Frank Gutch Jr: John ‘Buck’ Ormsby: Maybe Out of His Tree, But Never Out of His League; Plus, Artists Who Should Have Made It (A Musical Roundup)

This morning was cold and wet with a chill that went to the bone, the clouds threatening, the rain off and on but somehow consistent.  I knew it would be.  Yesterday, my friend John Hicks had posted a message that Buck Ormsby had died.  No way, I thought, because I had had contact only a few days previous— just a note, but contact.  When I approached Hicks, he said that he had found out from Ormsby’s son’s page.  He sent me the link and there it was.  We are sorry to report… and the words became a blur.   While it hardly seemed possible, Buck was gone.  Is gone, for none of us will hear from him again and that is truly a sad thing.

Frank Gutch Jr: Tin Soldiers and Nixon Coming; The Beginning and End of War; The Professor (Brady Earnhart) Is Back; and Notes…..

I was drafted in 1969 to fight a war I did not believe could even happen yet was embraced by the US of A as a way of stopping the dreaded Red Menace.  I knew it was coming and would have most likely headed for Canada but for a father my doing so would have destroyed, so I didn’t go.  I spent the previous four years at the University of Oregon with flammable draft card in my pocket (a 4-A college deferment marking me a coward in many people’s minds) and a growing hatred for conservatives willing to talk but not willing to go.

 

Frank Gutch Jr: Sonics Boom! Seattle’s Peter Blecha Writes (Not Rewrites) Pac NW Music History!, Pac NW Labels— In Fact, It’s the Great Pac NW Rundown, Part One! (plus Notes?)…..

You may not know or know of Peter Blecha, but I do.  Peter and I have been acquaintances if not friends for a number of years and I have watched his growth as a writer and music historian with great interest.  We share an intense interest in the Pacific Northwest music scene, past and present, and we both revered the music and the bands which inhabited the various periods in the Pac NW music saga.  We know that the rest of the world, if not for The Sonics and Paul Revere & The Raiders, would consider the music scene minor league at best, but have always considered the rest of the world ignorant of the music and artists who seemingly have and have had to struggle for respect beyond the borders of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana.

Frank Gutch Jr.: Tom Kell & The Skyboys, Michael Fennelly, Stu Nunnery, “Goin’ Down”, and Just Plain Nuts– erm– Notes…..

I have learned my lesson.  Numerous times over the past few years, I have been caught at my desk, coffee at hand, spewing said coffee in copious amounts thanks to the writings of my colleagues here at DBAWIS, sometimes through the mouth and sometimes through the nose.  It is altogether possible that I have unknowingly spewed through various other orifices of my body as well, but by the time I get through laughing, everything is dry and, therefore, in the distant past, as it were.