Frank Gutch Jr: Anti-Microbials Made Me Do It (and if you think they’re not a problem, maybe you’re listening to the wrong music)…..

I sit here, a pool of phlegm and what would be blood if the body would allow enough into the mix, feeling like six buckets of shit.  My right eye is a stream of tears and swells each night.  In the morning, the eyelid is a peacock feather dried to perfection against cheek, awaiting its morning ablutions necessary for it to even be and eyelid.  I don’t know how it happens because with all of the coughing racking what is left of my body, there shouldn’t be enough time for the tears to dry.  It certainly doesn’t feel like it, sleep coming in short and shorter bursts, the phlegm either stopping life-giving breaths on a fairly regular schedule or spewing itself in massive quantities on pillowcase or wall (both, when a sneeze takes control).  Here’s the thing:  I can’t sleep.  I can’t eat.  I can’t stop coughing.  I feel like those six buckets multiplied by ten and would sell my soul to the devil but there never seems to be one around when you need one.

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).

JAIMIE VERNON – November DISCoveries

Now that the institutional insanity of Black Friday has passed and everyone was thankful to get a discount on a Made in China television using a year’s worth of minimum wage, might I suggest some inexpensive independent music to give to everyone else as Xmas gifts? And you don’t have to stand in line or need a shotgun to do it.

Frank Gutch Jr: Lighthouse Revisited, Wilderness Road, What Were the Odds (Game & Ratchell), and Notes…..

“I have to tell you, New York is just like a chick.  When she hates you she beats you to death, but when she loves you you know you’ve been loved…”  I don’t know exactly who said that but it was a member of Lighthouse and is but one line of many out of a radio documentary on that bandyou need to hear (assuming, of course, you have any interest in the history of rock and/or jazz music at all).  It was recorded during the band’s very first live gig at, of course, New York’s Carnegie Hall, a gig so impressive that fans and critics alike thought that this was the beginning of something incredibly huge.  Huge it became— in Canada, at least— but the States had better things to do than to listen to the new and the odd and, to the American mainstream, horns and this jazz/rock fusion was both new and odd.  Skip Prokop and crew, you see, took it further than Blood Sweat & Tears and Chicago ever did.  Way further.

Frank Gutch Jr: Picture The Ocean— What Portland Missed (including more views on venues and musicians)… The Positive Side of Bottomfeeding (Hits Most of Us Missed)… and Notes You Can Put in the Bank…..

With a nod to Neil Young:  “’Live music is better’ bumper stickers should be issued!”  God knows how few of us realize what we are missing out there these days.  The bars and taverns and music listening rooms are being stocked with an amazing array of excellent artists and we are either sitting at home with our fingers up our ass or hanging out in some bar with no music beyond that hooked up to stereo speakers on walls, bitching about there being no good music.  For all of you who do that (and you know you do), I have a finger for you and you can bet which one.

Frank Gutch Jr: It’s Not Just Politics (The New Musical Landscape), The Hits Just Keep On Comin’, and The Psychology of Vinyl….

You don’t know how many times a day I just plain want to kill myself.  I wake up in the morning, turn on the computer and while it boots up, brush my teeth and wash my face only to confront a computer aflame with news which is not news and a world going to hell in a handbasket.  I never thought that this country would turn into a seething pile of manure but it’s well on its way and there looks to be no turning back.  What the hell happened?  Is it the Internet?  Is it the smart phone?  Is it The Bible?  Whatever it is, something has turned us against one another.  Democrat against Republican.  Vegans against red meat eaters.  The Tea Party against everybody.

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.