Volume 15 – #11 – November 2012

I’m listening to Scrubby and The Dynatones (legendary polka band from Buffalo, NY) again. This time it’s their ground-breaking live album, LIVE WIRE, which was recorded a little over 25 years ago. I’ve heard this brilliant piece of art more times than I can count. It brought so much into focus for me, in my quest to understand the Polish-American polka experience, and exposed the significance of the rise of push-style as the dominant Polish sound. The Dynatones were the ultimate masters of playing the polka as funky-slow as possible, but, magically, with as much gutsy grind and gritty groove imaginable, thanks to Larry on drums and Nigel on bass. They were like Polish low riders, usually playing it cool but sometimes slamming it right up in your face, demanding a response. I’ve had several opportunities to tell most of the members of The Dynatones what a big influence they’ve had on Brave Combo. Larry Trojak (drummer) is like me, a vegetarian in a musical genre drowning in meat, which is a strange life to lead and there are so few of us. Accordionist, Al Piatkowski, performed with us at Lincoln Center’s Midsummer Night’s Swing series once upon a time and I have invited Scrubby (singer and concertina player) to participate creatively with Brave Combo on some level and he’s always been cordial and kind. If you have no idea what or who I am talking about I hope you can get hip to the scene one day. FYI, these Dynatones are not the same as the blues /rock band of the same name.

The holiday season has begun to swallow us whole once again. There’s no escape, so one might as well figure out how to roll with it. Although Brave Combo makes a big hunk of its yearly income in December, playing “Must Be Santa” and the likes, there’s still something creepy about how the years are now so cleanly divided into little segments of time so advertisers can move seamlessly from one sales event to the next. The year just zooms right along, one chunk of stuff after another. As soon as New Year’s Eve is history we’ll go straight to Valentine’s Day. Christmas commercials are particularly gross to me. They are either too perky or too sentimental; almost the most perfect expression of insincerity. Oh well, no one is supposed to know what you’re really thinking, right? And, everyone’s an idiot, right?

I know everyone that reads this will not agree with my feelings, but I have to say, for about two weeks after Obama won his second term, I was floating on an air mattress full of joy. What a relief. Suddenly, everything was okay, even if everything was still screwed up. Big bird’s position was secure and although the sight of that dull mass of yellow made me want to go to sleep immediately, I was thrilled with his symbolic victory. Now let’s all get along and do things my way.

Brave Combo has been spending a lot of quality time riding in our van recently. We certainly fly our fair share but can’t afford to fly everywhere all the time. Plus, when we fly we don’t have our own equipment at the gig and usually have to rent a van once we get somewhere, anyway. Flying means a whole lot of hard work crammed into a death-defying short period of time. And you can’t stop at truck stops when you fly. You just zoom over them, unaware of the treasures lurking below, like full-size imitation tigers and little bitty crystal frogs. Sadly, there’s really no easy way to get our physical bodies from Denton to another location. It involves going from point A to point B and will probably be way more complicated than you might imagine. Our first night of a tour is usually a good time to catch us because we’ve probably been cooped up in some self-propelled vehicle all day and are ready to unleash. But we’re on a mission of peace, brothers and sisters. And our weapons are horns, guitars, accordions and drums, instead of hand grenades, sling shots, drone missiles and derringers. The stage is our personal gym or our swimming pool. You, faithful audience, watch us exercise.

Despite being predictably Carl Grinch, I do enjoy twisting everyone’s holiday favorites into tasty pretzels and drizzling them with a little sugar glaze so you get that sweet and salty thing everyone craves these days. And if you feel that you need such a fix, please check our itinerary and get in your car or van or bus or plane and enter the zone with us. Holiday shows are running rampant for BC!

We will be selling our live, festively seasonal CD, CHRISTMAS PRESENT (includes our version of “Must Be Santa” which Bob Dylan faithfully covered a couple of years ago), for only $5 at all of our shows from now through December or until the world ends, whichever comes first. Exciting, huh? As well, if you go to the trouble to come out for the live BC experience, we will be delighted to sell you our newest CD, SOUNDS OF THE HOLLOW, for only $5. That’s a lot of music for not much money and everyone on your Christmas list wants at least one of these.

Since the Denton Tree Lighting Committee relieved us of our long-time Christmas concert on the downtown square, apparently desiring to go in a more traditional direction, we have started playing at Dan’s Silverleaf immediately following the festivities downtown. It didn’t seem right to make this just another gig for Brave Combo, so we have partnered with the Denton Animal Shelter Foundation (DASF) and have decided to make this event an annual fund-raiser for the county’s homeless dogs and cats. Please come out on Friday, November 30 and help make it a good holiday for some innocent creatures.

Okay, that’s it for now. I have too much to do. All of my critically important chores are distracting me from all of my other critically important chores. So, put on your fancy pants, Fancy Pants, and get ready to rumble. But, if you do happen to miss the holidays this year, don’t fret. They will be back around before you care to think about them again. See, it’s a win-win situation. Enjoy dreaming about sugar plums.