Jack M. Senff

Howdy ho! Next month June I’m out n about once again, JMS live in very small concert playing my very small Vince Pace guitar singing songs and looking forward to every pit stop pee break snack time black coffee Diet Coke this side of southern Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Ohio (I’m playing a bookstore!). Nice mix of folkie pokie shows AND some keep-me-humble mix abouts with the heavy hitters of today’s vast musical landscape (see also THE YOUTH). Another great poster by Em Rand, who’s riding shotgun & big sending it at @porterflea in Nashville 6/11 & 6/12 if anyone needs some paintings. Photo by Bray “Burger Boy” McCabe, who took a slew of wonderful new 2026 “this is what Jack looks like now” pictures. Thanks Em & Bray. Okay, the skinny: Tue June 9 - Bloomington, IN - Rotspot w/ TBA Wed June 10 - Berea, KY - Rebel Rebel w/ Calvary & Louise Thu June 11 - Louisville, KY - Camp Spaceman w/ a bunch of nice heavy bands letting me crash the gig Fri June 12 - Nashville, TN - TBD w/ Wave Trials Sun June 14 - Atlanta, GA - The Kennel w/ Dan Spencer & Clavicle Mon June 15 - Asheville, NC - ShareHouse w/ Claire Whall & Evan Veasey Wed June 17 - Asheville, NC - Golden Folk at the Grey Eagle w/ a bunch of folkies playing fun covers! Thu June 18 - Lancaster, OH - Wayfarer Books Next month June I’m also putting out a brand new album & it’s my favorite thing I’ve ever been a part of, but we’ll talk about that later. ✌️Hope to see you! Jack

Time like a river, just floating along. Thanks if you took part in the screamo retrospective circus. Appreciate all your orders & continued interest these many years… U.S. folks give it a week or so, international 1-4. If you haven’t gotten anything by June 1 send word to [email protected] Some special thanks: I couldn’t have done this project without the time and careful eye of Em Randall for the entire capsule curation, way-back-buddy Zach Quella for the insane print job @lowgrade.life , Skele Sean for his continued wisdom, and the lifelong support of baby sis, my dad, and Mason. An exceptional Internet thank you to Brian @fleshandbonedesign for coming through this weekend, saving my ass & leading the frontline charge after so many months of work n planning. Thanks for helping me get this thing across the finish line. I owe you forever (& for so much). Long live Cabana, Cam, and those few decent, fleeting moments of a beautiful, cursed chapter that carry with me on the big river. Maybe one day I’ll learn to love it like the rest of you. Jack

Hello & some notes from me (Jack) here on a Tuesday, Firstly to all you screamos: - Merchant Ships orders are getting packed this weekend. You should start seeing email notifications (w/ tracking I think / pray) starting 4/20. Thanks for ordering, everything looks great! Secondly to all you local folks n friends: - I’ll be playing a special duo set with my best bud @fleshandbonedesign on Saturday, April 25th in honor & service of our best bud @johnrichardpaulmusic on his most special night. Joining us for the celebration of John’s new album ‘Midwestern Modesty’ will be area phenom @agnes_su_ and, generally speaking, this whole thing could be — should be — a hoot AND a holler. Doors at 6, drinks available for $$ in the back 🍻 - That Sunday April 26 sees all of us (everyone) making pilgrimage to Cedar North Gallery for the opening reception of ‘Dirt Road’ @emrandalllll ‘s incredible new collection & FIRST Northern Michigan solo exhibition. Em has been planning, plotting, scheming, seeding this one for a long time and let’s just say the fruit is good. Let’s pack that MF out! 5-8, drinks n snacks, ART. Then to all you JMS (that’s me) fans, stans, h8rs, or otherwise: - Thanks to anyone who came to a show (or threw one!) on me n Bri n John’s fuck off last week. It’s nice to leave home and play songs even if (especially when?) most days I feel kinda lost out in the darkness. Getting to hike up a lil Wisconsin mountain with the boys, fresh air in our lungs and the river valley below (a train passing by just for Brian) man that can feel like heaven — or at least heaven enough. - Early June I’m embarking on another small tiny acoustic tour, this time down into Indiana, Kentucky, Nashville, Atlanta, Ashville, & Columbus. Any Louisville lurkers wanna book me a show? - Lastly I just wanna soft announce that my new record — truly the best & favorite piece of art I’ve ever made — comes out in late June. Records will be a little bit behind sometime in July or August. Big Heartland Whole Band Fall tour w/ a hometown celebration late October & early November. Gonna make the Gary Kyle post-emo album in September. Busy year for music! That’s all. Thanks xx Jack

JMS Plays The Game 005 But for how much longer? #sleepatterns

Had a great weekend working songs with some deep boys, a couple old pals & ex-pats from a time before. Still friends after almost twenty years. What a joy to see Gary play drums again! What a gift to stay close with Kyle across so much music and life. Starting a new band in my thirties!! Crazy crazy crazy. Does this make a beautiful sound? Next week me n @johnrichardpaulmusic hit The Big Road for a handful of Little Shows around Lake Michigan. I’ll be backed up by Meatball-in-Chief Brian “Frank & Brangus” Morgante, my java house brother in arms. Hope to see some of you out there! DM or email for details ✌️✌️ 4/6 - Kalamazoo, MI - Factory Coffee (Frank St) w/ Statice + Aric 4/7 - Chicago, IL - Roads & Rivers Cafe w/ My Buddy Norm 4/8 - Milwaukee, WI - Ellie’s House w/ Chesten VanHuss 4/9 - Eau Claire, WI - Hodgeboom House 4/10 - La Crosse, WI - The Root Note w/ Matt Monsoor 4/11 - Rockford, IL - Small Skate Shop w/ Super Brick + Red Henry and House of Bamboo

JMS Plays The Game 004 It was 2021 and I’d just turned thirty, the world literally on fire & all of us stuck inside watching the TV w/ our breaths held, wondering if this was it. Tiger King, family time over zoom, cops being cops, boomers wearing masks on their chin as resistance, all the toilet paper gone. It was fuckin wild. A new 9/11 to set the pace for our already bleak future. And I was at home reconciling this great implosion of humanity, measuring our shared sorrow against the disillusionment that my twenties weren’t the rock n roll dream I’d intended — I was coming to terms with the fact I’ll probably never “make it” in music (but what does that even mean, anyway?). So “Low Spirit” is sort of about that stuff. Singing it these days a lot of the sentiment still holds — boy is it dark out there, lord help us — but it also just kinda works as a meditation on… I don’t know, the garbage of the world big & small, and holding space for the rawness of being alive and how hard it can be. I think it’s important to acknowledge the heaviness, our defeats n disappoints, fear, anger — it makes the light feel that much better. It makes you — me anyway — grateful for the moments of joy, laughter, relief. Thanks for watching these dumb videos if you do. Am I the skateboard guy with the juice yet? Is this what it means to be viral? Long live Will Bonney.

Couple weeks ago I put a record out. Feels kinda silly trying to promote any sort of small art project in 2026, so I’ve kinda refrained from doing much on social media. To paraphrase a friend of mine, what’s the point of really anything when everything feels terrible? I guess the point is this is just what I do and I’m going to keep doing it, even as society as we knew it starts to fall apart and the world fractures just that much more. Anyway, Midwestern Modesty was a year or so in the making, crafted under the guidance of my very dear friend @jackmsenff who helped refine my nonsense into something hopefully a bit more palatable to a wider listenership. If nothing else, MM is the truest to myself album yet. It’s stripped-down and song-forward. My sincerest thanks to @schylerthepotter @sadimerk @dianaladio @kylewayneluck @jbearss @rachelwinslow and @fleshandbonedesign for their collective willingness to help bring the album to be. I’ll be doing a release show for the record on Saturday, April 25th at The Circuit with @jackmsenff and @agnes_su_ & The Country Band. Tickets are $20 in advance, $25 at the door and can be secured via Venmo to @jrp -music. Doors are at 6:30 and the show will start at 7. The lovely and talented @emrandalll designed the poster for the show and also has her FIRST SOLO SHOW IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN the next day (4/26) that everyone needs to attend. @jackmsenff and @fleshandbonedesign and I will be out on the road for a few shows before the release show and we’d love to see you. Be kind and be well ✌🏻

👋 hello, me n Jern are leaving our sleepy lil cherry town to play some springtime-goodtime acoustic concerts next month. That’s right, we’re talking old dawgs — woof woof — still thinking they got gas left in the tank barking at the moon playing songs about god knows what w/ lots of D chords from me & G chords from John and please believe capos going crazy. That’s the plight of a singer dash songwriter you write the tunes and you perform them for give or take 6-35 people sitting / standing uncomfortably waiting for the set to end && if you play yer cards right someone will (nicely, truly) tell you after how you remind them of a much more accomplished artist they liked back in college (for me: Ben Gibbard) and like, let’s be honest, what would any of you rather be doing on a Monday-Saturday night than going out after dinner to watch live music that reminds you of some good old day? Sometimes — let me break the bit here for a second — the communion of sitting together in a room is enough to suspend the worst parts of living, and hearing songs is enough to remind us that humanity still exists even if it’s just in the cement cracks between instagram reels and trying to afford groceries and like — okay let’s get back to the bit lol — me and John are now contractually obligated to make these performances happen so here’s a post CAN YOU PLEASE COME SUPPORT THE ARTS??? Thank you. Ok, ok, hits only. Secret presale went so wild there’s only tickets left at the door. See you on the road: 4/6 - Kalamazoo, MI - Factory Coffee w/ Statice & Aric 4/7 - Chicago, IL - Roads & Rivers Cafe w/ My Buddy Norm 4/8 - Milwaukee, WI - Ellie’s House w/ Chesten VanHuss 4/9 - Eau Claire, WI - Hodgeboom House 4/10 - La Crosse, WI - The Root Note w/ Matt Monsoor 4/11 - Rockford, IL - Small Skate Shop w/ Super Brick + Red Henry and House of Bamboo Incredible poster design(s) from the boss herself @emrandalll BRIAN’S RIDING SHOTGUN!!!

Howdy ho out there you internet! Today we celebrate the release of ‘Midwestern Modesty’ by one of my dearest, sweetest, and best friends John Richard Paul. It’s an album of shimmering color & quiet splendor — sort of like John himself, actually — that shifts between folk, blues, roots … at once the spirit of John Prine and the greatest hits of Lyle Lovett. It’s a record just radiating with honest-to-goodness, real-deal songwriting. I’ve been producing my own work & bands since I was 17, but this is the first time where my only role was to listen & help the best I could. I play a little harmonica too, I guess, but mostly I sat around n just told John what I thought about stuff. I’m grateful for his trust, and the opportunity to be part of such a great record. Our love n thanks to forever-bud Schyler Binkley on the drums + percussion, Jim Cremidas on pedal steel + dobro, Joe Bearss for the engineering + recording assist, Brian “Flesh and Bone Design” Morgante for album layout + design, Rachel Winslow for the incredible photos, and the BK Prince himself Kyle Wayne Luck for wrangling everything into such lovely music. John is perhaps the best among us. No person — no friend — like him, and I am without the words to ever express how much he means to me, or how important he is in this world and in our little chosen family. Bless you John Richard Paul, we are all so lucky 🤎

New year moving quick already. Bubba’s birthday tomorrow, time slipping & he’s getting married in June. We were boys in River Park just yesterday I thought ? bounding out the porch door running through grass, on cracked sidewalks, down to the church parking lot. Summer felt forever and our parents were young and maybe still in love and just like that I’m almost the same age they were. John is this what it’s like to get old? Does it get easier? Polar vortex collapsed last week… Brian kept missing flights. Em ventured into the sweatlodge. The band gathered and we made Art for Art’s Sake™️. Pretty soon Schy heads for Florida. Kyle says the record is done. Mastering next week then what? Post-holiday-early-year-doldrums where the days feel cold forever and the sun hides except in pockets and boy is it nice when the warm cuts through even just a little. How we doing? Everyone okay? Might start playing the game, look out for those reeeeeeels. Look out for shows. Look out for each other. I hope you like the next album! it’s the best I’ve been a part of so far. Screamo stuff still shipping in April don’t worry. Still some vinyl n CDs on the website if you want one. Bonney talked about getting together again (it’s not gonna work out this time), but that was fun to dream about for a while. Long live ~~ Jack

Just filled to bursting with love and joy from the last week of life. These friends, this music. A gift I’ll hold and keep safe forever 🤎. Thank you to Em, John, Scoot, NASA, Brian, Kyle, and The Wizard. We are all thrilled to show you what we made xx “Take all of the grace And all of the sorrow Put it on me Set it free For a moment Just a moment Can I carry it?” - Hiss Golden Messenger