Volume 4 – #5 – May 2001

I am so far behind in everything. There are a few chores that are usually my responsibility that I don’t let slide, such as designing promotional mailers, booking motel rooms, filling orders, meeting deadlines for record companies, doing interviews and taking care of banking stuff. I want to find more time for song writing (this generally requires inspiration, too), explorative listening, arranging and rehearsing, but when I’m bogged down with business, the more creative things get pushed back. However, we do, somehow, find time for enough creativity to keep ourselves entertained while we’re on stage. Although, a lot of that depends on motivation and discipline, too. But many tasks are not being tended to very well. There are some emails that I need to answer that are a year old and some regular mail that’s in the same slow boat. It’s ridiculous. I just hope when people write to me they immediately forget and don’t expect a jiffy answer. I want to do everything and I often fool myself into thinking it’s possible. It also seems, and this is no great revelation, that many time saving devices have become time slaving devices.

On a related topic, one might feel that it’s hard to find meaning in anything anymore. We’re like rats, multiplying at an alarming rate, ignoring the sinking ship. There’s so much of everything that nothing is really special. I know this is a common theme in my thought patterns, but it’s so obvious, I just have to comment occasionally. We make money and we spend it. That seems to be what 2001 is all about. It’s just a more exaggerated version of 2000. The career maze for a lot of people seems to be such a confined structure there’s not much time for anything other than making and spending money and watching enough creepy television to keep the monster alive and well. Boy, what a murky, cluttered, out-of-control sea of chaos and confusion television is now. It’s embarrassing. Of course, who wouldn’t consider having their own TV show if given the opportunity? Thirty minutes to entertain or inform as you see fit. Maybe a speech about how to herd a bunch of people into a room and convince them to give you money. Whoa. Wait a minute. That’s what we do. Let’s imagine a Brave Combo infomercial that would run on all stations at once, during prime time. Or maybe only in hotels (closed circuit) after midnight. Either way, you know it would be great. Jeff could open the show reciting THE RHYME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER from memory and that would be about it. I guess we could end the show with an overly emotional musical tribute to something important. Is that interesting enough?

Speaking of adventurous television, every night, from 9 PM until 2 AM on channel 65 in Texarkana, a show called BID-N-BUY is broadcast live from a warehouse in a dying shopping center. It’s pretty cool. A woman walks around pointing out stuff on shelves. People call in and bid. The pace is laborious, but the whole thing works in an “end of time” sort of way. All of the items are cheap garage sale caliber. Man they should broadcast once a week from the city dump, selling garbage back into circulation. Afterall, this is the good ol’ USA, where ingenuity sometimes pays off. Market your idea and make money, so you can find something to spend it on.

I regularly have to get up on the roof of my house and sweep it off. I like it up there. As I clear the roof, I clear my head.

Speaking of clearing my head, in an attempt to find meaning and to understand things better (especially myself), I often turn to Buddhist philosophy. I know it’s as trendy as golf and Britney right now, but a lot of it makes sense. Actually, I started on a path of discovery many years ago that eventually merged with some Eastern beliefs. I don’t call myself Buddhist because I don’t work hard enough at it, but I really enjoy learning what I can. Basically, it helps me hear the laugh track to my life.

Brave Combo Fun Facts:
Paul has tattooed ankles.
Bubba likes noodles.
Jeff doesn’t have a cell phone.
Carl enjoys riding his bicycle.
Danny recently became a father of twin girls. Now we call him Daddy O’Brien.

Speaking of babies, when I was in the ninth grade, I had a garage band in Texarkana, Texas. One Sunday afternoon we auditioned for the booking agent at a teen club on the Arkansas side of town. We were getting serious about the band and wanted to play one of their Saturday night dances. He seemed to like us okay, but asked us to come back the next Sunday and audition again, because he wanted some other people to hear us. Those other people were a popular local band called The Lords Of Sound. It turns out the booking agent was a good friend of the band and knew that they wanted a new guitarist. I wore a beret and played kinda psychedelic style. I was just what they were looking for, so they asked me to join their band. I felt bad that I would have to quit my current band, The Night Raiders, but this was a big deal. The real deal, actually. The Lords Of Sound were older and established and they played out of town some. So, before long, I was singing to drunk recruits at sleazy army base clubs at the edge of T-town and teenage country girls at roller rinks in Oklahoma. I can’t believe my parents let me do this. I was 14 years old. One Saturday night, driving back home from somewhere the muffler fell off the Mustang were we all five riding in (and we were pulling a U-Haul). It was probably about 2am and we needed a piece of wire. We saw a lone house across a field with lights on. So, the drummer, Randy, and I went to see if they would give us a coat hanger. When we made it to the house we could hear music blaring from a radio inside. We knocked on the front door and it opened. Inside were several middle-aged to elderly black men and women drinking and smoking and playing poker and listening to Gospel music. It was rocking scene. They graciously gave us a coat hanger and invited us to stay a while. Of course, we couldn’t. Our band mates were waiting. When we got back to the car, Jack and Jon were under it and Ronnie, our chubby, flamboyant, gay keyboardist/vocalist was acting out a scene from a high school play he was in. A few years later he moved to Los Angeles and was murdered. I never heard any details. On a lighter note, Randy, the drummer, also moved to Los Angeles and played Bobby Ewing’s cousin in a few episodes of DALLAS.

For some reason, I feel at such peace right now and I don’t know why. All the normally screwed up stuff is still screwed up, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Maybe it’s the allergy pill I took earlier. Whatever, we played a party tonight and I thought the band was particularly on. In the groove. I like that. We play lots of parties: wedding receptions, bar mitzvahs, birthdays, corporate wing dings, seasonal celebrations and fancy fund raisers. In fact only about half of our shows are public. With that in mind, I like to think we make sense at whatever affair we’ve been booked. So, when we arrive at the venue I try to become a temporary space probe and soak in as much information and vibration as possible. I like to size up and study the room and its inevitable limitations. Some spaces are hard to forgive, though I always try. When I can, I talk to a person in charge that can tell me about the event and the demographic of the attendees. What are we celebrating here? What’s the average age? What’s the man to woman ratio? Do they speak English? Have they ever heard us or heard of us? Are they morally opposed to dancing? Will they be wearing matching uniforms? Anyway, you get the idea.

Hey, check us out soon. We have some new songs that we love to play and some old ones we’ll rehearse on stage, if you like. And the festivals continue. May 17 in Little Rock, Arkansas, May 19 in Addison, Texas, May 20 in Grapevine, Texas, May 25 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and May 26 and 27 in Ennis, Texas. Check our itinerary for locations, times and event information. So, until whenever, take care and breathe polka.