Frank Gutch Jr: Music Reviews On the Fly (and these are real beauties); Crushed Out Makes Their Move; Plus Notes

I review lots of records on a consistent basis and pretty much have a policy of giving each album/EP its due.  Usually that means a solid ten listens all the way through with extras for the songs which strike home.  The reason?  I once listened to an album a couple of times and sent a note to the artist explaining why I could not give it a straight-out five star review.  It was possibly the most pompous note I have ever written and one I wish I could have taken back.  Ten or so listens later, I gave it that five star review I had so bombastically refused and pledged to give every album from that point on a fair chance— a real fair chance and not one based upon a needledrop (a term which refers to radio in the sixties and seventies when the single was king— disc jockeys and music directors would listen to the first few seconds of each 45 submitted for airplay to “weed the crop”, i.e. to eliminate the clunkers).  What?  You didn’t think the records charted themselves, did you?

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.

Frank Gutch Jr: RIP Steve Young; The Minnows and Their On-the-Money Video; Annabel (lee); Bongo Boy Making Their Move; and a Plethora of Videos…

Although I don’t know how much more.  The wind was taken out of my sails last week when I found out that Steve Young had died.  The musician and not the football player— jeez, I have said that so many times over the years but always with a chuckle.  Not this time.  Steve is really gone and things just don’t feel right.

Frank Gutch Jr: Majors Creek (Australia) Music Fest Carries On Without Founder Peter Gillespie, Memories of the Eugene Pop Festival of 1969, and E.J. Simpson— The Most Base of Bassists… Plus the Ever-Wondrous Notes…..

If you live in the States or Canada, you can be forgiven for not knowing about Majors Creek, for there are plenty of people who live in Australia who know little or nothing about it.  Here is a DBAWIS primer for those in the dark.