Hello, buddies, 

According to astrologists and mathematicians the next 12 months are gonna be wild. 🎢 🫣 Don't worry, though--it's the Year of the green Wood Snake. We'll squirm through this funky cow pasture together.    

I released this ➸ fresh new video on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day--which coincided with the US presidential inauguration--for my song “Darkest Day (Feat. Foreshadow)." I hope you like it. It's the second of five NON-JUDGMENT DAY (NJD) videos I'll be releasing over the coming months. The first was “Bachelor House.” 

In a 1952 letter to Coretta Scott, a young Dr. King wrote: “Capitalism has out-lived its usefulness.” He added, “Also, I am quite bitterly opposed to the metaphysical structure of communism.” He sought a middle way that protected the poor and working class from exploitation. King was, at heart, a deep Christian thinker in the Black democratic socialist tradition. “Darkest Day” draws inspiration and hope from movements like King's historic demonstrations, the Stonewall Uprising, the 2017 Women's March, and the Dakota Access Pipeline protests. 

The “Darkest Day" video is bookended by a sample from King’s “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech given on April 3, 1968, the night before he was assassinated in Memphis: 

“Now that's a strange statement to make, because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land. Confusion all around. That's a strange statement. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars.” 

Despite the harrowing circumstances King faced as an activist--he'd already been stabbed once in 1958--he was pleased to part of the historic civil rights struggle. 

I wrote “Darkest Day” on the 2015 winter solstice when my then-wife and I decided to finalize our divorce. My friend and bandmate, Ian Smith, believes the track captures the emotional core of NJD. He asked his talented brother Elgin, a freelance film editor, to compile five minutes of historical protest footage and bam--this video was born.

Here it is again: 📹 “Darkest Day (Feat. Foreshadow)"

Foreshadow is an award-winning songwriter, engineer, and advocate for indigenous youth. He produced nine of the ten songs on NON-JUDGMENT DAY, including this one. He's also a great guy. Learn more about him here: https://www.foreshadow406.com/

More good news from Sandland:

• My wonderful daughter Stevie turned 13 on Jan. 17th!
• I soaked in a remote and scenic Idaho hot spring with my sweetie, KK, last week.
• Watched the new Bob Dylan biopic—liked it! 4/5 stars.
• A year ago today I was high as a kite on a mix of 600mg of Ibuprofen and several puffs of albuterol fighting off back pain and asthma at a Portland, OR, house concert. You can read a condensed recap of my Leap Year '24 Tour here: https://rappincowboy.com/journal

Well, I'm off to my job at Slant Street Records. I hope February treats you well.

Yours truly,

Chris Sand 

www.rappincowboy.com / www.magicbeanclub.com 🌱 (for kids)

P.S. NON-JUDGMENT DAY continues getting good press. Here's part of a review by The Pulp which came out the day before the solstice album-release show (which sold out and was fun!): 

“[Chris Sand] wends his way through the minds of complicated people and politics without getting mired in the usual tropes and stereotypes. He is sometimes singing as an observer and other times more as a miscreant or as the sympathetic lover wronged by another. His songwriting is catchy and his lyrics are deliciously colorful, specific, impenetrable and illuminating . . ."

You may listen to, download, or even purchase a CD of NonJudgment Day here: https://rappincowboy.bandcamp.com/album/non-judgment-day-2  / I'll put all proceeds into my Ireland fund. (I'm hoping 2025 will be the year to finally tour my mother's mother's mother's motherland, specifically County Cork, the southernmost part of Ireland. 🍀)