From the City to the Ocean - Brotherhood Against All Storms!
Apr 07, 2026
Hey,
I hope you’re doing well! I’m on my way to the Montreal airport to pick up Alex as you’re reading this, as we have such a busy and crazy week ahead of us! We’re still walking on the water following last Saturday’s gathering around the premiere of the From the City to the Ocean video!
Thank you all so very much for your incredible compliments, it truly means the world...! I’ll never forget Easter weekend 2026, which felt like a moment we’ve all been waiting for quite a long time to happen!
This week’s plan is quite simple: Studio, Studio, Studio!!!! Stay tuned!
🎧 Music I’m listening to
I really like this incredible artist and had the chance to see her play live in Montreal a few years ago. She’s back with a masterpiece, in my opinion, and she shared something really cool and inspiring about it on her Instagram:
“What has kept me alive is a feral invincibility, barrelling through life, propelled magnetically as in a flying dream. Grief had me say yes to life, to embrace and taste and devour. I know life to be as pointless and as meaningful as I can make it. I wanted to write some of this into a dream, a confluence of meaning and feeling.”
Listen to the Missive Playlist
📖 Reading highlight I’m pondering
Turning Compassion Into Action
- Alex Henry Foster
Starting the band Your Favorite Enemies was a way for us to simply exist in this world. It was a place for us where we were invited to be without any restrictions whatsoever. This powerful scream from the heart came out of our hands and control pretty quickly, realizing we were a countless amount around the world seeking truth, freedom, real human connections and experiences.
Turning Compassion Into Action became more than just a motto, it was a way of living, an every-morning reminder of why we do all this, the water feeding the seeds of our ethos, at least for Alex and myself!
Fast forward 20 years, and as I was with Alex doing a toast a few days ago before he left for Virginia, I was mentioning how our younger and pissed-off selves would be proud to witness what we became after spending an entire decade and more navigating troubled waters, fog, and storms, going in circles, or not even sailing most of the time, clueless about where to find our North Star!
Turning Compassion Into Action is more than a motto, more than a driving force and more than a reminder these days. It’s more and more our identity, it’s who we’re becoming regardless of what we went through.
🎙️ Podcast That Inspired Me
Turned Out a Punk with Paul Langlois
The Tragically Hip have deeply influenced us with what it really means to be a band and how to use music to be the difference! If you don’t know this band, I’m inviting you to take a closer look since there are so many layers to this Canadian band and they’re all truly inspiring!
📸 My Picture Of The Week
Alex and I in Gold Coast, Australia, 2013.
💬 Shared in the Long Shadows Chat this week
I shared this picture above in our band’s chat last week following Alex’s incredibly deep and personal Substack series around the song From the City to the Ocean! That picture was taken by Stephanie before a concert during our Australian tour! I always kept that picture close to me since, when we shared it, our friend Elizabeth from Tennessee, whom we always called Mom, wrote this powerful comment, which still moves me to this day:
Brotherhood Against All Storms!
Our story is far from being a normal and easy one, but it’s a powerful one where, despite all the treasons, lies, hypocrisy, darkness, pandemic, heart surgeries, losses, and departures, love and friendship have always been at the epicenter, outshining everything around them! Like a candle standing outside against all odds on a windy and very cold night...
From the City to the Ocean...! Let’s be great to one another!
Your friend and Chief Operator,
Jeff
PS: If you just joined The Club, make sure to download all the songs you have access to!
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