Frank Gutch Jr: Byron Isaacs: The Disappearing Man; Dumpster Diving (The Album Chronicles); and Notes of a Lugubrious Nature (Or Maybe It’s Luxurious… Damn it! Where’s My Dictionary?)

 Byron Isaacs is the kind of guy that makes you want to shout, Hey!  I know that guy!  I do, you know.  Well, not know know him, but know him.  Know his music.  Know his professionalism and his makeup.  Know his importance to the world of music.  Sure, I only met him once, but that once was enough to tell me who he was and is.  I mean, I know him.  Get it?

I would have to explain the whole degrees of separation thing for you to understand how we met.  What the hell.  I’ll give you the Cliff’s Notes version.

Frank Gutch Jr: I Have Seen the Future and It Wasn’t This…..

 

Not the political future, which has turned out bad enough, but the music future which is floundering.  I saw it going awry in 1992 when I left the retail record business as it morphed to a “music industry” I never recognized.  I tried to make sense of it then, wondering why the decisions being made by not just major labels but by what then was becoming an entertainment conglomerate were so unerringly ridiculous.  I need to watch the documentary on Tower Records, All Things Must Pass, in detail.  I need to revisit the individual instances which brought down radio, records and everything else entertainment around our ears.  I need to understand who was in power, if indeed anyone was, and who made the monumental mistakes which gave us the chaos we now have.

Frank Gutch Jr: The Name Is Holmes— Nick Holmes… Plus Notes

That is how I picture Holmes— tuxedoed, debonair, suave, in control.  He started out a folkie— sang with The Serendipity Singers, in fact, though I can hardly hear his voice in any kind of ensemble.  It is slightly rough and textured but with a real edge definitely unique.  One single by The Singers (“What Will We Do With the Child”) was released with that voice but it did not chart. It did warrant a solo artist contract, though, and Holmes recorded one.  It unfortunately never made it to press,

Frank Gutch Jr: Reprise Is Not a Label… Plus Notes

Before we get into the meat of this column, let’s talk Winterpills.  I have been a fan since hearing their 2010 EP Tuxedo of Ashes and have followed them since.  Their one album of covers, Echolalia, was good enough to make me toss aside my disdain of this current trend, their arrangements making up for the usual lack of creativity on most bands parts.  No such problem here.  Love Songs is an all-original triumph, Philip Price writing his best songs since Tuxedo, and the band is  in A-1 shape.

Frank Gutch Jr: And You Thought Purple Was Deep: Only the Vinylly Religious Caught These… Plus Notes…

I am going to send everyone a “He went to the computer shop and all I got was this lousy column” button because most of you will have little clue as to whom I am writing about and also because Bill Gates and his shit company has sent my other computer to the repair shop courtesy of their “this will be a snap and your files will be right where you left them” update hypocrisy.  I am only assuming that my files are where I left them because when I tried to get into my computer the day after the update all I got was this little circle of swirling dots on a pale blue screen and while I used to like pale blue, it fast became a color of doom.

Frank Gutch Jr: I Got Blistuhs on Muh Finguhs!!! (Plus Notes)

… and I’m looking for trouble because that’s just what you have to do sometimes.  Tributes and covers are sucking the soul right out of me and probably out of the goddamn entire world but you soulless bastards have no clue!  This whole I-got-to-see-the-best-bands and there-ain’t-no-good-music-anymore attitude is killing the listening floor (screw the dance floor) and I’ve had it up to my neck with the I-don’t-like-today’s-music-so-fuck-you memes on the social media and threads in the forums to the point that I’m thinking hell could not be a worse place to live— at least compared to this musical rotgut of a world we live in today.

Frank Gutch Jr: Music To Stuff Stockings By… And With; Plus No Notes… Consider It a Lump of Coal

It’s that time of year again, sports fans.  Santa has been on the radio for the past two months, robot disc jockeys and purveyors of everything muzak beating us senseless with varying renditions of Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree and Jolly Old Saint Nicholas, hoping to lighten our mood enough to loosen the old purse strings.  Hallmark Channel have kicked into full Christmas mode, plastering their channels with their cookie-cutter movies which vary mostly by the changing of leading ladies (this year’s favorite, by far, is Hilarie Burton, whom I saw in an old Castle episode and was floored by not only her beauty but the fact that the casting could not have been more right).  I wish they had more creativity over at Hallmark, their overuse of the five plots and rotating stars coming very close to consumer abuse.  But, hey, I’m a sap.

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: 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: 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.