These are dark, murky times. The country is demanding health care reform, one party is struggling with itself to find enough common ground to move it forward, while the other is outside with its faces pressed against the window sticking their tongues out and name calling, in lieu of actual ideas or participation. We are picking pop stars on game shows. One musician out there has even made the “auto tune” software part of their “style”. Rock’n’Roll has once again had its fangs removed, and put into cages and relegated to the margins. The popular phrase “keep it real” has become one more saleable commodity, and something of a false prophet. As the great philosopher, Lawrence Peter Berra (ok, Yogi) once said, “It gets late early around here these days”.
As for me, I find myself back home, in the city of my birth, huddled together once more in the warm comfort zone of my band for the first time in not one, but two decades. As Yogi also said, “It’s déjà vu all over again”. This is just where we started. That fuck Reagan was in the White House, about to unleash the largest tax cut in history, for the rich of course, to be immediately followed by years of the biggest tax hikes in history, except for the rich, of course. Once again, there’s a job for us to do, and once again, we’re up for it, older, wiser, and stronger and tighter than ever.
The Del-Lords are back in the studio recording, and tonight we hit the stage as a unit, a real (there’s that word) Rock’n’Roll band, two guitars, bass and drums (the way God intended). Somehow we all saw the Bat Signal in the midnight sky from our respective homes in different parts of the country, and now, suddenly, here we are. We have been rehearsing, and experiencing the joy of hearing that sound again, the one that could only come from the four of us, the one that we couldn’t shake if we tried, the one that fills a hole that without it, would remain empty.
Among other things we are struck by the continuing relevance of many of the songs we sang back in the 80’s. I once wrote a song called I’M GONNA BE AROUND. It was a song that made a promise to our audience, our country and to ourselves, that when the darkness comes, we would be there, and if necessary, we would keep coming back, and back. We are here to renew that promise, and without a solid business plan, or any kind of self-conscious overview, we are simply doing what it is we do. Only this time, we are stronger than ever, using the music we make as a map to guide us, and help us keep putting one foot in front of the other. Personal turmoil and one of the toughest New York winters in many years notwithstanding, and nobody shoveling money into the coffers to help keep gas in the tank, we are in forward motion, into the sun, and just as in the darkest days of trickle down economics, and in stark contrast to that fuck Reagan’s cynical manipulation of facts and numbers to disguise the growing economic plight of so many of our countrymen, we do not believe any of us are expendable or merely the price of doing business in America. We stand united and we are gonna be around.
Eric has posted a rough mix of one of our new songs on the site here, and some samples of a few others that are also Under Construction (shameless plug, I admit) for our friends and fans to check out. We are starting pre-sales of an EP of rough mixes of songs from the forthcoming new record; sort of an update of the mom and pop business we always were at heart, except that our dad can kick your dad’s ass. And, I would submit that our mom could kick a little ass herself.
Check it out, let us know what you think. Come see us and say hi when we come to your town, as we will most definitely be coming to your town in the near future. Stay strong, stay hungry, keep fighting the good fight. Our promise is to ALWAYS keep it real. There’s that word again.