Yesterday I went through all of the private messages I’d shared with Frank Gutch Jr, since I’d first encountered him. It was in 2013, just after I’d begun writing this weekly column, and right from that first message, it was as though we were separated at birth.
Goldband Studios is gone. Here I have been spending the past few years singing the praises of Research Turtles— I call them the boys from Lake Charles— without realizing that the city/town/parish also was home to Eddie Shuler and Goldband. Dumb me. I have known of Goldband since I was in college, having found them through That Dorm Guy who was somehow plugged into anything and everything musical. I look back now at him and wonder how he was able to find so much music in a land with pretty much nothing but Billboard Magazine to guide him, but he did.
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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.
… and I’m looking for trouble because that’s just what you have to do sometimes. Tributes and covers are sucking the soul right out of me and probably out of the goddamn entire world but you soulless bastards have no clue! This whole I-got-to-see-the-best-bands and there-ain’t-no-good-music-anymore attitude is killing the listening floor (screw the dance floor) and I’ve had it up to my neck with the I-don’t-like-today’s-music-so-fuck-you memes on the social media and threads in the forums to the point that I’m thinking hell could not be a worse place to live— at least compared to this musical rotgut of a world we live in today.
Frank Gutch Jr: Due to circumstances beyond our control, you will be getting my column in two segments this week. I had the Notes ready to go but last night had to deal with a kidney stone the size and shape of the original Batmobile, and I am not talking the model. I was just about to take a sharp spoon and attempt to dig it out, kidney and all, when the pain slowly subsided and I was allowed some rest.
I got a message! Yep, I got a message from someone who was not trying to steal my identity or sell me penis enhancement medication! I mean, this does not happen as much as you would think, even with my superior intellect and excellent writing skills. I am sure most of you picture me at a desk overflowing with fan mail— buried in it, in fact.
After last night’s No Small Children gig, drummer Nicola B made a statement I have been waiting to hear for the past couple of decades. Remarking about the previous night’s show in Seattle at The Central Tavern, she said that they had “turned the room.”. Basically, it means that while, at first, no one paid much attention, by the last song, everyone was on board. Even dancing, she said (quite enthusiastically, I might add).
That’s right, sports fans, I have once again rammed the ol’ cranium up against the proverbial brick wall. Four good starts on this week’s column and nothing to really show except four three-paragraph dead ends, at least for now. And deadline looms. What to do, what to do… After much thought (not really), I have decided to pack together a whole string of odds and ends for you to pick through, if you so desire— flotsam and jetsam, as it were. Ideas not long enough for a column, musical bits and pieces, brain farts and the like. Indeed, I looked up the term “flotsam and jetsam” on thefreedictionary.com just to make sure that I had the term right and, for once, I did. “Useless or discarded objects,” it said. “Odds and ends.” Well, I hope I stay away from the former, but the latter seems to fit. Just remember— no overlying theme. Whatever comes to (my) mind.
I am less than a month away from seeing, barring act of God or congress (small ‘c’ intentional), No Small Children rock Portland (or Seattle) and, old as I am, it is getting hard to contain myself. They will supposedly be playing Slabtown April 5th, though I do not see it listed on that venue’s site schedule, so I am keeping my options open for a long drive. Would I miss it? Only by the act mentioned beforehand.
This past week I am working on two big articles, this column and have a stack of reviews waiting to be written and am wondering where I can find the time. I need a good 48 hours in a day to even think about keeping up, but if they gave them to me I would more than likely use them napping or watching Howard Stern make a judging ass out of himself on network TV (No, I wouldn’t. I hated him when he was doing his radio and TV shows. After watching him embarrass himself brown-nosing some poor schlep who was lucky enough to make it to the end of some lame circus act of song or dance, it reinforced my initial judgment.
Bullseye Records of Canada
