Another February is in the books. Another annual Vegas trip was made where money was not. The Die Youngs UN-officially played our first show, as Kenny assisted me as un-credited right hand at the Shandi’s benefit in Canton, IL. We’re gonna take this duo show on the road again in a week or so, this time to Cincinnati, OH, where we’ll be “special guests” at a little shindig that I’m not allowed to publicly promote, but have gained permission to quietly invite folks to. So, if you wanna catch us in action as The Die Youngs, likely playing some stuff from that record, a few tunes from my solo LP, and of course some TGA and fORMER stuff, hit me up and I’ll hip you to the venue details, date, etc.
Since discovering we can do these sets with little to no rehearsal, and still sound pretty damn good, we’re actually going to be booking these duo gigs more often, so if you’ve got a few spare bucks lying around, and think you need two guys to show up and drink your beer whilst conjuring a mostly-tuneful ruckus in the process, let us know. We’re priced to sell.
When Kenny & I are not trying to keep all the loot to ourselves, we’ll be out on the road a bit again in March, promoting our recently released EP of covers ’Six Pack’ that you can procure HERE. You can only grab it from this site, at shows, or from Co-Op Records in Pekin, IL, who have/possibly HAD a very limited quantity on hand.
We’ve got a fresh batch of swag to accompany this release, with a new shipment of SIX PACK T-SHIRTS arriving next week, along with a small quantity of newly designed buttons, stickers, guitar picks, and such, so find us after the shows, ‘cause we’re bundling some of this stuff together in special packages, and you’ll only be able to get your mitts on these items at the merch table while supplies last.
Aside from the aforementioned “surprise” appearance, a tentative date up north that we REALLY hope pans out for us(stay tuned), the first of these shows are going down as follows:
Monday, March 13th Billy Wayne Memorial Show at The Basement East in Nashville, TN
(For this show, Brandy Goldsboro has assembled a lineup of Billy’s friends to play songs from some of his favorite bands, with all the money raised going into a college fund for his young daughter. The Great Affairs will be doing some Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers favorites, and I’ll be doing a set of tunes from The Wildhearts with my brothers Billy Baker, Tony Higbee, and Cody Higbee. Wish us luck, and please join us in raising a glass to the late, great Billy Wayne Goodwin. Jr.)
Here's a note from the organizer herself:
"Hello, everyone. We are still ironing out the specifics, but Monday, March 13, will be Billy Wayne's Memorial Rock Show at the Basement East. Mike Grimes (Grimey) has generously agreed to cover the production costs, so every penny from cover AND donations can go to Billy Wayne's daughter. There will be tunes by Billy Wayne's favorite bands being performed by some of Nashville's finest, and his closest friends...members of the Tom Keifer Band, The Great Affairs, Judas East (members of Billy Wayne's former band Tight Panthers), The East Side Gamblers, and Thee Rock N Roll Residency, playing tunes by Tom Petty, Thin Lizzy, Judas Priest, The Replacements, The Wildhearts, The Hellacopters, and more! Plus a very special guest, who is just a "doll." PLEASE come out and support. Hell, my mom is even coming six hours for it.
We miss him so much." -BG
Friday, March 24th at Mudflats in Galena, OH (full band acoustic show) 8PM
Saturday, March 25th at Diesel Dick’s in Tremont, IL w/Corey Feldman(The Lost Boys, Goonies) 8PM
Some of you may notice that the Rock’n To Rebuild Shandi’s show, scheduled for March 18th has vanished from the itinerary. We were just told that show is being rescheduled, and unfortunately have no specifics yet regarding the new date or venue. Sorry. We were really looking forward to that one, and hope we’re able to make the revised lineup. I’ll post an update as soon as the info is available.
We’ve got a couple of things in the pipeline for April, but our first order of business is finishing up the 8 new studio tracks we started on last week. Yeah, it’s true, we finally made our way back into a proper recording facility with a handful of songs from the batch we’ve been kicking around for the past few months, and we’ll be working on these here at Pastry Park for a grip, dressing them up some, and seeing what they have to offer, before heading back into The Switchyard for another round. The fact is, as usual, we have more songs than we have sense(and cents), so we’re trying to be smart(and fiscally responsible) about it, and narrow the field to only our strongest contenders, in the hopes that we can present a leaner, mostly fat-free followup to ‘Dream In Stereo’…heavy on nothing but the hooks and the guitars. I think we’re off to a good start, and if you’re at one of the upcoming shows, you’ll be able to judge for yourself, as a few of these compositions are beginning to find their way into the live show here & there.
Now, since our first 3 records are basically digital-only releases these days, it seemed like sticking some of the stuff we still play on the regular together on a single disc might be be prudent, so in addition to a proper new LP, we’ve also started putting together a compilation CD, spanning 2009-2017, featuring material from all of our releases, along with a few surprises…said surprises to be revealed at a later date…you know?, ‘cause that’s how surprises roll.
OK then, I’m gonna get back to work on this stuff, and set up for some bass guitar tracking with Mr. Andersen this week. Hopefully we can plow through these first 8, and dig right into the other 20 or so we left on the bench. Personally, I think this record is long-overdue, so I promise I won’t let the rest of these guys loiter around here. We’re gonna knock this one out like we’re actually getting paid for it.
Be good to yourselves….and each other,
Denny
The Great Affairs/The Die Youngs