Sometimes you hit the wall and sometimes the wall hits you. Well, the wall hit me this week. I had five good starts on columns and all five fizzled out. Lucky for me, I have a bathtub full of gin and older articles and interviews to which I can turn when the brain cells stop operating. Lucky for you, one of those interviews is one I conducted with one of the seventies’ key people on the Memphis music scene: John Fry. Here, he talks about Ardent Records‘ deal with Stax Records, the disaster which brought both labels to the edge of oblivion and the promise of two bands which would gain popularity long after the fact: Cargoe and Big Star. It is is fascinating for a number of reasons, not the least of which was Big Star‘s rise to the top years later without the media hype such rises usually entail. I give this to you exactly as I posted it right after the turn of the century.
Archive for Cargoe
Frank Gutch Jr: Ardent’s John Fry Talks About Ardent Records, Big Star, Cargoe and Stax…..
Posted in Opinion with tags ardent records, Big Star, Cargoe, DBAWIS, Don't Believe a Word I Say, Frank Gutch Jr., Green Pajamas, Indie Artists, Indie Music, John Fry, music, Records, Stax Records, Terry Manning, The Hot Dogs on February 13, 2013 by segariniFrank Gutch Jr: Fun With 45s (Into the Depths of Hell), Jess Pillmore Breaks Her Silence, and Notes…..
Posted in Opinion with tags Ace, Aces Straights & Shuffles, April Wine, Bridey Murphy, Cargoe, Crushed Out, Daddy Cool, Dan Phelps, DBAWIS, Dewey Terry, Don't Believe a Word I Say, Eric Lichter, Five Man Electrical Band, Flash Cadillac, Frank Gutch Jr., Free Beer, Green Pajamas, Horslips, Indie Artists, Indie Music, jess Pillmore, Jessy Greene, Joel Brown., Ken Stringfellow, Little Roger & The Goosebumps, Marmalade, Mean Creek, Michael Dinner, music, Paul Carrack, Poor Young Things, Ray Brandes, Records, Rubettes, Sweet Pain, Tell-Tale Hearts, The Detergents, The Record Company, Tom Dyer, Xenat-Ra on November 7, 2012 by segarini
That’s what one of my old girlfriends used to call hanging out at my place. The Depths of Hell. Of course, as far as I could tell, anyplace which did not exclusively play everything Los Angeles was hell to her. Linda Ronstadt. The Eagles. Joni Mitchell. Jackson Browne. Gawd, but I always thought if there was a hell on Earth, it was Los Angeles. Soft Rock hell. Bland hell. Mediocre hell. Just plain hell.
Frank Gutch Jr: Confessions of a Rock Critic (Or, I Hear Dead People)….
Posted in Opinion with tags ardent records, bomp, Cargoe, DBAWIS, don swancy, Don't Believe a Word I Say, fauntella crow, folk and acoustic music exchange, Frank Gutch Jr., Indie Artists, Indie Music, jo stafford, lester bangs, lunic, marshburn, music, ralph gleason, stealing jane, The Game Played Right, Zoe Muth on August 8, 2012 by segarini
The best review I ever wrote, nobody read. It was for an EP virtually no one heard and a band virtually no one remembers (outside of Sea Cliff NY, anyway) and it may have been the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back (actually, mine), the review which makes me wonder why I even bother with them. There are only so many “if a bear shits in the woods” scenarios one can take before cracking, you know…
Frank Gutch Jr: My Own Little Bizzaro World
Posted in Opinion with tags April Wine, Capability Brown, Cargoe, Daddy Cool, DBAWIS, Don't Believe a Word I Say, Frank Gutch Jr., Gypsy, Michael Harrison, Nick Holmes, Robert Thomas Velinne, Space Opera, Willis Alan Ramsey on November 9, 2011 by segarini
One of my favorite movie scenes is the one in Diner where this maniac vinyl junkie scares the hell out of his wife by going nuclear on her with his musical knowledge. Know why? Because I could have been that guy. Like him, I would have had to have married straight out of high school because if you give girls a chance, they eventually soak up enough knowledge to steer clear of psychotic idiots like myself (and him) and make better choices, regardless how bad. Was I that bad, you ask? Sad to say, I must have been. I always thought my life was normal and that I was actually a pretty average guy (though handsome as the dickens and with a sense of humor which could disable a battlefield with wit), but I may have been wrong, the key words here being “may have been”.
