This music has raised good money for good stuff! Gonna send out the last donations later this week. Thanks so much for chipping in & spreading the word. Please be a part of it, and don't take anything for granted this election cycle, or moving forward. Lotta work to do, and we gotta do it together. In that spirit, I just wanted to take a sec and focus on Hell of a Year. I pretty literally wrote it in dazed tears at some point over the last bunch of months. I posted that very naked version right as it happened. I also sent raw guit & vox tracks to a few friends, because remote collaboration has been a sanity-saving wonder for me in 2020. A wonderful artist from the UK called Liam Frost sent back some gorgeous tracks made by him & his friends, and I started playing (more on that soon). Then, my dear friend Dana Gumbiner sent a whole other version, which turned into this version. They were such different takes, and both so beautiful. I couldn't let either one go. Dana's version felt right for this release. As much as I love his treatment of the song, the most special part for me is that Ski Taylor sang on it. Dana & Ski gave me much-needed shelter and stability at a real rough time in my life, and to be together with him them going through this craziness, staying connected through the music, is perfect. I also wanna send some more love to Brad Gunnarson, who is helping me put together the art for this release, and the album-in-progress. Basically, I'm just incredibly grateful for friends showing up, sharing their creativity with me, and taking such good care of these ideas. Please join me in thanking them, leave any thoughts you like. It's been a hell of a year. I'm glad we're still not dead. Love to all.
Jonah
ps - As if all this goodness wasn't enough, John from Far also sent some amazing stuff for this song. It's in Dana's mix, and it'll be in the next one as well. Yay friends & music.