Frank Gutch Jr: Scott Boyer: A Message In the Wind; A Repeat About Vinyl; and Them Tasty Notes

Scott Boyer has died.  Since the summer of 1971 I have been spouting his name— his and Tommy Talton‘s and Bill Pillmore‘s and Tom Wynn‘s and George Clark‘s and Pete Kowalke‘s (now living and still playing music under his not-so-new moniker, Peter Giri). They called themselves Cowboy and were a six-pronged country rock outfit out of Jacksonville who signed with Capricorn Records right after The Allman Brothers Band— indeed, signed because of The Allmans.  I say Jacksonville because that is where they settled as the band was forming.

Frank Gutch Jr: Jim of Seattle and Jaimie Vernon: Sci-Fi to Retro at 20,000 Watts; Plus Notes You Should Take More Seriously

Goddamn Jim of Seattle…  I no sooner put last week’s column to bed and here he comes along with an album which has had me up nights and all weekend with “We are the Elders… We Are the Elders… We are the Elders…” running through my head on a constant loop.  I can’t stop it and it would drive me crazy if I didn’t love it so much.  See, ol’ Jim came up with this idea… well, maybe I should tell you about his last album because sure as shootin’ you either have not heard it or have forgotten.

Frank Gutch Jr: Let’s Talk Notary Sojac; The Return of Highlight Bomb; Jeff Ellis (Plus Notes)

I was twenty-three, fresh out of the Army and full of frustration and cynicism.  I had spent the last one year, nine months, two days, four hours and thirty-five minutes in what I considered a military prison.  Before I was drafted, I was a radical, a hippie, an idealist.  Staunchly anti-war, I isolated myself from old friends and family.  I smoked dope, joined The Resistance and demonstrated on and off the University of Oregon campus.  When I got out of the Army and returned to Eugene, I learned that I hated everyone who displayed bumper stickers or posters which heralded “America— Love It Or Leave It” or “My Country, Right or Wrong” as if they were the Eleventh and Twelfth Commandments.  Those who upheld vocal groups like Up With People as true American music became my enemy.

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: ‘Til Death Do Us Part… A Nod To Musicians Who Left Us In 2015, But First…; Plus Notes!

This is not my favorite column to write.  In my youth, death was death, something which happened to everyone else.  As a young man, I looked upon it as simply draining the talent pool because by then I was consumed with music— immersed in it to the point that life beyond it was a blur.  In middle-age, it began becoming personal— friends and favorites taking the dive either stunningly quick or in dire circumstances.

Frank Gutch Jr: David Bullock: The Price of Obscurity and the Struggle For Balance; Plus Notes

The first thing David Bullock said to me when I asked about his new EP, In the Waking World, was, and this is paraphrased, “How do I write my bio without emphasizing Space Opera?”  I wanted to say hell if I know but the more I thought about it the easier it seemed.  Only because I probably know more about that band than maybe a dozen people out there (beyond the crazies who go out of their ways to find out what a musician has for breakfast).

Frank Gutch Jr: And Now For Something Completely (Well, Almost) Different, Plus Notes…..

Before I begin this, a little heads up.  Fort Worth, that bastion of musical lugubriation which has been producing worthy quarter and eighth note treatises since before Rock was born, is gracing us with two projects of which you need to be aware.  One involves Jim Colegrove and cohort Roscoe West (and a cast of others) who have come together in a group calling themselves Men of Extinction.  With music dipped in Country & Western and old-time Rock with a little Soul thrown in on the side, they have put together a very tasty and sometimes humorous album titled We Made It Ourselves.  And they did.

Frank Gutch Jr: Majors Creek (Australia) Music Fest Carries On Without Founder Peter Gillespie, Memories of the Eugene Pop Festival of 1969, and E.J. Simpson— The Most Base of Bassists… Plus the Ever-Wondrous Notes…..

If you live in the States or Canada, you can be forgiven for not knowing about Majors Creek, for there are plenty of people who live in Australia who know little or nothing about it.  Here is a DBAWIS primer for those in the dark.

Frank Gutch Jr: While Most of Us Talk, Some of Us Do— Grass-Tops Recording; Record Store Day Goodies; Media and Politics— The Hot Topics Are Nothing New; Plus Them Incredible, Edible Notes

Don’t look now, kiddies, but in spite of all the mumblings and grumblings of a plethora of naysayers, the music industry is reinventing itself.  Not at the top, of course, where one (Universal) or two (are any others left?) keep eating the detritus remaining from the Great Music Holocaust of the late-90s and early-2000s.  Rather than change the model, executives at the various major labels would rather go down with the ship, hopefully while clutching that pot of gold in the form of those golden parachutes being handed out by corporations which claim to lose money but which seem to be able to find millions enough to buy out contracts of those leaving the fold. (How do you spell bribery these days?)  They hang on, but not because they are competent.

Frank Gutch Jr: From Goodnight Moon To Goodnight Songs and Beyond: Famed Children’s Author Still Alive In Prose and Song, or Are You Glad To See Me Or Is That a Grammy In Your Pocket?; Jeff Ellis: A Day Late and a Dollar Short … Plus Notes, as few as they are

Goodnight stars; Goodnight air; Goodnight noises everywhere.

So Margaret Wise Brown ended her classic childrens book Goodnight Moon, a bedtime book for the ages.  Until I received a message from Charlottesville musician, Keith Morris, he of The Crooked Numbers, I had never heard the name nor knew of the book, to my knowledge.  How I missed it I don’t know because not one person of the multitude I asked later was ignorant of its existence, though few recognized the name.