The Machine’s Pump Volume 19 – #3 – March 2016

If I live to be as old as either of my parents I have about 1/4 of my life left. They each did pretty well until their early 80s, then things started to unravel, as they do for almost everyone who makes it that far down the road. So, as I inch closer to an appropriate time to retire, based on the norm, I realize how vast my options have suddenly become. For the first time in almost 40 years I don’t feel like I have to do anything in particular, career-wise. It appears gigs are still available all over Texas, if we want them. Or if we decide to travel, we can perform around the country, as well. It’s nice to be wanted. Our home club in Boston (Somerville, actually), Johnny D’s just closed its doors a couple of weeks ago. It was a regular stop for us for about 20 years and they invited us to be a part of the final festivities. I really wanted to go. I wanted to be magically transported from Denton to the stage at Johnny D’s, with all equipment set up, ready to go. But Boston is a long way from home. We would either have to fly with whatever instruments we could, then deal with ground transportation and rent amps and drums. This would be tremendously expensive, so we would also need to add a few more dates in the Northeast to make it worthwhile, like Portland, Maine, Washington, D.C. And New York City, which are all fine towns, but when you add hotel rooms, gas and multiple days with the rental van, a band would be lucky to break even. The alternative would be to drive, which would take about a week, since we would need to play gigs on the way there and back to cover expenses. We knew that playing one of the last nights at a beloved club, where so many great things happened, would be a labor of love (experience over money), of course, but logic simply has to prevail sometime. There was a time when it was perfectly fine to make nothing at all, financially, as long as we could make our art, but that version of reality ended about 30 years ago. At one point we decided that, although getting to play one’s unique music on stage somewhere new every night had obvious perks, we wanted Brave Combo to also provide a decent living for everyone and we also wanted to improve our contentment potential, so we decided to build in certain comforts, like each member having his own room every night, no matter what. This alone can be a monstrous expense, so we had to figure out how to make enough to keep us all sane. In a different but similar way that balance between art and necessities is just as critical these days, now that I’m thinking so freely about the future. Money isn’t as much an issue now, so I have opportunities to do things for nothing again, just for the art, so to speak. But the environment is radically different from the rough-edged innocence of the early 1980s. Punk rock was in full bloom. Big corporate record labels were full-on freaking out, because a wild energy and lunatic sound was taking over. On top of that, bands were spitting on audiences as they, themselves, were getting sprayed with beer and the bottles, too. There were not many rules, which, apparently didn’t bother us much. Over and over we would pile in a funky van, look at a map, head to some faraway place and hope we could trust the people who booked us at our destination in, say, Philadelphia or Chicago or Atlanta. And the music scenes in various places were all sorta the same; dark, brooding and full of characters who were intentionally confrontational or disturbingly aloof. We went to New York City a lot. In the early days of BC it was crime-ridden, scary and hard, hard, hard; not for the thin-skinned or part-time believer. Pointless, in fact, unless you had a good reason to be there, which we did, even though we suffered our fair share of abuse. In fact, the times we felt squashed or dissed or ignored completely outweighed the celebrations of success, but those rare moments when things clicked, they clicked in very important ways.

Speaking of important, big time music lover and Brave Combo’s good friend, John Morthland, has moved on. I’ve known John almost as long as there has been a Brave Combo. I think I met him on our very first trip to New York in 1980. He was a well-known rock music writer and pop culture critic. I believe I met him the same time I met the king of rock music writers and critics, Lester Bangs, at a club called The 80s. We opened for Joe King Carrasco. All I know is after that initial meeting, John became a regular part of our trips to the Northeast. He understood Brave Combo and took every opportunity he had to spread the word about our twisted polka. I remember one time he was at the original Lone Star Cafe, right in downtown Manhattan, reviewing our show for the VILLAGE VOICE, and we decided to take it to the streets, literally, coercing most of the crowd to follow us as we marched around outside the club, playing polkas, of course. He wrote a glowing piece and helped galvanize our following in the city, which was critical to success, in general. John eventually moved to Dallas, oddly enough, and then to Austin, where he continued to write, until his death a couple of weeks ago. He was an essential part of my education during Brave Combo’s infancy. His posse included writers, Joe Nick Patoski, who managed Joe King Carrasco at the time, Ed Ward, legendary Austin music critic and Billy Altman, East Coast rock writer. Hanging out with these guys opened my eyes to how things worked, at least in those days, and I became friends with them all. As a person, John was a really sweet guy. I could tell he was more sensitive than most, but I also knew he was way smarter than most. One of my favorite times with him was when he, Jane and I attended an Edward Woods film festival together. I’m pretty sure he and I liked the movies for the same reasons. Here’s a piece John wrote for TEXAS MONTHLY in 2002.

MUSIC FROM TRUE STORIES TO BE PART OF BRAVE COMBO’S LIVE-STREAMING CONCERT ON TUESDAY, MARCH 29. Mark the date! You can attend the show OR watch from the comfort of wherever. As I mentioned in previous newsletters, Brave Combo will be performing a lot of music from David Byrne’s (Talking Heads) 1986 film at Dan’s Silverleaf, in Denton on March 29 at 8 pm (CT). Even if you’re in St. Louis or Amsterdam or Melbourne, you can have this immediate experience with us. Watch the full two hours or for only two minutes! Leave it on while you do other things. You can comment and make requests. Again, mark the date! https://www.concertwindow.com/13263-brave-combo

Okay. Heads up! Stop worrying so much. That’s not the point of being here. Instead, watch this video, starring a relaxed Ricky, the cat, enjoying the outdoors.