Volume 17 – #8 – August 2014

I’m listening to rough mixes from several recent days in the studio. We’re working on a new Brave Combo album. It’s almost all original music. We’ll be spending most of our weekdays through mid-September crafting this thing, splitting time with gigs on the weekends. And just yesterday, several boxes arrived, full of our brand new release, LIVE AT BLOB’S PARK, which is a live album recorded at a place called Blob’s Park. All of this activity is happening right after a major 35th Anniversary show at the beautiful Kessler Theatre in Dallas, featuring both the current band and the original band; an event which was documented by a five-camera crew. By anyone’s definition, it’s a busy time. Just check out our performing schedule between now and early November. And keep in mind that many of the days we’re not on stage, we’re promoting the next time we are on stage. On top of all of this there is an office bathroom to keep clean. So, that’s what’s going on right now and as I listen to the rough mixes it sounds like we still have a lot to do.

Speaking of working too hard, the founding BC members, Lyle, Tim, Lisa (formerly Dave) and I had such a fab time at the show in Dallas, we may try to pull one off in Denton before the year is out, hopefully, in November, before “Must Be Santa” zooms to the top of our play list. Think about it. The original four in our original town. Now that’s a destination vacation. Our first club gigs in Denton were at a place called Benny’s. A photo of us playing at Benny’s ran in ROLLING STONE. That building still stands. It’s now a club called Cool Beans. Maybe we should play a set there. We’d be polka jamming on top of the same dirt we polka jammed on 35 years ago. Every other structure on that big ol’ block (Fry to Hickory to Welch to Oak) succumbed to new developers and were replaced by that new look (you know the college-town-anywhere-USA look). But not that humble little dive, still owned by the Lott family. I remember playing there after Jim Lott took it over and changed its name to The Library. One night it was raining outside AND inside, between the front half of the club and the back half. Actually, I think that may have happened more than one rainy night.

Speaking of working even harder, I’ve been talking to Mitch Marine, Brave Combo’s second drummer and golf enthusiast, about getting the Silver-Age Combo together for a big 35th Anniversary holiday spectacular and play a bunch of songs from IT’S CHRISTMAS, MAN! Anyway, we’re looking at mid-December, so keep your fingers crossed and tentatively make those travel plans. If we can pull this off, we want to do a couple of shows, at least. As most of you know, Mitch currently plays with Dwight Yoakum and is on TV a lot, looking and sounding just like Mitch. It’s funny how time seems to squash-up as you get older. I’m living in my past and present at the same time these days.

Polka season has officially begun. I consider Westfest (Labor Day weekend) the launching pad. If you love polkas and you live near us you must be getting pretty excited.

Oh, there’s so much strife and worry in the world. Woe is us. Several countries in the Middle East seem to be falling apart. Gun violence is out of control in this country. Cops have gone insane with power. Militias are cropping up like Subway Sandwich Shops. Ebola virus is spreading. West Nile virus lingers on. Weather is becoming more and more volatile and unpredictable. Fresh, drinkable water is disappearing. Hell, even good grammar is disappearing. The rich are getting richer, the not-so-rich, poorer. The media machine continues to over-sexualize everything. The anonymity of the Internet has done little more than facilitate the bully and people who would usually be too scared to be real-life bullies. And the ease of capturing and sharing images that social media exploits is turning us into sensation-driven, selfie-centered narcissists. And the neighbors are acting weird. But what’s really astounding is that we humans mainly just figure out ways to adjust, and accept the deterioration of our humanity and environment as normal. It’s normal to be so afraid and stressed-out. It’s normal to have to make our schools as secure as prisons. It’s normal to be suspicious of the police. Beheadings are normal. A high school student killing other students with an assault weapon is normal. And, of course, greed is a virtue. The highest thing you can achieve. It’s what we all strive for because we think it’s what’s expected. Everything you see or hear says, “Me, me, me.” I’ve always wondered how we can go to sleep every night for several hours and wake up as the same corrupt, dis-connected person we were before we passed out. It would seem that sleep should wash more away, but it doesn’t. Never did. For a lot of people it seems to just rest ’em up enough to get ready for another day of hating. Oh well, at least cartoons were funny when I was a kid. Although, I never enjoyed turning a comic-strip character, like DENNIS, THE MENACE, into a TV sitcom with live actors.

Okay, let’s wrap this up on a positive note. Bruce McCulloch, of Canadian comedy troupe, THE KIDS IN THE HALL, once did a skit about being a performer and having lots of lousy nights on stage, but knowing that when he was finished performing, or rather, bombing, there would be a sandwich waiting for him in the dressing room. So, I decided to adopt that attitude about everything. No matter what, I still have that sandwich to look forward to. You always have that sandwich. Now go out there and fight the good fight! And buy our new CD, too, of course!