Fuck ! Andy Wakeman, Meatwagon, Aniversery Gig, Happy New Year, etc. I have bad news, but it could be much worse, Andy was doing a Dylan immitation on Sunday Night and got in a motorcycle wreck on his Triumph bike......the good news is that he is alive, he is not paralized, he suffered no head trauma.....thank fucking god....the bad news, he has a broken pelvis and other breaks and fractures, he is in the hospital, in traction....He has a fucking metal rod going through his leg right above the knee, it is not pretty in the least, however, he is in relatively excellent spirits...Andy is in my top 5 easily as far as stand up people go, top 5 for everyone I have ever known in my 153 years, there is nothing contrived about Andy in the least. He is a very loyal friend and it has been a pleasure being in a band with him for 20 fucking years.....he is very strong mentally and physically. He should make a decent recovery but it will take awhile .....unless some miracle occurs and he feels up to playing on the 19th , sitting on a stool, we ain't playing, I would give it a 99% chance against....None of that shit is important however, what is important is for yours and my friend to recover,  what is important is that he is alive , banged up but alive and not catosropicilly {Blew that one} injured.....it may be closer to our 21st aniversery , but we will play our 20th aniversery gig sometime, just not on the 19th.....{The actual date of the first Meatwagon gig is 12/25/87} I might not act like it sometime, I might winne and bitch about it from time to time, but I do love this band and my bandmates....we have had our ups and downs over the years, sure, I wish we did new material {I suppose it still could happen} I wish the band would evolve and the same rate I have evolved, but the positives and the infamy far outweigh the negatives, being able to write about and scream anything I want has been very cathortic, maybe we drove some people insane , but it has kept me sane........I will keep you all posted, stay tuned, Andy will be fine...and he assured me he ain't gonna fly to Nashville when he recovers and make a crappy solo record, sing in a weird voice other then normal, etc, No duets with Johnny Cash or Bruce Springstein, no steel guitars...{Yes, I am aware the great Johnny Cash has moved on}...Happy Fucking New Year ! Later....D....PS, Meatwagon is the band I play bass and sing in, for those of you who don't know, this site is my solo endeavors...Wow I totally forgot about this site http://music.download.com/darrylmonroe/3600-8622_32-100278827.html.............. A lot of shit on there, totally slipped my chotic mind..... Goddamn I have a queasy stomach.....um...raised in Canoga Park , Ca. Family moved here from New Mexico when I was 3, child hood was traumatic, yeah, I know, who's wasn't....adversity shapes who we are now...moved against my will to Orange County when I was 19. Orange County, depite the romantic imagery that it has today, is filled with a shitload of right wing nut cases like Robert K Dornan, etc, who thing, or ah think that George Bush is anything from god to a "stand up guy" ,and our asshole criminal president is just the latest "Orange County Hero" . Certainly most of the punk bands in OC don't feel this way , but a lot of the establisment does, like The Irvine Co. etc. I promptly whipped out in College...had shit jobs and I drove cab for around 4 years, still have nightmares about it...got fired from doing that, was unemployed for awhile while living in Brea Beach {medium size city in northern OC}...let me back up a little here, in 1977 saw a group called the Dickies open up for the Runaways {whom were my intended target} Punk was just breaking on the west coast and I heard "Trouble At The Cup" played on Rodney on The Roq and bought me a copy of the first Damned LP and the ball was rolling, I was absolutely floored and became an instant convert, have been ever since, 30 fucking years. I made a terrible dirt head, hated having to put up with listening to a god fucking awful Styx record in girls bedrooms while trying to get into there pants, Styx and such is horrible on erections....oh, the horrible tramatic memories ! In short, punk was something I immeadatly felt I could do, something I wanted to do, it was my calling. All my friends at the time thought I was insane, at least most of them. They thought punk was totally fucked, bla, bla, fuck them, let them hold on to there cherished Rod Stewart memories The late 70ties , especially in the ah, paradise, know as Orang County, was a time when people would physically and verbally harass you if you were walking down the street and you looked punk , one couldn't get service in resturants, everyone was afraid of you, the whole fucking 9 yards. One has to stick to there convictions. If you had asked any of those people if punk would be BIGGER THEN EVER by the 21st century, they would of laughed and called you an idiot. The punk singles I bought starting in 1977 became more valuable and appreciated more then fucking microsoft did. A few years ago I sold the very first Fear 45 record , "I love living in the city" for fucking 600$ , a record I found in a tiny box in the back of LICORACE PIZZA for 1.98.{Don't worry, believe I recorded it} That is just one example. So , in short, all the assholes who thought punk was "scussy" and would just go away {they prayed it would} HARHARHARHARHAR ! Go listen to the "Best of Kansas" or something...{For the record, I was born on 9/11/1854 in a dusty, West Texas town..which would make 153, I try and take care of myself} So, I was only a fan from 77 to 80....back to Brea, was approached by fellow punk rock neighbors to sing for there band {The birth defects, which, ironically, was still born} . I had never been in a band before, seemed like only a distant dream, was the biggest wanna be you ever meet....when Birth Defects failed to get airborne, I was immediately invited to join a more or less splinter of that band, which, indeed got way off the ground, we played 5 gigs, I was hopelessly hooked. I had at that time faint aspirations of becoming a DJ{radio}did some college radio, had a brief summer weekend stint at a real station in Santa Maria {KXFM, if I remember right} and I was an intern in the news dept. at KROQ before they went "Schlock of the 80ties, did one overnight show, got to play "Is God A Man" by the sniveling shits that went into the airwaves that cover all of Southern California, whoopee, my zenith as a DJ.....but , however, when we did our first gig at something called "Cal Slam Zero" in front of hundreds of people, thoughts of being a DJ magically slipped away like a cloud of steam from the stage, this happened by our second song....I never wanted to be a DJ again.....so there were 4 more gigs with this band. I left, they went on to bigger and better things, at least musically, the name of that band ? I don't like to talk about it because people who don't know me assume I am lying, and I hate that, especially if I am not lying, so fuck it.....One would think I would have regrets considering, and I did at first, them going on to bigger and better things, but I feel that particular band would of destroyed me if I had hung with it...I am a bit insane, but not completely crazy. That band did indeed destroy some people involved in it and people around it..I was very much into smoking pot and moderate to heavy beer drinking and occasional LSD and Shrooms, coke when it was offered. Miscellaneous Pills, white crosses, black beauties..{That's what was around in the early 1880ties, never even heard of crystal}. I was no angel {Who was/is ?} I had a lot of fun, but the local drug of choice around the complex I lived in with these people changed to something that intimidated the shit out of me.....I briefly , before all this {mid 70ties} , stayed with a prostitute named Maggie in Highland Park {when I had no place to go, she took me in} She was 10 years older then me, I was so blown away at the time that a stranger could be so kind to me...like a dumb little kid I developed a bit of a crush on her, she said ,"No , I will fuck you up if we go there", sound advice...I still cared for her greatly none the less. She had a nasty addiction to the drug I am alluding to....burned in my brain hard, never , ever, wanted to go there and in 153 years, I have been successful {some people don't believe that either, a double fuck you to you} Maggie was destroying herself, she, by example, did me a HUGE favor, thank you sweetie, where ever you may be, she had a great heart.....but back to the 80ties...no band, my friends thought I was horribly uncool because of reasons discussed above....I was working for the phone company...in 1981, late, I moved to San Diego.....lived in a place , vermin infested by a lake just north of the city. Stayed there for around 6 months. It was here that I started to make my first recordings on my own...I had taken up bass but was in no way at all proficient at that time...I used a Casio piece of shit as a drum machine, a couple of cassette decks wired together for very crude multitracking..my very first songs were born...production wise, they make the Shaggs sound like the Allan Parsons Project....they are, to some ears, sometimes even mine, horrible but none the less it was a start and they have a real raw charm to them. My lyric ability was there, my imagination was working well, just needed seasoning and better equipment, and another band would be cool as well...after a violent property dispute at the mistake by the lake I moved into a shitty hotel room in downtown San Diego...the place was filled with whores, broke old retirees, alcoholics, drug addicts, fags, etc....in a lot of ways I felt at home, but, it was a shitty existence and I could not play music there or make noise...I remember black dudes walking up and down the street with blasters glued to there head, I heard "The Message" by Grand Master Flash, walking by and fading away into the distance at least 10 times a day........After the hotel I lived for a month in Ocean Beach, I had a hard time getting service in the restaurants there because I was a punk , now everyone down there is dressed the part and wants to look like Mike Ness, go figure...After the time there, I moved into where I am at now , been here ever since. This is where I learned to play music and record. Some people found me here or I found them, someone , someTHING called J. Bogart knocked at my door out of the blue....he sort of looked like one of those Hollywood punks from one of those stupid TV shows that were popular around the time....an "extra" who is dressed up by the props and casting department to be in the background...I am thinking Jack Klugman, Quincy etc. I didn't know anyone here in my immediate neighborhood so I partied with this asshole for a few days ...He was very up to date on the latest punk shit, bla bla, introduced me to bands like MDC and The Meatmen. We both had a love for the Stranglers...I soon discovered that this guy was a horrible thief and a parasite, scum of the earth. SSI trash who needed to die {He did} He clammed he had been playing guitar for 20 years, but when I heard him play, I suddenly felt way better about my skills...J, however, did introduce me to a bunch of other people who were very cool and centered, relatively anyway....told J to fuck off and I started hanging with these people...there was also a very vibrant punk scene here at the time, you just needed to go find it. Some of the bands of that time, Battalion of Saints, Personal Conflict, Men of Gay, Ministry of Truth, Social Spit and a bunch of other bands, good ones, that I can't remember there names....after a couple of false starts, one with Charlie Morrison {Noise God} I found myself in a band called Phobia Phobia , Phobia was a art punk band which was looooong on the art and really short on the punk. We played like 20 gigs over a couple of years, recorded a little....I was dying to do something harder and I jumped ship when I had the chance and, with some newer friends still , started up Meatwagon, which was really looooong on the punk but relatively tiny on the art. Nothing is perfect but fuck , this was the best thing so far and I am still doing it....there is a Meatwagon site on Punkrocker.com as well a myspace......we started up in 1987 , the wrong band at the wrong time for a hardcore band because everyone else who was punk was going metal...think like what happened to Suicidal Tendencies and you get the picture....but fuck it. It was great to stand out from the rest, and we were, by no means, entirely alone...Social Spit was still alive and kicking, there were the Skid Marks, the Infant Addicts, Manifest Destiny {sometimes} and other bands, some good, that I can't fucking remember there names, too many bong hits I guess.....But we had our own little punk rock island in a sea of metal.....reminded me a lot of the way it was like in the late 70ties, except by this time one didn't get the wonderful abuse when in public that we all got back in the 70ties....I was living with my girlfriend Leslie at the time, we lived together here for 8 years {were still solid friends} For awhile I could write as much as I wanted , and I did , and the band played it....however, as time passed, the band was not willing to play everything I wrote but like a rat that needs to chew on something or his teeth would grow through it's head...I need to write, and record, all the time, or my teeth grow through my brain...I was also dying to be more experimental, to evolve as a artist should...move in different directions...there is plenty of stuff I like in addition to punk...I listen to a very wide variety of different types of music and I am influenced by such...I try to fuse it all together, including punk..My mission is to create someting unique to me.....so I plunged hard into recording here at home....along the way I learned to play guitar, then drums, now I am getting by on the keys..Never clamed to be a virtuoso on anything, but I get by just fine..Again my material is way more experimental then Meatwagon, most of it would be inappropriate for Meatwagon regardless......other stuff along the way....the Padres went to the world series, and lost, twice...I got real sick for awhile, got better, other shit went wrong, dealt with it {everyone has got there problems} Lived with another woman who I dearly loved, we broke up, she died on the one year anniversary of us breaking up {fucked me up bad with regret and guilt, if some of it misplaced} Got married to a communist, got divorced from a communist, fell in love with a woman in Las Vegas after Meatwagon went and played there, that fizzled, but were still great friends and I still care for her as such.... now have the best girlfriend I have ever had....after 32 years of smoking pot....I quit..it has been nearly 5 years....I drink very, very little, maybe once a week I will have one..one..just lost the taste for it..was fortunate enough not to developed a methamphetamine problem like almost everyone else did , that one I did try, a few times, but haven't shoved anything at all up my nose in many, many years and fortunately it was never really an issue...I am blessed.......Meatwagon is still together, we are looking to play out of town. We don't play as much as we once did but it still has a pulse....I get experimental around here and record, as I always have.....and there it is....D Addendum....there is plenty of stuff around today that is called punk rock, but is god fucking awful, refering to Green Fay, Shit 182 The awfulspring and so on. But there is still , perhaps more then ever, a crop of bands who are more then worth checking out, big time...many of them can be found here on punkrockers.com and elsewhere...it's like herpes, love may come and go but herpes last a life time, punk ain't goin nowhere...