Episode 39: Bruno Catrambone
Greetings all. It's spring. Plants are doing things. Trees as well. My allergies are trying to kill me in new and creative ways. Also, places of higher learning are putting said learning on hold to watch their fellow classmates play basketball for no money. I have very complicated feelings about college sports, most of them derisive and dismissive. Also: Go, 'Cuse. See, I told you it was complicated.
I have returned from a fairly restful long weekend back home in Western New York. I ate well, saw some folk, had a lot of quality baby time with my nephew, and definitely helped my brother kill a bottle of Bunnahabhain scotch. It was a good time, but I need to get back to reality where you don't do things like that all the time. Because some of those above things end up hurting more than you recall.
On the show this week is Bruno Catrambone, who fronts his own band, Former Belle. He also plays guitar for the band Cruisr, who are apparently quite popular with people much younger than I am. There was a time when that would have bothered me a whole lot, and now it just bothers me a tiny bit. Bruno and I had been going back and forth for the better part of a year, trying to get him on the show. I ran into him a few weeks back at a show, and that was the catalyst to make it happen. He's such a great dude to sit and talk to. His songs are full of melancholy and loneliness, but they're also honest and stark, laid bare without any window dressing. You would think he would be this rain cloud of despair, but that is not the reality. He's an open guy, who deals with the world with humor and directness. I was happy to have him on the show, and I absolutely love the new Former Belle record, "Foreign Bed", out on Randm Records.
In other podcast news: the great migration from one host to another is happening very soon. For real. To tell you the truth, I only really think about it when it's time to post a new episode, which is probably not a great time to move nearly 40 episodes from one hosting site to another and hope nothing goes wrong. It's like deciding to redo your plumbing in your bathroom while also trying to take a shower.
Take care out there. There's a lot of stuff flying around the media (both mass and social) that's designed to make you mad, or afraid, or angry at your neighbor, or buy something you don't need. I find I need to tell myself multiple times a day to be cool, stay grounded, and try not to lose it on someone who's just trying to make sense of things, too.
Catch you all in a couple of weeks.
Cheers,
DD