Frank Gutch Jr: Paradise Is Paved, Here Comes the Parking Lot… plus a Voluminous Collection of Note(s)

Goldband Studios is gone.  Here I have been spending the past few years singing the praises of Research Turtles— I call them the boys from Lake Charles— without realizing that the city/town/parish also was home to Eddie Shuler and Goldband.  Dumb me.  I have known of Goldband since I was in college, having found them through That Dorm Guy who was somehow plugged into anything and everything musical.  I look back now at him and wonder how he was able to find so much music in a land with pretty much nothing but Billboard Magazine to guide him, but he did.

Frank Gutch Jr: The War I Did Not Fight (and the One I Fought In My Head) Plus Notes…..

I got a haircut the other day and the guy before me asked for white sidewalls.  For those who don’t know, white sidewalls is a euphemism for a buzzcut which pretty much eliminates hair from neck to crown.  Marines are poster boys for the style and I jerked my mental knee and mentioned The Marines.  Yes, he said, I was a Marine.  I looked closely at him and I could see a hard life written on his face, the cracks deep and ancient.  His life hadn’t been easy.