Frank Gutch Jr: Jon Strongbow: Meltdown in Alien City— Plus Notes…..

There are thousands of stories in Music City and this is one of them.  It involves a young musician— in fact, a young artist, as Jon Strongbow dabbled in many different arts, possibly even the occult.  A musician implanted with an idea which would end up almost destroying him and yet become a central point from which the rest of life would emanate.

If that sounds ominous or convoluted, it should.  Strongbow’s existence cannot have been easy, what with sidesteps into mental institutions and through mental windows while the reflection in the mirror of reality kept morphing.  And yet he adapted.

Frank Gutch Jr: 2013— A Look at the Best, plus Notes You Can Take To the Bank…..

After ending this last year cranking out two long columns about musicians we lost, I feel the need to counterbalance.  While I know that death is a part of life (indeed, life = death according to the laws of nature), it was not all that much fun to dig through the past year searching for musicians recently passed.  It was, in fact, a bit of a downer.  Reliving the news that I knew was not half as bad as discovering the news I had missed.  All too many musicians I admire tripped off this mortal coil without so much as a thank you, Frank, it’s been fun, and I was more than a little unsettled with each discovery.  But the past is the past, whether we like it or not, and it was not all bad.

Frank Gutch Jr: Sheldon Gomberg: One of the Good Guys, Too Slim: Hot!!!, Charlottesville: WarHen and County Wide… The Phoenix Rises, My Father’s Day, plus Notes (you really should be reading them, you know)…..

I wasted 75 minutes of Sheldon Gomberg‘s time last week.  Do I feel crappy about it?  You bet.  I suppose 75 minutes doesn’t mean that much to many of you but then you probably don’t work as much as Sheldon does.  See, Sheldon is a recording engineer and runs his own studio and after talking with many of that ilk, time is always of the essence.  You’re working when you’re not working— going over the day’s session(s), preparing for tomorrow’s, organizing, always organizing.  What?  You think those albums just appear on your shelves?

Frank Gutch Jr: The Best of the First Half of 2013,

Jesus, is 2013 great or what?  I’m dancing, crying, thinking, sweating, burping and bopping thanks to a handful of musicians who have me freaking out, they’re so good.  I know I said 2012 was good.  And it was!  Hell, it still is, musically.  Musicians put out some of the best music I’d heard last year, but goddamn it, 2013 is smokin’ hot!  Seriously!  And excuse me for a sec whilst I dance the happy dance.  You see, No Small Children‘s anthemic Might Get Up Slow is playing right now and will for a few times more because I need some uppers!  Shee-it, this is good!  In another time, this would be topping the charts and rocking kids out!  Even famed ex-radio disc jockey Robert W. Walker sez “Fuh-reeking great!”  Jeez, I’m sounding like Barnum & Bailey here, but sometimes you have to let loose, you know?