2009, the year in review...
well my friends, what a year it is has been for us on this crazy, confused planet. it's been 23 years since me and jord started Propagandhi and in many respects, 2009 has turned out to be one of the most interesting and rewarding years of them all.
not only did we manage to finally share the stage with some of the bands that actually inspired us to start Propagandhi back when we were teenagers in the mid-80's -- Bad Brains, Sacrifice, Cromags (ok, not the same stage per se, but same festival still counts!), SNFU (ok, well, we shared the stage with Chi Pig for 30 seconds when he walked up out of nowhere during our set and kissed me on the cheek still counts!), Clive Jones from Black Widow and the mighty MDC, we toured with some really great "new" bands comprised almost exclusively of awesome people: Paint it Black, Bridge and Tunnel, The Rebel Spell, Protest the Hero and Strike Anywhere to name but a few. Cheers to all of them!
Cheers also to the living freaks who have been insane enough to hitch a ride on our three-ring-circus as it bumbled across the planet: Keebler, Barney Barnyard Barnhole Red Nuts Barnabus, Ethan, Eton, Mr. D Hugill, Philippe "Fleep" Tremblay and Dewey D. Jackson have been brave enough to endure us on the road. Back home, Jason, Rob and Ruben try to make sense of our conflicting wishes and then bear the brunt of the incessant whining when they manage to make those wishes come true. i send sincere thanks to them. None of it would have happened -- none of it -- without them.
But among all the remarkable events that 2009 provided, none can compare to what happened on September 5th, when my son Francis-Riel Voyager arrived -- with appropriate drama -- on the 32nd anniversary of the lift off of the Voyager 1 space-probe. His cosmic namesake carried with it music, images and greetings in over 50 languages from earth's incredible diversity of cultures on a golden phonograph record. Here in 2009 -- the International Year of Astronomy -- as Voyager 1 now approaches the known boundary of our solar system, we hope to send Francis out into the frontier of an individual life in the same spirit.
it's a cold, hard world, but it's also beautiful, full of love and potential and worth struggling to save from the sociopaths that dominate it.
peace to everyone, everywhere.