Frank Gutch Jr: On the Road With The Lisa Parade and Maxine Dunn (Plus Them All-Important Notes)

I took a drive yesterday.  I had been sitting in front of the computer screen too long and accomplishing little of anything at all and I needed a break.  Usually when I hit the road I take music I need to hear for writing reasons but this time I needed time to myself.  I grabbed one I had the urge to review by Town Mountain which when I pulled open the CD cover discovered was minus the disc.  I had left it in my computer player at home.  I have lost more than one disc that way.  The other two were there though and I had heard neither all the way through for over a year:  Lisa Parade‘s Finding Flora and Maxi Dunn‘s Edmund & Leo.  I couldn’t wait.

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: Tin Soldiers and Nixon Coming; The Beginning and End of War; The Professor (Brady Earnhart) Is Back; and Notes…..

I was drafted in 1969 to fight a war I did not believe could even happen yet was embraced by the US of A as a way of stopping the dreaded Red Menace.  I knew it was coming and would have most likely headed for Canada but for a father my doing so would have destroyed, so I didn’t go.  I spent the previous four years at the University of Oregon with flammable draft card in my pocket (a 4-A college deferment marking me a coward in many people’s minds) and a growing hatred for conservatives willing to talk but not willing to go.

 

Frank Gutch Jr: Fish Don’t Know They’re Underwater… Music and Psychedelia 101

So you think you know something about music, huh?  I thought I did too until I started writing this column and getting schooled by people not only more aware of psych than myself but more knowledgeable.  Why, some of my past columns spawned related columns (not mine) at least as long, disputing my claims.  Okay, not quite.  But almost.  Let us just say that, like many of us, the more I know, the less I know.

Frank Gutch Jr: Ray Brandes, Gary Heffern, Jim Call and Javier Escovedo: The Denizens of San Diego, The Big Research Turtles Giveaway, (and pssst! There Are Notes)…..

I know a go-go girl.  Not one of those Studio 54-types who more than likely considered it a job or a chance to take her dancing to a higher level, but an honest-to-God go-go girl who danced because it was (and still is, thankfully) in her blood.  Her name is Elaine McAfee Bender.  I will be writing about her go-go life soon.  I know a girl who sings about go-go girls.  Well, about go-go girls in the modern world.  Her last album, in fact, is titled A Go-Go Girl In a Modern World.  Her name is Laurie Biagini.  I will be writing (more) about her soon, too.