New "Aberdeen" Friends, Auld Lang Syne and Flying Burritos' Chris James with Bruce Hilliard

Better Each Day Podcast Radio Show with Bruce Hilliard

Hello hello and Happy New Year to all. Recently I had the pleasure of talking to a couple of former residents of my childhood home on 10th street in Aberdeen WA. They lived there as kids in the late fifties and moved out when their father died in 1960.

For years I wondered what had happened to those kids, roughly my age, that lived there before us. It turns out they used the same rec room for shows and rehearsals as we did years later. There was a room that just called out for audiences and performers.

They knew the neighborhood and some of the same teachers and businesses that have since passed. I think it's always comforting to know that the house you once lived in, had spent special occasions in, slept and grew in is still there and being cared for properly. Houses have soul.

But the music in the house, and I noticed this right when we started to move in, seemed to be there for the taking. There was a jukebox full of 78 rpm records left behind. There was that but there was an inherent sense of “hey, my uncle has a barn, let’s put on a show” to it. And they did and so did we.

We had rock bands as we got older and into the 70s. What started as little kid marionette shows and really crappy cover bands morphed into a band that would open for Heart and the Ramones and would carry on a tradition in Aberdeen. A tradition of good music that doesn’t really have a start and a finish.

But, I have to say when I got off the phone with the former kids of my house, for the rest of the day I felt I’d just seen a great movie. An unforeseen feel good flick.

In this show we’ll feature a few of my friends, Dean Backholm and the Murchy Brothers that played in this particular basement rec room for some formative years when we cranked our amps up to 11 and shook the glasses off the bar shelves.

Our next guest can relate to this band start up thing. Chris James is the current main vocalist of the Burrito Brothers, be they Flying or Notorious Burrito brothers. The band that laid the eggs for the Byrds and the Eagles.

Love is a River from the Flying Burrito Brothers’ Notorious Burrito Brothers album. And my life brothers that were a huge part of the Aberdeen 10th Street rec room Ed Sullivan show, here’s On the Harbor by the Murchy Brothers.

And Montreal by Dean Backholm.

My new friends that used to occupy my childhood home before me, Morry and Judy, are awesome and I’m so glad we talked for an hour or so. It sounds like an episode to me. It already sounds like “hey, my uncle has a barn, let’s put on a show!”

Well, I know now they moved to California. Thanks so much for the listen. Let’s make 2022 a year of less blame and shame and more Better Each Day.