Frank Gutch Jr: Answering the Questions, Where Do Houseflies Socialize; You Only Believe Me When I’m Lying; Rolling Stones Magazine’s 100 Greatest Guitarists of All-Time? Seriously?; Plus Notes

The world doesn’t always go my way and sometimes I get so pissed about that that I have to vent.  GodDAMN if the world isn’t going the way of idiots and psychopaths as the Trump Generation attempts to destroy everything good, but I will be damned if I will let it happen to my music.  That’s right.  My music!  Sure, you have your music— The Beatles and Floyd  and Queen and even Beyonce and Kanye and whoever the hell else.  YOU don’t have to worry.  YOU can find that music and plenty of people who still love that music just walking down the street.  Me, I have to work for it.  I have to scrounge and search and listen and question at every turn.  You think that’s easy?

Frank Gutch Jr: In Anticipation of Moon Palace; The Space Opera Trilogy; and Notes and Nothing But the Notes…..

The stars have finally aligned, sports fans!  You can delete my queries about Carrie Biell because I have found her after a ten year search.  I should say that my buddy at KEXP radio, Tom Smith, found her.  Well, maybe a friend of Tom’s.  Or a friend of Tom’s friend.  Ach!  It doesn’t matter.  The important thing that she is found.  The other important thing is that she is writing again and has already jumped back into the deep end of the musical pool.

Frank Gutch Jr: T Bone. Got it? He’s from T exas… Glenn Patscha To Release Ten Year Old Album Because It’s a Killer!…plus Notes

But before we get started, it’s time once again to plug one of my favorite bands of all-time— those crazy elementary school teachers who change into demonic rockers at night:  No Small Children.  Coming off of a successful run playing the title tune from the movie Ghostbusters II, they pluck another rocker out of the air and it’s a beaut!  Lay back (if you can) and listen to what the percentage of us not tied to our iThings are hearing.  I Feel Better!!!

Frank Gutch Jr: Not Rolling Stone’s Top 100

I just took another stroll through Rolling Stone’s list of 100 Greatest Guitarists.  I do so occasionally just to remind me of what a fools errand such lists are.  I realize that it sells “magazines” (are they a magazine these days?), people being suckers for Top of’s of 50 Best’s if for no other reason to compare choices with theirs.  Jimi Hendrix?  Sure.  #1.  Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck?  Automatic Top Ten.  James Burton and Buddy Holly?  You have no choice but to throw in the originators on occasion.  John Fahey?  Can’t leave out the cool artist who never really sold in terms of the numbers necessary to chart.

Frank Gutch Jr: On Writing About Music

 

It isn’t easy.  To most of you it must look that way.  Six, eight paragraphs about a band or an album, a few videos picked up off the Net.  Two hours, tops.  On the columns which didn’t go so well, maybe fifteen minutes (and a six pack of beer, after re-reading a few of them).  But it isn’t easy and it takes me a lot longer than you might think.  There have been times I’ve written five drafts and finally submitted the sixth out of pure frustration.  Three, four days and not a thing to show for it.  And then there have been the three hour jobs—- the ones in which I elucidate about the days of transistor radios and Fender amps (they were king when I was young).  Unfortunately, those are few and far between.

Frank Gutch Jr: Space Opera… the Final Frontier; Spotify Revisited (Revisited); Plus Notes

 

I was sitting here navigating the social media this past week when I noticed a rockumentary I thought I had seen before— one on Ed Dougherty, who had headed up Oregon’s connection to rock music back in the sixties, booking acts both local, regional, and national in the Pacific Northwest.  I was sure I had seen it, having written about it in more than one of my columns, but I was feeling nostalgic and took the plunge anyway.