Frank Gutch Jr: The World Is Dying and Yet It Lives, Especially in Canada – The Land of Mowat, Music, and Literature

We are killing the world.  Killing it.  The human, the supposed brightest and most intelligent species on Earth is killing the only planet we have.  The only one which can sustain us.  Forget about Mars or the myriad of planets scientists are telling us might be alternate worlds for us.  There is not enough time to find them and, if you ask me, it wouldn’t do any good anyway.  We would kill them too.  It is our way— our lot in life.  As much as we want to be compassionate and good, we can’t.  We cannot shake the urge to kill, usually in the name of progress.

Frank Gutch Jr: Notes Are All I Have Left….

It has been another one of those days.  I struggled with what I thought was a good idea all day but it turned to dust in my hands.  Pure drivel.  Which leaves me with what I consider the best part of my column anyway— The Notes.  Feel free to take your time, enjoy the news and videos, maybe take it a step further if you have a mind to.  The artists I feature in my columns are always meant as a fingerpoint.  Seriously.  I am still searching for the music of Lisa LeBlanc, one of my discoveries from last week.  The good ones deserve the scrutiny.  For right now, I am going to take my tired carcass to bed.  It has been frustrating, to say the least.  I only wish my dog had eaten my homework.

Frank Gutch Jr: Mixtape Was Not Always an Ugly Word

They came to be called Mixtapes (or Mix Tapes) and were/are looked upon with scorn but they started out a way to share music without having to drag people to your house and forcing them to drink while you played records.  They were an outlet for frustrated disc jockeys and vinyl junkies because even though an unusually high percentage of tapes passed from hand to hand were never played, a person had poured over an entire music collection to put together “sets,” a DJ term regarding playing certain songs in a certain sequence.  I know.  I made them and passed them out like candy.  I am sure most who received them rolled their eyes and exited at first chance, but for me it was about the music.  For vinyl junkies, it is always about the music.

Frank Gutch Jr: Musicians on a Mission: Dan Phelps, Julian Taylor, Wes Swing, and Jimmy Lee (formerly Lee’s Company)… Plus a lugubrious panorama of Notes

Meet Dan Phelps, if you have not already done so.  I first ran across him over a decade ago when he was working with both Bill Pillmore and his daughter Jess Pillmore on their respective albums, Look In Look Out and Reveal.  Bill was an original member of Cowboy and I had heard through Scott Boyer, another original member of that venerable band, that he was recording for the first time, to my knowledge, since Cowboy‘s excellent 1971 release, 5’ll Getcha Ten.  When I contacted him, he was in full recording mode, working with Phelps, whom he had chosen to produce.  To my amazement, Phelps did more than just produce.  He was a sideman and a damn good one, a creator of good licks and solid musical ideas.  It was a first look at a musician I would follow from that point on.

Frank Gutch Jr: Getting Your Fa-La-La-Las (Christmas Compilations & Suggestions); Plus Notes

Nothing says Christmas like a curmudgeon and nobody is more of one than Jaimie Vernon which makes me wish I knew some of the stories behind his long career in music and, also, in life.  Regaling you with tales of chicken wire and whoopee cushions would make this a lot easier to write— nothing like fart jokes to liven up your reading— but it is Christmas season and I must put aside the slings and arrows, as humorous as they might be.

Frank Gutch Jr: Amy van Keeken & Timeloop Touring Western Canada; Spotify: The Boil On the Ass of the Music Industry; Plus Notes

Lots of good stuff happening out there and it’s time we plugged in to some of it if only to counter the “real” musical happenings being covered by all of the sites who think that Kanye West canceling (or postponing) a show is news.  I get it.  No fun finding out your wife is being held at gunpoint.  Just not headline news in my part of the world.

Frank Gutch Jr: Fall On Deaf Ears? Not These Albums….. Plus Voluminous Notes of Questionable Character

Fall is a beautiful time of year.  Leaves turn color, the air gets crisp.  It’s football time and the kids return to school.  Hunting season is just around the corner.  I have lived through more than a few and can attest to the fact that it is not like any other season, but then I say that about all the seasons.  I love them all but I learned to love Fall best when I worked retail in the old music stores of my past for that was the time record labels came alive.  It was their last chance to release the albums they wanted to push before Christmas needing the two or three months to gain traction for the big push, for there was no other season like Christmas season when it came to hawking music wares.  Well, those days are past but it seems like they are back because some of the best have chosen this Fall to release their new albums and, man, am I pumped!

Frank Gutch Jr: Let’s Talk Notary Sojac; The Return of Highlight Bomb; Jeff Ellis (Plus Notes)

I was twenty-three, fresh out of the Army and full of frustration and cynicism.  I had spent the last one year, nine months, two days, four hours and thirty-five minutes in what I considered a military prison.  Before I was drafted, I was a radical, a hippie, an idealist.  Staunchly anti-war, I isolated myself from old friends and family.  I smoked dope, joined The Resistance and demonstrated on and off the University of Oregon campus.  When I got out of the Army and returned to Eugene, I learned that I hated everyone who displayed bumper stickers or posters which heralded “America— Love It Or Leave It” or “My Country, Right or Wrong” as if they were the Eleventh and Twelfth Commandments.  Those who upheld vocal groups like Up With People as true American music became my enemy.

Frank Gutch Jr: I Always Wanted To Be a Musician (Videos With Commentary)…

 

…but I could never pull it together.  Of course, when I was young I thought I was a musician, piddling with the tonette in fourth grade, drafted into the junior high band in the fifth grade because they badly needed a bass drum player, playing drums in what could be called a jazz band then (though we were really not good enough to be called that), playing drums in the high school band and in a couple of rock bands and carrying it on through college.  I loved music and was always around it but I was never really a musician.

Frank Gutch Jr: Brian Cullman Is a Freaking Genius (and other tales of suspense)

 

He is!  And I will tell you why!  Read this— the beginning of an email he titled 7 Short Notes on Sandy Denny.  Wait!  I shouldn’t.  You see, Brian is a good friend and lets me in on creative works long before they are ready for public consumption.  Some works.  Sure, some are just one-liners, but always one-liners of consequence.  Others are long and involved thoughts squeezed through fingers or thumbs (unlike myself, he has mastered the craft of the smartphone), dancing around topics but never reaching the core, leaving that task to others.