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: Canada! Drake Is Coming! (Angharad Drake, That Is); The Omniverous Trailers;

There are musicians who are outstanding and there are musicians who are unique but seldom do you find one who is both.  I have found maybe a small bucketful during my lifetime who rise to the fly (as fly fisherman are wont to say) and most of those would be under your radar but they are there, regardless of cynics’ belief that music is dead.  My problem is that when they do come along, I am so like Chicken Little that few believe it.  Most take my loud cries of ecstasy as another of my many elaborate hoaxes, though I wonder how they know because they haven’t heeded my advice anyway.  You want to know what discouragement is?  Discouragement is posting a video or audio track, getting 17 “likes” but only three more views or listens than when you posted it.  I guess it is most times easier to click a button than to actually listen.

Frank Gutch Jr: The Real John Mayall (w Peter Green); Rockumentaries of Note; and Speaking of Notes…..

 

The first time I heard John Mayall, Eric Clapton completely blew me away, his guitar edgy and new to my ears.  I knew Clapton from the Five Live Yardbirds album and that band’s smokin’ hot version of Smokestack Lightnin’, a track I will never hear without stopping to listen (unless drivin’ down the road a hundred miles an hour).  After hearing The Yardbirds, it seemed a safe bet to give Mayall a chance and I have to confess that John Mayall With Eric Clapton was pure steroid for what would become a lifelong appreciation of the rockin’ side of the blues.

Frank Gutch Jr: On a Midnight Listening Rampage With Eric Lichter

If you have never stumbled through the night listening to something you’d never heard before you’re not going to understand what a thrill this is, but I am right now diving through a string of songs by The Green Pajamas‘ Eric Lichter that I don’t think even he knew were posted.  Not that long ago, I was searching Facebook for possible inclusions in the Notes section of this column and Eric posted a couple of songs on a site called Broadjams.com.

Frank Gutch Jr: It Has Barely Started and Already 2013 Is a Kickass Year…..

In fact, this may damn well be the year I kick the bucket.  My life has pretty much been music, or music at its core, and it has never been better and I have to say that this next year promises to be the best yet.  Ever have that feeling that you can’t lose?  I not only have that feeling but am overwhelmed by it, politics be damned!  So pardon me while I crawl into my hole and surround myself with a future major labels only dream about.  Pay attention.  There will be a quiz.

Frank Gutch Jr: O Canada! You’re Music To My Ears, Part Deux! Another Look at New Canadian Music Really Worth Hearing….. Steve Young and Jubal Lee Young Play Eugene….. Jon Gomm and Canada….. and NOTES!!!

A number of months ago I wrote about Canadian music here on DBAWIS.  That column included mentions of The Dementians, Laurie Biagini, Lisa O’Neill, Eric Corne, Shade, White Light Machine, Lester Quitzau, and Redgy Blackout.  There has been a lot of water under the bridge since then and Canada, like every other country in the musical world, is cranking more music out by the hour, it seems, and good music it is.  It is funny, but when I write about music in  the States, it seems like (and I know it is only in my head) I am writing about the obvious.  Canada, though, is another world and an adventure I so enjoy experiencing that I am going to take a little mental break and update you on a few of those listed the first go-round and break a little ground with a handful of artists from the Far Northlands about which/whom I have not yet written.  Much.

Frank Gutch Jr: O Canada! (You’re Music to My Ears)

Repeat after me.  “There just isn’t any good music out there these days.”  Repeat it again.  And again.  And again.  Repeat it a thousand times and it will be no truer than it was the first time.  There is more good music out there than there has ever been.  Truth is, we have forgotten how to listen.  We went through a golden age of radio and had our music handed to us by a system controlled by people who supposedly knew what they were doing and we’ve gotten lazy.  We are the fattened calves, awaiting sustenance from the gods.  We are pools of fat melted on the car seat.  And seriously, dude, there just isn’t any good music out there any more.