drunkdude69 has a last.fm page at which you can listen to our tunes and see info about the band. I also have a last.fm user page where my personal taste in tunes is displayed via their “scrobbling” machinery.

In updating some of our other online pages, I happened to notice that on our music page I appear as a top listener. I guess I don’t always turn off scrobbling when we’re listening to mp3s of mixes that are in progress.

So now in addition to being my own worst critic, I am also my own biggest fan. I think I may need medication for this.

I read somewhere that Cinco De Mayo is actually only celebrated in one state in Mexico (Puebla, the state in which the Mexican army bested French forces on the 5th of May in 1862).  Thanks goodness tequila companies have appropriated the holiday and sanctioned it for celebration by drunk dudes and drunk dudettes everywhere.

Have a fun time celebrating, but don’t do anything dangerous.  At least not while naked.

KB and I enjoyed a Sunday studio session during which we rehearsed a little bit, then tracked some guitars for an upcoming song titled “No Time for Sleeping”.  The middle of the tune has a weird kind of break (which is a real shocker if you listen to DD69 with any frequency) with a kind of ragga beat behind it.

With no guitar in the break, Kenny was inspired to develop what I like to refer to as the “KBollywood”.  You saw it here first.

While we’re not fans of coloring our idea juice, we still enjoy a chance to raise a glass on this holiday.  Coincidentally our shirts are the right color.

Charley and I were at the Greenville Inn, Cleveland’s legendary “dive bar that rocks”, ready to play what has become an annual St. Patrick’s Day gig with Skinny Moo, so I believe we were not in violation of rock t-shirt etiquette – you know, wearing your own band’s t-shirt at your own band’s gig.  Allegedly.

On the heels of a comment from a previous entry I was reminded of my tenure in the KISS Army.

At age 10.

It was a heady time.  Songs like “Hotter Than Hell” and “Strutter” were redefining my ideas of lots of things.  Girls.  Music.  Rocking out.  Did I mention girls?

I was so into the whole extravaganza that at Halloween that year I decided to dress up as my favorite KISS member: Gene Simmons.  My grandmother, who was a phenomenal seamstress, put together a wicked cool costume, complete with shiny wrist guards, the bat-wing cape, giant shiny shin guards, and the shiny… codpiece, I guess.  Weird for a ten-year-old to wear a shiny codpiece, but that shows you how happily oblivious I was.

I added a few touches of my own: I made the chest chains out of tin foil that I crushed into chain links.  I made a guitar out of oak tag.  (WTF is oak tag?  This.)

The finishing touch was, of course, the makeup.  A friend of Mom’s named Mary Lou came over and did the makeup.  Perfectly.  It was insanely good.  I remember the greasepaint made my skin feel funny – like I was sweating cold water.  I didn’t care.  I looked fscking AWESOME!

When it came time to go to school, I was looking forward to emulating my rock and roll hero Gene by going bare-chested under the costume.  For some unknown reason Mom put the kibosh on that.  I remember being really upset, near tantrum-level upset.  In the end I had to compromise.

I wore a long-sleeved beige shirt under the costume to create the illusion of bare-chestedness.

To this day, I still refuse to wear long-sleeved beige T-shirts.  Thanks, Mom.