FUCK CANCER !! (remembering fiddleboy)
Buying merch from any band is usually a better way to financially support the music you love, more than buying the music itself, so it is always a good idea. And as always, if you ever are going to buy anything from Amazon.com, if you use the portal at savingcountrymusic.com then the website gets a little kickback to help pay expenses. You can click at the banner at the top of the page to see my music suggestions, or use the Amazon portal to buy anything Amazon sells.
If you’re alive, then likely at some point your life has been effected by cancer. My dad died when I was 5 years old of lung cancer, and my madre is a breast cancer survivor.
In the last few weeks the ‘C’ word seems to keep creeping into my life. One of my most loyal readers, a great champion of Free Hank III and Reinstate Hank, and a man with a big heart was recently diagnosed. Last week I was asked if I could play drums for a band performing at a breast cancer benefit. How could I say no? Then yesterday when I was browsing through the internet, I came across this tribute site to the GREAT Michael “Fiddleboy” McCanless, the former fiddler for Hank III and others, and a champion of the skullet (a mullet but with a shaved front head.)
(Fiddleboy w/ Hank III)
While a member of the Damn Band, Fiddleboy was diagnosed with testicular cancer. Inspired by the “FUCK CURB” campaign Hank III ran against his label Curb Records to get his album Straight to Hell released, a “FUCK CANCER” campaign ensued, complete with T-Shirts and a benefit concert in Austin, TX, with the proceeds going to Fiddleboy.
In our blogs and podcasts, we piss and moan about pop country and the Opry and all that, but then something can happen in our personal lives to put the real struggles of life in perspective. It could be a diagnosis, a death, divorce, losing your job. Or it can be a good thing, like a birth, or a recovery.
But through all of it, and at the risk of sounding like a Hallmark greeting card, music is the soundtrack of our lives, and you remember those songs or that album you were listening to when you went through that period of you life. And that is what is so great about country music. Country music is therapy, as Hank III always says. It is there to get you through the hard times, and nothing is better for that.
Most things in life that make you feel good in some way kill you slowly, or are considered a ‘sin’ in some way, by someone. Music is the big exception.
And that is why REAL country music is worth fighting for, because there is nothing better to help moan those blues away, to help you forget your troubles, or to help you remember that your troubles aren’t only your troubles alone, because we all experience them, and we all share them in this big hellbilly family.
December 15, 2008 @ 4:59 pm
We tip our hats to fiddleboy and to all those that battle the REAL battle of cancer. Great piece Triggerman. You never fail us.
April 5, 2012 @ 11:40 pm
Country music has molded my life from the days of my grandma rocking me singing I’m so lonesome I could cry to Johnny cash playing walk the line at my wedding to hank3 an hank sr getting me through my divorce an the pain of missing my son Cole when he was kept from me by his mom. Well things are better now an that same country music plays everyday either on my radio or in my head. As a guitaist /trying to b a singer an song writer I always want it to have that real from the heart sound just like hank3 an Sr and the hundreds that never get heard these new country fingers need look at what formed their style an stop that pop country Bs play from the heart not the label I will probably die a broke unknown but at least I can say I lived it if u wanna make it u can’t fake it u gotta live it. Peace y’all