Green Room Series, Week #3 - No Art, No Life! And Life is So Rich!!!

Hey,

I hope you’re doing well! It’s around 10 am on Sunday morning and I’m sitting at a little desk in my small room in Cologne, a city we have been calling home for the past 2 weeks already. I’m currently listening to the song The End by The Doors on repeat since I heard it on Alex’s Ascending in Bright Lights recently updated playlist, and also because I’ve been reading the book The Art of Darkness by John Robb while we were driving for more than 12 hours in the past two days. 

The author explains how Jim Morrison and The Doors played such an important role in what later became post-punk and gothic music. It has never been my scene, from its aesthetic to its essence or lifestyle, but I’ve always been a great lover of their art through authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Baudelaire, Albert Camus, and of course, bands like The Cure, Nick Cave, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Echo and the Bunnymen, Suicide, The Damned, leading up to Nine Inch Nails and many more...! So rich and inspiring. There are so many things and angles for me to learn from this entire world of darkness, fantasy, dreams, beauty, purity, and love, just as the past few days have been for us all here in Germany. 

I never received as many answers to my Club Missive as last week, when I shared about this lovely word I’m so passionate about; freedom. Reading your responses really touched me, and without telling you, I started to open conversations about this in the van as we had a lot of hours to spend together listening to music, sharing about the upcoming concerts, and what I like the most; “why” we’re doing all this. 

For so many years, I’ve been dedicating my life to accomplishing great things without allowing myself to suffer or even be sad for more than one day, as I’ve always worked so hard at being this positive and joyful force, reminding everyone how everything is possible to those who believe it is. I’ve witnessed Alex suffer so much, I’ve seen him depressed countless times, saw him leave for Tangier, move to Virginia, live through the passing of his father, move from Your Favorite Enemies to Alex Henry Foster, up to his surgery and the passing of MacKaye. All things that I refused myself to live… sadly. 

It’s only very recently that things have started to change in my heart and mind, seeing with more clarity how, as far as we can go in life, light becomes brighter through darkness…! Last week, your messages, along with the book I started to read, simply opened my eyes and my heart even more on the road we have to embark on if we really want to completely free ourselves and embrace the greatness we want to see in this world! What a huge privilege and blessing it is for me to read you! Here’s a direct impact of what we’ve been building all together for the past few years! 

Here’s a link for you to watch the entire concert we played at the Freak Valley Festival.

Watch the Concert

No art, no life! And life is so rich!!!  

Let’s be great to one another! 

Your Host and Friend, 
Jeff