Jeremiah Garcia

Update

Hey everyone,

So I just am getting over a horrible flu. I won’t get into the details, but it was awful, thankfully just a 24 hour bug. Sunday I played at Calvary Chapel Rialto. After the second service we had so many people in line waiting to get the new album. It was such an awesome feeling. I can’t wait for the message in those songs to get out to as many people as possible.

Tuesday, I’m going to be performing at a local high school and then at night I will be doing a full set at Calvary Chapel Bible College in Murrieta. It’s always fun going back there to perform. I started getting more serious about writing when I attended school there. That’s also where I wrote the songs By My Side and Biography. For those of you in the area, come check it out, the show starts at 9:15pm.

March 9th is the album release concert. Please come and check it out, bring some friends and family. We are going to be selling bracelets, t-shirts, and the new CD.
Thanks again to everyone that has encouraged and supported me. Cool things to come this year I’m praying. Most of all I just want to be in the Lord’s will.

Talk soon,
JG

Love Never Fails

What a wild past few months it has been.   I just finished my 2^nd album, The Jeremiah Garcia Band Live!  First, I want to let you know that I’m going to be blogging a few times while I’m out here in California.  My beautiful girlfriend Yari (pronounced like Joddy, don’t ask) and I are going to be spending time with old friends from Bible College and hopefully making some new ones as well.  Yari and I came out here to share the new album with the West Coast.  I have the privilege to perform at a few churches and schools in Southern California.

One of the songs off of the new album is called, Love Never Fails.  I’m hoping to release a music video of this song by the end of March.  I would greatly appreciate if you could brainstorm ideas on how we can get this video and song out to as many people as possible.  This song is inspired from 1 Corinthians 13, known as the “Love chapter.”  I will announce when this song will be released on itunes later this week.

Given that today is Valentines day, I want to talk about love briefly.  Alphonse Sasso is one of my best friends in the world.  He married a girl named Samantha, and together they are a wonderful team.  I’m notoriously one of the worst travelers in the history of man kind.  My idea of packing ahead of time is waiting until the night before a morning flight and then saying to myself, “eh, I’ll just pack in the morning.”  After hitting the snooze 10 times and having to leave in 30 minutes, I proceed to blindly throw some clothes together that may or may not match, a tooth brush, and hopefully deodorant.  Ok I digress, I might not be that bad, but close. 

My friend Alphonse is a successful salesman who is quite the veteran traveler and also one of my biggest supporters musically.  I just received the CD duplications for my album yesterday and he wanted to be one of the first to hear the new album.  Phonse then offered to take me to Wall-Mart given my propensity for being somewhat last second with my travel plans.  I appreciated his help as he walked me through his traveling 101 course.

After hanging out later that night until 12am (still not having packed yet), Alphonse and Sam found out that Yari and I may need a ride to the airport in Buffalo which is about an hours drive from Rochester, NY.  They told me they would call in the morning and possibly take us.  My brother David was going to take us, so I told them we would be fine.  As I packed my luggage into the car, I realized that by the time I arrived to pick up Yari, her luggage and mine would certainly not be able to fit in the car.  Doesn’t Alphonse call me almost a minute before I was going to leave to pick up Yari.  He says, “We can take you and Yari.”  The man has the clutch gene folks.

The point of the story is this, Love never fails.  It wasn’t anything groundbreaking that this couple did for us.  From their perspective It was merely taking a friend to the airport.  To Yari and I though, it was huge.  It potentially saved us missing a flight.  More importantly it was a practical way to show love.  1 Cor. 13 talks about people that do grandiose exploits, but without love, it’s not actually noteworthy at all. 

Alphonse and Sam drove us to the airport because their friendship is motivated by love.  How can you genuinely show love for friends, family, co-workers, people that bother you, the unlovable, etc?

Talk soon,

JG

Day 2

Hey everyone,

First I’m loving blogging right now!  It’s pretty therapeutic.  So today was supposed to be a day off.  We ended up doing lunch with Spencer, who is an A&R rep for Word Label Group.  Lunch was great, but even better was we had a chance to go back to the label and hang out in his office.

Ok I admit, slightly star struck by the enormity of the building and the situation as a whole.  I had to pinch myself and check if I was dreaming.  Any musician’s dream is to be at a record label’s building at some point.  God thank you so much for the awesome opportunity.

I was able to ask Spencer some questions in regards to songwriting and what their label looks for in an artist.  We spoke at length about songwriting and how important of an element it is for an artist to not only be unique and have a great skill set, but to also be a great songwriter.  I was extremely challenged by the conversation.

It was a great day.  I already have begun writing a song for tomorrow’s writing session at the Brentwood-Benson Publishing Building.  I’ll also be having lunch with Rick Cua and then in the evening meeting with an old friend.  It’s going to be an awesome day. 

Please keep me in your prayers!

Hello Nashville

So I’m so excited to finally make it back to Nashville, Tn.  I was privileged enough to win an artist development deal with Word Label Group back in September of 2010.  This is my first return trip since.

Day one has exceeded all expectations that I had.  We were in an amazing building, the song writer I worked with was super talented and super nice!  Also we finished writing a song that I love and that has a great message to it.  It’s based on the verse found in Matthew 16:26, “What good will it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his own soul.”

I’ve been anxious about “making it” in the music industry.  God has been showing me the past few months to forget about that.  Proverbs 16:9 says, “In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps”  Whether accomplishing God’s work is to travel around playing at churches, or whether it means being signed to a record label, I want to be ok with either.  What I will not do is compromise.  

I will be posting each day here in Nashville and providing some new pictures each day!  I hope you enjoy the posts and thanks for the support.

Updates

So there has been a lot of new things going on in my life lately.  I’m starting a new job tomorrow, just got rid of my death trap (my old car) and replaced it with a new one, but the best update is the music updates!

I just finished recording the first song of the new album that will be coming out in a few months.  I said 2-3 months at first, but I’m thinking the start of summer now :(.  Also I just found out that myself and the band will be the first act to perform on the Performing Arts Stage at Darien Lake for Kingdom Bound 2011! 

At the end of May I am going to be traveling down to Nashville to meet with some songwriters and A&R reps so please please please keep that in your prayers.  I would love to get signed to a record label asap, but we’ll see what God has in store. 

I want to leave you all with one closing thought.  In Matthew 8:35,36, Jesus said, “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it.  For what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his own soul…” 

Proverbs 19:21 says, “Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails.”  I personally don’t want to live anymore trying to live life on my terms and have God come along for the ride.  Life is about accomplishing God’s purpose for your life, and you only have one shot at it.  I don’t want to find myself at the end of my life wishing that I could have done more for the Kingdom of God.

God Is So Good

I’ve been writing songs for God since I was a young kid.  The first song I ever wrote down on paper was after my dad died in 1993, hence the lyric, “I’ve been writin’ for His glory since ‘93 mostly in short stories and allegories.”  I’ve been a Christian since I can remember, but that doesn’t mean I’ve always acted like a Christian.  It’s a battle to live a life which is countercultural if you will.  

I want to real quick set the record straight if there are people reading this and have never truly prayed to God expecting to hear from Him or read the Bible expecting to hear from Him.  I believe that God wants to genuinely be a part of humans’ lives.  The Bible says that He is our Father.  If earthly fathers have the capacity to be good to their kids, how much more is God going to be good to us?  

That being said, this past week has been a wakeup call for me.  I’ve been recording this album, I have been chasing after a dream to become a recording artist, and I’ve been writing songs about God.  The only problem is that I’ve been losing sight of why I do these things, and that’s to show people how imperative it is to reach out to this “God” and see if He’s all people say He’s cracked up to be (to put it in simpler terms).  

The title of this post is “God Is So Good.”  I said that because I feel as though my eyes finally have been opened in a sense.  I’m realizing that I’m just going through life looking for a means to an end.  Swtichfoot wrote the lyric, “We were meant to live for so much more, have we lost ourselves?  Somewhere we live inside.”  For those of you who don’t know, Switchfoot’s lead singer Jon Foreman, is a Christian.  I feel like those words ring so true.  I was meant to live for so much more than writing songs that I think sound cool, as a means to an end.  That end being making music a career.  Most importantly though, I haven’t been living with the devotion to God that He wants.  

My closing thought is that whether you believe in God or not, the Bible says that we were made for His good pleasure.  In turn God loves us more than we could ever truly love ourselves, and he wants what is ultimately best for us.  God is so good because he reminded me of that very fact through a course of events that have taken place this week.  If you are just totally confused as to what you’ve been reading this whole time, but want to know more about who the God of the Bible is, then just shoot me a message on my website www.jeremiahgarcia.net or if you know me then please call me and I’d love to share.