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.
That’s right, sports fans, I have once again rammed the ol’ cranium up against the proverbial brick wall. Four good starts on this week’s column and nothing to really show except four three-paragraph dead ends, at least for now. And deadline looms. What to do, what to do… After much thought (not really), I have decided to pack together a whole string of odds and ends for you to pick through, if you so desire— flotsam and jetsam, as it were. Ideas not long enough for a column, musical bits and pieces, brain farts and the like. Indeed, I looked up the term “flotsam and jetsam” on thefreedictionary.com just to make sure that I had the term right and, for once, I did. “Useless or discarded objects,” it said. “Odds and ends.” Well, I hope I stay away from the former, but the latter seems to fit. Just remember— no overlying theme. Whatever comes to (my) mind.
The first time I ever heard The Beach Boys was at a birthday party for a friend of mine. She received the album and a new stereo. She put the album on and I was listening to it and by the time it got to “Catch a Wave”, the third track on the first side, I was freaking out. I didn’t want to have anything to do with the birthday party anymore. I just wanted to sit with my ears glued to the speakers, listening to this great music. I saved up my allowance and that was the first album I ever bought.
— Laurie Biagini
I swear to God, when Kim Grant is not pushing me toward something, she is. A simple post of a video in her last newsletter (see the link at the beginning of the Notes section) regarding The Grand Ole Echo dragged me in an unsuspecting direction, this time to a group out of L.A. calling themselves Stone Darling. Kim, of course, knows my Achilles Heel (Whispering Pines, for all who don’t know) and knows I cannot resist a short walk through the pines, and I’m pretty sure she posts these things just for me because I ask around occasionally and none of my friends seem to know anything (but come to think of it, they don’t know anything about anything). This time, though, I’m not sure what she’s gotten me into. Want a hint? Read this bio written by one Eric Filipkowski:
I sit at the desk a partial human being once again, the throat still coated with viscous fluids and the chronic hacking reduced to a wheezing irritation of the I-think-I-can variety (irritating but not life-threatening). I am drinking Royal Crown Cola (as opposed to the preferred Crown Royal) to reduce viscosity, the mind is somewhat sharp though I could easily use another eighteen hours sleep before writing this (I have been waking at 3 A.M. these past few nights) and wonder how far I will go before losing energy and direction.
Remember when I said 2012 was the best year ever in music? 2013 is even at this early date biting 2012 on the ass. Artists are lining up with what I am sure is going to be a run and a half of outstanding and, in some cases, mindblowing offerings. Rather than wait and write about them pretty much after the fact, let us dig in now in a sort of anticipatory way, shall we?
I should be writing about important things but this week I thought I would take a left turn and explain how we got to where we are, musically. Or at least one small leg of the journey.
It wasn’t all that long ago that I printed a piece about reality and each person’s perspective of it. I used Big Star as an example of how reality can be warped (read it here). I used The Wailers and The Sonics in a similar piece (read that here). Is there no end to my ego?
Bullseye Records of Canada
Segarini: Don't Believe a Word I Say 