4 More Days...

Today was one hell of a lazy day. Took me forever to get out of bed. Work kinda dragged on by too. Wasn't as productive as normal but I got through it.

We've got one lovely ice storm going on right now. It's a wintery mix, but it's quite harsh.

In 4 days I'll be heading back to Massachusetts. Gonna start throwing some things in the suitcase tomorrow. Friday night it looks like Eldred and I will be visiting the Fifth Alarm. The other night I was mentioning how people up here were warning me about the area the hockey game was in, etc etc. That place is like preschool compared the warzone back home. Friday night, "The White Guys" will make their triumphant return to the 5A. All are welcome.

Saturday is going to be spent at the Polish Hall it seems. Everyone should come down there and have a drink or two. No excuses!

Then Sunday, back into the swing of playing. I haven't picked up my sticks since November so that should be interesting. Such is life when you move to a new country. It was also a nice break. Since January of 2000, it's been non-stop polka this polka that. I worked at RCN or Monster, then worked on organizing stuff for The Groove, whether it was bookings or trying to figure out which 6 musicians were gonna be available this weekend, etc etc. Then playing with Baystate and filling in with everyone else. This past year... I added Crusade's schedule to that. Definitely a good time and all, but it's a lot of added bullshit for something that doesn't really pay the bills. So after the last gig with Crusade in November, I had a couple with the Sound-A-Bouts which were actually quite fun. But, other than that, it's been almost 3 months of peace and quiet. No assholes bitching it's too loud yet they park their toupee-covered heads right up front. No phone call two nights before a job informing me someone can't make the gig and I have to find a fill-in last minute. No trying to find a Uhaul and digging my equipment out from Christmas decorations. No getting shit cuz the guy who was supposed to setup the sound system did it wrong and I didn't doublecheck it for him. No shit cuz Polka Country upstaged us and everything has to be a competition for some reason. None of that... I like playing, but when you put it into that perspective, it was a much needed break and I'm really not as eager to get back into it as I may have been in the past.

So we'll see how this summer goes. I'll probably spend more time working on my trumpet in the coming months since it creates less noise that my tubs. I may also seek out some non-polka work, or as Joe Sokol would say "awww some legit work", once summer rolls around.

However, now that I got that out of the way, I've started putting thought to one more recording with The Groove. We did that 5 song demo which had it's positives and negatives, but it was just a demo. Unfortunately, using a constant rotation of musicians, we never got to putting a full length out. Chuck, Tim and I got together on countless occasions to work on material but all we got out of it was a hangover. But, I have a few tunes that I've always wanted to do, so we're going to do them. And my instinct is that this time, it will finally come together as there's no pressure, no rush and since our weekends aren't full of playing, it may be easier to get together on a weekend. But again, we can do it at our own pace, so it's still "fun". We'll see how this goes.

Congratulations to Brave Combo on winning the Polka Grammy this year. Some really talented musicians and they're all wicked nice guys too. Well deserved.