In The Beginning And A Penguin Party

For over a year I had kept a blog going on MySpace. It had started as a release of sorts, a way of spitting out what I was feeling at a certain moment, an easy way out, I thought, easier than, 'painting it'. It's not easy and being 100% truthful isn't or writing something somebody else might actually read. In the process the blog started getting lots of attention especially by a few musicians so it grew into a combination of personal events that touched me and as support of musicians and artists I had both great regard for as people as well as for their work. I hope to be able to do the same here. So I'll begin with a combo platter...

On January 7th of this year while dangling about yet another music networking site I saw a man named Dave Milligan make a page. A few things attracted me to click the button and 'check him out', The name of his main band, The Penguin Party, the words he wrote, "It's all about music. That's all I do. All the time. Help!" and his name, Dave Milligan.

While growing up in Queens, New York I met a gal in Junior High School who I became inseparable from. I come from a very educated middle class background and though I truly admired where she came from, a lack of formal education but parents of unequaled integrity, she didn't. So she dreamed of having my opportunity and I hung out at her joint. With very good grades and a horse bet she got into the Ivy League and I went to a small American College in Switzerland. She met a man who was part of the stately homes of England and I didn't. The man's name is David Milligan and I so admired him and just really liked him. He left his background and married a not so regal Jewish girl from Queens whose father drove a truck for The Daily News and spent a lot of time at the horse tracks. I do remember him (the father) telling me, "if you want to meet a man who reads, go to the library, if you want to meet a man who drinks, go to the bar". Sound advice that didn't need ten years of University study. Anyway my friend took a Blanche Dubois bath and became Lady Milligan and we lost touch eventually, though there are endless stories of the Milligan purchase of a home here in NYC and their renting of a floor to Tiny Dancer of Elton John fame.

So I befriended Dave Milligan on Rock and Roll Tribe the site where I found him, began writing little notes which he kindly responded to, post way too many pictures of ridiculous penguins on his page, this amuses me and listened to his music, which I was blown away by, the originality, the skill and joy of it all, so I asked him to make a band page at Scrub Radio, an Internet Indy station I'm very involved with and to join the chat room there. Now Dave and his band and others he supports through his small Indy label, Sitting Target Music, have become darlings of the station and Dave a regular chatter...and he's not all about music. He's a husband and father who works hard to provide for his family and a supporter of the arts. I knew it was a good name.

The Penguin Party's CD's are available at

www.thepenguinparty.co.uk and www.sittingtarget.net