Frank Gutch Jr: These Are People I’ve Known (But Who Try to Keep It a Secret); Plus Notes

The past week I have been revisiting some of my earlier DBAWIS columns and am shocked at how few people (as far as I can tell) know about them, even now.  When I write about musicians, it is usually personal, both the person or people and the music, and I feel that sometimes they are more water under the bridge than anything.  No one sends notes asking about someone I wrote about in 2012 unless something has happened since and there are so many truly talented people who deserve recognition.  So this week, I am going to point toward artists you may have missed whom I think are above the norm in terms of talent and/or personality.  And maybe I owe a few of them money, but that is neither here nor there.

Frank Gutch Jr: Bullseye Canada— Let the Salvage Operations Begin: Conversations with Jaimie Vernon… Plus Notes (and One Really Cool Picture of Bow Thayer Guesting With No Small Children)

That would be Bullseye Records, Canada for those unaware, a label pieced together by DBAWIS‘s own Jaimie Vernon and friends— a record company caught in the digital tsunami which wiped out more than one music concern.  In fact, if you define being wiped out as being wiped out, you could probably number them in triple digits, many being “absorbed” by major labels if they could find anything worth adding to their already bloated catalogues.  I will tell you upfront that it is a tale of both success and crushing defeat, of both business and personal failure— not that it could have been avoided.  When the music business started crumbling, it took with it most everything in its path.  If you subscribe to the business as it was.  If your yardstick was measured by the same standards the major labels had set up and followed for decades.  Jaimie and his company took a beating, no doubt, but he is not down and out by a long shot.  He has just, shall we say, been regrouping.

Frank Gutch Jr: Look What They’ve Done to my Country, Ma! (Thoughts inspired by Alistair Cooke, Header inspired by Melanie Safka); Plus Notes…..

Pardon me while I get serious for a moment.  My country seems intent upon flushing itself down the toilet and before it does I would like to share a few words with you about– Alistair Cooke?  But he is (or was) not even American!  True, but he is (or was) more American than many of the people who portray themselves as “patriots” (I put it in quotes to point out that the word has been cheapened and no longer holds value to me).  I too think it strange that I would look to a “foreigner” to make my case about The Unites States, but it seems natural.

Frank Gutch Jr: The Grammys: The Decline of the Major Labels (and Civilization) Continues; When Three Bands (Don’t) Collide; Michael Fennelly— On Vinyl; For the Tots at Christmas— Goodnight Songs; Plus N-n-n-notes…..

Every year I get my hopes up and every year the so called experts behind the Grammy’s dash them against the rocks like fishkill, blood and brain cells covering the entire music industry with fresh stench in the form of what they claim to be “the best”—  their words, not mine.

Frank Gutch Jr: Jim Colegrove, The Early Years; Small Label Magic; plus the oh so magnificent Notes…..

His name is Jim Colegrove but I know him by his AKA, Coolgroove, because that is how I want to know him.  He’s no youngster, a few years older than myself (I’m a fossil), and has been a guitar playing fool all of his adult life and most of his childhood.  If I asked him if he thought when he was young that he would be still playing today, I am sure he would say no.  It was a dream back in the fifties when he got his first guitar.  He has relived that dream every day since because when he isn’t playing music, he’s thinking it.  He got the bug early and the reason I’m telling you is that I got the bug too.  I had a chance to live it but in those days you had to be a special breed to stick it out.  I had the talent.  I just didn’t have the discipline.  Jim had (has) plenty of both.