I don't know what happened? I did not get my hoppin' john on New Year's day, but I did have a great New Year's Eve. I suppose I will have to make things happen with my regular kind of luck. That's OK. it's served me thus far. I generally loath New Year's resolutions. But I do think that January one is as good a time as any to take heed of the past year and think about what made you happy and respect those individuals that mean something to you.

So here it goes, I am real lucky that Jenn, the ultimate groupie girl, who has been with "ggdc" from the start will start writing, hopefully later in the winter. I'm also really glad so many of our other friends have taken up the banner of MUSIC ENTHUSIASTS, listened to their own good sense and have started coming out to see LIVE MUSIC with amazing frequency. And they drive us places, can't thank ya'll enough for that.

I need to thank Dan who suggested this page in the first place and was the person that explained that when a musician is on stage at a small club, like many of the one's I frequent, they really can SEE ALL most of the time. They see who's listening, who's singing along, who "gets" what the band is playing, and so on. They see very clearly when someone connects with the music and they often can tell when you start going to their shows with regularity. Arblemarble bestowed my groupie status on me, and I have not looked back.

Now to all the individuals-musicians, club owners, bouncers, bartenders, and musicians-significant-others, thank you for sharing and for being wonderful human beings. I would not seem that likely that girls and boys with hearts of gold could grow up to be rock and roll musicians and own bars, but so many of the boys and girls I speak of in the dc area are priceless treasures. Whew, so sappy I am sticking to myself.

To digress and say a bit about the New Year's Eve line up at Iota for instance, the show completely kicked ass. Little Pink opened it up. Battiata and the rest of the band are beginning to command the rock and roll stage and it's great. What was always interesting writing on Battiata's part has really, really blossomed in the song 12 Birds. (So by the way thank Mr. Nelson for Adult Swim and for putting out a 4 song LP-CD with this song on it. If you have read this far, may I suggest you buy it?). New Year's Eve also played host to the Lee Wilhoit Experience. Lee while weaving and jumping and occasionally flailing in performance, always seems to be 100% present in the lyrics. He steps in with other bands a lot and he never 'phones it in'. His own lyrical material seems to follow suit , it's moody and mayhem in tandem. Then, even though it was a school night, and Bill Williams and Alan Brace were not there, Last Train Home, did justice to this gig, together, they just know Soooooooo many songs. They stepped up with all the energy that make's LTH shows so truly amazing.

Lastly, I am also thankful for bands with fun websites and e-mail lists. At the risk of slighting bands without these things, linking to lilks.com off of Last Train Homes cool links page has saved my 9-5 sanity more than once this past year. And kudos to Karl Straub, who without a doubt, has the best web presence without even having a major web page. The beauty is in his e-mail list, without a doubt the most amusing and informative e-mail I get from a band . This is perfect because to get on this list you GO SEE KARL play! You have a chance soon, this Saturday (1/3) he will be at the State Theatre along with Scott McKnight and The Grandsons.

Happy New Year!