Frank Gutch Jr: Generation Found; It Was a Long Walk Home (Thoughts Spurred By Separation From Viet Nam-Era Army); plus N-n-n-n-notes…

 

For years I have been telling you that music isn’t just music.  Some of you understand, mostly musicians who spend a lot of energy and time helping out those in need.  Others shrug it off because they know either that there is no good music anymore so what good would it do, or that musicians are either children avoiding growing up or are millionaires waiting for the train.  Don’t tell that to the people at Sweet Relief or Musicares or any of the other charity organizations out there.  There is a lot of hard work being laid down by scores of musicians and music people, aware that good fortune can turn sour at the drop of a hat.

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: From Africa With Love: Dirtmusic, Tamikrest and Gary Heffern; Pandora vs. Pink Floyd: The Digital Distribution Debate Continues; Music History 101; and Notes…..

I’m going back to school.  I’ve been going to school since I graduated, in fact, because if there is one truth in the world it is that as much as we know, we know too little.  About people.  About science.  About truth.  And about music, among a few thousand other subjects.  We are a defective lot which is to say in vinyl terms that we are warped or scratched or that we skip.  Us humans are, in effect, not the top but the bottom of the food chain as far as I can tell because we are the only species who think we know it all.