Yesterday I went through all of the private messages I’d shared with Frank Gutch Jr, since I’d first encountered him. It was in 2013, just after I’d begun writing this weekly column, and right from that first message, it was as though we were separated at birth.
Let’s kick this weeks column off with a brand new video by guitarist Jon Gomm. This dude has worked his ass off to get where he is and deserves all the publicity he gets, which is a damn lot. Brand new and hot off the presses. If nothing else, Gomm is famous for spitting in Simon Cowell’s eye.
Someone once told me I was eccentric. I laughed out loud because I am the least eccentric of any people I know. I am, in fact, so normal and middle-of-the-road that I occasionally label myself boring. I am. Boring, that is. I am a puddle of mediocrity in a pool of ordinary. The jack of all trades and master of none. Neither the dimmest bulb nor the brightest. Plain yogurt. A one dollar bill. I am as exciting as baseball in the off-season and Christmas in July. I have been the second choice of too many girls to recount (Gosh, Frank, if it wasn’t for— insert name here— it would be you) and the tenth choice on a team of nine. I write because I have no other talent. I am the sponge which lives vicariously. Even the kids who love me abandon me when they are old enough to realize…
I think Phoebe Bridgers was twelve when I first heard of her. I had just discovered Kim Grant, then cranking up Grand Ole Echo shows in L.A., and those shows quickly became legendary to me. She (and a colleague, whose name escapes me at this moment) was booking everything below the radar in L.A. and many of those became inspiration for columns or reviews— Old Californio, I See Hawks in L.A., Pi Jacobs, Little Lonely, and so many more. Occasionally she would mention Phoebe in her newsletters— mere mention of a young girl threatening to become a serious musician.
I met Danny Schmidt at The Sisters Folk Festival nine years ago. He had invited me to attend, though I am sure he forgot it right away. I know I surprised him. My first words to him as he passed by to play a set in a tented area were “The Longhorns suck” which brought the Look of Death for Danny was and is a fervent Texas Longhorn fan, him having grown up in Austin and all. I realized my mistake right off. He had no idea who I was, having never seen me before. And it wasn’t his best day.
It has been another one of those days. I struggled with what I thought was a good idea all day but it turned to dust in my hands. Pure drivel. Which leaves me with what I consider the best part of my column anyway— The Notes. Feel free to take your time, enjoy the news and videos, maybe take it a step further if you have a mind to. The artists I feature in my columns are always meant as a fingerpoint. Seriously. I am still searching for the music of Lisa LeBlanc, one of my discoveries from last week. The good ones deserve the scrutiny. For right now, I am going to take my tired carcass to bed. It has been frustrating, to say the least. I only wish my dog had eaten my homework.
Summers! What a trip! At least they were for me in my uber-enthusiastic youth. Cutting the gut in Albany, two towns over, Radio Station KRKT blasting Sean & The Brandywines‘ She Ain’t No Good while my buddies and I looked for ladies. Driving over the bridge into Corvallis, Radio KFLY doing the same with The Sonics‘ Louie Louie. Late Spring on a drive home, Eugene’s Radio KASH giving us The Five Americans‘ I See the Light. Driving with the windows down on a cold night listening to Fontella Bass (Rescue Me), Lou Christie (Lightning Strikes), Love (Little Red Book), and The Mojo Men (Dance With Me). Man, could life get any better?
I am being steamrolled. It is a conspiracy, or maybe just the herd instinct. What is the herd instinct? That is the terminology we used when I used to work in retail records when for half an hour people would mill around the store until one came to the register, at which time those remaining followed. We would check out three people in half an hour and suddenly there were fifty people standing in line. Today it would be called WTF? Then, we chalked it up to the herd instinct.
Again, my column has been waylaid. There is something in my universe which gets in the way of every other column I sit down to write. This time it has to do with my favorite of the grunge bands in Seattle back when grunge was just a child— Son of Man. I think that band and Screaming Trees were the only bands I paid close attention to back then, at least when it came to the up-and-comers. Each had a certain undefinable something which made me sit up and listen. Each has held up well as the years have passed. One day I will post a list of my very favorite albums over the years and the Trees’ Sweet Oblivion will be there as will the lost “album” of Son of Man— I say lost because I am not really sure whether an album was the intention, they being handed to me on cassette as “demos”.
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.
Bullseye Records of Canada
Segarini: Don't Believe a Word I Say 