Frank Gutch Jr: Consider These Reruns (Glimpses From the Past); Plus Notes of a Lugubrious Nature

Looking back has become a thing of the present lately.  It began when I felt a guilt sneak over me because so many of the artists I have written about have seemingly passed their buy-by date.  The listening public, it seems, only want the past in terms of oldies or the classics. God forbid they should let the music decide for them.  Add to that my inability at times to come up with fresh subject matter and a nostalgic bent and it seems the logical choice.  It is doubtful that many of you have read many of my columns from the distant past and those who have probably have lost the gist.  So why not visit the past here and there?  I have gleaned through many columns and have picked a handful of segments I believe will be of interest to a wide variety of readers.  Let us start with one overlooking the Pac Northwest, titled…

Frank Gutch Jr: Sweet Relief III: Cover Songs I Can Get Behind, Even In The Midst of This Covers/Tribute Glut… And If You Want Covers, I Have Some Right Here In the Hall Closet (Crash! Bang! Boom!) Plus Notes…..

If you understood the reference to the hall closet, you are a fossil like myself and ready for the wood heap.  Better start taking Geritol again (the Stone Age’s answer to Centrum).

It is a strange world in which I find myself these days and not one I am particularly fond of, especially since supposed music lovers (and the media) have jumped on this covers/tribute thing like it is more than a fad (it isn’t, at least the way in which the music is being approached).  I laugh— no, I guffaw— at the idea of bands bowing at the feet of other bands, thinking that signs of obeisance gives them any kind of credibility in the real world of music and musicians.