Frank Gutch Jr: Julian Taylor Has a Band, EIEIO; Wreckless Eric & The Case of the Not-So-Brave-New-World; From The Sally Rose Band To Shagwuf (with an umlaut); A Look Back at Audrey Martell(s); and Plain Old Notes

If I headed a bill, I wouldn’t want The Julian Taylor Band opening.  I mean, remember when Hendrix opened for The Monkees?   No, I don’t suppose you do.  Most of you, anyway.  Let us just say it didn’t last.  While Julian Taylor is no Hendrix (apples and oranges, really), he is a monster in the wings awaiting his chance and his new album, Desert Star, might just be it.  It’s a double album, I hear, and one with four distinct sides.  I have it.  I want to listen to it.  I will get to it.  But first I have to get past this performance of Taylor and crew at Lee’s Palace in Toronto.  Posted only a couple of days ago, it has been looping on my computer since.  I hear funk and I hear soul and I hear so much more.

Frank Gutch Jr: Read It Now: A Look at the Edward R. Murrow I Remember… plus Notes You Should Read…..

This will not be like any other column I will write for DBAWIS.  I will sound different and write differently and will, in all probability, mimic the style of one of the most influential people in my life outside of my immediate family.  That style may seem outdated in this world of soundbytes and visual chicanery, a world in which you have seven seconds to catch a potential reader/viewer’s attention.  It is solid and straightforward enough but would be looked upon certain pundits of pop culture as dull and outdated.  Seven seconds.  For most music programmers for the chains of radio stations gathered under the ever-growing corporate umbrellas, that is how much time you have to make your case.  It would be enough to make Edward R. Murrow‘s eyes roll back in his head, though I am pretty sure they never did.  Roll back in his head, that is.  Murrow was never surprised, or didn’t appear so onscreen.  And he was seldom caught off guard.