Jeremy Facknitz w/ Josh Rose April 6, 2024

Jeremy Facknitz has been entertaining audiences with his lovingly crafted music and high-energy performances for over a quarter century. Since the 2002 break-up of his Detroit-based band “The Ottomans” (they earned a 2001 Detroit Music Award for Best New Alternative Band, beating out “The White Stripes”), Jeremy has performed primarily as a solo act, marrying folk-rock and jazz stylings to showcase his intimate stories of life, love, and self-discovery.  

But from 2003 to 2017, those stories seemed to fall on deaf ears. Facknitz carved out a living performing at bars, coffeeshops, and corporate events while teaching lessons on the side. “I was happy to be making a living performing music, but my original music wasn’t being heard – and as the years passed I found myself more and more frustrated playing to little more than the din of drunken conversation.” Things came to a head on July 17th, 2017 when Jeremy was diagnosed with viral meningitis. “I came face to face with my mortality, and I realized it was time for a change. I quit performing at bars and spent the next year making the leap to house concerts, touring, and performing solely for listening audiences.”  

The leap has paid off. Jeremy was named a top 24 finalist from over 800 entries in the 2020 and 2022 Grassy Hill Kerrville New Folk Songwriting Competitions at Kerrville Folk Festival. His song “Smilin’ At The Future” made him an Empower (Posi) Music Award Winner in 2023. His songs “Ballet of an Unhatched Chick” and “Michigan (Something In The Water)” were awarded semi-finalist distinction at songoftheyear.com, also in 2020 and 2022. 

While occasionally performing with his 6 piece band in Colorado, Jeremy continues to tour solo – performing at house concerts and listening rooms in the United States, Canada and Europe. His 6th solo album “Smilin’ At The Future” was released March 31st, 2023 to worldwide critical acclaim.

Songs tend to originate in some Nashville/LA factory with the glossy coating shaped by a countless number of “pros”. The writers upon engineers upon co-writers upon writers upon stylists pass these song-objects down a huge manufacturing line and then watch the dollar signs flash. The song (that you’ve heard before) enters the public consciousness, launches a career or two, and then vanishes into oblivion. The throw-away culture strikes again.

There are other songs, though, that come from craftsmen, like the characters you see working away at some Americana exhibit creating relics of an unknown past. These song craftsmen create works that are plucked from the air, like lightning bugs destined for an old Mason jar. The songs of these artists become polished like the ancient stones in the Flat River. These songs come wrapped in brown paper with an old twine ribbon. These songs come from the soul and etch themselves into your fabric.

Josh Rose is one of these craftsmen.

Josh grew up in the northern woodlands and fine tuned his songwriting in the borderlands. He has spent the past ten years touring the Midwest, teaching, writing, and creating a rich body of work. Josh is the type of writer who labors over every word and wants his songs to be injected into the listener’s permanent being.

After his three previous studio albums; Firework Letdown (2005) Slow Bloom (2007), and Old Laminate (2014); Josh is more than pleased to bring you Foreverland (2023). Now available on Apple Music.