ANDY WARPIGS

​Andy Warpigs died tonight. Between 2011-2015 they would be at what seemed like every single show I went to in Phoenix. And you could always tell they were having an amazing time AND a lot of those times they were secretly recording the bands set.

When Andy started getting more serious about making and playing music, they stopping to as many shows just for fun, and I only seemed to see them at shows they were playing (which was almost every night of the week, Andy hustled HARD!)

Andy's mom (Lynn) was the kindest, most loving and supporting band mom I've ever met and was a real "no bullshit" type of person which I LOVE! She got real sick a couple years ago and I don't think I've seen her since 2017 or 2018. But she loved Andy and love all of Andy's weird misfit friends and all the artists they would go see and secretly record. That is something that always made me smile.

I've seen Andy Warpigs play live probably 29 times over the years. (Like I said they hustled hard!) and when Andy played live it went one of 3 ways it seemed.
1. Andy would play acoustic, by themselves and it ruled. Not too much banter, and Andy always had a tight 20 minute set of songs that encouraged others to sing along.
2. Andy would play with 2-4 other people backing them up who knew Andy's songs and you could tell they practiced a couple times before the show. This was always a more punk sounding set, very fun and inspiring. Most of these shows Andy seemed really really happy. almost glowing and I loved being able to recognize that with them.
3. Andy would ask people from the audience who have never heard their music or played their songs to accompany Andy on stage try to play along. These live sets were really bad in my opinion, I really did not like it.

But when I asked Andy about these live sets with random people playing along, they said it felt like it was important. And I think about this a lot actually, it's important to create an environment for people who may not be good at their craft yet, and it's important to let them experiment, grow and fail in front of others. And this is what Andy was doing and I think that's beautiful. I was really looking forward to seeing my friend and giving them a big hug at the next Trunk Space show or whatever. But now, fuck, I don't know. I wish our last conversation wasn't about Facebook.

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