The Grebes

House Show August 22nd

I'll be playing a show with Johnny and John on Friday, August 22nd at the Shelby House (1208 E Shelby St)--A Grebes Trio for the first time ever! There is a new Grebes music video in the works.. and we're planning to premier it at the show as well! Emma (flowering ground) is going to be playing too, plus an artist visiting from L.A. named Albon. Should be really fun! Hope to see you there :)

Why make a website?

One of the conundrums of making art these days seems to be sharing it in a way that feels good. I suppose this has been a conundrum for some time now, but the issue feels especially pressing today. Instagram has become the go to platform for musicians and other artists to share their work, connect with other artists, promote shows, and so on. It is so ubiquitous that it feels like a requirement to be on there if one wants to have any kind of audience at all. My suspension though, is that much of this sense of "growing an audience" is illusory. Interactions on Instagram aren't very intentional. They aren't helping develop meaningful relationships to art and music. That isn't the fault of anyone using Instagram, but rather a design of the app itself. The only thing Instagram wants is for its users to be on the app as much as possible and to scroll through as many ads as possible while they are on it. Those aren't great conditions for thoughtfully spending time with someone's "content". This obviously goes way beyond just music or art. The way people consume news on social media is similarly accelerated and (imho) disconnected from reality.

All of that said, I have heard from various people that they enjoy following my updates on Instagram, and I think I have reached a fair number of people on there that wouldn't have listened to my music otherwise. Hence the conundrum... For myself I have found being on Instagram generally feels kind of shitty, and I end up having pretty mixed feelings whenever I post on there about my music. I am trying to work on feeling less attached to these platforms' metrics of success and value, but it can be hard. Not to mention Instagram is owned by Meta, controlled by one of the evil, demonic overlords of the world Mark Zuckerberg, and they track everything we do on there. Yeesh. 

What to do about it?? I would love to live in a world where music and art was shared through community networks that weren't owned by mega-corporations intent on destroying our humanity. That is obviously a huge ask, but I think there are small things we can all do. Mostly it comes down to being intentional about the art and music we engage with. Don't succumb to the world of algorithms, find music independently, follow music blogs like Aquarium Drunkard or Gorilla vs. Bear, go to local shows and DIY spaces, listen to freeform radio stations like WFMU, share music with your friends like in the olden days, make your own playlists!

One of my own small acts was to make this website! I'll still be using email and Instagram from time to time, but I am curious to explore how it feels to share my music in a space that is my own, without ads or tracking, without the hypnotic pull of clicking to the next story or scrolling to the next reel. I'm planning to send out snippets from the website as a little "newsletter" of sorts. You'll be able to unsubscribe from that pretty easily I think.. So if you are tired of receiving my emails but have been too polite to say anything, you'll have your chance to unsubscribe anonymously soon.

With love,

Jamie 

Welcome to The Grebes dot com!

Welcome to thegrebes.com, and thank you for finding your way here! I’ll be using this website to post music updates, info about shows, musings on the world, and pictures of things like flowers and my dog. Here are a few highlights from a recent trip to the Woodland Park Rose Garden: