MAY 2026

I’M BACK

Hey everbuddy, it’s your old pal Jaimie. I took a little break from the monthly email newsletter just because I didn’t want to burn anyone out and I needed to let a few months go by and accumulate some new stuff to tell you about. Next month I’ll tell you about some awesome new stuff happening on Route 66 in its 100th Anniversary Celebration year, and maybe a very interesting update on the City of Vista logo/branding project that has been over two years in the making. Maybe. Hopefully. But today we start with music.

Maybe the biggest thing for me outside of graphic design projects has been that I started a new band. I’ve been wanting to do this for years. A few years ago I put together a version of the Murderers of Love and played one show, but it just wasn’t the right mix of musicians for the kind of music I play. All great guys who I love, but they are just more interested in other styles of music. So, finally, I got the nerve to reach out to people outside my friend zone and see what could happen. And holy cow, it worked. I started out by just looking on Craigslist in the Musicians section and searched for people interested in playing Americana style music. I wasn’t expecting anything, but I couldn’t have found the more perfect match. Keyboardist Hannes Kling wrote back to me right away and we just hit it off immediately. Long story short, Hannes knew a bass player John McMeekan who was perfect and we brought him into the fold. I had been talking for years to guitarist Deane Cote about doing something and he jumped on board. And we got excited. Next was finding our perfect drummer, which took a couple of tries. But man, when we found Jack Nathan it couldn’t have been a better fit right off the bat.

I knew that we needed to move forward with a different band name. We aren’t just players filling spots in the Murderers of Love. We are a new band making these songs our own. All original. No covers. We are: The Grey Owls. And we are about to make our worldwide debut on Saturday, May 30th at 4:00 at Winston’s in Ocean Beach. If you are in the San Diego vicinity, we’d love to see you at one of our upcoming shows. And if you want to check out our new website and listen to our songs or buy a t-shirt or just keep up with what’s happening in the future, head over to www.thegreyowls.com. And be sure to follow us on Instagram at: @thegreyowls.

Oh and one more cool thing about The Grey Owls. One thing we have in common is that we love our gear. Deane and I can talk about guitars and new pedals and amps all day long. One of the faces of guitar gear online is Premier Guitar Magazine’s John Bohlinger. I watch pretty much every video he’s in. So, we sent John a couple of our Grey Owls t-shirts and, just last week, the newest Premier Guitar video got posted online and there is John wearing one of our Grey Owls shirts. Thank you John!

Thank you!

Thanks to each and every one of you for following along. See you in June.