tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41994074661121580882024-03-15T10:41:12.950-07:00YONDER BREAKSwords + waves // stories + songsREBickerstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755461078723412911noreply@blogger.comBlogger342125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4199407466112158088.post-51589182323614836502024-02-27T13:45:00.000-08:002024-02-27T13:48:43.451-08:00Reflection Session + Book Announcement!It was the tail end of the first winter swell in Southern California. I had caught a little of the first full day, but most breaks weren't really able to handle the size, resulting in huge dumpy waves. As the swell waned, I was hoping to catch a little of the smaller stuff, but still big enough to be fun and challenging.After a couple of failed spot checks, my good friend Russell and I landed at REBickerstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755461078723412911noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4199407466112158088.post-39149727448076269432023-11-27T10:56:00.003-08:002023-11-28T13:08:41.596-08:00Happy Christmas - Here's New Music!Hey everyone,I wanted to share some new songs that all came out last weekend, just in time for the Christmas season!First up is "Seeds," the newest Yonder Breaks single. This one started as a request from Betsi Freeman Booking to donate a song to Seed Capital Network, an organization that provides loans to small businesses in developing countries. Instead of just offering one of my old songs for REBickerstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755461078723412911noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4199407466112158088.post-61602985705465858582023-10-07T11:03:00.000-07:002023-10-07T11:03:40.426-07:00Meant to be SharedI've always had this problem when I'm on the cusp of landing new trick, that I keep imagining what it will be like to tell my friends that I landed it. It goes way back to high school, skating my little fun box in the driveway or just trying some flatland trick. It was as if half of the excitement of learning something new was found in telling someone else that you did it, going to school with a,REBickerstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755461078723412911noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4199407466112158088.post-38223691839140993872023-09-13T10:25:00.000-07:002023-09-13T10:25:02.410-07:00When God InterruptsI try to start each day with some time with God. Usually, this is reading the bible or a devotional-type book, but sometimes it's writing down prayers for my kids or going on a prayer walk. It was something I was really disciplined about in my youth, but got away from about a decade ago. However, in recent years, I've been trying to reclaim that discipline and make it a habit, and it's been REBickerstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755461078723412911noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4199407466112158088.post-40376973637721177002023-08-31T09:58:00.001-07:002023-08-31T09:58:07.308-07:00Live Music - The Good and the BadPlaying live was always something of a struggle for me, a sort of back-and-forth between hard work and payoff. After I did my first solo show in December of 2018 at the Republic of Pie (my favorite LA venue to-date, mostly because they pay in pie), I set out to play one show a month for the following year. It was a New Year's Resolution that I actually kept, (as you can see on the Live REBickerstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755461078723412911noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4199407466112158088.post-69774039082146186312023-08-17T11:46:00.003-07:002023-08-17T11:51:52.611-07:00Broken Arm BalladIf you look back at the history of YonderBreaks.com, you'll see a whole host of ideas and thoughts, ranging from personal stories to practical surfing advice, tips on fatherhood, spiritual insights and music updates. But one thing I've always wanted to share on it is ideas important to me that are hopefully encouraging to you. So here's a recent story with a fresh insight that I felt worthy of REBickerstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755461078723412911noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4199407466112158088.post-75165749164313252232023-05-05T12:48:00.002-07:002023-05-05T13:04:43.779-07:00The Voices We HearGrowing up is kind of tough. Which probably isn't fair for someone of my generation to even claim. We had it pretty easy. Sure, I worked through high school and college, and was always somewhat self-sufficient; but I also had the privilege of going to college with its slower on-ramp to life. Meanwhile, my parents had me in their very early-20s, and had to manage being a parent and newlyweds REBickerstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755461078723412911noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4199407466112158088.post-42298219748596921522023-02-24T00:00:00.001-08:002023-02-24T00:00:00.221-08:00Chickens and ContentmentWe currently have six chickens, which given the current cost of eggs, has been a pretty good thing (although not a good investment, really, with the cost of chicken food, a coop, the fence we built, etc...buyer beware). One of them, Zara, has recently discovered that she can get out of the run, even though we've clipped all of their wings (guess we didn't do a good enough job). When I discovered REBickerstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755461078723412911noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4199407466112158088.post-39186239771983902182023-02-09T10:05:00.003-08:002023-02-09T10:13:47.723-08:00A Year in Books and TransformationI love reading, which wasn't always the case. I used to only keep non-fiction, typically spiritually-focused books around, reading one every once in a while, usually because it was referred by someone. About nine years ago, however, I had a boring desk job with lots of time to listen to things while performing menial tasks. I started listening to audiobooks, amongst other things, and since I REBickerstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755461078723412911noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4199407466112158088.post-88004082319431949322023-01-05T13:32:00.007-08:002023-01-05T14:38:16.387-08:00Year in ReviewHappy New Year!Music for me feels like a snowball that started off pretty small about eight years ago, and has slowly been growing as it rolls down the hill. I think 2022 saw the most "snow collected" so far, which I thought I'd share here.It started off with my family set to move to China for my wife's job, which was eventually squelched by Omicron, resulting in a collapse of the whole situationREBickerstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755461078723412911noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4199407466112158088.post-89460524447419816502022-12-18T07:00:00.002-08:002023-11-24T10:53:34.609-08:00Christmas EP Out Now!I've been dreaming of recording a Christmas album since I was in high school, and have been slowly accumulating Christmas originals since about 2003. Fast forward to a year or two ago while I was working as an Online Worship Director for a local church during our livestream (pandemic) season. We had a big Christmas worship video shoot planned for Christmas 2020, but COVID spiked days before the REBickerstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755461078723412911noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4199407466112158088.post-89344475593912321862022-12-13T13:18:00.001-08:002022-12-13T13:18:12.478-08:00Advent and AnticipationI didn't grow up celebrating advent, but after moving to Los Angeles and spending time with folks from different faith traditions than my own, I've learned a lot and even picked up some traditions for our family. However, advent didn't (and still doesn't) really make a lot of sense to me. I'm all for Christmas and love to celebrate the season, but the idea of living in waiting and anticipation REBickerstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755461078723412911noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4199407466112158088.post-347482160482513892022-10-29T14:57:00.001-07:002022-10-29T14:58:55.968-07:00New Merchandise!Hey there folks! I got into making merch back in 2019 after releasing my first EP because...well, it's fun! It sometimes feels silly having merchandise as an emerging artists, but I love dreaming up t-shirts and working with artists to make them happen, so here you go. Personally, I wear quite a few Yonder Breaks shirts, and tend to get quite a few compliments on this one, which I call Ellie the REBickerstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755461078723412911noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4199407466112158088.post-9380688984046179252022-10-19T14:56:00.003-07:002022-10-19T14:56:51.591-07:00TreatI was doing dishes the other day and my daughter Waverly, who is pretty attached to me most of the time (I call her my shadow), was hovering behind. We were having a discussion with Ellie, our oldest daughter, about how sometimes one daughter will get one thing and one get something different, but sometimes the split ends up not being fair. (The situation in question was that I gave Waverly a REBickerstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755461078723412911noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4199407466112158088.post-78404432659426003762022-09-23T10:19:00.003-07:002022-10-06T16:25:55.942-07:00Here Are Some Covers - Out Now!My newest EP, Here Are Some Covers, is out now!This one has been a long time coming. Over a year ago, I noticed that the dramatic shows my wife was watching (mostly Grey's Anatomy) would use cover songs in the shows, most likely to get a recognizable song for cheaper. I thought, maybe I should try my hand at that..., and started recording some cover songs that I regularly played in my sets. REBickerstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755461078723412911noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4199407466112158088.post-43304794716065099562022-04-19T16:33:00.002-07:002022-04-19T16:33:14.167-07:00Heat vs. PassionGrowing up as a skateboarder in coastal South Carolina, I'm no stranger to heat. Somehow I would skate for hours in 90-degree weather, with a humidity in about the same percentile. I was just younger then I guess, but somehow I avoided a heat stroke time and time again. Some time ago, I had to run an errand to Bellflower, where they have a skatepark I used to love visiting when I had had REBickerstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755461078723412911noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4199407466112158088.post-58753311607834277122022-02-07T10:35:00.002-08:002022-02-07T10:35:27.431-08:00New Single - "Two Palm Trees"Last Christmas, I didn't give you my heart, but I did give you a new single! (Dumb joke, sorry...)"Two Palm Trees" was written just before the pandemic, when my wife and oldest daughter would leave very early for school/work, sometimes before the sunrise. I would wake up with them, help them out the door, and oftentimes this was the view from my window after they drove away: These two REBickerstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755461078723412911noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4199407466112158088.post-81074514905499006622021-06-04T08:35:00.002-07:002021-06-04T08:35:23.568-07:00Playing LIVE music again!It's no secret the live music scene took a huge hit last year. Festivals and tours were cancelled, as many working musicians struggled to figure out what to do financially, as well as with all their newfound free time. Personally, I had just come off of a year of trying to play one show per month, which might not seem like a lot, but coming from having never played a solo live show until late REBickerstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755461078723412911noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4199407466112158088.post-29950126348725661332021-05-25T00:00:00.001-07:002021-05-25T00:00:00.221-07:00"Eleanor Means Light" from Three EPI recently released my first self-produced EP! You may have noticed the heading on this website has been, "words + waves // stories + songs," indicating some combination of written word and song, with a reference to surfing because I love it (and I used to write about it all the time). In keeping with that theme, I wanted to share the stories and lyrics of each song on this EP. Here is the first REBickerstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755461078723412911noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4199407466112158088.post-88076599449557763652021-05-17T22:03:00.004-07:002021-05-17T23:16:21.956-07:00InvincibleEvery once in a while there is a brief window of time when I get to the skatepark and feel like I can do anything. I'm sure most skaters can relate.Maybe you've spent the last several days dreaming up tricks in the off hours of the day, waiting for work to be over or lying in bed, imaging quarter-pipes and handrails in your mind's eye. Whenever life's responsibilities back off enough for you to REBickerstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755461078723412911noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4199407466112158088.post-20668080050063385862021-05-11T00:00:00.001-07:002021-05-11T00:00:00.211-07:00Three EP - Out Today!Exciting news -- a modest 3 song EP (so cleverly titled, Three EP) comes out today! This one has been a long time in the making -- some of these songs were written 5+ years ago, and have been recorded as demos, but this current iteration is in its best form yet! I originally began this EP as a little experimental project to record three songs for three people (my wife and two daughters) REBickerstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755461078723412911noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4199407466112158088.post-1602377032832625122020-11-02T06:26:00.006-08:002020-11-02T06:27:57.611-08:00PerceptionIt's a strange time to be alive, isn't it? A volatile election season amidst a pandemic, not to mention continued effects of climate change and racial tensions the likes of which we haven't seen since the 1960s. It is no secret that we are all affected by these things, and all of it seems to polarize people one way or the other.This election season I had the enlightening privilege of living in REBickerstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755461078723412911noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4199407466112158088.post-85659500365682145062020-08-17T09:39:00.003-07:002020-08-17T13:40:32.384-07:00What's in Your Pancakes?Pancakes were always fun to make for me, mostly because you can pretty much add anything you want and, in the correct proportions, it will likely work out. Of course, in high school, my cousin, sister and I got a little crazy, putting random candies (notably Nerds) in our pancakes, but still, they weren't terrible.
With our daughters, I try to keep it a little healthier, though the stray REBickerstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755461078723412911noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4199407466112158088.post-80922968488050734782020-06-09T13:45:00.001-07:002020-06-09T13:45:23.070-07:00The Dilemma of Surfing (Tiny Surf 2)Years ago I wrote one of my favorite pieces on the joys of surfing tiny waves. All this time later, I'm still having new experiences that support the same thesis: it's not the size of the wave that matters, but the fun you can have on any wave.
I decided to write on our calendar every time I surf this year, just to get a gauge of how much I'm surfing. Early in January, I wrote my first mark withREBickerstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755461078723412911noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4199407466112158088.post-13033217931516335702020-05-04T11:30:00.000-07:002020-05-04T11:30:10.195-07:00GoalsDads are kind of dumb sometimes, right? Just look at decades of television with bumbling Homer Simpsons and selfish Tim the Toolman Taylors. They usually figure out their faults at some point and "learn a lesson," (do they?) fixing everything before the half-hour is up. Though I am a huge Home Improvement fan, and also enjoy The Simpsons, I decided years ago that such portrayal in media was REBickerstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755461078723412911noreply@blogger.com