Pat Blythe – Dear Frank

Preface …..

The loss of Frank Gutch Jr. has affected so many people both in and out of the music industry. For many, it’s a deeply personal loss.

Frank was a prolific writer and reviewer and there weren’t enough hours in the day to accomplish whatever he wanted to do. There was always a new artist, brand new music or a new release from someone he was following. His dedication was and is unbeatable. His love for the music and for those who created it yet went unnoticed who, in his estimation, should be world famous by now and “why weren’t they?”  There was absolutely no one like him. Irreplaceable, unique, exceptional, matchless…..Frank would blush, lower his head and say he was just doing what he loved and believed in. (I can hear his “aw shucks”) and then change the subject. He had an intense and genuine curiosity about other people’s lives and not only loved hearing about them but in many respects took great joy in living vicariously through all of us.

Frank Gutch Jr: Albums You Should Not Have Missed (But It’s Not Too Late)— A Recap, Plus Notes You Should Not Miss (Spoiler Alert: Videos Involved)…..

I present to you music I have loved over the years and have written about but only a few have found.  This is about music by artists who deserve more than they have gotten and are consigned to live in the shadow of what they should have been.  In many ways, I wish they could have recorded back in the seventies when the music business was a real center of the public’s attention because had they, some would be stars of today.

Frank Gutch Jr: Down By the Old Graveyard— Reviews of Albums I Thought For Sure Could Not Miss…..

I’ve been in an extremely retrospective frame of mind the last few weeks, digging through old photographs and reading old letters as well as watching old movies.  I don’t know why.  Sometimes I have a need to look back, I suppose, and lately I’ve had that kink in my neck for doing it a bit too much.  I have relived  a thousand moments and have heard songs in my head of artists and songs long past and no longer in my collection.  I have thought of old girlfriends and old buddies and have re-experienced old highs and lows.  Highs and lows.  One thing I have been doing is revisiting reviews I had written over the years of music I loved at that moment, and still do, on the whole.  I hate to see good music go to waste.  I hate to see artists ignored.  I hate that we spend so much time going over and over the same old music and music histories we always have, ad infinitum.  I understand it.  I just hate it.  So just a few minutes ago, I decided right now, just for one column, I would give a few of those artists and albums a short-lived reprise.  Why not?  It is what I have been doing all my life in zines and papers like The Entertainer and Pop Culture Press and BOMP and Fusion and on the Net for sites like DBAWIS.  The truth is that I have started three different columns which have deflated like yesterday’s quiche and I have to write something, so you’re stuck.  Who knows?  Maybe you can find something in the old mine worth reading and/or hearing.  I hope so.  So let’s go.

Frank Gutch Jr: Who’s Who In Rock Music, Maxi Dunn & The Lost Art of Arranging, Bryce Larsen Steals Jane (Again!), and The Lonely Wild…..

I sit at the desk a partial human being once again, the throat still coated with viscous fluids and the chronic hacking reduced to a wheezing irritation of the I-think-I-can variety (irritating but not life-threatening).  I am drinking Royal Crown Cola (as opposed to the preferred Crown Royal) to reduce viscosity, the mind is somewhat sharp though I could easily use another eighteen hours sleep before writing this (I have been waking at 3 A.M. these past few nights) and wonder how far I will go before losing energy and direction.

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: We Are the World Done Local, Mining 45s, and Notes…..

Quick!  Without searching, answer a few questions.  Who recorded We Are the World?  Who benefited?  Who wrote it?  Was there a B-side?  Were there other projects similar?  Does anyone care?  Did anyone care?

For those born after the fact, it may surprise you to know that plenty cared.  Over 20 million people worldwide bought the record.  I mean, Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie, the writers of the song, were huge at the time.  So were producers Quincy Jones and Michael Omartian, though Jones significantly more than Omartian.

Frank Gutch Jr: Confessions of a Rock Critic (Or, I Hear Dead People)….

The best review I ever wrote, nobody read.  It was for an EP virtually no one heard and a band virtually no one remembers (outside of Sea Cliff NY, anyway) and it may have been the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back (actually, mine), the review which makes me wonder why I even bother with them.  There are only so many “if a bear shits in the woods” scenarios one can take before cracking, you know…