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Entry date: 9-5-2023 – Last Year – Letters to My Friends

Dear Friends,


Last year on this date, I was writing about being in a band. I did six entries about this and probably should take it up again. I’ll sum it up in six words: being in a band is hard.


Yesterday, Michael and Bobby and I worked on the cover songs we are recording on Friday and Saturday of this week and talked about what our final set will be like. On October 27, we are doing a farewell show at Valley Bar. It’s going to be a lot of fun.


At the moment, I am not very emotional about this being the last time we play music for people. I am certain that the three of us will make music together again. Whether anyone but us and maybe a few collaborators will hear it, who knows. As we talked about yesterday at Copper Star (an excellent little coffee and bagel place on 7th Avenue), we are all pretty ready to be done making Father Figures’ music.


Sometimes, as a musician, you just have to accept that things have run their course. It’s hard, but it is just the way it works. I’ve been letting go of making Fat Figs music for three years now. The pandemic really changed how I saw the band, especially being dedicated to lots of practicing and such. I think it did so for my bandmates, too.


In a way, it feels like we played our last show at Chopper John’s in February of 2020. This is just a reunion, kind of, and while I am super stoked to perform with two of my best friends again. When we played in January of 2022, that felt really good and was fun, but it was also odd. We are different dudes now and that’s a good thing.


During our chat at Copper Star, Bobby talked about how we went through a really fun and intense process of getting ready for our last full-length record which we recorded in 2016 and put out in 2017. We were really on our game at the time and were challenging each other to do our best. I think all of us will miss that aspect of our band.


We had to work for that, too. We built a solid foundation of trust for the band to stand on by talking and listening to each other and being willing to give each other’s ideas a go. We often finished each other’s songs and had many songs that we all contributed different parts to above and beyond just our instruments/riffs.


Our music will live on, too. From time to time it will pop up on your TV. That’s a very cool thing.


Not all bands can last over 14 years. Outside of life in general, family relationships, and houses, how many things last that long in our lives? Not many anymore. I always did enjoy running things into the ground, though.


See you tomorrow.



Mark, Kyle, Michael, me, Bobby, and Todd. We did a little podcast thing. Kyle brought us mini-Presidents.

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