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: RIP Steve Young; The Minnows and Their On-the-Money Video; Annabel (lee); Bongo Boy Making Their Move; and a Plethora of Videos…

Although I don’t know how much more.  The wind was taken out of my sails last week when I found out that Steve Young had died.  The musician and not the football player— jeez, I have said that so many times over the years but always with a chuckle.  Not this time.  Steve is really gone and things just don’t feel right.

Frank Gutch Jr: Brock Zeman: Six Degrees of Separation; Save the Carleton; Revisiting the Sacred Cow Syndrome; plus Notes…..

The name doesn’t have the rhythmic cache of Biff Pocoroba or Phil Villapiano, but it has its own feel to it.  Brock.  How many people have you met named Brock?  I’ve known a couple.  Well, one.  I’ve heard of a couple, though.  Zeman.  He’s the first one I’ve ever noticed.  I say noticed instead of heard of because as sure as the rains down in Africa (apologies to Toto— the band, not the dog), I will now meet a handful of Brocks and damned if every other person will be a Zeman.  I know.  Never met a girl named Debbie until I dated one, then every other new girl I met was a Debbie.  I’m ready, though.  I have practiced and have at least ten or so unique greetings for the Brocks and Zemans about to be unleashed on me.

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: Bullseye Canada— Let the Salvage Operations Begin: Conversations with Jaimie Vernon… Plus Notes (and One Really Cool Picture of Bow Thayer Guesting With No Small Children)

That would be Bullseye Records, Canada for those unaware, a label pieced together by DBAWIS‘s own Jaimie Vernon and friends— a record company caught in the digital tsunami which wiped out more than one music concern.  In fact, if you define being wiped out as being wiped out, you could probably number them in triple digits, many being “absorbed” by major labels if they could find anything worth adding to their already bloated catalogues.  I will tell you upfront that it is a tale of both success and crushing defeat, of both business and personal failure— not that it could have been avoided.  When the music business started crumbling, it took with it most everything in its path.  If you subscribe to the business as it was.  If your yardstick was measured by the same standards the major labels had set up and followed for decades.  Jaimie and his company took a beating, no doubt, but he is not down and out by a long shot.  He has just, shall we say, been regrouping.