Well, I can't say I didn't see a lot of what 2015 threw at us coming, but nonetheless the curve balls caught me off guard a time or two.
Henry's departure stung. While a necessary zig, I wish we could've zagged. Luckily, we had the venerable Mr. Matt Andersen on deck to cover for our departing brother, and he's proven himself to be quite an asset.
Rehearsals are sounding great, and 2016 looks like it might be a pretty busy year. Our agent has already nailed down a handful of January dates in GA and West TN, and we should be adding some more over the next few weeks, so as much as I despise Winter travel, at least we're headed south most of the time.
In the rear view, the Rock N' Skull Fest in Pekin, Il was quite the excursion. Kenny celebrated a birthday, and I got to meet my Japanese metal heroes in Loudness while getting an LP signed for him. Despite going on early in the afternoon, they more or less stole the show as far as I was concerned. Sh#t, they said screw it and opened with their biggest hit(Crazy Nights), so they already had the Superballs award in the bag(no pun intended) from the launch.
While it did in fact suck getting up and having to make a 10AM load-in to play a 45-minute opening set at noon, it was well worth the hassle. Yeah, we had a bass rig go down for a minute & a half, AND I actually had to start a song and count us back in to where we were SUPPOSED to be, had I not opted to skip ahead to the bridge section for reasons unknown, but we gamely played through, and managed to finish with our heads held high for the earlybird crowd.
Post-set, and after appointing Shandi's Music mailman Bob Long to act as our merch-hustler by proxy, we split out briefly to tape an episode of the Drunken Lullabies podcast. Craft beers were aplenty, and my recollections of the remainder of the days acts are thus compromised by what may technically have been a mild case of inebriation, but I recall Trixter being quite good, and some kid that looked like David Duchovny being really excited about seeing Ted Poley from Danger Danger. Beyond that, it's all a blur….which likely has something to do with my mic stand being left behind at the venue, while a life-size cardboard standup of Taylor Swift that we picked up at my shop made it home with us.
Back in Nashville, we've been busy getting new swag together for next year…guitar picks, posters, stickers…
and t-shirts….
...while simultaneously futzing around with the first new tunes that might possibly herald some form of a release in the hopefully not-too-distant future. I think we're gonna take a slightly different approach this time around, and since we'll be on the road a bit more, start testing this stuff on strangers as we travel, to see what sticks and what stinks. Maybe we can spare the consumer any righteous duds that way. Either way, it should help us knock the finished product out a little quicker, and spare me having to cut so many damn demos here at home.
So, as we move into the home stretch, just about to put a period on the sentence that was 2015, we've got just a few more shows to get under our belts, and they look something like this.
Friday, November 6th The Spillway in Bowling Green, KY(opening for Stone Senate)
Friday, November 27th at John Brown's On The Square in Marion, IL
Saturday, November 28th at Fat Moe's in Paducah, KY
Friday, December 11th at The Crowded House in Madisonville, KY(acoustic show)
Be good to yourselves,
Denny
The Great Affairs