Volume 16 – #12 – December 2013

Christmas is over and a brand new year is pulling a wagon full of wonder and mystery. And yet, 2014 will zoom by so fast, it’ll seem like we, Brave Combo, will be playing “O Holy Night (Cha Cha Cha) before the effects of summer wear off. And before we know it, we’ll be right where we are now, just a year later, wondering how soon we’ll start seeing Valentine crap on the shelves at Walgreen. Constant anticipation is simply built into our culture, as it would be in any other obsessively capitalistic society. Gotta sell, sell, sell and the people gotta buy, buy, buy. Retailers must try to grab the consumer with something “fresh” and “new” every week to just meet the bottom line. That’s the way it is in the good ol’ USA. Bands have to do their version of the same thing. Each new album has to be justified through some sort of promotion and then actually sold to someone to make it worthwhile. We have to contrive some sort of significance about each labor of love to enhance its attractiveness. Sometimes when I see movie stars on talk shows hawking their new movie I feel badly for all of us, meaning anyone in entertainment who has to create in order to make a living. Bands need to sell merchandise at shows, whether they’re rock gods packing big arenas or struggling singer/songwriter/banjo/fiddle/guitar trios revealing their souls to ten of their friends at the coffee shop a block from the University of Wherever. And, obviously, you can’t sell the same 12-14 tracks to fans over and over. And even if you tried you would have to, at least, change the jacket cover, so you might as well record some new songs and get the angle of the whole thing figured out.

I found a relatively current CD of a Russian traditional/pop singer that has a lot of great songs on it but not a single word of English anywhere on the jacket or CD itself. I don’t read or speak Russian. I know nothing about what I’m listening to, which is really pretty normal for me, but I’m curious about a couple of things, like who he is and what he’s singing about. I tried to Shazam (song searching app) it and the results came up in Russian only. I would like to recommend it to you, but I don’t know what to tell you. Just as well. Everyone’s always overloaded with stuff from other people, anyway. We’re all mad about sharing these days aren’t we? Even if the information is boring or useless, and most of it is, we sure have a lot of ways to pass it on. I remember after our second trip to Japan that no one really wanted to see our 500 photos and that was a long time ago. This is a goofy and bizarre time to be alive, for sure, but people are still the same. They may seem friendly, but they aren’t that interested.

And speaking of passing on cool things, if you are in the minority and might be interested, check out this instructional piano video for the Yiddish drinking song, “Shprayz Ikh Mir.” It’s in D-minor, apparently. I’ve been familiar with the melody for years, having heard the NYC Klezmer band, The Klezmatics, play it on several occasions and always found it quite stirring. Now we’ve added it to our own repertoire and are writing some English lyrics. Get ready to “la la la” along with us in the “la la la” section.

As I mentioned earlier, it appears 2014 is inevitable, so we might as well book those gigs and get out there and make some noise. Due to an unusual series of events, we will be returning to one of our favorite East Coast venues, the Blob’s Park Ballroom (between Washington D.C. And Baltimore), in mid-March. But it’s bitter-sweet because Blob’s is closing, forever, two weeks later. The final show at the legendary dancehall will be March 31st. We’ve had some amazing times rockin’ that room over the years and wish the best for Max Blob and the whole crew. One more step into the mundane.
And speaking of amazing times, I hate to spread the news, but Brave Combo will turn 35 in 2014. Surely I can milk this a little bit and make it work in our favor. Just existing as a business for 35 years is worth a bit of horn tootin’, don’t you think? Jeff and Danny are horn tooters. Anyway, I’ll give it some thought and try to come up with a way to properly acknowledge the significance of this feat. Maybe we should play some shows in a variety of odd locations, like we did the first couple of years. 

Speaking of locations, Brave Combo could be heading to the UK in August, 2014, for a series of shows. We better be sure our passports are up to date.

Okay, my fine friends. As you remember the events of 2013, don’t forget to look where you’re going. For what it’s worth, end-of-year retrospectives put me to sleep, whether it’s ROLLING STONE, The Denton Record Chronicle, 60 MINUTES or anything on-line. I want to say, to anyone who might care to listen (which is almost no one), “I know, I know! I was just there!” September, literally, seems like yesterday. March, the day before yesterday. Weird. The holidays, combined with the passing of one year into the next, all smashed into each other, kinda get in the way, in general. Is it just me or does it seem that almost everything is a bit out of whack? I don’t mean just now, when it is traditionally impossible to reach anyone about anything, but all the time. We have our priorities straight, right? Well, that’s good to know. Head up! Shoulders back! Eyes open! Happy New Year! And one more thing. Let’s POLKA!