JAIMIE VERNON – May DISCoveries

It appears that Spring not only means a flood of rain and other iffy weather, but a watershed of new music too – including VINYL!!!

There has been much said in recent months about the resurgence of vinyl – specifically the album length 12” variety. There has been less ballyhoo about the black (and in one case, mustard yellow) 7” kind. This month I received not one, but two artists with fresh 7” PVC wax. There was also the usual plethora of CDs (which labels still insist has no discernible audience) and even one USB offering. Let’s dig in:

Frank Gutch Jr: The Best of the First Half of 2013,

Jesus, is 2013 great or what?  I’m dancing, crying, thinking, sweating, burping and bopping thanks to a handful of musicians who have me freaking out, they’re so good.  I know I said 2012 was good.  And it was!  Hell, it still is, musically.  Musicians put out some of the best music I’d heard last year, but goddamn it, 2013 is smokin’ hot!  Seriously!  And excuse me for a sec whilst I dance the happy dance.  You see, No Small Children‘s anthemic Might Get Up Slow is playing right now and will for a few times more because I need some uppers!  Shee-it, this is good!  In another time, this would be topping the charts and rocking kids out!  Even famed ex-radio disc jockey Robert W. Walker sez “Fuh-reeking great!”  Jeez, I’m sounding like Barnum & Bailey here, but sometimes you have to let loose, you know?

Frank Gutch Jr: Redefining (Or Maybe Taking a Closer Look at) Concept Albums… and Notes (as few as there are)!

Over forty years in the record business and I’m still agog at the conception of the industry from the outside.  People think musicians are rich (or if not rich, well off, because otherwise they would not be able to support themselves, right?).  People think stars are talented without demanding that it be proven (I hate to use the guy as an example, but the Bieber’s music will last no longer than the lives of his current fans because, and we all know this, his music is contrived crap).

Frank Gutch Jr: Up-and-Comers for 2013, Why All the Covers, Mental Tracks, and Notes…..

Remember when I said 2012 was the best year ever in music?  2013 is even at this early date biting  2012 on the ass.  Artists are lining up with what I am sure is going to be a run and a half of outstanding and, in some cases, mindblowing offerings.  Rather than wait and write about them pretty much after the fact, let us dig in now in a sort of anticipatory way, shall we?

Frank Gutch Jr: It Has Barely Started and Already 2013 Is a Kickass Year…..

In fact, this may damn well be the year I kick the bucket.  My life has pretty much been music, or music at its core, and it has never been better and I have to say that this next year promises to be the best yet.  Ever have that feeling that you can’t lose?  I not only have that feeling but am overwhelmed by it, politics be damned!  So pardon me while I crawl into my hole and surround myself with a future major labels only dream about.  Pay attention.  There will be a quiz.

Frank Gutch Jr: Loose Ends, Even Looser Ends, Paige Anderson & The Fearless Kin, Green Monkey Christmas, and Those Pesky Notes (to which you should really pay more attention)…..

It’s 3:30 in the morning and I can’t sleep and part of it has to do with Spotify.  Not Spotify specifically, but all of the music subscription services that have come along since digitization:  Mog and Pandora and Rhapsody and Sony and others.  What set me off was a musician who posted on Facebook that maybe you should log on to Spotify and check out a certain artist.  Why would that set me off, you ask?  Because I have just recently turned my back to such “services”.  Because if they are a better way to find music and artists, they are also cutting off the hands that feed them.  The hands of musicians and the hands of songwriters ans indeed the hands of all involved in the musical process, for it is a process.

Frank Gutch Jr: The Best of 2012, Vinylly— The Shoes!, and Notes…..

Whaaa-a-a-at, you say?  2012 ain’t over yet?  You’re right.  It ain’t.  But if the Mayans have it right, it will soon be all over so if you don’t mind the indulgence I’ve decided to do what I do every year— post my list of albums which have floated to the top a month early.  I do it for a couple of reasons.  One, I hate for my list to get mixed in with the rest of those end-of-the-year lists which swarm late December and early January.  The timing is all too predictable and if there is anything I don’t like, it’s predictability (which is why I don’t go gaga every time Keith Richards adds another day to his fossilized remains or Mick Jagger farts).

Frank Gutch Jr: Music For a Rainy Day, Free Research Turtles Download Reminder, and Notes…..

I sit in a small enclosed room and await the first rain in a few months, feeling sorrow for those who live in drought-infested areas and have to wait for the life-giving water which falls from the sky.  It is a wondrous thing, rain.  I cannot imagine living without it, having grown up in the Pacific Northwest where rain and indeed weather is such a factor in life.  In the past more than the present, of course, because the State of Oregon depended upon farming and logging for so many decades and God knows that farmers and loggers constantly looked and look to the sky, hoping that the gods are friendly.

Frank Gutch Jr: Kickin’ Thru the Ashes (Old Albums Rediscovered)….

It all started when Laurie Biagini posted a link to a video (Lydia Purple) by The Collectors, a legendary Pac NW band out of British Columbia back in the sixties (and, yes, B.C. is in the Pac NW).  My buddy Howie Wahlen followed that up by taking pictures and posting both sides of The Collectors‘ first album jacket and the die was cast.

Frank Gutch Jr: O Canada! You’re Music To My Ears, Part Deux! Another Look at New Canadian Music Really Worth Hearing….. Steve Young and Jubal Lee Young Play Eugene….. Jon Gomm and Canada….. and NOTES!!!

A number of months ago I wrote about Canadian music here on DBAWIS.  That column included mentions of The Dementians, Laurie Biagini, Lisa O’Neill, Eric Corne, Shade, White Light Machine, Lester Quitzau, and Redgy Blackout.  There has been a lot of water under the bridge since then and Canada, like every other country in the musical world, is cranking more music out by the hour, it seems, and good music it is.  It is funny, but when I write about music in  the States, it seems like (and I know it is only in my head) I am writing about the obvious.  Canada, though, is another world and an adventure I so enjoy experiencing that I am going to take a little mental break and update you on a few of those listed the first go-round and break a little ground with a handful of artists from the Far Northlands about which/whom I have not yet written.  Much.