Frank Gutch Jr: Lost & Found

A few days ago, I saw a picture of a couple of Darrell Vickers‘ friends and fellow band members standing before a wall of vinyl, only a small portion of a collection which more than likely takes up a whole house.  Vickers has been digitizing and posting the most rare (and most odd) of the records under the guise of Radio Vickers, a hobby which thus far has handed many a fan of oddities music that which they might not have ever found.  You never know what you’re going to find when Darrell points the finger, but one thing I did find and am thrilled to have found, actually, is a collection of odd bands from down under recreating the original Nuggets: Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, this one titled Antipodean Interpolations of the First Psychedelic Era.  Bands like Velociraptor and The Gooch Palms and King Gizzard and the Wizard Lizard and The Murlocs serving up covers of The Standells‘ Dirty Water and  Sagittarius‘s My World Fell Down and The Leaves‘ Hey Joe.  And that’s just the tip of the Vickers iceberg.

He dabbles in true cult items (early James Darren and various celebrities’ attempts at recording) and the not-so-cult such as very early Johnny Horton.  He “finds” things, shall we say, and what finds they are!  If you’re one of those people who thrive on hearing movie stars or sports figures go way out of their comfort zones (some of it is surprisingly good, some campy and some atrocious), all you have to do is email Darrell Vickers here.  Let him pass along what he finds.  Every once in awhile, he will make your day.

But this is actually about what I found just yesterday.  While cleaning up the house in preparation for my annual Christmas visit from my bro-in-law and sister, I ran across a whole pile of records I thought had been lost or given away.  Most were my parents’ collection from years past:  The Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz and Sentimental Journey (a collection of what I assume are songs of the thirties and forties put together by The Longines’ Symphonette Recording Society) and Stardust (108 All-Time Favorites (a collection put together by Reader’s Digest and RCA Records).  There were others— country albums, mostly, for Country & Western was a large part of radio during their early married years.

What caught me by surprise, though, was a handful of my albums which had somehow gotten thrown into this mix.  Albums I love for one reason or another.  Upon finding them after quite a few years in storage I am reliving that love.  Music is, after all, the soundtrack of our lives and, yes, that sounds lame, but ain’t it the truth, regardless?  So with a mental nudge from the aforementioned Mr. Vickers and a desire to “re-find” some of the old music which pretty much made me who I am today, I feel compelled to write about it.  Just some mental notes— not unlike visiting old friends at a high school reunion.

WILSON McKINLEY/Spirit of Elijah—  I knew this guy down in San Diego when I lived there, Arden Lawrence Sniffen, who was a Christian Rock freak and who ended up on radio playing Christian music.  I myself am a huge Glass Harp fan, Glass Harp a precursor to the ongoing legend of Phil Keaggy, the band’s guitarist.  Sniffen and I became acquainted after The Reader, a free and local SD zine, ran a short piece about a record store I co-owned in which I bemoaned the public’s refusal to embrace Glass Harp and their like (meaning Christian Rock).  We quickly became friends.  The whole time I knew Arden, he kept hounding me about Wilson McKinley, this Pac NW religious rockin’ juggernaut of a band of which I had barely heard mention.  Arden was the kind of guy who thinks that if you’re from the Pac NW, you know everyone and, in this case, every band from that area.  Well, he talked about them so enthusiastically that a seed was planted and next thing I know I’m in Seattle digging through used racks of every record store I could find and, voila!  What do I find?  A Wilson McKinley album titled The Spirit of Elijah.

I took the album home, listened and tossed it aside.  I didn’t throw it away but placed it out of reach because the recording was not the best and the songs didn’t impress.  But for some strange reason, usually when I was drinking, I found myself crawling to the out-of-reach pile and more often than not, plucking WM out for listening.  Slowly but surely, I began to absorb the true genius of the album.  The live vibe, the early 70’s band structure and, yes, the obviously Christian take on the songs.  I began to like it more each time I heard it and finally moved it into the regular stack so it would be easily retrievable each time I wanted to hear it.

In the move from Seattle to Oregon, the album ended up in a pile I didn’t separate and evidently ended up in Mom and Dad’s stash.  I thought it lost.  Until yesterday.  When I saw it, I pulled it out and placed it next to the desk so I wouldn’t miss it.  I’m listening now.  I’m digging it.  A lot.  These guys had the core of hippie-dom in them.  They had that quonset hut psychedelia, that light show aura.  And all wrapped up in Christianity.  Sure, the recording is a bit too upfront for most, probably, but not all bands of the time had the money to head to L.A. to record with the pros and in the best studios.  But they did have the chops.  It’s a flashback.  It’s a find!  I bought it for 49-cents (the price sticker is on both the jacket and the label of the record).  What does it remind me of?  Maybe The Collectors or The Paupers and most definitely the very first April Wine album— before they traded in the psych world for the harder-edged pop.

THE OSCAR PETERSON TRIO + THE SINGERS UNLIMITED/In Tune—  That’s right.  Oscar Peterson.  I do not really have an affinity for jazz, but I make exception for Peterson and Errol Garner.  Don’t ask me why.  There is something I like about their interpretations of the standards, I guess.  I am also a huge fan of Singers Unlimited, a later version of The Hi-Los with female accoutrement.  Together, they take me where few others ever have.  A visit to Sesame Street, to a summer day (Once Upon a Summertime), to a rainy day (Here’s That Rainy Day and The Gentle Rain), to places my mind seldom goes (It Never Entered My Mind, A Child Is Born, The Shadow of Your Smile).  This has always been a palate cleanser for me— something to listen to when I need to wind down or toss aside the electric for awhile.  Finding it again was like running into a good friend I hadn’t seen for too long a time.

HERMAN BROOD & HIS WILD ROMANCE/Self-Titled—  I saw Brood at The Paramount in Seattle when this album was released in ’79.  It was one of those Rising Stars concerts— two bucks.  I expected the theater to be half-full.  It was packed.  Brood and crew put on one hell of a show and I thought he was on his way to stardom but the real world intervened and he was lost to obscurity, at least as far as The States were concerned.  Still, I hear hit all over this album, especially with the single (Saturday Night) which got heavy airplay on, I think, KISW radio.  So many deserving and so few making it.  Brood was one.

BRIAN ALEXANDER ROBERTSON/Wringing Applause—  This was the third release by Ardent Records, the label that gave us Cargoe and Big Star.  It was an oddity for Ardent, to say the least.  The label had been handed demos from Robertson, according to John Fry, the label head, and were given the go-ahead based on the songs therein.  By the time Wringing Applause made its way to the label, the direction of the music had totally changed.  Gone was the demo sound, replaced by a very theatrical approach— kind of an Elton-John-ish angle, and not the Elton John hits angle but the Elton John broadway stage angle.  Not bad, but not what Fry had expected.  The label released it.  They had, after all, already paid for it.  To resounding silence.  Is it any good?  I like it but play it seldom.  Still, I would rather listen to this than a lot of the tripe the Brits sent over which sold like crazy.  When I interviewed Fry for a Cargoe article I was writing, I asked about the demo, hoping that Fry would send me a copy.  He didn’t.  Something tells me that I missed something.

H.P. LOVECRAFT/At the Mountains of Madness—  I never would have listened to these guys if it hadn’t been for The Shadows of Knight.  I was a big Shadows fan, having picked up their Back Door Men album on a whim (No, it wasn’t their version of Gloria that did it.  All I ever heard on radio in Oregon was Them‘s version).  I mean, Back Door Men rocked!  So how surprised was I when Lovecraft was as far away from the Shadows as they could possibly get?  Not a bit.  I remember sitting in the dorm rooms, stoned, listening to The White Ship and thinking it was musical nirvana.  So when I had a chance to pick up this Edsel compilation double-LP, I jumped on it.  This music is what most people think of when they talk psychedelia.  I dig it.  They even do an eerie version of High Flying Bird, a track I absolutely love by Zephyr.  I will be scheduling a night of listening to this album soon, you can bet.  Might even break out the black light and incense.

THE MANDRAKE MEMORIAL/Puzzle—  I bought it for the Escher cover and discovered a masterpiece.  I also discovered Ron Frangipane, whose name showed up on a handful of discs not long after.  I guess you might call this a concept album.  A psychedelic concept album.  Remember Southwest F.O.B.‘s excellent Smell of Incense 45?  This album reminds me of that.  Spacey, mind-bending and full of hooks.  Orchestral, too.  There were a circle of  us Mandrake fans in Eugene not long after this album was released (1969).  I entered the circle in ’71.  I learned a lot from those guys.  Mostly how to survive the barbs of people who did not understand music outside the norm.

PHILLIP GOODHAND-TAIT/Self-Titled—  Gary Haller at Eugene’s House of Records turned me onto Goodhand-Tait.  He had received a promo copy of Goodhand-Tait’s I Think I’ll Write a Song album and told me he thought I’d like it, so I bought it.  I was glad I did.  Not only did Goodhand-Tait have a unique voice, he was an excellent songwriter— as good as any songwriter I was hearing back in the early seventies.  When this self-titled album hit a year or two later, I grabbed it right away.  At first, I was disappointed.  Looking back, I understand why.  I Think I’ll Write a Song is one of those albums every singer/songwriter hopes for— a complete album, good on all levels.  No matter what he did after that, it would have been a disappointment.  After working my way through the self-titled album a few times, the disappointment faded.  I was glad to have found it again.  This guy is one of my most revered when it comes to writing.

DALTON & DUBARRI/Good Head and Boones Farm/Boones Farm—  In essence, these two bands are the same.  Both lived on the writing and voices of Gary Dalton and Kent Dubarri and were released in sequence by Columbia Records in ’72 (Boones Farm) and ’74 (Good Head).  Both have the same mixture of driving rock and funky rhythms.  Both contain well-crafted songs which could and should have gained airplay.  Think Loggins and Messina with balls.  Jim Messina, by the way, produced Boones Farm.  Michael Lloyd produced Good Head.  Interestingly, Dalton appeared as Gary Stovall in BF and Dubarri as Kent Sprague.  Don’t ask me.  I have no idea.  Another interesting fact:  I found D&D through radio.  Yep, back in the early seventies, mighty underground radio station KZEL played what they liked and not what the clones wanted.  Thanks to them, I also found Funkadelic (Maggot Brain), The Temptations (Masterpiece) and a whole host of others.

THE EAGLES/Greatest Hits— How the hell did that get in there?  I been hacked!  Anyone want an album?

TOM DICKIE & THE DESIRES/The Eleventh Hour—  Didn’t take me more than half a song to get into Tom Dickie when the first album came out.  Downtown Talk rocked my head.  So when The Eleventh Hour hit the racks, I was ready.  This rocker is worth it for Victimless Crime alone.  I am awash in memories and good music!

ORPHEUS/Self-Titled—  Well, the self-titled on on Bell Records, anyway.  I think the older album with the hit Can’t Find the Time To Tell You was also self-titled.  Evidently the creativity did not extend beyond the music.  While the MGM self-titled track relied on the smooth and poppier side of rock, the Bell album dipped a bit further into the well.  All the tracks have Steve Martin‘s fingerprints all over them, a bit more introspective and more into the odd chord progressions than the earlier Orpheus.  Listening to this (it is playing as I type), I am shocked at how well I remember the songs and, especially, how much I like them.  This is an album I would play only for my best friends.  To appreciate it, you have to listen closely.  Very closely.

VARIOUS ARTISTS/Goodbye to the 40’s, Hello to the Fifties—  Sometime in the seventies or eighties, Relic Records released a string of albums which showcased vocal group recordings of the forties and fifties.  This is one of those records, keying on artists who recorded for the legendary Apollo Records (learn more here) or at least were released by them.  Call it pre-doo wop, if you will.  Most groups have that Ink Spots or Mills Brothers sound and any one of these could have been hits had radio been what it was supposed to be back then.  Very impressive vocals by the likes of The Striders, Rhythm Kings, Melody Masters, among others.  If you like this kind of stuff and these are available on CD, I recommend them heartily.

LIGHTHOUSE/Peacing It All Together—  All I can say about this classic LP is that I am thrilled to have found it.  I don’t know what it is about Lighthouse, but I’ve been digging on them for decades.  There were so many members in this band that I would not be at all surprised to hear that they recorded this in one of those huge rooms usually reserved for full orchestras.  Or would that be orchestrae?  What a flashback!

RESURRECTION BAND/Awaiting Your Reply—  Another religious rocker.  Arden Lawrence Sniffen, mentioned earlier, turned me on to these guys because of the first track on Side One (Wave).  It’s a rocker he would play on his program, sometimes with a mention of my name (you know, the “by request” gambit).  I used to think he was skirting the establishment which would rather not have raucous rock played on their station but had to accept the “by request” ploy.  I always thought that people who refused to listen to Christian Rock (they liked to call it Contemporary Christian Music) were missing some of the best music on the market.  I still think that way.  So does Segarini.  Great minds think alike.  Man, is it good to hear this again!

BILL QUATEMAN/Self-Titled—  What a score!  I was music-hungry back in the early seventies and listened to everything I could get my hands on.  When I heard this album, I was sure Quateman was going to be another James Taylor or Elton John.  I still don’t know why he wasn’t.  This is an excellent album filled with excellent songs.  Ex-cellent!  How strange.  I just looked on the album jacket for info and Quateman has Elton John’s backup band on it.  I hadn’t noticed before.

Holy crap!  I just checked itsaboutmusic.com and sonofagun if they don’t have this album available, but also the second album for Columbia Records which has not been available until now!  And me as broke as a child’s plastic toy the day after Christmas.  Oh well, it won’t stop me from listening.  Here is the Quateman link…..

MICK COX BAND/Self-Titled—  So who is Mick Cox?  Funny you should ask.  I just ran through an Internet search to refresh my memory and ran across his biography on his website.  Turns out he spent time with Van Morrison as well as Eire Apparent and was at one time good friends with Jimi Hendrix.  Not that that means anything.  I liked the guy because of this album.  It flopped terribly, but I thrive on albums that fail.  More soul than one might imagine, he being a Brit.  It is produced by Shel Talmy, whom I would imagine was very bummed when this tanked.  Great production job.

FIVE BY FIVE/Next Exit—  I found this little gem for a nickel at a record auction.  No cover.  Evidently, Five By Five was a Texas band and signed to Paula Records for a string of singles which the label expanded to an album.  Nice sixties stuff.  They had regional success with a cover of Hendrix’s Fire, but that song to me is the weak link on the album.

CALICO/Self-Titled—  I swear to God, the major labels must have thought they would have to pay extra for the ink to print an actual title to an album, so many self-titled records were released over the years.  I forgive these guys, though.  I am a nut for smooth country rock and these guys fit the bill and are right up there with Uncle Jim’s Music, Heartsfield and the like.  I have two 45’s off of this album that I play fairly regularly.  Now that I have found their album, I can get the whole Calico experience.  Life is good.

GEORGE JONES & TAMMY WUNETTE/Greatest Hits— Besides the really early George Jones, I like the songs he sang with Tammy Wynette the best so I bought this.  There is something about their voices, the way they interact, that knocks me out.  Finding this again has me doing my happy dance (which my mother used to call my “hippie” dance).  Momma had no sense of humor.  Or, now that I think of it, maybe she did.  This was an album Momma, Dad and I used to listen to together when I would come home on vacation.  This and Seldom Scene‘s Baptizing.  I thank the stars every day that I had the parents I did.  They gave me two things I could not live without— love of music and reading.  My cup runneth over.

SOUNDTRACK/Fools—  The Army payed so little when I was in (’69 to ’71) that I had little money in my pocket.  Most of what I did get went toward records, but I kept the change for movies.  One of my favorites during this period was Fools with Jason Robards and Katharine Ross.  As depressed as I was just being at Fort Lewis, it was a perfect fit for my mood.  Older guy finds girl who begins to love him for himself because he brings her out of her shell but her gangster boyfriend opts to kill her rather than let anyone else have her.  To this day, I can see the scene at the end of the movie when Robards, after watching Ross die at the hands of her ex, stumbles onto the sidewalk, stunned, and asks for help…  So when I saw this album in the cutout bins, I scarfed it up.  The incidental music is by Shorty Rogers, one of those guys who made a lot of money writing for others.

ZZ TOP/Eliminator—  One day I might actually listen to this album again, but every time I get around to it I opt for Tres Hombres instead.

QUICKSILVER MESSENGER SERVICE/Happy Trails—  When I interviewed Gary Duncan about the Summer of Love, he didn’t have very much to say about either this or the first Quicksilver album.  I love them both.  I understand, after hearing what he had to say about the recording process, why he would be cold toward them, but it didn’t even begin to stop my enthusiasm for what I consider to be two of the best albums from the SF flower days.  Give me those two plus the Airplane’s After Bathing at Baxter’s and I’m a happy man.  By the way, if you haven’t read the interview, I suggest you do.  He talks about Big Brother and The Dead and why he thought the whole Summer of Love thing was a load of shit.  Click here…..

CLAIRE BLOOM reads Snow White and other Fairy Tales by the Brothers Grimm—  My thoughts were, “Hey!  I have a still-sealed copy of Claire Bloom reading Snow White and other Fairy Tales by the Brothers Grimm in my collection!”  Then I moved on…..

BILL PUKA/Self-Titled—  Damn self-titled thing, anyway.  But Puka was one of those guys I got behind, in spite of his lack of insistence on really having a title for this album.  Never heard of him?  No one else has, either— at least, among the people I know.  He has a bit of Bill Quateman about him, a bit of Jim Dawson, a bit of Tom Pacheco.  He has this one song titled She’s Just That Way which rips my guts out every time I hear it.  I will be listening to this for awhile, I think.  I miss the song, yes, but I always thought Puka’s music a personal choice.  I don’t care if anyone else likes him.  The way he sings “Marie, she’s married now but still not happy” brings tears to my eyes.  I know.  I’m a sap.  But I’m a sap who digs Bill Puka.  Know what?  I always liked Laura Nyro’s early stuff.  Puka reminds me a lot of her, only his voice is a bit deeper.

Let’s Talk Christmas…..

So you don’t want to just hand that special someone a CD or LP?  How about a DVD or a book?  There are some pretty cool music-related things out there.

For instance, do you know someone who digs the whole sixties rock music thing?  Well, there is this excellent disc which goes back to the rockin’ days of Fort Worth’s music scene of the sixties.  Plenty of pictures and interviews and everything you want in a rockumentary.  Check it out here…..

Remember The Five Americans?  Zip Code?  I See the Light?  Western Union?  Well, Michael Rabon wrote a book about his experiences with not only that band, but what happened after.  It will open your eyes to the music scene as it was and not as how we perceived it.  An excellent read.  You can pick it up on Amazon.  Click here…..  Check out the Five Amricans’ site for further info and a look at the basic history of that classic sixties pop band.

Good friend Mike Marino has a series of books available starting with his demented look at Pop Culture history in a book titled The Roadhead Chronicles.  He writes about this guy who was crushed to death by a piano in a strip joint, takes a look at Roswell and its infusion of aliens and a whole string of other things you may have missed.  His recollections are woodchipper-driven and machine-gunned onto the pages.  If you love Frederick Lewis Allen like I do, Marino’s somehow co-opted and channeled Allen’s view of history.  Here’s the link…..

Let’s talk Canadian pop music, eh?  Well, DBAWIS’s own Jaimie Vernon has just released two volumes of his Canadian Pop Music Encyclopedia.  Is it cool?  Hell, yeah!  For one thing, Jaimie knows the classics beyond the Guess Who’s and the Rush’s.  He knows Goddo and The Great Scots and Crowbar and all of the bands you should have heard but probably never did.  Want a small taste?  Check out this video.  Listen to the lyrics.  Then, head here for a look at two volumes of the Encyclopedia— These suckers are packed with historical and musical information.  From A to Zed, eh?  And no, this is not nepotism.  I would be plugging these volumes whether Jaimie wrote for DBAWIS or not.  I dig books like this.

Xenat-Ra Redux…..

So you remember a few weeks ago when I went to see Corvallis band Xenat-Ra and raved about them?  They played Squirrel’s Tavern this past Saturday and I thought I’d stop by just to make sure what I heard was what was.  Were they as good, you ask?  Even better.  But first, the tavern.

Stepping into Squirrel’s is a step into the past in a number of ways.  It is rustic and grungy but not at all typical.  For one thing, they have two stories and a loft.  The loft is situated between stories and is nothing but a large cage in which Xenat-Ra encapsulated themselves.  The front of the cage opens out into both rooms, one lower and one higher.  One would think mixing for two rooms would be next to impossible, but this dude named Paul Kincaid had it down  The entire set and a half I  he was charging up and down the stairs, walking around the rooms and listening to the band from all angles.  How shocked was I when I heard a good mix turn into an excellent mix over the period of four or five songs?  Pretty damn, truth be told.  Every time he adjusted, I thought, that’s it.  Can’t get any better than that.  Every time, though, he made it better.  By the time I walked out the door, Xenat-Ra was wall-of-sound outstanding, the mix as good as it possibly could have gotten.  Then again, I didn’t stick around to find out, did I?  Should I have?

I am convinced.  Xenat-Ra is one talent-heavy band, my friends, and worth the coin to see.  That is. If you like jazzified hip-hop with tinges of progrock and psych.  I mean, the last song I heard planted me against the seat enough that I knew it was get out now or die trying.  They have a CD and a two-LP vinyl album for sale.  It’s worth it.  Check them out here. Hear them for yourselves.

Matt Chamberlain, Viktor Krauss and Dan Phelps/Modular—

The first time I heard these guys together was on Jess Pillmore‘s Reveal.  I named that album Album of the Year for 2005 and it was partially due to these three guys.  Day before yesterday, I discovered a link to this album on Facebook.  I am speechless.  I want to say that some of the music on Modular is a throwback to maybe Manuel Gottsching and Ash Ra Tempel, but it has been so long since I’ve heard them that I can only guess.  There are chunks of space, a bit of jazz and some serious themes and variations going on here   Lots of guitar and keyboards and percussion and, oh, that bass.  Viktor Krauss is on another planet on this album.  Right alongside Matt Chamberlain and Dan Phelps.  This beyond trio.  It is beyond  a lot of things.

Hey, you don’t have to take my word for it.  Here is a link to a page where you can listen.  Do it.  It will be worth it.  And when you’re done, check out the package this thing comes in.  Two LPs, a 12” X 12” book of field notes.  I’ve seen the digital pages.  It is very impressive, indeed.  Read the whole thing, then read it again so you’re sure.  Sure, it’s fifty bucks, but it’s fifty bucks for some damn impressive music and one amazingly put together package.

Hey, you don’t want vinyl, go the digital route.  It’s the music that has me convinced.  It is composition gold.  I’m calling this a 2013 release and it is already whomping the shit out of everything else I’ve heard recently.  I’m pretty sure it will last, too.  This kind of stuff never gets old.  To me, at least.

Notes…..  Nashville’s Kink Ador headed out to L.A. a bit ago to record at the Red Bull Studios and came out of it not only with a few completed (?) tracks and a semi-documentary.  I’ve followed these guys since buddy Joe Lee (Johnson County, Nine ‘n Out) sent a link to their first album.  They are one of those bands which plays way beyond the pale and have their own unique sound.  Want a look at the semi-doc?  Click here…..  Wow!  This courtesy of Warner Davis, former drummer for The Comfortable Chair and Timber and who now backs up Jack Tempchin on occasion—  a video clip of Jack Tempchin Day down in San Diego.  He deserved this long before now.  A class act.  Click here…..  I’ve never heard of Mike Ragogna, but I have now.  He did a recent interview with Seattle’s Danny O’Keefe which proves that preparation is 90% of an interview.  Ragogna had O’Keefe’s music down.  If you don’t know O’Keefe or if you just want to read what interviewers wish they could get out of an interview, chomp on this.  If it goes to a cover page, justs croll down and type “Danny O’Keefe” in the search box…..  East Coast rockers are heading into the studio next month for a new album.  If you dig female-fronted full-on rock, these guys are among the best.  Listen here and then keep your ears open.  The album, if things go right, should be available by summer…..  A video from Canada’s Poor Young Things.  After hearing this, I’m walking around singing “We fight the war on the weekend” over and over.  I’m going to sue those bastards.  Watch and listen here…..  Just when you think you can’t go any lower, you find out you could be Neville Elder of Thee Shambels.  The Lost Gun video is a country-folk amble down Loser Lane, except— except there is always a silver lining.  This makes me laugh and is oh, so true, or at least seems that way for so many people, myself included.  Watch it here…..  Anyone curious about Son of Man, the Seattle grunge band who flew so far under the radar, here is a video of guitarist Brad Kok with his present band, Pothead.  If this don’t put a dent in your head.  Watch here…..

=FGJ=

Frank’s column appears every Wednesday

Contact us at dbawis@rogers.com

“Frank Gutch Jr. looks like Cary Grant, writes like Hemingway and smells like Pepe Le Pew. He has been thrown out of more hotels than Keith Moon, is only slightly less pompous than Garth Brooks and at one time got laid at least once a year (one year in a row). He has written for various publications, all of which have threatened to sue if mentioned in any of his columns, and takes pride in the fact that he has never been quoted. Read at your own peril.”