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.
Someone once told me I was eccentric. I laughed out loud because I am the least eccentric of any people I know. I am, in fact, so normal and middle-of-the-road that I occasionally label myself boring. I am. Boring, that is. I am a puddle of mediocrity in a pool of ordinary. The jack of all trades and master of none. Neither the dimmest bulb nor the brightest. Plain yogurt. A one dollar bill. I am as exciting as baseball in the off-season and Christmas in July. I have been the second choice of too many girls to recount (Gosh, Frank, if it wasn’t for— insert name here— it would be you) and the tenth choice on a team of nine. I write because I have no other talent. I am the sponge which lives vicariously. Even the kids who love me abandon me when they are old enough to realize…
I would love to gather all of the music directors of so-called Classic Rock radio stations in the Roman Coliseum and turn the lions loose. I was around long before the term Classic Rock was even phrased and as big a fan of rock radio as there was and I learned to hate everything radio tried to do after big money came in with all of their ideas to make radio “better.” I suffered through a number of formats from the time of “Boss” radio to the present, the only one being worth a shit (to my mind) being Underground. Ah, the days of underground. I remember returning from the Army to Eugene and radio station KZEL and being floored with evening sets by The Wasted Potato (I think his name was Gary Parmentier) like War/Four Cornered Room, The Temptations/Masterpiece, and Funkadelic/Maggot Brain, back-to-back-to-back.
I met Danny Schmidt at The Sisters Folk Festival nine years ago. He had invited me to attend, though I am sure he forgot it right away. I know I surprised him. My first words to him as he passed by to play a set in a tented area were “The Longhorns suck” which brought the Look of Death for Danny was and is a fervent Texas Longhorn fan, him having grown up in Austin and all. I realized my mistake right off. He had no idea who I was, having never seen me before. And it wasn’t his best day.
I picked up a turntable for my sister a couple of months ago. She had found what she said was about twenty of her old albums (it was more like a hundred and fifty) and had the urge to once again hear them. Mostly they were albums I remember her liking— Percy Faith, Rod McKuen, Enoch Light and the like. She drove me nuts with those albums when we were kids but I secretly liked a lot of them. (I did truly hate the Sound of Music, Colleen, but the others were okay).
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.
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It’s that time of year again, sports fans. Santa has been on the radio for the past two months, robot disc jockeys and purveyors of everything muzak beating us senseless with varying renditions of Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree and Jolly Old Saint Nicholas, hoping to lighten our mood enough to loosen the old purse strings. Hallmark Channel have kicked into full Christmas mode, plastering their channels with their cookie-cutter movies which vary mostly by the changing of leading ladies (this year’s favorite, by far, is Hilarie Burton, whom I saw in an old Castle episode and was floored by not only her beauty but the fact that the casting could not have been more right). I wish they had more creativity over at Hallmark, their overuse of the five plots and rotating stars coming very close to consumer abuse. But, hey, I’m a sap.
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).
I want to tell you about four musicians— people, really— but I don’t know if I can. Oh, I could tell a few stories, wrangle up some comments and maybe tell you about their music, which is more than likely what I will attempt to do, but I will not be able to really tell you anything about them. Does a resume ever say anything about the person? I don’t think so. But it may be the place to start.
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New and impressive albums are piling up on me and I have been on a listening tear. I cannot even imagine how far you are behind. Way behind, if you’re still giving time to The Beatles and Led Zeppelin. I would have thought you had memorized those by now. Like our fearless leader Bob Segarini is always saying, there’s more great music out there than ever, whether you choose to believe it or not. Set yourself. This column skims what I think are the best and most overlooked over the recent months. Starting with…..
Bullseye Records of Canada
Segarini: Don't Believe a Word I Say 