Holy shit! I am practically crying, the music gods are being so good to me. Just discovered a band which is killing my brain cells and making me enjoy it! They are called The Claudettes and are out of Chicago and I am in love! Lordy, I must have somehow done something really really good. If I could only figure out what it was…
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.
There are musicians who are outstanding and there are musicians who are unique but seldom do you find one who is both. I have found maybe a small bucketful during my lifetime who rise to the fly (as fly fisherman are wont to say) and most of those would be under your radar but they are there, regardless of cynics’ belief that music is dead. My problem is that when they do come along, I am so like Chicken Little that few believe it. Most take my loud cries of ecstasy as another of my many elaborate hoaxes, though I wonder how they know because they haven’t heeded my advice anyway. You want to know what discouragement is? Discouragement is posting a video or audio track, getting 17 “likes” but only three more views or listens than when you posted it. I guess it is most times easier to click a button than to actually listen.
For years I have been telling you that music isn’t just music. Some of you understand, mostly musicians who spend a lot of energy and time helping out those in need. Others shrug it off because they know either that there is no good music anymore so what good would it do, or that musicians are either children avoiding growing up or are millionaires waiting for the train. Don’t tell that to the people at Sweet Relief or Musicares or any of the other charity organizations out there. There is a lot of hard work being laid down by scores of musicians and music people, aware that good fortune can turn sour at the drop of a hat.
Indiana Jones has nothing on me. That big rolling ball chasing him? That’s nothing compared to the mountain of carnivorous beasts chasing me in my dreams every night, each vying for that elusive review I promised what seems months ago. It is the music reviewers equivalent to no pants in the schoolroom, the albums fighting one another to get to me, to rip flesh from bone, to make me pay for what they see as vinyl manslaughter— vinylslaughter, if you will— an offense so terrible as to consign innocent artists and albums to a certain death, so vile as to blast dreams to smithereens, so ghastly as to be— well— ghastly.
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.
I have written about Sheldon Gomberg and his support of Sweet Relief before. For those who don’t know, Sweet Relief is a charity organization dedicated to helping musicians in need. It was founded by musician Victoria Williams to help her meet the financial challenges of a serious illness and gained a life of its own shortly thereafter, the funds going to a wider expanse and eventually going to all musicians, if they qualify. Yes, it is a business (though nonprofit) and has to have guidelines to exist and survive.
Nick Holmes is a friend of mine. I have never met him nor have I even talked with him on the phone but he is a friend, nonetheless. He sends me stuff. Anyone who sends me stuff is my friend. Send me some stuff and you’ll find out. It seems like only yesterday (it was over two years ago) that he sent me CD copies of two albums I, up to that time, never even knew existed: And it seems like just yesterday (because it was) that I received his brand spanking new CD, Sonar. There is a story behind Nick and his music and I hesitate to tell that story here because I have told it a few times and hate to repeat myself too much, but if you want to read a fascinating story about his early years in New York and how we became acquainted, follow this link.
If you understood the reference to the hall closet, you are a fossil like myself and ready for the wood heap. Better start taking Geritol again (the Stone Age’s answer to Centrum).
It is a strange world in which I find myself these days and not one I am particularly fond of, especially since supposed music lovers (and the media) have jumped on this covers/tribute thing like it is more than a fad (it isn’t, at least the way in which the music is being approached). I laugh— no, I guffaw— at the idea of bands bowing at the feet of other bands, thinking that signs of obeisance gives them any kind of credibility in the real world of music and musicians.
Bullseye Records of Canada
Segarini: Don't Believe a Word I Say 