Frank Gutch Jr: Between Assignments? A Look at a Few Bands Which Weren’t, Really… Or Were They? Plus Them Nefarious Notes

I was looking through the Book of Face pages the other day and ran across a post about The Sidewalk Scene.  I remember them, friend Ray Brandes having been a frontman for them how long ago?  Two years so?  Three years?  The post linked to a page which showcased four studio-produced tracks, all jangly and sixties-oriented.  Music, in fact, that I remember fondly.

Frank Gutch Jr: Bryan Thomas: The Dreamweaver; Dave McGraw & Mandy Fer Play Eugene; plus Notes

I have had this idea in the back of my head for awhile now of writing a column with musical accompaniment.  My most fun times at the keyboard are when the mind flows free and the ideas pop up organically— a stream-of-consciousness style, if you will.  My old Army buddy Michael Marino does it as a matter of course, cranking out articles of chaotic beauty whilst explaining the positive sides of marijuana and/or wine or the death knell of democracy in Roswell, New Mexico, of all places.  He is what I always wanted to be— a freethinker— one who allows the words to write themselves out of a sense of moral obligation or whatever he thinks it is.