Brave New Year

I went to bed early last night. Why I eschew the hoopla for a good night's rest.

Circa 1998 “Very superstitious, writing’s on the wall.”

Happy New Year! I told you last night that I’d see you on the other side, and here I am already. I know that celebrating without me is tough. Be brave.

I haven’t stayed up to celebrate New Year’s in a while. It’s been a combination of having young kids who need putting to bed and just not missing the old days of working late every New Year’s Eve. I spent many years either playing in bands or doing production to make bank. You gotta cut hay while the sun shines. But those days are gone. So as soon as I hit the send button on last night’s column, I walked upstairs and went straight to bed. It took a bit to get the kids to sleep, or I’d have been out by 8:30. As it was, I fell asleep around 9 pm watching a Mads Mikkelsen movie (Riders of Justice—good flick).

When I got up this morning to a new year, I was greeted with the same news as all of you concerning the terrorism in New Orleans during the wee hours. Without knowing anything other than what was being reported early on, I could have told you that the suspect was probably a Jihadist based not only on the MO but also on what was not being reported—his identity. If it had been some kid from Natchitoches with girlfriend issues who’d done this terrible thing, the authorities would have identified him right away.

The longer that it takes to publicly identify a suspect in a horrific crime these days, the more you may be sure that the perp is a member of some “oppressed” group. These individuals also tend to fade from the headlines rather quickly when their identity doesn’t fit into the narrative that the media is pushing concerning violence. Audry Hale has already been largely forgotten. Kyle Rittenhouse, not so much.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see demonstrations celebrating Shamsud Din Jabbar, the murderer, as some hero of the resistance to oppression as soon as school resumes at Columbia in a week or so. There’ll probably be 400-level special topics classes offered all over the Ivy League about this doofus and Luigi Mangione. The use of murder, rape, and violence as tools against "oppression," after all, appears to be all the rage among the "words are violence" set.

Scoff all you want, but disdain me not. I never said that any of this made any sense. I’m just the messenger. It’s already a brave new year.

So I’m glad that I at least got a good night’s sleep before waking up to the same old shit on the first morning of 2025. Do not be the first person within arm’s reach who praises this idiot, Din Jabbar, as some sort of hero. I kid you not. I’ll do the 30 days.

After rolling out of bed this morning, I rounded up the kids and headed downtown to our favorite hangout, Gate City Coffee. One of the things that I like best about Gate City is that it’s always open. Most coffee shops stay open as little as possible, but not this place. They are open all of the time. The owners are friends, and this morning I was discussing why I don’t go out anymore on NYE with one of them. Too many playing gigs, production gigs, and providing sound and lights for all-night raves. I’m pretty much cured of any urge to go out NYE, permanently.

One of the worst NYE shows I was part of occurred back in the late 90’s. I had a promoter friend who supplied me a lot of production work that helped me employ a crew and pay a lot of bills. So when he occasionally asked for a favor in the form of a shitty gig, I had a hard time saying no. In business, you take care of those who take care of you.

This particular ask was in the form of a NYE show at a ski resort in Jackson, Wyoming. The money was OK, and part of the compensation was nice rooms, hospitality, and ski passes for myself and the crew for New Year’s Day.

Sounds great, right?

The immediate problem was the venue. It was a slopeside tri-level restaurant and bar with narrow steps and no elevator—the worst load in and out that bad dreams are capable of conjuring—and in the snow and cold of a northern Wyoming winter. The stage and most of the production were on the lowest level of the venue, the crowd one level up, and the production riser one more level up, around a corner.

In order to see the stage, I had to walk around my console, trying to stay out of the wiring from the snake and the front of the house processing rack, and lean over the railing high above the crowd for a glimpse of the stage 25’ below. I had a wired audio connection to the monitor engineer, but the only way to mix front of the house was to keep leaning over the rail trying to figure out what was going on. It’d be a long night.

But I accepted the show. Since the venue was small, I took only a club PA and a monitor engineer. Still, it took the two of us hours to get everything set up while working around skiers in the open restaurant and bar. The bands showed up for a sound check around 7 p.m. It was then that the first signs of trouble emerged.

The headliner, the only band on the rider, was a well-known tribute act. Complete pros. No worries there. It was the after-midnight act that the bar owner asked me to accommodate at the last minute that had me concerned. They’d driven all the way up from Colorado, accompanied by a posse of friends and family, just for the opportunity to play for no pay. This rarely bodes well.

The night went about as well as could be expected. NYE crowds in ski town clubs are full of outsiders who always party like it’s 1999. But the headliners were great, and the show went better than expected. The headliners were gracious and effuse in their praise for the production. I got a sizeable tip from management, along with a complementary bar tab for the crew. So far, so good.

Then, as every single paying customer filed out, the second band took the stage. Take my word for it, the worst thing in the world for audio guys is a band that plays all originals willing to drive 700 miles through a snowstorm for a one-off, non-paying gig, walking onto your stage after midnight. It doesn’t get any worse. The manager tipped me to be as patient as I could with them, so I felt obligated. But as the hours dragged on, it became audio torture. Every 20-minute song they played, which sounded like it’d been written by a loaded Phillip Glass while experimenting with bad ganja and reggae, was met with wild approval from the 20 or so fans they’d brought with them. Finally, at around 4 a.m., the lone bartender and I laid down the law. It’s time to be done. Their posse begged for one more song, and we relented.

Given the sunk time, it turned out not to be a mistake.

The one lone hope that I’d had for this act early on was by way of a genuine Hammond B3 organ and Leslie speaker that they’d dragged across the snow from the van into the venue—no small feat. Anyone willing to do that much work couldn’t possibly be that bad. At around 4:30 a.m., in the middle of a song that might have gone on for another half hour had fate not intervened, the B3 burst into flames. I kid you not. I got to spend New Year’s Eve watching the exceedingly rare phenomenon of a B3 burning on stage. We put it out with a fire extinguisher. Those guys looked really sad.

That’s ultimately what it took to get them gone. By the time my crew and I got out of there, the sun was up and the restaurant was open for the morning. We ended up sleeping until 2 that afternoon and weren’t able to use the ski passes. That’s why I don’t miss NYE gigs.

Exactly a year later, I did another gig for another promoter I liked. It was another favor, but this time I already had a PA set up in the club, so all I had to do was show up and mix. The band was fantastic. The problem is that it was 20 below outside with gale force winds, so the venue was basically empty. But, like all true pros, this band played like the place was full.

Just before midnight, the band announced that they’d learned a song just for the occasion. Something a little different to ring in the new year. The keyboard player, very softly at first, played an Ebm11, followed by Dbmaj7/Eb. Then, building a swell, Ebmaj7 to Dbmaj7/Eb, with the guitarist playing melody. WTAF? Am I really hearing what I think that I’m hearing? Hell yes! In a nearly empty club in the middle of nowhere, as a blizzard raged outside, a rock band from Wyoming played a version of Les McCann’s Real Compared to What. Something I’ve never heard covered anywhere.

That’s my idea of how to celebrate New Year’s Eve. Cheers all.

Associated Press and Idaho Press Club-winning columnist Martin Hackworth of Pocatello is a physicist, writer, and retired Idaho State University faculty member who now spends his time with family, riding bicycles and motorcycles, and arranging and playing music. Follow him on Twitter @MartinHackworth, on Facebook at facebook.com/martin.hackworth, and on Substack at martinhackworthsubstack.com