Transcend EP - (2013)

Jon Cooney - main vocals, acoustic guitar, drums, backing vocals, djembe
Jordan Cunningham - electric guitar, bass, backing vocals, banjo, mandolin, keys, sound effects, shaker
Caitlin Romtvedt - violin on "Lay It Down", saxophone on "Providing", backing vocals on "Light & Focus" & "On Our Way"
Michael Connolly - violin on "Into The Open"

recorded & mixed by Jordan Cunningham @ Empty Sea Studios - Seattle, WA, except basic tracks for "Into The Open" & "Pathway To The Sky" recorded @ The Gant cabin - Hood Pointe, WA
mastered by John McCaig @ Panic Studios - Seattle, WA

all songs written by Jon Cooney (BMI) except "Pathway To The Sky" written by Jordan Cunningham & Jon Cooney (BMI)

The “Transcend” album was originally released under the name ‘Big River’ in December 2013. The recording project was initially a solo endeavor funded by a successful Kickstarter campaign that I ran with the intent to make a demo album of songs I had in progress so that I could meet musicians in the area. I released it with a band name since I didn’t want to just call it ‘Jon Cooney’, though once it was on different streaming services I noticed that my music would get recognized and related with a different band that recorded under the ‘Big River’ name. Since the recording project never developed into a band and I wanted to be able to have the music out in the world and not associated with the other band and their recordings, I decided to rerelease it under my own name.

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“Still Growing” demo - (2019)

Jon Cooney - main vocals, acoustic guitar

Tom Sheppard - drums, bass

Angela Sheppard - backing vocals

recorded and mixed by Mike Bush @ Grand Royal Studio - Redford, MI

written by Jon Cooney

This was a fun evening at our friend Mike Bush’s home studio. I was visiting my hometown area in Michigan from Seattle and got together with some good friends to record a song of mine and one of theirs. Mike has a really cool vintage tape machine/recording console which has a great tone. The lyrics were still in process when going to record this. It’s loose and low-fi but so great to capture a rare moment of making a song with old friends.

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“Rise Up EP” - (2005)

Jon Cooney - vocals, guitars, bass, drums, production.

recorded & mixed by Jon Cooney @ Hilltop Heights studio - Nevada City, CA

all songs written & performed by Jon Cooney

This was made at my friend Nichols’ home recording studio in Nevada City. I was living in Berkeley, CA at the time and drove out to his place to work on a painting a mural inside his home for about 10 days while he was out of town. So while I was there I decided to also work on a recording. I’ve been recording my songs my whole life though am not a good engineer and don’t know what I’m doing. I’d used Acid Pro at the time but didn’t know Pro Tools. He had a great Digidesign rig with some nice preamps. So I did the best I could trying to figure out how to use the gear and put these songs together. All the drums were done to a guitar track not set to a metronome or any such thing, so the beat wavers quite a bit in areas and at times my voice is hard for me to listen to:), though I’m proud of these documents of my musical growth and was so blessed to have that short time and space to make this recording. At the end of the ‘Rise Up’ song you can hear another friend of mine, Kurtis talking. We grew up together back in Michigan, was fun to have him be included in the album.

These are just a few projects I’ve done. I started out learning drums at age 7 and then started on guitar at 10. I started writing my own songs around 12 and was in my first band at age 14. At some point I’ll put up all the projects over the years I played drums on, and other solo recordings. Due to a house fire in 2004 I lost my drum set and at the time didn’t replace it as I didn’t have the money and was also moving to the East Bay, California and it’s hard to find a place to have a drum set and play it, so I decided to let life guide me and I pivoted and decided that I’d focus instead on singing and playing guitar. Interesting change as at that point I’d put in my ‘Outlier’ hours on the drums:) I’ve played drums on projects over the years in Berkeley and Seattle, though haven’t had my own drum set. I do play my various hand drums and have noticed playing so much guitar and developing my ear and way of approaching music, now when I sit down on the drums I feel like I play better than ever in a way. I currently live next to my friend’s recording studio, Plymouth Rock Recording Company in Plymouth, Michigan and have had the opportunity to play a drum set pretty often. I’m slowly getting my fluidity back and am excited to be bringing that back into my life, I feel it’s time to get a nice drum set soon and play drums in a band again!