Volume 10 – #4 – April 2007

Whoa! Wait a minute! What’s going on? Does everything seem really fragile right now? This is an uncomfortable time, at least, for almost everyone. But the idea that “anything can happen” never seemed so apropos. Just a month ago, if you recall, I was getting all sentimental about the good ol’ days when we had more rain. And then, a couple of weeks later, wham! A massive thunderstorm slams into us and Denton gets six inches in one hour. Much of the town flooded. You know, flash-flooded. People stranded in floating cars and everything. Unbelievable. Long-time Dentonites claim that this is the worst rainstorm to hit the area in over 40 years. I’ve been here for about three decades and have never seen anything close to this. Many friends were pulling up carpet or frantically drying wood floors the next day. Two weeks before this I was driving to a gig in Ft. Worth (also known as Cowtown) and noticed that the sky was particularly dark. I turned on the radio to a local AM talk station. The announcer immediately said, “A tornado has been sighted north of Ft. Worth. If you’re in the vicinity of the Texas Motor Speedway, seek shelter. At that moment I noticed that I was driving right by The Texas Motor Speedway and their huge sign said “SEVERE WEATHER ALERT. TAKE COVER IMMEDIATELY.” This wasn’t a good situation. I knew of an exit that had a convenience store/fast food restaurant right off the exit about three miles ahead and decided to go for it as long as there was no hail. The sky was dark and boiling and getting darker as I drove. I made it to the Conoco Wendy’s and ran inside, ready to dive into the bathroom if the building started to quake. But it didn’t. The storm passed and decided to do some harm a few more miles east. So, I ventured on to the gig and about 100 feet from the gate, my car stalled in a small section of high water temporarily created by the sudden storm. I enjoyed an interesting ride back to Denton with the AAA towing guy many hours later, after the gig. In the midst of all these weird weather-related hassles, a person in Virginia flips out and puts everything back into perspective. My “tragedies” were really just inconveniences. The thought of parents waking up one morning, thinking it’s another normal day and waking up the next morning preparing to meet President Bush at a service for their dead child, is too much to fathom. Apparently, anything CAN happen. So, we better be prepared for anything. Tomorrow, I could bend down to pick up an interesting-looking penny or I could jump down into a hole to protect myself from the atomic bomb blast I just saw in the direction of Dallas. Things as sad and shocking as the Virginia Tech killings open our imagination too much to all the possible horrors that probably won’t occur, but could; another item on the “paranoid” list. It’s just what we all need, huh? Hey, gasoline prices are way up again.

Speaking of the crappy “here and now,” I was thinking about the early days of Brave Combo recently and wondered how those other three original members perceived what was going on as the band started getting serious attention. I decided that Lyle really liked the music a lot, but LOVED the idea of playing “square” music in “hip” places. Dave really liked playing almost any music and we attempted to play almost any music regularly. Tim was already inclined, before BC, to listen to and play music frowned on by the mainstream public, yet could face the frown with a smile almost anytime. We had just enough sense of something to realize that we were pushing some of the right buttons, but mainly we had boatloads of innocence and were clueless when it came to expectations. I just wanted to do well enough at a gig to be asked back. But ever so gradually, yet with the sureness of tomorrow, rewards trickled our way. We were so, DIY anti-star, in the beginning, as any good punk should have been, that the truly great events always just seemed like icing on the cake. I remember being out on the street in New York City in 10 degree weather at 7 AM one Thursday in November, waiting to march in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and thinking, “Wow. We were going to be playing up here anyway, so we asked the Macy’s people if we could march, sent them a tape and they said okay.” It was icing on the cake, even if we were so cold our extremities became numb.

Speaking of young, innocent and numb, did you know I had a band in Texarkana once, called Pucker? We had a pretty good time and, I think, sounded pretty darn good, too. Early life bands (7th-12th grades) also included The Creatures, The Night Raiders, The Lords of Sound, Rasputin and the Monks and Feverchild’s World. Some of these bands mainly played bowling alleys. Brave Combo performed in Texarkana a few weeks ago at a club called Cinema 218. It’s not a bowling alley and, actually, not really a cinema. It’s a club that has live music and shows movies. The audience that night represented a variety of phases from my hometown years. It was a little weird. I know that place so well, yet most of my career with Brave Combo, aside from a handful of friends, has been quite disconnected from it. There were family members, family friends, old rock and roll friends, high school friends, church friends, my mother’s friends and, at one point, people actually started dancing. I’m sure that some of the dancers were Baptists, too. Behold the power of music!

Now check this out. Founding member Tim Walsh, who left us to pursue a life of elaborate psychedelic light shows, called just the other day and said he was in downtown Texarkana for the weekend, draping the buildings with laser trickery and that, at that very moment, he was a couple of blocks from the obviously-empty Hotel Grin. And I said, “It’s the Hotel Grim, not Grin, you idiot outsider.” I hope he didn’t throw my name around and try to get free food and stuff while he was there. It would have been fun to take Tim on a Texarkana tour and show him my roots. We could listen to polkas and let the glorious scenery unfold before us. Perhaps, during our journey, we could stop at a restaurant and have a piece of pie. There’s another abandoned Hotel in downtown Texarkana called The Hotel McCartney (my parents’ honeymoon destination) and a friend of mine thinks that the city should give it to Paul McCartney so he’ll come and visit. Not a bad idea.

Brave Combo is deep in the studio these days and wallowing in sound. How long can a CD be? Does it matter anymore, anyway? We’re recording many songs you’ve never heard us play and, perhaps, didn’t even know existed. A summer release is the goal. What are your goals for the summer, other than listening to Brave Combo as often as possible? And, speaking of that, check out our itinerary. We may be playing our devil music near you in the coming months. I know the summer is filling up with myriad exciting dates and not many are in Texas. That means we’ll be on the road. So polka on down that rocky road yourself and hit the dance floor with a vengeance, if you know what’s good for you. That’s an order, by the way. Peace.