Frank Gutch Jr: I Always Wanted To Be a Musician (Videos With Commentary)…

 

…but I could never pull it together.  Of course, when I was young I thought I was a musician, piddling with the tonette in fourth grade, drafted into the junior high band in the fifth grade because they badly needed a bass drum player, playing drums in what could be called a jazz band then (though we were really not good enough to be called that), playing drums in the high school band and in a couple of rock bands and carrying it on through college.  I loved music and was always around it but I was never really a musician.

Frank Gutch Jr: O Canada: A Nod to The Great White North— (and more of them goddamn notes)

 I am a lost Son of Canada.  I must be.  I love Canadian bacon, though bacon it not really be (except maybe technically).  I love Jennifer Dale, an actor who deserved much more than she has been afforded,  respect-wise (I reveled in her work on Canadian TV and film during Comcast’s all-too-short span of including CTV and CBC on their cable lineups in the ’80s).  I love Due South, one of the most creative and funny-on-so-many-levels series TV has ever created (the transition of Ray to Ray— David Marciano to Callum Keith Rennie— a work of pure writing craftmanship).

Frank Gutch Jr: And the Smell of Incense: The Boundaries of Psych, Plus Notes

Ah, Psychedelia! A musical underground which fed on the springs of youth. God knows where it came from or how it evolved (there are many theories based upon preconceived notions which may or may not have anything to do with anything except ego), but it most likely was a media conception: Old people trying to write about things they didn’t understand, looking at the new world through cataracts and prejudice, and that view taking hold.

Frank Gutch Jr: Hot Damn! It’s The Hot Toddies!!! Women Who Rock, Part One— Toddies, No Small Children, and Shade….. Plus Notes!

You can’t blame me for being a little pissed.  I just found Stone Darling last week and was looking forward to following them from that point on when what do I surmise?  They’re not really the band that they used to be!  Yeah!  I scour their Facebook page and figure, hey, I’m going to move to the front of the line only to find that there is no line!  They’re playing every Monday in August at The Satellite in L.A., it says.  Yeah, in 2011!  They’re rocking The Echoplex, same city, on April 7^th.  Again, 2011!

Frank Gutch Jr: Norton Records: After the Flood, Music Millennium: Back to the Future (Vinyl)

“That’s it.”  That is the final word in this video Norton Records posted on Vimeo not long ago.  Not, “That’s it, we’re done.”  More like, “That’s it, there is nothing more to say at this time.”  Head Nortonite Billy Miller had just given the rundown on the work being done to salvage as much as possible from the devastation they had incurred from Hurricane Sandy and a heartbroken Mirriam Linna had showed us the warehouse where boxes of vinyl lay piled in heaps like dunes on a beach (wall-to-wall) and, truth be told, that was it for those comments because they and a whole host of volunteers had and have a mountain of work ahead of them.

Frank Gutch Jr: Picture The Ocean— What Portland Missed (including more views on venues and musicians)… The Positive Side of Bottomfeeding (Hits Most of Us Missed)… and Notes You Can Put in the Bank…..

With a nod to Neil Young:  “’Live music is better’ bumper stickers should be issued!”  God knows how few of us realize what we are missing out there these days.  The bars and taverns and music listening rooms are being stocked with an amazing array of excellent artists and we are either sitting at home with our fingers up our ass or hanging out in some bar with no music beyond that hooked up to stereo speakers on walls, bitching about there being no good music.  For all of you who do that (and you know you do), I have a finger for you and you can bet which one.

Frank Gutch Jr: O Canada! You’re Music To My Ears, Part Deux! Another Look at New Canadian Music Really Worth Hearing….. Steve Young and Jubal Lee Young Play Eugene….. Jon Gomm and Canada….. and NOTES!!!

A number of months ago I wrote about Canadian music here on DBAWIS.  That column included mentions of The Dementians, Laurie Biagini, Lisa O’Neill, Eric Corne, Shade, White Light Machine, Lester Quitzau, and Redgy Blackout.  There has been a lot of water under the bridge since then and Canada, like every other country in the musical world, is cranking more music out by the hour, it seems, and good music it is.  It is funny, but when I write about music in  the States, it seems like (and I know it is only in my head) I am writing about the obvious.  Canada, though, is another world and an adventure I so enjoy experiencing that I am going to take a little mental break and update you on a few of those listed the first go-round and break a little ground with a handful of artists from the Far Northlands about which/whom I have not yet written.  Much.

Frank Gutch Jr: O Canada! (You’re Music to My Ears)

Repeat after me.  “There just isn’t any good music out there these days.”  Repeat it again.  And again.  And again.  Repeat it a thousand times and it will be no truer than it was the first time.  There is more good music out there than there has ever been.  Truth is, we have forgotten how to listen.  We went through a golden age of radio and had our music handed to us by a system controlled by people who supposedly knew what they were doing and we’ve gotten lazy.  We are the fattened calves, awaiting sustenance from the gods.  We are pools of fat melted on the car seat.  And seriously, dude, there just isn’t any good music out there any more.