Volume 10 – #2 – February 2007

Troublin’ times don’t get us down, in Denton town.
Troublin’ times don’t get us down, in Denton town.
Life is best in the home of happiness.
Peaceful rest in the home of happiness.
Hey, look alive, it’s the Denton Polka.
Don’t fear the night. Take a big chance.
Bounce to the beat of the Denton Polka.
Syncopate your feet and dance, dance, dance.

These are some of the lyrics to our brand new “Denton Polka,” composed recently for the City of Denton’s Sesquicentennial celebration. 150 years ago our fine little burgh was born and now there are about 100,000 of us getting in each other’s way regularly. Add to that all the students that inhabit the two big colleges here and, well, it can be a big cluttered mess; too many grown-up blessed events. But, it doesn’t get us down. John B. Denton had big plans for his namesake and we’re not going to disappoint him. He’s buried right on the courthouse lawn in the middle of town, so he knows what’s going down. He’s just a couple of blocks from BC Headquarters. We can pay our respects anytime we want. Unfortunately, in some ways, these are troublin’ times for Denton. We’re in danger of becoming nothing unique. Developers are descending upon us right and left and they want to homogenize us into a convenient extension of Dallas. We may be losing our “cool,” literally. Funky Fry Street is turning into dust right before our eyes and some disturbing plans for the historic downtown square are surfacing.

When it’s dark, we’ll find the light.
We’re Den-ton-ites.
Polka on, with all our might.
We’re Den-ton-ites.

Oh well, even if Denton falls prey to all things evil, we think you’ll like our new song anyway. It’s got a good beat. You can dance to it. Come out to a show and we’ll play it for you.

Speaking of Denton and Brave Combo, we are being honored by the Greater Denton Arts Council and will be receiving a CARA (Community Arts Recognition Award) for “Business of the Year.” We support Denton by being ourselves and the city does a lot to encourage us to be ourselves. That’s a great arrangement. Since we get to travel and spread the word we’ve become ambassadors, I guess. It’s been quite important to Brave Combo to let the world know that we’re not from Dallas or Austin or Lufkin or Marfa or Pampa or Texarkana. Although, I am originally from Texarkana. In fact, I was born on the Arkansas side of Texarkana, but don’t tell anyone. That’s just where the hospital was. In those days when a woman had a baby she had to stay in bed for about six months afterwards. Remember?

I’ve been thinking about something recently that may be hard to explain, but I’ll try. We Americans have seen so many examples about how to act in so many different situations portrayed on TV, on the radio and in the movies, that I wonder if anyone in the United States knows how to express true emotion anymore. It seems, at times, that every possible scenario has already been scripted and we’re thoroughly conditioned no matter what happens. That’s why I love the unpredictable and enjoy stepping into the unknown so often. And sometimes I have a desire to pull the rug out from under things just to see where the pieces land. I think the greatest compliment Brave Combo could ever receive is for someone to tell us that we really shook things up (as long as no one gets hurt or dies in the process, of course). Maybe it’s the whole “question authority bit,” but that’s okay. We’re just a bunch of confused misfits anyway, so we’ll probably be rebels of a sort forever. I can’t think of many members of Brave Combo, from the very beginning, that comfortably adjusted to the real world. And, frankly, a few of us, on occasion are downright insane compared to the real world. I don’t necessarily think this a good thing. It just is and we are what we are. Everyone’s life locks into certain patterns; some pleasurable, some not. Most of us wake up everyday and have the opportunity to face a whole new set of experiences. It may look similar to the day before, but it’s not at all, really. It’s several hours later, for one thing. And you may feel great on Tuesday compared to terrible on Wednesday. It’s all a matter of perspective. Like, if you were stranded in outer space, unable to return to Earth, you would probably be over-joyed to land safely in Baghdad. Sometimes when we’re driving to a gig I like to watch people walking into stores, as we zoom by them, and think about what they’re doing once they’re out of my sight. I notice the colors they’re wearing and imagine what they might be buying. It can feel magical. When I was a kid I loved monster movies and magazines.
And I remember one stormy Saturday night when I was probably about ten years old. There was a wolf man board game at a department store near our house and I begged my father to drive me to the store to buy it, even though it was pouring rain and thundering and lightening. He did it. We couldn’t park very close to the front door and got pretty wet running to the store. It was exciting. I bought the game and we got out of there. By the time we made it home, though, the electricity was out in the neighborhood; I played the game by flashlight. As it turned out, the game sucked, but the night was fantastic.

Attention! Work has officially begun on the new BC album. We’ve already spent a few days in the studio laying down some smokin’hot tracks. Dig? But, I worry about this elusive recording world. It’s become a phantom planet without an orbit. Vinyl is hanging in there a little. CDs are still around, but losing ground fast (down almost 70% since 1997). Downloading is the happening way to grab a groove, but it’s hard to imagine how many non-teen CD buyers will go to the trouble to download 12-15 songs by any artist. I don’t know. I think the tangible object, be it 8-track, cassette, CD, LP or 45 rpm single, is still a pretty important element for music lovers that don’t live inside their computer. You know what? Maybe it’s time to go back to just the live experience and not even worry about whether we release a hunk of new recordings or not. I believe the live BC performance can be something pretty interesting, if not pleasantly odd, at times; something that will never be available on any recording, not even a live one. So I propose that all bands and musicians stop all recording for a while and do live shows or nothing. Make “here and now” the only things that matter. Everyone’s worried that the soul of live music, and its importance in our society, is dying. Maybe this is true. Maybe it’s not just at a particularly low ebb. Whatever, we’ll get right on that recording ban thing as soon as we finish off another couple of sides. As I mentioned, we have been conjuring up some serious studio magic and hope to share our beautiful new creations with you in some form (yet to be determined) in the foreseeable future. Flip-Flop Combo?

An avant-garde senior citizen vocal group from Northampton, Massachusetts, called the Young @ Heart Chorus is currently performing, and has recorded, a version of our song, “Do Something Different” in a medley with Outkast’s hit, “Hey Ya.” This kind of thing makes gives me the incentive to go on. We’ve discussed doing a show with them in Northampton.

The premiere of A FAIR TO REMEMBER, the new State Fair of Texas documentary that features tons of sounds by Brave Combo, was, apparently, a smashing success. Over the three days every showing at the Dallas Fair Park’s Hall of State Museum was standing room only. At the screening I attended, the filmmakers looked somewhat stunned at the turnout. I hope everyone gets a chance to see it. And it’s not all fun and games and food, either. It’s actually quite shocking, in a dark way, at times. But such is life. And this corner of reality must move on to other things now. Make time for music when you have time. It can transform you in ways you may have forgotten. Polka on, with all your might, even if you’re not a Dentonite.