Getting ready for the upcoming tour!
Aug 12, 2025
Hey,
I hope you’re doing well…! It's Sunday morning and I’m in my Drummondville office after what has been such an unbelievable passage in Tangier, one that changed everything, again, and this forever!
The vibe is already incredible here at the church studio as we’re about to start a very busy stretch toward our short European tour!
Our feet are back in North America but our heart is still in Africa!
🎧 What I’m listening to
Golden Hours album from the band Golden Hours
Based between Brussels and Berlin, Golden Hours is composed of past and present members of Gang Of Four, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Tricky, The Fuzztones and The Third Sound, to name just a few. A band with mileage and stories!
Every time we go back to either tour productions or recording studio sessions, I like to head back to something fundamental, cornerstone-like, and this band is precisely that for us all in the band!
No Music No Life!
📖 Reading highlight I’m pondering
I finally finished reading David Bowie's Blackstar Theory on the day we were leaving Tangier. I literally stayed in my room all afternoon eating every page left from this incredible literary and musical journey.
David Bowie’s Blackstar, released on January 8, 2016, his 69th birthday, stands as one of the most deliberate and profound farewell statements in music history, in my opinion, and based on what I’ve read thus far.
Created in secrecy while Bowie was battling liver cancer, the album is both an intimate confrontation with mortality and a grand artistic gesture. Two days after its release, Bowie died, and Blackstar instantly transformed from a new work into a carefully constructed final message.
At its core, the album is about transition from life into death, from the physical into the eternal. The title itself carries multiple layers of meaning, which I really had to dig deeper into (thanks to Google and ChatGPT).
In astronomy, a “black star” refers to a theoretical star on the brink of collapsing into a black hole, a potent image for an artist whose physical form was fading but whose creative influence would endure. In medical terms, the phrase has also been used to describe certain cancerous lesions, quietly linking the title to Bowie’s own illness. On a more symbolic plane, the black star becomes a spiritual emblem of mystery, transformation, and the unknown.
The message of Blackstar is as layered as its music: life is impermanent (which is a subject Alex truly is obsessed about, so the timing of reading this book was incredible! It is important for me to mention Alex gave me this book, maybe there’s a link there too! Ha!!! ) but art is persistent by its nature; endings are not just terminations but transformations.
Bowie had built his career on constant reinvention, from Ziggy Stardust to the Thin White Duke and countless other personas. In Blackstar, he treated death itself as another transformation, his ultimate role.
The legacy of Blackstar is immense. It is a masterclass in artistic integrity, proof that even at the end of life, creativity can be fearless and uncompromising. Ultimately, Blackstar is more than an album. It is a final performance, a parting gift, and a lasting echo. Bowie left the world not with silence, but with a work that invites us to ponder our own mortality, and perhaps, like him, to see death not as an ending, but as a passage into another kind of life.
🎧 Podcast I’ve Enjoyed The Most
Bob Pittman from the Tetragrammaton podcast with Rick Rubin! One of my favorite pods, if not my favorite!
Robert Warren Pittman is an American businessman. Pittman was the CEO of MTV Networks and the cofounder and programmer who led the team that created MTV, and is the cofounder of iHeartMedia and Casa Dragones Tequila.Pittman joined iHeartMedia's predecessor company Clear Channel in November 2010 as an investor and the company's Chairman of Media and Entertainment Platforms, was named CEO in 2011 and chairman in 2013.
Pittman led Clear Channel's transformation into iHeartMedia, Inc. in September 2014 to reflect its new multiplatform business and expanded mission. Pittman has also been the former chairman and CEO of Clear Channel Outdoor, CEO of AOL Networks, Six Flags Theme Parks, Quantum Media, Century 21 Real Estate and Time Warner Enterprises, and COO of America Online, Inc. and AOL Time Warner.
Some people just have it in everything they do and since I’m just an uneducated punk who wants to change the world and thrive as much as I can in every aspect of life, money not being an ambition at all for me, I always find it fascinating to discover those people’s stories and see if I missed something somewhere! What’s the driving force? How far or high can we go? Great reflections and conversations within the band afterwards as well!
I was a massive MTV fan and consumer! This is what got me to press play in the first place! Great podcast! Culture is a huge key toward the prison of what society has to offer!
📸 My Picture Of The Week
I organized a gin tasting evening at La Maison de Tanger where I shared a culture I really like around the gins coming from our beautiful province of Quebec. This is something I have wanted to do for many years and every time we were traveling to Tangier, Alex and I would bring incredible and unique bottles of gins knowing this day would finally come. And it did in grand style!!!!
I chose 5 bottles of gins coming from 5 different areas and we invited everyone to not only come and drink gins, but hear about their stories and cultures, all of which I linked toward our own culture, friendship, vision, dreams and why we moved to Tangier and now own more than a boutique hotel but a place where conversations, moments, and spirits are shared and exchanged with people from all over the world. A true extension of who we are and what we stand for.
I called the evening Boreale, here was the description:
An Unforgettable Québec Experience
A journey into the heart of the boreal forests, where frost, flavors, and Québec winter tales intertwine.
A scripted sensory experience
The guest doesn’t simply come to “taste gin” they step into a narrative atmosphere where each gin embodies a landscape or a moment of Québec life. The tasting journey becomes an imaginary voyage across Québec.
It simply was meaningful, tasteful, memorable and above all so much fun!
Share a moment, make it unforgettable!!!
💬 Shared in the Long Shadows Chat this week
Alex asked us a question as we were gathered for lunch at the HQ of the band together: “What are your expectations for this upcoming short tour?”
Yes, this is how we operate. We arrive here after months of being in Tangier, we celebrate for one night, and the next day, we’re building the stage and are already talking about deep stuff and expectations. We like to thrive and to set the bar high!
The answer was kinda easy and expected; we all want these concerts to be the best versions of ourselves, of who we are now, and of what we experienced and became while in Tangier.
But now, it’s time to work, to get busy, and to dig down as deep as we have the courage to as a whole. We’re working on songs we haven’t played in a long time, we’re challenging every part of every song, and this will be what the upcoming 10 days are all about!
Stay close!!!! Life is so grandiose!
Let’s be great to one another!
Your chief operator and friend,
Jeff
