The State Room Presents
THE BONES OF J.R. JONES
TUE, 30 SEP 2025 at 08:00PM MDT
Ages: 21 & Over
Doors Open: 07:00PM
OnSale: Thu, 22 May 2025 at 11:00AM MDT
Announcement: Tue, 20 May 2025 at 11:00AM MDT
Growing up, Jonathon Linaberry was obsessed with the radio.
“I remember sitting there at night, glued to the boombox, cassette player ready to record
whenever my favorite songs came on,” he recalls. “There was something so thrilling about it,
something romantic that I think we’ve lost now that everything’s available at our fingertips. I
wanted to find a way to get back to that place, to recapture those feelings of excitement and
anticipation and possibility.”
Linaberry does precisely that on Radio Waves, his sixth studio album as The Bones Of J.R. Jones.
Recorded in Toronto with producer Robbie Lackritz (Feist, Bahamas), the collection is moody
and hypnotic, steeped in the sonic landscape of the ’80s and ’90s as it excavates the past with
equal parts nostalgia and curiosity. The arrangements are utterly entrancing here, built on the
tension between acoustic instruments and retro synthesizers, and Linaberry’s performances are
raw and visceral, at times aching in their vulnerability. Put it all together and you’ve got a
poignant exploration of memory and longing delivered by a relentless searcher, a revelatory
work of personal reflection steeped in the endless beauty, pain, and chaos of youth.
“I’ve never really resonated with the idea of ‘the good old days,’” Linaberry reflects. “Your
understanding of the past and your relationship with it change as you get older, and I’ve always
been more interested in the evolution of those feelings than in wearing any kind of rose-
colored glasses.”
Born and raised in central New York, Linaberry got his start playing in hardcore and punk bands
before becoming enamored with the field recordings of Alan Lomax, who documented rural
American blues, folk, and gospel musicians throughout the 1930s and ’40s. Inspired by the
unvarnished honesty of those vintage performances, Linaberry launched The Bones of J.R.
Jones in 2012 and, operating as a fully independent artist, began releasing a series of critically
acclaimed albums and EPs that would land his songs in a slew of films and television shows
(including True Detective, Suits, Daredevil, Longmire, and Graceland) and lead to countless tours
across the US and Europe (including stops everywhere from Telluride Blues to Hardly Strictly
Bluegrass). Along the way, Linaberry also shared bills with the likes of The Wallflowers, G. Love,
and The Devil Makes Three, soundtracked an Amazon commercial helmed by Oscar-winning
director Taika Waititi, and earned praise from Billboard, American Songwriter, Under the Radar,
and more.
“After a dozen years of touring and recording, I found myself getting burnt out by the constant
barrage of new music that’s out there,” Linaberry reflects. “In some ways, it’s great to have that
kind of access, but it can also be numbing, and I found myself missing what it felt like to have an
album change your life, to listen to your cassette of Born In The USA so many times you have to
wind the tape back up with a pencil.”
Linaberry set out to tap back into that magic on Radio Waves, writing songs steeped in the
sounds and stories of his own coming of age. He tuned out the modern world in favor of stark,
lo-fi demos built around fingerpicked guitars and old school electronics, and when it came time
to record the album, he leaned into working with an outside producer for the first time,
traveling to Canada for two ten-day sessions at Lackritz’s studio.
“A lot of these songs started on a drum machine, which was very intentional,” Linaberry
explains. “I wanted to focus on simplicity, on stripping tracks back to their most essential
elements so that the melody and the vocals could shine.”
The result is an almost primal sound, familiar yet uneasy, like a memory hanging perpetually
just out of reach.
“These songs live in the night—the endless kind, where you get in your car just to drive and
listen to music, to feel like you’re going somewhere even if you’re not,” Linaberry says. “It’s the
sound of a kitchen heavy with the leftover heat of an August day and a table crowded with
drinks, of arguments and first loves and first heartbreaks, of not living up to your potential, of
breaking promises, of being human.”
Take a listen to album opener “Car Crash” and you’ll understand exactly what he means. Tender
and hazy, the track offers up a bittersweet embrace of life’s imperfections, finding meaning and
connection in our shared flaws and shortcomings. “I want your whole heart,” Linaberry
professes, “even the broken parts.” Like much of the record, it’s insistent yet understated, as
much a celebration as it is a confession. The sensuous “Savages” revels in the reckless abandon
of young adulthood, while the spare “Heart Attack” stares disappointment directly in the face,
and the piercing “Shameless” works its way through a lifetime of what ifs.
“Our lives are an endless series of revolving doors,” Linaberry reflects. “Even the smallest
decisions can change our entire trajectory. What kind of arrogant fool doesn’t look back and
wonder?”
That sense of lostness, of uncertainty as to who we are and where we belong turns up
throughout the record. The blistering “Drive” devours itself from the inside out in the tedious
solitude of the road; “The Devil” grapples with identity, intimacy, and dependence; and the
breezy “Catching You” wonders what we were ever trying to prove with all the debaucherous
nights and bad decisions of youth.
“I think so many of us live in the past because it’s easier to face than the future,” Linaberry
explains. “But I’m not interested in going back. I’m interested in understanding the feelings and
experiences that made us who we are: the passion and the hunger, the faults and the failures,
the hopes and the fears.
Truth be told, those feelings never really go away. They’re all still out there, floating in the
ether, drifting through eternity on an endless sea of radio waves. All you have to do is tune in.
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