Frank Gutch Jr: My Morbid Yet Sanguine World

Someone once told me I was eccentric.  I laughed out loud because I am the least eccentric of any people I know.  I am, in fact, so normal and middle-of-the-road that I occasionally label myself boring.  I am.  Boring, that is.  I am a puddle of mediocrity in a pool of ordinary.  The jack of all trades and master of none.  Neither the dimmest bulb nor the brightest.  Plain yogurt.  A one dollar bill.  I am as exciting as baseball in the off-season and Christmas in July.  I have been the second choice of too many girls to recount (Gosh, Frank, if it wasn’t for— insert name here— it would be you) and the tenth choice on a team of nine.  I write because I have no other talent.  I am the sponge which lives vicariously.  Even the kids who love me abandon me when they are old enough to realize…

Frank Gutch Jr: Consider These Reruns (Glimpses From the Past); Plus Notes of a Lugubrious Nature

Looking back has become a thing of the present lately.  It began when I felt a guilt sneak over me because so many of the artists I have written about have seemingly passed their buy-by date.  The listening public, it seems, only want the past in terms of oldies or the classics. God forbid they should let the music decide for them.  Add to that my inability at times to come up with fresh subject matter and a nostalgic bent and it seems the logical choice.  It is doubtful that many of you have read many of my columns from the distant past and those who have probably have lost the gist.  So why not visit the past here and there?  I have gleaned through many columns and have picked a handful of segments I believe will be of interest to a wide variety of readers.  Let us start with one overlooking the Pac Northwest, titled…

Frank Gutch Jr: The Best of the First Half of What the Hell Do I Know (It’s 2012, I Think) and That Dorm Guy…..

I’m sitting here piecing together the albums I think are the best of the year so far and ready to sing the praises of Sydney Wayser and her magic kingdom, Bell Choir Coast, when the Craig Elkins train t-bones me and scatters what could have been an easy column to the winds.  Who am I kidding?  It is never easy to write this column, especially when I’m comparing apples to oranges which is pretty much what any “Best Of” or “Greatest” list is.  The Truth is, there is no greatest or best of because music is so intensely personal and of the moment that what anyone chooses today they might not choose tomorrow (or even one side) later.