It’s been a rough year for us all, hasn’t it? Some’ve taken blows harder than others but the waves of “fuuuuuuuu-” have irrefutably rained down. Fortunately we’ve had the good graces of invigorating friends flung far & wide swinging through Worcester’s furthest fortification, Distant Castle, to beam brightly upon our greyer days. Not readily recalling the heady needle drops charting this calendar year, I rifled about my desking area, arms akimbo, all Supermarket Sweep style, to find the tapes and records of a dozen-or-so lovelies who’ve blessed this Victorian heap with their pageantry in (what has now become a four letter word) 2016.

And yeah, I don’t expect anyone to start overturning rocks, panning silt, or queuing up embedded players, so I culled the resulting swath of physical media and stitched together the syllables that comprise our mantra of emotional exhalation: “I’VE HAD A ROUGH YEAR, DAD.”
Originally uttered by Ben Stiller’s Chas Tenenbaum after offered a dutiful successor pooch as a reparative gesture, his father Royal replies “I know you have.”

Feel free to sing along:

The bands included (in order of appearance) and a brief highlight of our time spent with them is as follows:
NO BRAINER “East Coast Tour MMXVI split w/ Eaten” – watched James watch The Sopranos.
IJI “Bubble” – listened to Annie Lennox and drank freshly juiced celery.
NA B “Ender Enders” – drooled on our shoes.
NATURE BOYS “new TAPE” – deep-fried blobs of slaw, drank $1 noon beers and played pool with their dog Bob.
WE CAN ALL BE SORRY “Weekend Sorry” – talked about emotions & romance.
MEGA BOG “Shadows Break for the Old World” – watched The Mist and listened to Jakob Dylan.
RICK RUDE “Mind Cook” – sowed an interstellar soundgarden mulched with RHCP refuse.
SHORT LEASH “snort bleach” – danced to Thin Lizzy while someone scouted their lost pint of Fireball.
BAUS “Chips” – jeered the first presidential debate on a projector.
FOND HAN “SHAM CLOUD” – puppo soaked his busted foot in a soapy bucket on the porch.
GLAZER “Repeat Sequence” – a four-year-old wandered into the show and sat in on drums for their encore.
OLIVIA WB “Prefigurative Purgatory” – got matching chokers.
BLACK NORSE “split w/ Big Mess” – Sebring with the top down.
TIFFANY’S HOUSE “Tiffany’s Sleepover: a Radio Play” – took forced-perspective photos with tiny doll hands
BIG MESS “split w/ Black Norse” – watched Worcester’s punk dads light off fireworks on the Fourth of July.