Intro to The Rock Oracle

Hi, my name is Jason Shrum and I just moved from Seattle WA to Nashville, Tennessee.   I guess you could say I follow the music.  You could also say that music follows all of us. Music shapes our lives.  Sometimes, music just lingers in the background, and we may not recognize it right away but it’s always there. A lot of times though, music is right in front of us, in our face, dictating our emotions. I’m hoping that this becomes a music archieve of sorts, for all of us.

My friend Bob Creedon has trusted me with this site and his passion.  Bob did a great job for many years going to live shows, interviewing artists and telling us what he thought of the music.  He is the Rock God (had to use an obvious rock n’roll mantra), as it were, of The Rock Oracle. Hopefully you had a connection to Bob, but maybe you didn’t.  You should.  Bob and I only met a handful of times, through family, but we bonded right away. Bob and I shared a soul meld over music and that’s why he has trusted me to run The Rock Oracle.

Now I’m no Lester Bangs or Ben Fong-Torres, and I haven’t quite done enough drugs to be Hunter S. Thompson, but I hope to do my very best and write from the heart.  I love the music.  The music helps heal. The music helps us to remember and to reflect. The music grows inside us and manifests who we’ve become.

And so, this is it, a new chapter for The Rock Oracle.  I guess it all started when I visited Nashville a few months ago. I was scoping out the area to see if this was the place I was going to eventually plant me feet. Where I was going to start my new beginning. My new chapter. I certainly hit the ground running.  I went directly to Broadway in Nashville and saw like 14 bands in 8 hours.  I say “like” because I had like 12 beers, but I knew this was my spot. This was exactly where I should be.  There is so much music here, but I never thought I would be writing about it. I have Bob to thank for that.

I don’t want to bore you about me, again this is about the music. It’s about those sounds that our talented musician friends are able to create.  Those well written jams. The magic in their lyrics.  I long for those perfectly bended notes, and the well-timed rhythm section that guides an angelic voice over the top and straight into our being.

I’m hoping to put together a talented team of writers, musicians, friends, music lovers, artists, and more to bring you a sense of what’s happening here in Nashville.  The rock Oracle is going to be a community effort for sure.  It will be an amalgamation of like-minded people scribing expression and phrases for a passion project.  We plan to write about live shows, album releases, music venues, record stores, and all kinds of other art that pertain to tones, melodies and chords that make us move.

This is the idea.  The Rock Oracle will be based as a neighborhood experience, and I invite you to participate.  I encourage all to go to live venues and support the independent artists at your local dive bar as much as you can.  There is certainly nothing wrong with supporting the big acts too, they were once small.

So, this is it for now.  I just wanted to put something out there, a placeholder if you will.  we will begin covering the music shortly and if you’d like to participate, please feel free to reach out to me. This doesn’t have to be just about Nashville music either, this is just where my body is. I’d love to hear what you’re listening to and how it makes you feel.  Always listen.   Always love and be good.