Let's be friends.

A beautiful thing that comes from making music: community.

It takes networking and hustling to get your songs from your bedroom, and into the world.

It sounds silly to say, as I know I'm quite young at 22, but I feel like I've seen a shift in attitude among fellow musicians in my local scene over the last 10 years that I've been playing/making music. As I started out, everyone was all about supporting one another, genuinely, and "hey let's play a show together next week". Sharing links on social media and helping pass out flyers at school or shows. It was cool, you had some friends that understood the struggle to get heard, and you all wanted to see each other succeed.

Those were the "MySpace days" as I like to call them.

Then a little thing called Facebook came into the picture and around that time I noticed a new trend of a cutthroat every-man-for-himself attitude. You have a show coming up? Good luck- none of the other musicians are going to share that because that interferes with their own marketing...or so they think.

Or perhaps worse, there's the classic "I support everyone, regardless of talent or originality...not really, but I like to tell people that, and they seem to like that." The kind of person that has two faces, and questionable motives.

This is tricky.

YES- let's all support one another and be friends. I do find that my support tends to sway more to those who are SO PASSIONATE that there is nothing else in the world for them but music.

So, I love that community is something that, though rare in my scene, is a beautiful and strong thing to experience. Nothing better than friends wanting to see the other succeed in what they love to do.

Last year, I met David Gerald Sutton (@davidgsuttonvln) in Springfield MO while he was on tour, and I was recording. This man is an insanely talented violinist/one man orchestra and every time I try to verbalize my respect for him, I'm at a loss for words. Watching him perform is such a treat because he's so in the moment, and he makes it all look so effortless. Easily one of the most brilliant musicians I've ever met and I'm so glad I get to call him my friend!

(Grab his music here.)

I am also a fan of my friend Brendan Ciccone(@brendanciccone) We met years ago when I was in my old band, and played shows together. He's got this really rad voice and a cool rock pop vibe to his music. He's one of those people again, who's just crazy multitalented and it's exciting as a friend to watch him constantly do cool creative things. (Grab his music here.)