Frank Gutch Jr: Daisy House— An A&R Dream

In all my years in music, I never worked for a label.  I wanted to.  But I wanted to work only in A&R.  Artists and Repertoire.  They were the people who found the artists, who were liaison between the artist and label management, who groomed the performers and worked with them on the songs for their albums and maybe just the direction of focus.  I knew a few A&R people in L.A.  They loved it.  They wouldn’t have done anything else.  Most of them, when their A&R gigs ended, got out of the business because it was a sewer everywhere else.  Sales?  The pits.  Promotion?  Real work.  Management?  A path, most of the time, to disaster.  I mean, A&R was where the adventure was.  And is.

Frank Gutch Jr: Brian Cullman, David Bullock, Bill Jackson, and Tom House: People and Stories Behind My Favorite New Music, Plus Notes From the Musical Underground…..

 

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.

Frank Gutch Jr: They Come From Edmonton— Science Fiction of the Most Musical Variety… Plus Notes

They were Jesse Dee & Jacquie B when I first heard them— two waifs supposedly in the outbacks of the Yukon surviving by hunting and survival skills, living off the land, playing bars for beer.  They ate raw meat, sometimes frozen if there was no way to thaw it (there evidently isn’t, on the whole), but skirted moose and squirrel out of respect.

Frank Gutch Jr: My Music Bubbleth Under

It should be no secret by now that when it comes to music I am drawn to the non-hits, the non-charters, and the obscure.  Some of the most beloved music of my past have consisted of  artists and songs only the most avant of the garde have treasured— the Little John & The Monks and the Cargoes and, until their fairly recent deification, the Big Stars.  It started innocently enough— the placement of Jimmy Bowen‘s By the Light of the Silv’ry Moon on radio station KEX‘s Barney Keep‘s playlist, but it was enough.