Merry Merry and Happy Happy to you all.
It’s been a while - this is a long one.
I’ve been laying low the past few weeks prepping for 2022 and hoping to return to safe and healthy touring out there. I have details about that later in this email but first I’ve scheduled 2 benefit shows for this coming Thursday.
I have just started performing at the Anaheim Farmers Market again after a near 2 year hiatus. I was happy and sad to see a regular from the last time I played show up to see me. John was 18 when he had a motorcycle accident, he broke both his legs and his back and was in a coma and afterward got hooked on drugs for the pain and then got kicked out of his house and has been homeless ever since. I barely recognized him after all this time since his beard has come in full and is checkered with gray but his eyes lit up when he saw me and we had a good, albeit short, chat the other day. He always has a smile and a story about life on the street for me.
Seeing him reminded me to be thankful. Not just at this time of year but always.
Thursday, Dec 23, 2021
Anaheim Farmers Market
Center St. Promenade
12-1 pm
Thursday, Dec 23, 2021
On Facebook Live
On The Internet HERE
8-9 pm
And all money I raise at these shows will be donated to the Women's Transitional Living Center. 50% of all my CD and album sales on Thursday, Dec 23 will also be sent to Women's Transitional Living Center, Inc. - WTLC.
My friend Elia works at WTLC* and they are doing some really amazing work here and are based just down the street in Fullerton. WTLC accept populations that would normally struggle to find help including re-entry victims coming out of the prison system, victims with ongoing mental illness problems, victims struggling with alcohol and drug addiction, transgender victims, and emancipated youth. These populations are particularly vulnerable and sadly, no other domestic violence shelter in Orange County will accept these populations.
Hope you can either join me on the street on Thursday or tune in at night and if you do, maybe drop a couple bucks in the tip jar and together we can do something good for some folks.
--
With things closing down again with the new omicron version of covid, I can’t believe how lucky I was to get a European Tour completed. I really feel like I threaded the needle between variants and stayed safe and healthy the whole time.
Even though the year was mostly a wash performing wise, I still had a number of great things happen. I’ve made two best of year end lists with the Rocking Magpie in the U.K. and NBT Radio in Germany and I found out that I was added to nearly 2,000 Spotify playlists in the past year and just a couple days ago I got my copy of Goldmine Magazine in the mail and it had this review:
"Bobbo Byrnes has yet to achieve the fame and notoriety that he so decidedly deserves, but with his new descriptively-titled seven song EP, So Many Bars, So Many Saturday Nights, he sets a standard that all journeyman rockers would be well to emulate and admire. Opening track “Chasing Rock and Roll” is a veritable anthem, an homage to a musical mantra that’s resilient and resolute. Each of the subsequent songs share that same faithfulness to form, invariable anthems fueled by passion and purpose. It’s a credit to Byrnes’ talent and tenacity that he can even transform a song like “Charlie,” a take on the whimsical tale first made famous by the Kingston Trio about a man who lacked the funds to pay his way off the subway, and turn it into an anthem all his own. In fact, there’s not a single song here that doesn’t maintain that fervor and finesse. If only for that reason alone, consider this an essential acquisition."
I have been hard at work booking things for 2022 so please do your part to stay healthy and we will be able to sing and dance together in the new year.
In January I have two shows on the east coast in NH and MA. More details about them in the new year. February I will be touring up the west coast of the U.S. playing from Southern California to Seattle, WA. I also have some things being booked in Colorado, New Mexico, Tennessee, Ohio, Wisconsin as well as a handful of things booked in Germany and Austria in late September/October.
And on top of all that I’ve had some meetings with booking agents and I’m hoping to secure a deal with one of them to get even more shows.
2022 is the year I break it all open. I have released 5 albums in the past 5 years, I’m focusing on playing them and building stuff this year.
It’s times like these when I’m reminded of the great wisdom of Ray Wylie Hubbard:
“The days when I keep my gratitude higher than my expectations, I have really good days.”
My gratitude has been pretty high lately.
Thanks for hanging with me and I really hope my music has made it’s way into your life and been a friend to you.
See you all soon,
xo
~Bobbo
*Women’s Transitional Living Center, Inc. (WTLC) was founded in 1976 as the result of a needs assessment study of battered women in Orange County, conducted by the National Organization for Women’s Task Force on Family Violence. Originally created to meet the extraordinary need for shelter services for survivors of domestic violence, WTLC quickly expanded to providing a comprehensive residential program, a children’s program, a crisis hotline, and a community services program. From the beginning, WTLC was committed to service all victims of violence including women struggling with substance abuse or mental illness and survivors with older male children.