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.
And it’s my view. It won’t mention Heart except to say that I knew their days were well past when they became a tribute band (and it was long before The Kennedy Center performance) and it won’t mention Nirvana because, let’s face it, Nirvana has already been mentioned enough (Okay, I might mention them once). I might mention Perry Como, though, because he had the hit with those lyrics and I might mention Bobby Sherman (just for the hell of it). I will mention many artists and bands of evidently little consequence outside of that fair city because I certainly do not hear them mentioned by people outside the Pac Northwest (by the people I know, anyway). But first, should you think Seattle a mere backdrop for movies and TV programs, let us look at what the youth think, and before you start pounding the keyboard in protest, I have not vetted the information and don’t really care (though having lived in Seattle for over thirteen years, I can attest to the fact that everyone does love Dick’s… Drive-In, and how can you not love the fact that they have a train/trolley called the SLUT). I’m just glad to see the youth making this attempt:
I took a drive yesterday. I had been sitting in front of the computer screen too long and accomplishing little of anything at all and I needed a break. Usually when I hit the road I take music I need to hear for writing reasons but this time I needed time to myself. I grabbed one I had the urge to review by Town Mountain which when I pulled open the CD cover discovered was minus the disc. I had left it in my computer player at home. I have lost more than one disc that way. The other two were there though and I had heard neither all the way through for over a year: Lisa Parade‘s Finding Flora and Maxi Dunn‘s Edmund & Leo. I couldn’t wait.
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It is time to eat some words and I do so with remorse. Those words, spoken when I was young and somewhat foolish and also feeling a bit immortal, I suppose, were tossed at The Cowsills and other groups and artists I found somewhat wanting in terms of musical output. They were pointed at a string of what I would call “manufactured” bands— those whose music supposedly came from the hit makers— I called it Hollywood music back then. The Monkees took a big hit, the band put together not really for music but for TV.
I remember it like it was yesterday, hearing that John Stewart had left us. My heart sank and all that was good seemed to disappear. John and I had been acquaintances, of a sort. We had met when a salesman working for a distributor handling Stewart’s own label, Neon Dreams, brought him into the dungeon at Peaches Records in Seattle for a visit. We were introduced and I liked him from the first handshake. I at first felt intimidated, of course. How could you not be when you considered his background— the Kingston Trio albums and before that, The Cumberland Three, and after that, the incredibly huge string of solo albums.
Want to know how stupid we are? Us Americans, anyway? Pretty damn, as far as I can see, and all it took was sitting down and taking ten minutes to map out one day. I have had people tell me that if I really want to know what is happening, I should sit down every day and write down everything I did. Not in detail but with enough to show me what really happened and not just what I thought happened. When I did, I was stunned. See, I live on a very limited budget (What? You think we get paid for all the fun we have here at DBAWIS?) and I thought I was doing pretty well navigating through life. One days list and I’m not so sure.
I don’t know what youth wants from us old farts, especially when it comes to music. Many mock us for being Boomers, many laugh at our music. I can understand. I laugh at us, too. Our insistence that stars are gods, especially rock and movie stars. Our self-indulgence. Our knowledge that we more than any others are omniscient. God, but there have been times when I wished I had been borne of another generation (until I look at the other generations and realize that they are as fucked up as are we).
It all started when Laurie Biagini posted a link to a video (Lydia Purple) by The Collectors, a legendary Pac NW band out of British Columbia back in the sixties (and, yes, B.C. is in the Pac NW). My buddy Howie Wahlen followed that up by taking pictures and posting both sides of The Collectors‘ first album jacket and the die was cast.
Bullseye Records of Canada
Segarini: Don't Believe a Word I Say 