fond memories of the queerdaddys

what a surprise to see a comment from a former east lansing rock god, we'll call him bryce. the word "former" refers to the east lansing part, not the rock god part. he is now rockin' the hills of missoula, montana and bravely leading the society of vinyl preservationists with his killertree label, which still distributes a fine varietey of hard-to-find vinyl delights.

i hardly knew him when he first invited me to join his groovy grunge band rendering suns after seeing me play a show with my then band, crotch. and why did he ask me? was it those mean rhythym chops i banged out on my old hagstrom guitar? was it my fine artist's sensibility? no way! it was because i was a chick who held my stockings up with duct tape! i proposed that the name, rendering suns, sounded like a grateful dead cover band and the crotch drummer, randy, said it reminded him of boiling fat. (as in rendering fat off bones) the young, straight-edge, head-shorn drummer of rendering suns didn't care about the comparison to fat, but the mere possibility that anybody thought we were a grateful dead cover band was enough to make him declare that we had to change our name immediately. i can't remember all the names we pondered, but queerdaddys was the winner.

oh, i am laughing so hard right now as i picture bryce playing a show in a rainbow striped clown suit my wizened, old grandmother made as a halloween costume for yet another sister of mine. it was too short, so he had the top part down around his waist, playing bare chested with a polka-dot, bozo-styled ruffled collar around his neck. too bad those weren't the days of video phones.

i'm sure bryce has many fond memories of me too, like messing all the songs up and having to write the chord changes on our set list because i couldn't remember them.

it sure is nice to hear from old friends again. everybody seems to still be out there rockin', except me. the hagstrom got broken in two pieces during a drunken indoor game of football, and my handmade dauphin classical guitar that i saved all my pizza delivery tips to buy when i was 19, also got broken into two pieces just recently when my 3 year old child took it out of its case and tried to play it by stomping on it. this child did live to age 4 and is almost 5 now, but that pretty much ended my guitar playing even though i've still got one lonely guitar left. i keep it in a case that locks. every once in a while, i unlock the case and take it out and play my favorite queerdaddy song, speedpigs. i never missed the chord changes on that one. regrettably, i no longer have any queerdaddy demo tapes. if any of you grizzled old punkers out there has one, send me a copy!