Happy new year, Madeira friends!
We hope you are all doing very well and have had a great 2016! It was a bit slower for us compared to recent years, as you may have noticed. Several factors behind that but all can be summed up with: we're all getting very busy! Patrick has had great successes with both Five Year Mission, who among other accomplishments were the featured band at the *massive* 50th anniversary Star Trek Las Vegas Convention in August, rubbing elbows with the luminaries of the Star Trek universe; and also with The Shake Ups, who again among many other accomplishments and many, many gigs were recently chosen by Indianapolis' free weekly paper NUVO as the Best Local Pop Band and had their "Rock Candy" album selected as the runner-up for the "Best New Local Album"! (Please check out both bands, it's really great stuff!).
Ivan reunited with the Space Cossacks for five shows this summer, including the Surf Guitar 101 convention They also finally released their 1998 live recording "Live Supernova" which ended up being chosen by Pipeline Instrumental Review as the album of the year! Ivan and Dane also once again joined up with John Blair (Jon & the Nightriders) and this time Jeremy DeHart (Aqualads) on bass to play four shows in California, including one at Winters Tavern in Pacifica where they were approached by Jello Biafra (the legendary singer of Dead Kennedys) after their set to tell them that that was the best set of surf music he had ever seen! Dane has also kept busy getting his instrument flight rating so he can now fly even more and even farther than before! Todd has kept busy sending off one daughter to college in California, watching his son break state records and win many games as the varsity kicker of his high school's football team, starting a new job AND finding new romance! So, all in all, 2016 was a pretty unforgettable year for all of us!
Though everybody's very busy, the Madeira WILL ride again this year! We can already announce two great shows: we'll be playing in Bloomington, IN on Friday, April 21st with the amazing New York City surf band the Coffin Daggers and the local heroes Thee Aquaholics, and then the following night, Saturday, April 22nd, we'll be back at the Melody Inn in Indianapolis for another Surf Rock Night, again with the Coffin Daggers! We're also working on several Ohio shows for April and May - stay tuned for those, as well as a BIG announcement for this summer. (Sorry, we'll have to keep you in suspense just a bit longer!)
Please remember to occasionally check our Facebook page and our main website for new updates, and we very much hope to see you all at some point this year. Once again, happy new year everybody!
