Jam econo

I've always liked the phrase "we jam econo." It came from the Minutemen, a punk band from California who used it to describe how they worked. They toured in their own van, slept on floors, carried their own gear, and made records without waiting for someone to decide they were worth the investment. It wasn't about being cheap. It was about working within your own means. If you had something to make, you started with what you had.

I've come to realize that's also the kind of people I enjoy working with.

I'm often asked about my dream client. The answer isn't a particular industry. It's people who have become completely absorbed by making something.

The person fixing bikes until it slowly becomes a bike shop. The musician who starts a record label so the projects they believe in have a place to exist. The group of dads building the kind of community they wish already existed. By the time they call me, the work has already begun. They've spent evenings, weekends, and years solving problems, following ideas, and building something because they couldn't imagine not doing it.

That's the part that interests me. Not the size of the project or the budget, but the commitment behind it.

You can feel when someone has poured themselves into something. They care about the details. They argue for the right decisions. They want to get it right, not because someone told them to, but because the work matters to them.

I understand those people because I'm one of them.

Ghost Towns wasn't commissioned. Neither was The Songs of SNFU. They began as questions I couldn't leave alone. Those projects didn't start because there was a commercial opportunity. They started because I wanted to see where the work would lead, and because making them taught me something I couldn't have learned any other way.

Maybe that's what "we jam econo" has always meant to me. Not simply working with less, but refusing to wait for perfect conditions before making something worthwhile. Working with enough. Enough curiosity to begin. Enough conviction to keep going. Enough belief to make something before anyone asks you to.

The people I enjoy working with are already making good things. Sometimes they just need someone else to see what they've built, to give it a form that reflects the care they've already put into it, and to remind them it's worth believing in.

Hold steady.