Frank Gutch Jr: Lady Gaga? Really? How About the Real Women in Music?

My yardstick for music is a simple one.  If everyone likes it, it can’t be worth a shit.  Think Hitler as a rock star.  He, too, had a following, though few would own up to being part of it after the finale.  What is it that makes everyone so enamored with this musician as opposed to this other musician who is playing practically the same thing?  Hell if I know.  How does one become a hit overnight?  Hell if I know.  Why are people attracted to certain artists, en masse?  You guessed it.  Hell if I know.  But I can goddamn guarantee you that while you are talking about the Lady Gaga halftime show, and my guess is that most of you talking about music are, you’re missing a few thousand musicians worth hearing, some of them playing music way outside the formulaic box the Gaga has built for herself.  Taylor Swift?  I love some of her songs but there are songs as good as that out there if you take the time to listen.

Frank Gutch Jr: It Is Catch-UP Time Again, But First, Let’s Talk Petunia (In a Viperly Sort of Way)… Plus Note(s)

I don’t know if it’s music or it is just the way things are and I just miss it all the time, but there is a tsunami of music headed our way and I can’t keep up.  As many videos and songs and albums as I can find, there are mountains awaiting to be discovered on what seems a daily basis.  I don’t know what to do.  I’m drowning and I’m on the freaking shore.  So set yourself.  We are going on a little ride which might be a long one because I am going to pack as much as I can into one column if for no other reason than to ease my conscience.  That’s right.  It bothers me when so many musicians cannot even scratch the surface— the good ones anyway.

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.

Frank Gutch Jr: My Memories of Capricorn; Plus Notes

Guy walks into the barracks, tosses a couple of albums on my bunk and it is a benchmark moment.  You’ve heard it before, probably too many times, but it happened.  The albums?  The Allman Brothers Band‘s first album and Steve Young‘s Rock Salt & Nails.  Both lodged themselves permanently in my collection and in my heart.  Young’s was to take awhile but the Allmans’ was immediate.  From the first note of Don’t Want You No More, I was hooked.  Desert island time.  Hall of Fame.

Frank Gutch Jr: Old Is Not Irrelevant

While working on this weeks column in which I had hoped to give insights into record labels and how they evolved, I realized that much of the music of the past and my attitudes toward it and the business surrounding it needed to be readdressed.

Frank Gutch Jr: Dave McGraw & Mandy Fer, Danny Schmidt, and Susan James— I Can’t Stand the Silence; plus Notes (and an apology to David Olney)…

I am being steamrolled.  It is a conspiracy, or maybe just the herd instinct.  What is the herd instinct?  That is the terminology we used when I used to work in retail records when for half an hour people would mill around the store until one came to the register, at which time those remaining followed.  We would check out three people in half an hour and suddenly there were fifty people standing in line.  Today it would be called WTF?  Then, we chalked it up to the herd instinct.