Brave Combo

Grammy Award-Winning Band from Denton, Texas

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The Machine’s Pump Volume 26 – #5 – May 2023

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Jeez, May is almost over, and I am, once again, woefully behind on everything, especially getting the newsletter written and posted for your eager eyes.  It’s not that I don’t have plenty to say, because I almost always have plenty to say, if it’s a topic which interests me.  But, like you, I simply don’t have time to do everything.  Needy animals easily take up 50% of it.  And now, in Texas, there are only 20 hours in a day, instead of 24!  Another one of Ken Paxton’s nitwit moves.  FYI, I usually don’t wake up until almost noon because morning sucks and is only for wimps.  Who needs a fresh new day, every day?  How conventional and utterly predictable can you get?  In some parts of the world, morning is for drinking alcohol.  Once upon a time, we were in Graz, Austria for several days, performing at a festival and hanging out with unusual people, experiencing cool stuff.  Right across the street from our hotel was a fru bar, which is what they called a morning bar.  I don’t drink much, so this only sounds like a guaranteed headache for lunch.  None-the-less, the morning bars exist, to dull the excitement over the brand new day!

Speaking of culture wars, which I wasn’t, why are the folks with most of the guns so freaked out and angry?  What is upsetting them so much?  I mean, I’m not happy that the political party, of which I am generally at odds, doesn’t know how to stand up to the NRA or tax the wealthy or care about the poor, but I can honestly say I don’t want to kill anyone just because they are selfish and unfair.  That’s their problem.  They can live with whatever hell they’re creating for themselves, in their me-me-me misery.  I’m just glad I’m not inclined to want something destroyed because I can’t relate to it or understand it.  Anyway, I’ve been thinking, if Republicans can justify their attachments to assault rifles, like AR-15s (which they claim is just a gun, nothing special), surely, I can own a couple of nicely decorated boxes of cute little attractively packed hand grenades, in child-enticing fentanyl candy colors.  You know, maybe a dozen or two in each box.  That would be so sweet!  Hand grenades are just like firecrackers.  Besides my grandmother used to paint hand grenades when she worked at a weapons arsenal/army depot, right outside Texarkana. So it’s part of my family tradition and nothing is more important than family and tradition and hand grenades, right?  FUN FACT.  Around 50% of Republicans own a gun and 65% live in a household with guns.  20% of Democrats own a gun, with 30% living in household with guns.  One can only surmise that Republicans are way more afraid of the world than Democrats.  I would think that the “religious flock,” who ascribe to the power of their lord and savior, The Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ, wouldn’t feel the need for any guns at all.  I guess I got that all wrong, somehow.  But, hey, I’m a lover, not a fighter.  Besides, as you must know, my life involves a lot of cat herding.  Guns make that activity much worse.  You’ll never socialize feral cats by shooting guns in the air or at people.  One of my cats at home runs away if I just carry a box into the room!  That’s Spot.  He and his sister, Dot, often seem to be waiting for something unpleasant to happen.

Speaking of cats, I was closing up the house around 3:30 am one morning, after coming home from a gig, checking on all our pets, and opened the door to my office.  Right in the middle of the floor was a little possum.  Not a baby, but it was pretty young.  Of course, it immediately ran behind a shelf full of all kinds of things, which meant we had to move and dismantle quite a bit to pull the shelf away from the wall.  That took a while.  Finally, we cleared everything out of the way, to reveal the frightened possum.  Jane, my wife, put on some spiffy Kevlar gloves and picked it right up, and carried it outside.  I was impressed.  She kept her cool.  The little possum kept its cool.  I sorta kept my cool.  And before we knew it, it was 5:00 am and we headed to bed, both very happy our cats didn’t catch the little guy and torture it and tear off its legs and then eat part of it.

BC News Tidbits:

The band is rehearsing pretty regularly now, creating aural excitement in the process.  It’s a fun scene and right across the street from our parking lot in the back is a recently opened Middle-Eastern Disco Bar

I’ve been writing lots of new songs and some are almost decent.  I like to give myself a block of time, with an instrument and a groove/beat and a vague feeling, either musically (melody and chords) or lyrically.  Sometimes a song starts with a concept, or an idea and the challenge is to make the music or lyrics support the idea without sounding forced, awkward or overly preachy.  Sorta preachy is acceptable.  One person telling another person what to do is classic stuff.  It’s often expected posturing and the singer, in lots of songs, must be assertive to properly express his/her point-of-view, but every aspect of this sits on a razor’s edge, down to which word you choose to rhyme with another word.  Some composers feel trapped by the process of writing.  It’s where you face your own ego and try to maintain objective distance and not ignore the obvious signs that you’ve actually come up with something quite awful.  Have a drink.

Dave Monsch is still playing woodwinds with us, brilliantly, in Jeffrey’s absence. In the meantime, Jeffrey is still recovering, a tiny amount every day and getting pretty good at one-hand harmonica.  Everyone continues to be pleased with his progress.  In fact, he graced the stage with the rest of us recently at the National Polka Festival in Ennis, Texas.  And then, accordion monster, Alex Meixner showed up and we all played the Kenny Bass and The Polka Poppers classic, “The Westview Polka,” which Alex also recorded when he was around 13 or 14 years old and that’s the version Brave Combo eventually heard and also decided to record.  Anyway, this was a big ol’ kick-ass sound at the polkafest.  Eight-Headed Combo:  Danny, Robert, Bubba, Jeffrey. Alan, Dave, Alex and me!  You shoulda been there!

Bubba will be heading up to Eureka Springs and Kansas City with us in June.  He can play bass, dance and sing, all at the same time!  Check our itinerary for performance details.

We have a new BC-Generic T-shirt.  Basic for the basics.  No surprises.  Perfect for mindless summer.  Expresses the minimum.  Beautifully unpretentious and won’t clog your brain, yet you can let everyone know, in a wonderfully subtle way, you get it.

The Machine’s Pump Volume 26 – #4 – April 2023

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Yesteryear – 25 Years ago – Denton Record Chronicle

Hello, again. It is my intention to have this newsletter written by the 15th of each month. By the 15th. Not later than the 15th. And it doesn’t really matter to anyone, but me. And it barely matters to me, other than it’s a discipline I want to honor; to capture the essence of the month, as we are solidly in it. But, as with you, in this era of endless distractions and emergencies, days tend to fly by, and before you can even make it to the grocery store, a week has disappeared. You know exactly what I mean. I don’t need to elaborate on the struggles of 2023. You got yours. I got mine. But, I do try to establish some structure to my life and getting this thing written, for whatever reason, by a certain date gives me a sense of accomplishment and allows me to scratch something off my list. And we all know how good that feels. Right? The list is my substitute brain. If it’s on the list, I don’t have to think about it. But I do need to remember to look at my list. Okay, I’m glad that paragraph’s out of the way. I have confessed my disappointment with being tardy! Good for me! I’m gonna reward myself with a cookie! In my defense, Easter happened earlier in the month, and I wrote a long piece which accompanied the release of my 16-minute protestant hymn medley. Here’s a link to that. Click on the title to read the text, which is sort of important if you are curious about why I would go to the trouble to record a very long medley of hymns, considering I’m not very religious. There is a reason, and it involves an experiment. Specifically, if one detests what many Evangelical Christians stand for, can one hear the beautiful musical elements in hymns anyway? Check it out and see what you think. If you’re like me and don’t jive with most of poor Jesus’ modern army, is that a wall between you and some basic sonic elements. Can you say, “Screw the message, but I LOVE how the melody and chords work.” By the way, musically, hymns = polkas.

Gracing the Walls of the Local Applebees

In Brave Combo World it sometimes feels like our history is too dense to see a way forward. We’ve been a “thing” for so long, it’s hard to separate our past accomplishments from our future aspirations. I often think about the first time we had a significant mention in ROLLING STONE. The feeling was beyond amazing. It felt like we’d either made it or were well on our way. And then, immediately, it seemed, a brand new ROLLING STONE was on the convenience store racks. Our issue was old news almost as soon as it was new news! We realized we had to keep the pedal to the metal and constantly seize the moment. And, apparently, we did, often more than we were aware. Our local paper, The Denton Record Chronicle just ran a 25-year-old story about our relationship with Matt Groening and THE SIMPSONS TV show. It appeared in the paper’s “Yesteryears” column.  That certainly feels like a long time ago and, yet, it feels like a month ago. Denton’s Applebee’s restaurant has a photo mural of our music scene with an image of Brave Combo playing at the Arts and Jazz Festival one year. Joe Cripps is even in the photo. And, right now, in the middle of our town

Making A Scene at the Courthouse on the Square in Denton

square, the Denton County Courthouse Museum has an exhibit about Denton music, full of cool local nostalgia, including a Brave Combo section. These are all surprising and humbling things. Most of my creative efforts have been pretty selfishly motivated, but that’s the way it has to be; to make the purest expression of what Brave Combo is or represents. To me, the band’s 44 years of existence is all stacked like pancakes and then squashed! It’s not a bad feeling because I know all the stuff that’s happened, actually happened. It’s just weird and too much, but, thankfully, in an entertaining way, sort of. My priorities are different, for sure. Brave Combo is no longer career-building, so to speak. Plenty of people know what we do and we’re easy to find. We are still playing shows, when they suit us, and things are starting to feel a little more normal, from a post-pandemic live music perspective. And we’re working on a bunch of new songs. But, sometimes, getting from here to there doesn’t sound as much fun as live-streaming something bizarre or hosting groovy little wigged-out dance parties at our studio. As you should know, I love spending time with all my animals, and they love spending time with me. I’m with a few right now. BoBo, the cat, is asleep on the printer. I can just reach out and grab his foot. Can’t do that in a van or a plane. Whatever, I’ve never been busier, but also never pickier. And I know everyone in the band feels the same way, so if we find ourselves somewhere, it’s because we want to be there!

Making a Scene at the Denton Court House Museum

Speaking of how band members feel, our woodwind shaman, Jeffrey Barnes, recently had major surgery on the vertebrae in his neck to correct some long-term issues and he’s doing very well, but the recovery/physical therapy will be long and intense, so that’s why you won’t be seeing him with the band for a few months. However, he’s upbeat and thanks everyone for the well-wishes. In the meantime, our good friend and master saxophonist from the fabulous Little Jack Melody Orchestra, Dave Monsch, has stepped in and is rocking it. Seriously. So, I’m now wondering about how to mess with that old Billy Vaughn double tenor sax harmony sound and entice Dave to stick around some once Jeff’s back in the saddle. Now THAT possibility opens up a million avenues of aural excitement and adventure. In my mind, at least.

The late famous Texas artist and my painting professor in college, Robert Wade, said to our class, on the first day we met, “Do you make art or do you make what looks like art?” That’s still one of the best questions I’ve ever heard. I remember where I was sitting in the studio, with a dumb easel in front of me, feeling pretty lost, then suddenly, I didn’t. It’s funny how those cloud-clearing moments really do happen.

NUTS AND BOLTS! As I mentioned gigs are being added to our itinerary, although we are pulling back on live shows a bit until Jeff recovers and can dance upside down, while playing two penny whistles, again. You know, normal Jeffrey. So, get up and get down. It’s a brand new bag, because it’s supposed to be and Brave Combo can’t be afraid. It’s not allowed!