Frank Gutch Jr: Mixtape Was Not Always an Ugly Word

They came to be called Mixtapes (or Mix Tapes) and were/are looked upon with scorn but they started out a way to share music without having to drag people to your house and forcing them to drink while you played records.  They were an outlet for frustrated disc jockeys and vinyl junkies because even though an unusually high percentage of tapes passed from hand to hand were never played, a person had poured over an entire music collection to put together “sets,” a DJ term regarding playing certain songs in a certain sequence.  I know.  I made them and passed them out like candy.  I am sure most who received them rolled their eyes and exited at first chance, but for me it was about the music.  For vinyl junkies, it is always about the music.

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: The Music That Made Me Who I Am…..

It was my birthday last week.  I’m not saying it because it matters much to me— less and less as each year passes.  I mention it because of the things friends tell me, most of which reminds me of who I am and the paths I have taken to get here.  I mean, none of us plan to be who we are— it just evolves.

Frank Gutch Jr: Life at 45 RPM… My Life as a Vinyl Addict; Plus Copious Notes

I am a vinyl addict. The gateway drug was radio.  When it was riding the crest of the wave before TV came along and kicked it to the curb that wasn’t there.  Before TV which a lot of people thought would be the death of radio, a format already writhing in pain.  You could only get so big and radio was gargantuan— a seething mass of gelatinous goo— an 800 pound gorilla.  By the time I came along, everyone had a radio.

Pat Blythe: Toronto Scrapbook – Chapter Two

Well…. This was supposed to be Part Five of The Women of Rock. However, I’m going to take a break and fill you in on some of the sights and sounds of this dynamic city I call home….Toronto…. Hogtown… Muddy York…. The Big Smoke…. Tdot…. where I’ve been going, who I’ve been seeing, what I’ve been drinking (G&T w/lemon if you must know. Bombay Sapphire is the chosen one.) AND update you about an exciting event that’s coming to Toronto. Yep….it’s another Toronto Scrapbook!

Frank Gutch Jr: Let’s Play Catch and Then Catch-Up Because It Was Opening Day Yesterday and, Man, Are We Behind When It Comes To Music!

It was opening day yesterday— for baseball, in case you’re wondering.  Time for the so-called Faithful to breathe in the aroma of Spring and pay homage to overpaid athletes who had better be as good as they can be because that home run that center-fielder just hit cost the club $27,102.56.  I don’t know what it is but even the intelligent lay aside any real maturity they gained since the last out of last years World Series.  Cubs fans talk of a pennant, Red Sox fans rejoice in the fact that they have yet another chance to win it all and Dodger fans— well, the Dodgers haven’t been the Dodgers since they left Brooklyn, in my opinion.  Major League Baseball died for me on the day they announced the move.  Walter O’Malley destroyed not just one childhood fantasy of mine— that baseball was a sport— but also what I had always thought the only major league worth caring about— The Pacific Coast League.

Frank Gutch Jr: Don’t Look Now, Musicians, But You’re Being Usufructed; New Albums From Jubal Lee Young, Mad Anthony, and Fisher; and Scattered Thoughts and Mindfarts (plus Notes)

1.   1. Usufructed, and it ain’t fun.  Before you ever wrote or even heard that first note of that first song, the cards were already stacked against you.  Record labels, publishing companies and every other segment of what would build into the corporate structure which is the music industry have plotted against you from the start.  Of course, it was done legally.  God forbid that Universal or BMI take anything from you as regards what finally was termed your “intellectual property”.  God forbid that they treat the worker bees creating that which they would build into a multi-billion dollar industry like so much chattel.   I mean, after all, corporations are people, right?  And we know what people do to each other on a constant basis.

Frank Gutch Jr: The Pac Northwest— Not Just The Raiders, Sonics, and Wailers; and Notes, Notes and More Notes

One thing about history.  Given enough time, it is a shadow of its former self.  No matter what happens, importance of virtually everything is either magnified or diminished depending upon a number of factors.  By the time it has been filtered over the years, it is not even remotely what it started out to be.  The Twenties obviously weren’t all Gatsby and The Thirties weren’t all dust bowl and depression.  There was so much more than the War (that would be of the Second World variety, sports fans) and recovery from to the Forties and if the US had lived the Fifties like Hollywood said, we would have fought like hell to stay there.  Of course, by the time it got to us, it was Cliff’s Notes all over again.