Hello caliComrades:

Two things:

1. On February 20th calicoDrifters will be at Mother Fool’s Coffeehouse on Williamson Street in Madison to celebrate our 5-year anniversary. We’ll be playing all the stuff we’ve liked to play the most over the years; giving away free t-shirts; selling CDs at special event pricing; and just plain having a good time in a nifty, cozy environment. The show starts at 8:00pm. Come on out. It’ll be fun!

2. We have been nominated for a couple of Madison Area Music Awards (MAMA). To be honest, uh… we nominated ourselves, but that’s how this thing works. Shamelessly but without hope; optimistically but with a clear conscience, we put forward our small but self-important musical productions and then wait as the community goes out and thumbs them up or down. We’ve never won anything with the MAMAs – though we’ve nominated ourselves for many years (see “5-Year Anniversary Show” above). We don’t expect to win this year, because we clearly don’t have what it takes to be a MAMAs winner. But that doesn’t seem to dampen our spirits! (Here, the music swells…) It doesn’t keep us from misting up ever-so-slightly at the very thought of someone liking what we do – and saying so! It doesn’t keep us from trying to solicit votes from you, General Public and Loyal Fans! It doesn’t prevent us from carrying the torch of MAMA-Pollyanna throughout the voting season! Because we, calicoDrifters, (here the orchestral music builds to a fever pitch) believe in these things with all our hearts! We fervently believe that we will nominate ourselves again next year regardless of this year’s outcome! And we are so convinced of our inability to win this year that we are already planning our nomination ballot for next year! That is how dedicated we are to the cause of local awards and shameless self-promotion! We are figuratively carrying our nominations like a worn-out, helpless little hairy-footed halfling on our backs up the side of Mount Doom and stumbling eagerly and fearfully into the red, glowing passage; tears streaming down our faces as we prepare to drop our votes into the ferocious lava flow like some powerful, mystical, shiny something… thereby… uh… oh my goodness… ok… ok… never mind all that… Cut the music! This is just a ridiculous metaphor. But the music sounded so LOTR-like there at the end, didn’t it? I mean… I got all sucked up into it…

So, here’s the thing: Go out here and vote for us: http://www.broadjam.com/mama/. We’ve been nominated for Album of the Year in the Folk/Americana category for our 2009 release, “Turning Home”. In addition to that, Sue has been nominated in the Vocalist – Female category because she is a female vocalist. Needless to say, if she doesn’t win in that category, she will still be a female vocalist, however, she will not be able to publicize herself as such. That’s right. It’ll have to be an unofficial designation. She will be adding an asterisk to her name which will read “Unauthorized Vocalist – Female” until she wins. But that’s not all! Sue’s last name is spelled ‘Prodell’ (and pronounced “fee-meyl voh-kuh-list”), but this year she is listed in the MAMAs as “Sue Preodel” (and pronounced “dohnt hohld yohr breth”).

Any questions? Comments? Donations? Cynical rebuttals? Send them along… we entertain just about anything. And to the small handful of you who are still reading this (Mom, this means you!) thanks for sticking with it all the way to the end even though you may have skipped several paragraphs on the way like you usually do with the first fifty or so pages of Lonesome Dove every time you pick it up.

Let’s see… what else? That’s it!

See ya soon
Thomas & Sue