Jake Rathburn

With no real income and desperate to earn money to support the next costly steps for music success, my new goal is to earn $100 / day, as inspired by an NPR interview about a guy who did just that after finding himself unemployed. I’ve been looking for jobs and, honestly, I don’t want one. It would simply mean too many hours away from music = not so smart when commited to being an outlier.

Alas! Today, while at Candler Park Fall Fest an idea came to me while meandering between artists in booths aplenty; I’ve decided to start an ever-so-simple business, drawing cute, funny, and weird things on shirts, purses, and maybe even shoes.

It's gonna be this easy.

For now, you can look at how my skills have improved (the five years of design school probably didn’t hurt). You may find me at Piedmont Park in Atlanta, doodling away and getting paid, $100/day.

Being able to cover songs that actually sound good with my voice (and style) is something I’ve been battling for years. This is why I’m in he process of creating… [drum roll] >>> BASS BARITONE TABS

Though I’ve written several songs to suit my voice, I have recently decided to get paying cover gigs, so I’m in the process of compiling a list of songs that work for my bass-baritone voice, finding the tabs (chord progressions for guitar), and setting them up for printing to put in a binder to take to cover gigs.

Morrissey, looking cool and singing low

One hurdle is finding songs that fit your voice and you actually like singing. This may be something you’ll have to do for yourself, but to help me, I’ve heeded the advice of one of my friends and music mentors, Chris Cates. He’s got a ton of songs listed on his site that he plays out and I’m in the process of learning as many of those that work for me. You’ll notice Chris is a definite tenor and has notes I’ll never have, so I’m also looking at the songs of other singers, like those of Morrissey  (lead singer from The Smiths).

For any of you reading, you may have looked for tabs online and been disappointed that the chords are sometimes inaccurate, so what I’m going to do is take all of the songs in my cover song book (that I have tabbed out accurately and set up in wordpad files to fit a page) and upload them to this site.

It’s been a ton of work and what I want to do is post these songs on my site for others to download for free – ready to print. As a bonus, I’ve specifically chosen songs that are relatively easy to play on guitar.

I will let you know when it’s up!

Hi,

Ya know, I’ve kind of been worried that I’d end up playing a bar gig where no one is listening for my next gig. But alas! It just so happens that I’m playing at the W downtown as part of Drinkshop Live this Thursday!! From 9 – 11:30p.m. you’ll be able to enjoy all the FREE RATH you can handle. I’ll hopefully be joined by off-the-hook bassist, Bryan Hall, and Erin Williams, a percussionist with whom to be reckoned!!

We’ll be performing as Jake Rathburn & Friends. Go ahead and jot that on your calendar right now!!

For the time being here’s a video clip of this past Friday’s show at the Red Light Cafe, shot by the best of the best, Atlanta’s very own Gabriel Hinson. Also included in this video is pre-show practice with Chris Cates filling in for Bryan on bass. I think you’ll dig it!!!

Ok, I guess Gabe didn’t get that done. Sorry.