait to see old faces and make new friends, and as always if you have friends near where we’re playing and think that we’d be their jam do let them know about us.

 

July 22nd Hotel Cafe Los Angeles, CA

http://www.hotelcafe.com/

July 23rd Union Room San Francisco, CA

http://www.theunionroom.com/

July 24th House Concert, Monterey CA (email booking@leliasmusic.com to reserve a seat)

July 29th The Brickwall at JA Studios, Fresno, CA.

www.facebook.com/brickwallmusic

July 30th Viento y Agua Long Beach CA*with Jamie Drake

http://www.vientoyaguacoffeehouse.com/

July 31st Lestats in San Diego CA*with Jamie Drake

http://www.lestats.com/

August 1st Zoey's in Ventura CA*with Jamie Drake

http://www.zoeyscafe.com/

I have never been good at making money, or to look at the glass as half-full, I have always been not good at making money. And I do stick to what I’m good at. It has been hard to stick to my guns on this one. People come by with piles of cash and beg for me to take it, “No thank you”, I’ll say with a big smirk of my face. “I’ve taken an unofficial vow of poverty so I can look down on rich people”. This works like gangbusters, usually they walk away with their wheelbarrows full of currency in tow, downtrodden, beaten, and there I am self-righteous on my dunghill with a dirty yet resolute face of calm and splendor. Actually it’s more like this;

Every First and Fifteenth, every month, I half squint my eyes as I log into my online banking site. It’s the same look on my face as you would get from removing a bandage to look at how a scab is healing. It’s never good. Not that I’ve always been a broke-ass-broke-a-dee broker. There have been occations that I’ve had money. Not Many, but a few.

I swore that I’d invest it, or practice the art of frugality (which for me kind of looks a lot like being a cheep miser), but that never really holds. Something always comes up. A car starts to make a funny noise or a perfectly normal computer decides to be a glorified paper weight until further notice. No kidding, one time I got a part on a tv show and the very day my check came in the mail for 750 bucks my dentist sent me a bill for a root canal, $745.49, I spent the remaining $4.51 at taco bell.

 

Now I know the counter argument to this already, What would’ve it been like if I hadn’t had the $750 to begin with?

I’ve heard that. a lot. I know that the right way to look at the situation is to be thankful, that God is filling in the gaps I don’t even know will be there. But still, I had toys I wanted to buy with that, good ones too. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve thought to myself that I wasn’t going to make rent. And yet here I sit in my house, not on the street. I’m incredibly fortunate. I know there are others, perhaps some of you reading this right now who can’t count yourselves as lucky.

 So in an effort to not be poor and not be a victim of my bills I’ve decided to fight the power. You heard me, Fight the Power. My first foe that I went toe-to-toe with was AT&T. Of course this being the 21^st century, I filmed it and put it up on youtube.

 

upcoming gigs

Next week I've got a new but good friend Brian Elmquist coming into town. His music is powerful and he is a gem. We're playing a free, check that, Free show at Crane's Tavern in Hollywood next week July 7th @ 10PM. here's the address yo

1611 North El Centro Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90028-6458

 

Now for those of you in California I have the pleasure of performing with Lelia Broussard and Joey Ryan on a mini-tour of this, my favorite, the Golden State Dates are listed below

July 22nd Hotel Cafe Los Angeles
July 23rd Union Room San Francisco
July 24th Monterey CA House Concert
July 29th Fresno CA House Concert
July30th Cafe Viento Y Agua Long Beach
July 31st Lestats San Diego
August 1st Zoey's Ventura

If you're in any one of these areas or near them please do come out. I cannot say enough good things about the Joey and Lelia, and I'm truly honored to be sharing the stage with them. As always know that I love and appreciate you and your support. And I hope this finds you full of hope for the future and love for the now. I just became a hippie right then. ok. bye. 

Jake

 

Let's get connected friends.

I’ve been watching the Olympics non-stop. Now I’m not a sports fan by any stretch of the imagination, I watch the superbowl for the commercials and the Half-time show, I thought that Fantasy football meant that mythological creatures were involved, but there’s something about the Olympics that sucks me in like a black hole for the two glorious weeks they grace our televisions. The Closing ceremony always gives me the feeling of the last day of camp, You know that you’ll see these people again, but it will be a long and boring season of Baseball scandals and football player arrests before you can watch your beloved curling/biathaloning/speedskating buffet of human interest stories. You see, with the typical professional sports, for me at least, feel like they’re trying to stab my eyes with product placements. It overshadows the spirit of competition, the driving, striving urge to break world records for the sake of humanity’s betterment.
The Olympics have that in spades, it’s People doing things that no one else has ever done. Every time you turn the TV on. Pretty Cool. Oh, and someone is always recovering from an injury while Bob Costas weaves a tale of triumph and heartache, like watching various versions of an 80’s sports movie. I. freaking. love. it.

I also was given the opportunity to work on a track with Ben Lee and Fiona Apple for Margaret Cho’s upcoming album, she was a sweetheart and gracious beyond measure. And she liked my banjo playing. So she’s good in my book. Her record should be coming out this Fall, Look for it!!!

In recent press the music/Culture hub www.Bloginity.com ran a feature on me, they’re some solid journalists/hepcats with a lot going on for them, and I'm proud they lent their talents to a story on yours truly.

For The Los Angelites I’m Playing Thursday March 4th at 7PM, go to www.hotelcafe.com for more info. East coast, I’m flirting with coming out to see you. But it always helps to have people persuade me, Any thoughts on where you want to see me, or if you want to host a house concert give a shout out back to info@jakenewton.com

That's all for now friends, Now back to Bob Costas.
Jake

Lelia Broussard and I wrote a Christmas tune that we're giving away free at www.noisetrade.com Click on the Cover to get your copy!

I just had a birthday a week ago, turned 28 years young. I don't feel it. In many ways my perception of myself is perhaps half my age at any given point. So I guess that makes me 14 in my own mind. In light of certain events it felt like a sort of milestone. I’ve had a few friends that didn’t make it to 28. Three people I knew very well growing up died in this past year, two of which didn’t end up making it to 30, and it’s thrown me for a loop. The seemingly arbitrary circumstances in which a life can end always make me think of how thin a string regular breathing and a heart beating can be. We are so fragile.

It feels like it’s been a year of deaths, celebrities are dropping like flies. Is it simply that throughout the years we’ve accumulated so many of them that the law of averages dictates that we’ll be seeing more die? Or is it something else in the ether of all this increasing chaos that has felled down these public figures? I don’t know, It makes my head hurt when I try to think about it. Not saying that when it comes to abstract thought I put my head in the sand, but sometimes it’s easier to glide along the surface of what you know to be something far too deep for casual conversation.

The fires here in Los Angeles are reining down ash all over my car. The view from my front door looks onto La Cañada, which at the moment is engulfed in flames. Last night all the neighbors came out to watch it burn like a slow motion 4th of July spectacular, only no hot dogs and everyone was nervous. It was actually one of the few times I had actually spoken to them. What is that about Los Angeles? You eat, work, and sleep no more than 15 feet from someone for years and you don’t even know their names. We all have our reasons. I’m agoraphobic.  That’s my excuse.

So in an effort to get out and meet more people I’m going to start touring behind this new record. I know that a few people have been asking for a very long time and that it’s finally come the moment for me to get out of LA (and more specifically my house) to play for those of you who’ve been so supportive for so very long. I’ve got tentative plans to tour the West Coast in Early November so if anyone knows of any good spots to play (which can include a few dope house concerts) please let me know. And as always, continue to send me suggestions and requests to play your town. I’m coerced very easily.

Finally, I wanted to tell you that the record is FINALLY up on iTunes, I know that a lot of you were holding out for it so now here’s your chance to scoop it up. When you do I’d be most appreciative if you left a review and rating of it. Also for you tech-savvy/aspiring dj’s I’m making a request that you include yours truly in an iMix. Believe it or not they actually go a long way to cross promote all the artists included in them. So get to work on that mix tape for the hottie in the cubicle next to you. For those who don’t know, here are iMIX instructions

Well that is all for now friends, be excellent to each other,

J

P.S. t-shirts are selling fast at the Jake Newton store, I've only got 4 Mediums left, so if you want 'em better get 'em soon!

So there is a phrase, “jack of a trades, master of
None,” that I’ve heard repeated many times in my life¬. I realize after today that such is not the case for dear old Jacobius Newton (and no that’s not my birth name, it’s my screen character on world of warcraft). I can write a song, I can play guitar, I can talk at length on a variety of subjects and BS my way through most of them. But one thing I cannot do is acclimate myself to graphic design.
Oh the programs I have stumbled through today, sighing heavily toward the beginning of the process, SCREAMING at the screen in the middle of it, then falling to a lump of sheer frustration and heartache at the end. I’m writing this as my final files upload to the duplication company. Spent. I tell you. Spent.

Three wonderful people came to my rescue today, The ever talented Bethany Barton (who did the original artwork) do check out her lovely site at www.bethanybarton.com.
She was furiously resizing and doing God knows what to these files from her Hotel room in NYC! Trooper… a class act. She didn’t give up even when I wanted to, she is the very definition of good people.

Then the lovely Heather Holty (www.heatherholty.com) took her already amazing photos and made them amazinger. She was then subjected to my attempts to navigate the sorted waters of the design program and watched me as I performed a rage and rant the likes of which few people other than zookeepers in the seventh circle of Hades have seen.
If she still wants to be with me after today she deserves a solid gold Cadillac Escalade that runs on high-fives and spits chai-lattes out of the exhaust.

Somewhere after the aforementioned rant my riend and general graphic savant Mike Barton www.nomoreheroes.org called me off the ledge right before I ended it all. I believe I said to him that I was going to put a hole in my head, not with a gun, but by holding a railroad spike up to my eye and running full force into a wall. Darkness….

All that aside, it’s finished. Done. Completed. I can’t believe how long this process has been, all the ups and downs and false starts. But it’s finally going out into the world. Look for it mid-August on iTunes and of course, in a very well packaged CD…

Hey all, I am not getting sick. I swear, the scratchy throat, the raised body temperature, the runny nose, it's all imaginary. I am a fighter, I am a monster, I leap buildings in a single bound! I.... ah, crap. I'm sick. It's fortuitous that this hit me AFTER this past weekend, where I had the pleasure of opening up for an old friend Greg Laswell (on tour now, go see him!) in Huntington Beach, and a new friend Charlotte Martin at the Hotel Cafe. Thank you for those who came out to see us all, they were really wonderful intimate shows. I gotta go now, as work must continue on the new record, but I wanted to let you know about an interview I did with indy concerts, very cool people, check it out at www.indyconcerts.com Well I'm gonna go feel sorry for myself and eat soup, Love and light to you all,
J

On New Houses and New Records

Hello from Los Angeles my friends.
We don't have a true Fall season in southern California. It's like that song by Albert Hammond (not the Stroke) that states, "Seems it never rains in Southern California", It does however Pour. ah, That song might not be the best metaphor for what I'm trying to say.
I miss the feeling of actually being Hungry for soup, You know what I mean? It will come soon enough I suppose and then it won't be long before I miss the smell of Sunscreen. It's a perpetual longing for the other side of the fence with it's lush green pastures. Metaphysical no?
Now, on to news and such.

I have been moving into a new place these past few weeks and have been knee deep in boxes and bags, So I'm terribly sorry that I've been so herky-jerky with replies to emails and comments. Today is the first day that I've set aside to be a human again and not a move-monster. This new place is Awesome though. It's afforded me the ability to really begin focusing on the new record. Which is Going well, it's going slow, but well. I'm just so capricious with my work. I'll stay up all night working on a part for a song, and fall asleep comforted and assured that I've come up with a "heartbreaking work of Staggering Genius" (To borrow a title), only to find the very next day that I must've been smoking crack while banging my head against the wall, because what I've made can only be described as Audible Failure. Of course, my opinion will change later, about 2 to 3 times more. This is the reason I won't get tattoos. Waaaay to fickle.

The band and I just started tracking drums last week at Skylab Studios. I'm so proud of them, we whipped through everything so fast that we ended up tracking other instruments beyond drums. The whole thing made me say to myself, "Crap! I need to write more for these guys to record!". A swift kick to my tuchas. yeawza. We're playing a show in LA on the 3rd of March, and I'm looking for shows around California. So email me if you want me to play your club or house or clubhouse! 2008 is gonna kill.

Well I'm on the road, taking in the sights and sounds of this beautiful and vicious country called the United States of America. There's a certain amount of simplicity that I'm finding that at first feels like a droning chord but ends with a comforting hum in the back of my mind. I'm writing a lot. The wheels of progress are turning.
So some things to share, the good people over at Pause Magazine have made me their artist of the week! how great is that? You can view their stuff at www.pauseculture.com. And if you Find yourself in Pittsburgh on the 25th of November I will be playing at the Shadow Lounge. That's the word for now, more to come soon

Los Angeles, CA (May 7th, 2007) - LoverFighter Music has announced the release of Jake Newton’s “I’m a Bird,” a tightly packed EP of 6 original songs, marking Newton’s first solo album.

A multi-instrumentalist and prolific songwriter, Newton brings mandolins, banjoes, electric guitars and concertinas together to create a genre-bending blend of Americana, Folk, and Rock and Roll that range from abysmal ballads, to spiritual anthems of the soul’s unrest. The EP is available through www.cdbaby.com and www.iTunes.com
To create “I’m a Bird” Newton found inspiration from the Mountains where he grew up. Taking a break from the grind of Los Angeles, Newton left to work Construction in his rural hometown of Oakhurst, CA. He recorded the framings of the songs in the evenings and on days off, making frequent trips to Los Angeles for mixing and mastering with Producer Brian Irwin.

“It was a profound and trying time; one of those ‘character building’ experiences, that fathers looking over their newspapers, talk about,” said Newton.

Upon returning to Los Angeles, Newton has played to packed-out crowds, at venues like Tangiers and the world famous Hotel Café. For information on tour dates, please visit www.myspace.com/jakenewton.