Frank Gutch Jr: Daisy House— An A&R Dream

In all my years in music, I never worked for a label.  I wanted to.  But I wanted to work only in A&R.  Artists and Repertoire.  They were the people who found the artists, who were liaison between the artist and label management, who groomed the performers and worked with them on the songs for their albums and maybe just the direction of focus.  I knew a few A&R people in L.A.  They loved it.  They wouldn’t have done anything else.  Most of them, when their A&R gigs ended, got out of the business because it was a sewer everywhere else.  Sales?  The pits.  Promotion?  Real work.  Management?  A path, most of the time, to disaster.  I mean, A&R was where the adventure was.  And is.

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: I Always Wanted To Be a Musician (Videos With Commentary)…

 

…but I could never pull it together.  Of course, when I was young I thought I was a musician, piddling with the tonette in fourth grade, drafted into the junior high band in the fifth grade because they badly needed a bass drum player, playing drums in what could be called a jazz band then (though we were really not good enough to be called that), playing drums in the high school band and in a couple of rock bands and carrying it on through college.  I loved music and was always around it but I was never really a musician.

Frank Gutch Jr: No Small Children’s ‘Trophy Wife’; Meet Chris & Gileah; Artists I Wouldn’t Want To Miss (But Almost Did); and the Ever Popular Notes…..

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 5^th, 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.

Frank Gutch Jr: The Best of the First Half of 2013,

Jesus, is 2013 great or what?  I’m dancing, crying, thinking, sweating, burping and bopping thanks to a handful of musicians who have me freaking out, they’re so good.  I know I said 2012 was good.  And it was!  Hell, it still is, musically.  Musicians put out some of the best music I’d heard last year, but goddamn it, 2013 is smokin’ hot!  Seriously!  And excuse me for a sec whilst I dance the happy dance.  You see, No Small Children‘s anthemic Might Get Up Slow is playing right now and will for a few times more because I need some uppers!  Shee-it, this is good!  In another time, this would be topping the charts and rocking kids out!  Even famed ex-radio disc jockey Robert W. Walker sez “Fuh-reeking great!”  Jeez, I’m sounding like Barnum & Bailey here, but sometimes you have to let loose, you know?

Frank Gutch Jr: SWEET RELIEF MUSICIANS FUND— Giving Back While Paying Forward, Some Thumbnail Reviews, Plus Notes That, If Repeated, Can Make You Sound Intelligent, Even If You’re Not…..

This is important.  Please read carefully.

It’s coming!  It’s almost here and you probably don’t even know it.  Like that stealthy Sequestering thing the good ol’ boys slipped into the budget bill without anyone noticing, Sweet Relief is readying their third compilation album— on the sly, as it were.  Don’t know anything about it?  I’m not surprised.  Producer/Engineer (and sometimes musician) Sheldon Gomberg has held the information close to his vest and the people at Sweet Relief (and Vanguard Records) are only on the cusp of letting the dogs out.  But it’s coming.  July 9^th.