Frank Gutch Jr: The Future Takes Forever, The Past Is But a Click Away; Plus Notes

One of the jobs I have laid out before me is writing reviews, not just of music I love but books and  other things which give me delight. It is fun most of the time but lately I am beginning to wonder if I have not taken on more than I can handle. Mentally, I find my self flagging, stacks of CDs and numerous digital files and the occasional vinyl LP/EP, ready to review when I first received them, still there, not reviewed. I want to get to them but for some the words don’t come and for others there is just not enough time. The problem is the listening. I have always prided myself on listening to each album numerous times before putting word to paper, as it were, but if I continue that I will eventually either quit out of frustration or guilt.

Frank Gutch Jr: Byron Isaacs: The Disappearing Man; Dumpster Diving (The Album Chronicles); and Notes of a Lugubrious Nature (Or Maybe It’s Luxurious… Damn it! Where’s My Dictionary?)

 Byron Isaacs is the kind of guy that makes you want to shout, Hey!  I know that guy!  I do, you know.  Well, not know know him, but know him.  Know his music.  Know his professionalism and his makeup.  Know his importance to the world of music.  Sure, I only met him once, but that once was enough to tell me who he was and is.  I mean, I know him.  Get it?

I would have to explain the whole degrees of separation thing for you to understand how we met.  What the hell.  I’ll give you the Cliff’s Notes version.

Frank Gutch Jr: Kate & Ruth Brian Cullman Stu Nunnery Bill Jackson No Small Children — Plus Notes

Please allow me to start this column with an aside.  Each year, I compile a list of albums I consider the best.  Last year, I picked Lost Leaders‘ self-titled album because it had that indescribable something which made me come back to it again and again.  I mean, I love this album!!!

Frank Gutch Jr: Sometimes the Past Is the Future (and Sometimes the Past Is Just the Past)— Revisiting Items Which Beg Revisiting…..

Lots going on in music these days— Apple announcing their foray into streaming (I love the headlines such as “Apple May Save the Recording Industry”— I mean, what idiot thought that one up?) and the Brian Wilson biopic (My buddy Stan Twist says that if you are either a Brian Wilson or a Beach Boys fan, you won’t want to miss it) and there are lots of new albums to go over.  And, as always, old ones too.  But…

Frank Gutch Jr: New Albums: Lost Leaders, Zoe Muth, Chris & Gileah, Joseph LeMay, and Others; and Voluminarious Notes (there will be a quiz)!!!

If this was a real job, I would have been fired long ago.  I spent a whole day and night piecing together the research for this weeks column which was intended to be fun and games with radio charts because, man, when you get into them (especially the ones from the fifties and sixties), they are fun as hell and, boy, the tricks you have to know to understand them, but once again things came along to kick the idea to the curb.  It happens every week, swear to God, so I took a little trip down computer lane and counted the columns and column ideas I have started and not finished and it came to 27.  The good thing is that I still have 27 ideas set aside for future columns.  The bad news is that I haven’t worked on any one of them since. Sigh.

Frank Gutch Jr: Perspectives… Music— Does the Past Control Our Future? Music Snobbery. Lyricists, Take Note. Nightmare @ 20,000 Watts. And Information You Can Eat For Breakfast (Meaning, Notes…..).

Here I go on one of my cerebral journeys, most of which run into a brick wall and consign themselves to the ash heap.  I, like most of the world, have a very short attention span, it seems, and while I have bursts of genius (I swear!) little of it makes it to the outside world.  This time, the message(s) is(are) spurred by a link posted by friend Greg Phipps, with whom I worked at Peaches Records in Seattle in the 80s (Phipps, btw, records under the name Palestinian Israel-Jones, should you desire to visit his planet), who has been on a roll finding and posting or reposting questions and videos worth my, if not your, attention.  For instance, a couple of weeks ago, he asked about the negativity toward celebrities “selling out,” whoring their wares for profit.