UPDATE!
i've quit the full-time touring racket to semi-settle down. now i'm in the part-time touring racket, and spend my non-touring time teaching middle school and high school reading and writing to the yupik and inupiaq youth of elim, alaska. life on the bering sea is beautiful...
photos for the curious: http://www.flickr.com/photos/40561993@N05/
(see standard-type bio below if you must)
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"Those that come to music late in life have a unique appreciation for it," muses Jon Crocker. "Not having grown up playing, I know what it's like to be without music, and I cherish every day that my fingers function well enough to play."
The road that brought Jon Crocker to music was a strange one. Born in Greenville, South Carolina in 1981, his childhood was filled with ramblings around the country, eventually depositing him in northern California, only to soon spend the remainder of his childhood all over the American west due to a divorce and the subsequent transport between parents. His childhood was not a musical one at all- he only played trumpet for a year in fourth grade, and then nothing more. Most time was spent reading, at school, riding bikes, or walking the Sierra Nevada mountains, where he and his brothers lived part time in Sequoia National Park (due to his first stepfather being a park ranger). A job transfer later found said stepfather working in the Santa Monica mountains, and, at age 12, Jon decided to move from his father's home (in a small town in northern California) to live with his mother and stepfather and go to school in Ventura, California.
“I really needed to get out of that town,” Jon says. “Most kids turned to drugs early, due to boredom. I didn’t want that to happen to me, so I went to Ventura, where I could pursue my two loves of the time: surfing and skateboarding.” After a fruitful skateboarding career throughout his high school years, he found himself injured, unable to skate, and in love for the first time as he began college. This led to his first major heartbreak, and this is when Jon turned to music as an outlet for his woes. “Like any teenager in that situation, I wrote lots of breakup songs…I started playing piano, then bass, then guitar, just writing song after song. None of them were any good, really, but I had to start somewhere.”
Jon soon found himself fronting band after band, taking the duties of singing, writing, and playing guitar. “The first couple of bands weren’t anything special, but they afforded me the chance to learn and grow as a musician and a writer, and also how to write for different sized groups.”
After a couple of small tours as part of a two-piece band (“the Continental Light Brigade”), Jon decided to start touring and recording exclusively as a solo artist, as this would not only allow him more chances for experimentation in a studio setting, but it also meant that he could tour for indefinite periods of time. “The road suits me well,” Jon claims. “I’ve always been good at traveling, and it keeps me busy…I don’t know what I would do if I weren’t touring. I’m certainly no good at staying in one place for very long.” Jon’s solo career began to blossom, as he started putting out albums and touring in a DIY fashion. His 2005 self-released album Songs About Trains and Other Things caught the attention of Todd Berry, owner of Portland’s Greyday records. A friendship soon followed, and Todd started an imprint label (called Greydawn Records) on which Jon put out his next two full-length albums: Death (2006) and 7 Days, 6 Nights (2007). Touring consistently from 2005 to the present, Jon also put out several CD-R only DIY albums, including an album of songs written for and about his family (The Family Album, meant as a Christmas gift) and three experimental albums of songs that featured no drums, bass, or guitar (Edison-Free Sediment, volumes I-III), which Jon refers to as “anti-rock” or “pre-rock” music.
