Scapes Environmental Design · A studio within the studio
The Dirt Church Studios — Music for the working world.
Original songs by J, written from the studio porch. Ten of them — released as they are ready.
The first single — free
The first single · on us
The Dirt Church
I AM SCAPES
On us. Press play — the whole song. No ads, no sign-up.
0:00/—
This is one of ten. A new song lands every week — only on Spotify.
Follow once — every release lands in your feed the day it drops.
Also on
From the studio porch · J
Each song is just like a design — a piece of art.
They are a piece of me, and a shared piece of my life.
All music was new once.
It is my hope this lasts forever.
J
Where the songs get written
The album
One song, every week — until it is whole.
The first single is free, above. The rest arrive on Spotify — follow to hear each one first.
The Dirt Church.
The title track
Entre Jalisco y Texas.
The crew's cut · Jalisco → Texas
The Color of Spring.
A seasonal cut
The Smell of Mulch.
A sensory cut
Stripes.
One of J’s own favorites
Where Luxury Takes Root.
The anthem
I Can Make It Rain.
A capability cut
Give a F___ About Your Yard.
The founder's cut
Track I · The anthem
Where Luxury
Takes Root.
A reflection · J
This one was first.
I had the words — where luxury takes root — long before I knew they were the company. They felt like they meant something I could not quite say out loud.
The song let me say it.
The song is about Scapes. Twenty-six years in the dirt — through the recessions, the freezes, the summers that broke other companies. Somehow, some way, we are still here.
That is the whole thing to me. We do not fade. We stay. Anybody can start a landscape company in the spring. Staying twenty-six years is a different animal.
I consider it an honor.
I play it on the way to a property I have not seen. It is the closest I get to a prayer.
— J
Track II · A seasonal cut
The Color of Spring.
A reflection · J
Houston gets one week of spring. Two if you are lucky.
The bed by the koi pond comes alive overnight — every year — and every year I am surprised by it. You can plant for thirty years and still not get used to that.
I spent that winter waiting on the gray to leave. Watching out the window for something, anything, to turn.
Then it did — a little more color every morning, like somebody turning a lamp up slow. It felt like watching a woman walk into a room. You do not say anything. You just admire her.
I wrote this one sitting on the porch with the dogs, watching that bed.
It is one of the more honest things I have made.
— J
Track III · A sensory cut
The Smell of Mulch.
A reflection · J
There is a morning in February when the mulch goes down and the whole property changes register.
It is one of the things that made me love this work in the first place.
The smell. The composed look of beds you have not really touched yet. The receipt of a clean morning.
I was a young man when this started. A truck, a trailer, and more confidence than sense. The business raised me as much as I built it.
Nobody tells you about the weight. Payroll on a slow month. The nights you carry the whole thing alone.
I would not trade a day of it.
So this one is a love song. It just happens to be about a company.
— J
Track IV · A capability cut
I Can Make It Rain.
A reflection · J
I came up doing irrigation. I learned the water before I learned anything else.
Most of the prettiest landscapes you have ever seen are eighty percent the water work nobody sees — the valves, the tuning, the patience of waiting to see if the lawn greens up the way you hoped.
This song is about that. About the part of the work that does not get the credit.
The title works three ways, and I meant all three. Irrigation. Selling. And the swagger that comes with knowing both.
A man who can make it rain is never worried about a dry season.
— J
Track V · The founder's cut
Give a F___ About Your Yard.
A reflection · J
My wife told me not to use the word.
I tried other words. They did not land.
People ask me the same question all the time. What is the cheapest way to take care of my yard? I give them the same answer every time. Give a f___ about your yard. That is the cheapest way there is.
It is not rocket science. Feed it. Water it. Maintain it. Do those three things on time and everything works out. It does not take millions of dollars — it takes caring enough to keep at it.
And if you cannot, or you are not willing to, call me.
The truth is most people do not give one — and I have learned not to take that personally. Most homes are about the front door inward. The outdoor environment is the part of the home most people simply have not learned to love yet.
We are not for everyone. The ones who care, we will show up for.
This one is for the ones who care. And the ones who might, one day.
— J
Now released · One of J’s own favorites
Stripes.
A reflection · J
People see the win. They do not see what it cost.
I have watched men look at what I have built and want it. That is fine. But wanting it and carrying it are two different things. They do not know about the sleepless nights, the payrolls I made in months I did not pay myself, the demons I fight at two in the morning before showing up at six anyway.
Running a business is an uphill battle from day one, and it never stops being one. I welcome the load.
The stripes on my back are the record. Every attack, every war, every challenge I have had to face — and somehow, some way, I find a way to get it done.
That is what this song is. Not a complaint. A receipt.
The world only sees the success. This one is for the people who know what it took.
— J
Now Released · The crew's cut
Entre Jalisco y Texas.
“Between Jalisco and Texas”
A song for my men — the ones who left one country behind to build the work in another. This is their walk.
A reflection · J
My crew did not come from here.
They came from Jalisco — from dirt I have never stood on, to dirt we now work side by side.
Every man on this cover left something behind to be here. I do not take that lightly.
We build luxury landscapes. But the hands that build them crossed a country to do it.
This one is for my men. Between where they are from, and where they are now.
— J
Out now · streaming on Spotify & Apple Music
Side B
When the work is right, the property sings back.
— J, written on the studio porch