A Little More About Alex's Mandolin Contest

Hey,

I hope you’re doing well! I wanted to thank you for joining me this past Saturday, as I had the immense privilege to share this year’s new package with you as well as this great contest around Alex’s “Little Red Wonder” electric mandolin! What a treat!!!

Presenting this contest truly was my favorite part of the show, as I was remembering how cool it was to stand right beside Alex as he was “gently” and “lovingly” introducing this Little Red Wonder to Moose’s cymbals! I even had to put my feet on the cymbal stand sometimes as it couldn’t handle Alex’s passion on its own!!! I miss being on the road so bad which makes this contest even more exciting as it carries so many unforgettable moments and emotions with it! This electric mandolin is so singular, so meaningful, something above and beyond a musical instrument, which would already be quite amazing, but this one in particular has so much history attached to it, it simply makes it priceless!

This instrument truly is the extension of the powerful connection Alex had with you who were there every night during the past tour. How this passion was materialized wasn’t about breaking something beautiful, but about bringing this connection to the next level! We’ve been craving this human connection for years, and you’ve been so generous with us night after night, that this was Alex’s very passionate way to say “thank you so much, this is what it feels like to be alive after those years of human connection deprivation and total absence of what’s more than necessary!” 

This is also why he was inviting some of you on stage with this mandolin guitar in hands, since those concerts, those evenings, were not about Alex, nor about The Long Shadows, but about us all in the room, giving birth to something way greater than our own self, connecting on something so real that it will forever live within ourselves! When someone from the audience comes on stage with Alex’s instrument in their hands and starts raging with us is the perfect embodiment of what those evenings were all about; us shining brighter as we rose up again! 

I will have the opportunity to sit down with Alex in the upcoming weeks, asking him questions about his mandolin, starting with how he plays with it, why he gives it to someone in the audience at some point, why he hits those cymbals in the end, and finally, why he’s now giving it away to a very lucky member of The Club! Feel free to send me any questions you might have as I truly want us to go deeply through everything surrounding this great passion of his, how he lived it, how he created it and incarnated it night after night!  

THE JOURNEY BEGINS

I always like to do those live shows, introducing not only the technical aspects of The Club, but also its spirit and soul that inspire us all so much! It’s been a little over two years since I became the host of The Club, and it’s been such a privilege for me to share and build with you throughout this singular journey around Alex’s creative universe! This year makes no exception as we’re entering a new season of this journey, now being the time for Alex and us all in The Long Shadows to work on new music! We’ll have an exciting year and I’ll be welcoming you into Alex’s very eclectic and creative universe and upcoming musical projects! 

Since I had the chance to welcome several new members following this past Saturday live broadcast, I thought it was really important to share this year’s theme and new package designs with you! I really can’t wait to see what this will unveil for us, and how we’ll manage to get closer as we travel through it, and how this year will make things brighter as we rise up again! 

Sometimes, the unexpected emergence of new vibrant sensations reveals some pieces of tomorrow’s foreseeing images, made of fragments of memories, of faded fractions of long-gone shivering emotions, all reflecting flashes of untainted words, of emancipated sounds awaiting to be, from which I can discern the shadowing motion of life’s rebirth as we slowly awaken from brokenhearted hopelessness…

Restored, revived, renewed.
Liberated, as we rise up again.
An everlasting dawn, radiating brighter as we blaze into now…
Free!

- Alex Henry Foster

Alex and I will be leaving for Hamburg for the Reeperbahn Festival next week! This will be a very emotional trip for us both since this is where it all started for him on an international level after we played three times in front of the European music industry back in 2019! 

I’ll share more about this in the upcoming weeks! 

Your Host and Friend, 
Jeff

PS: For those who have received the “Love Mending Hope” package, please know that you will receive this new package at the time of your renewal. If you have questions about your membership/renewal date, please don’t hesitate to write to the HTR Store at the following email address: info@htrstore.com