Billy's Memorial Fund

HELP US MAKE A MEMORIAL FOR BILLY!!
William Clark Pfalmer - AKA Billy - was a lot of things to a lot of people. Rocker, Fighter, Lover, Poet, Idol, Lord, Comrade, Friend - we have probably used all of these terms to describe him at different times over the course of our relationship.  He was a complicated man, and it isn't easy to distill his influence into a soundbyte, or even a eulogy for that matter. One thing is indisputable, however: the world is a better place for having known him. 


Billy was born on the Phillipine Islands in 1985. After his biological father abandoned the family, he moved along with his mother and older brother to Durango, Colorado, where he would remain - for the most part - for the remainder of his life. Despite coming from a broken family, Billy had no trouble making friends, and by middle school, he was the lead singer in a popular local punk rock band, the Randibles. In high school, Billy continued to play with the Randibles, and the band's fanbase continued to expand. 


After high school, the Randibles amicably dissolved and went their separate ways. Such was the strength of Billy's charisma, though, that he seamlessly transitioned to his next band/project, the Let Downs, without missing a step. After a short but successful stint with the Let Downs, the band dissolved, and Billy worked on several side projects - Red Herring, Colorado Folk Revival, to name a couple - before forming his final collaborative project, a rock and roll band with a polished sound known as the Dugouts. Then, in 2006 - at the height of the Dugouts popularity - Billy died from an accidental drug overdose. His friends, family, and bandmates were left to make sense of what seemed to be a senseless situation. 


In the years since, those of us who were touched by Billy (there are a LOT of us - you know who you are!) have picked up some of the pieces and moved on. Some of us are still musicians, others are professionals, academics, tradesmen, teachers, lawyers, and so forth. One thing unites us all, though: we have never forgotten Billy Pfalmer or the effect he had on us in his short time on this earth.  We cling to his photos, his memorabilia, our ever-fading memories of our times with him, we even throw an annual tribute show in his honor, but one thing is conspicuously missing: a permanent, physical monument memorializing him. Billy never had a gravestone or a burial site, and with the diaspora of the people who knew him spreading across the earth, we felt that we need to set his memory in stone (literally) in a place that anchors us all together: Durango. 


Knowing the unconquerable fortitude; the unflappable charisma; the raw POWER of the man himself, that granite would be the medium for his memorial was a foregone conclusion - the question was, what FORM would accurately manifest the spirit of this noble, if flawed, front man?  We put our heads together, and realized that it needed to be something imbued with a purpose; something that could be utilized and enjoyed by everyone, whether they knew Billy or not. Something that might inspire someone to sit down and write a song, a poem, a thought, an attempt at an expression of his or her pure self...

And so it is that we humbly ask you, friends, family, and the world at large:

Please help us in raising funds for the Billy Pfalmer Memorial Granite Bench!! 

There are still some questions up in the air - namely, where will this supposed bench be located?? - and all we can tell you at this time is that we WILL get this bench installed somewhere in Durango, assuming that we can raise the funds to manufacture it in the first place. When I say "we," I mean that this will be a team effort - we welcome input from anyone & everyone who wants to give it. We will need to work as a team in order to bring this idea to fruition, and we are confident that we will come together to make it happen, even if it takes time. For now, please dig deep and give whatever you can in support of eternalizing the memory of Billy Pfalmer. We will be updating this campaign regularly with pics, videos, music, and more!! Stay tuned...