Frank Gutch Jr: Vinyl!!! Grab Yours While You Can Because Quantities Are Always Limited!!! (A Precursor to Christmas Giving), A Pac Northwest Discovery and a Half, and Notes…..

You can thank Chris Ashford at Wondercap Records for this preemptive strike on your Christmas lists.  You do have a Christmas list, right?  What?!  You don’t!  Well, maybe it’s time you did because that really cool gift you want to give your girl or guy or your best friend could very well be gone by the time time the turkey hits the table and the really mad rush begins (or, in the case of the States, continues).  What could possibly be the cool gift item this year?  A hybrid car?  If you’re rich.  A handmade macaroni-trimmed picture of you and the wife on the first date?  (If you want to kiss that sorry marriage goodbye)  A box of chocolates?

Frank Gutch Jr: SWEET RELIEF MUSICIANS FUND— Giving Back While Paying Forward, Some Thumbnail Reviews, Plus Notes That, If Repeated, Can Make You Sound Intelligent, Even If You’re Not…..

This is important.  Please read carefully.

It’s coming!  It’s almost here and you probably don’t even know it.  Like that stealthy Sequestering thing the good ol’ boys slipped into the budget bill without anyone noticing, Sweet Relief is readying their third compilation album— on the sly, as it were.  Don’t know anything about it?  I’m not surprised.  Producer/Engineer (and sometimes musician) Sheldon Gomberg has held the information close to his vest and the people at Sweet Relief (and Vanguard Records) are only on the cusp of letting the dogs out.  But it’s coming.  July 9^th.

Frank Gutch Jr: The Stores Are Alive With The Sound of Music….. plus Notes!

I still get asked why I love record stores.  Still.  Older people shrug their shoulders and the young— well, let us just say that rolling of the eyes seems to be part of their DNA.  Every time it happens, I think, hey, I wasn’t like that.  Well, except for the time that Momma pointed out that Ernie Fields‘ rockin’ In the Mood was a cover of a Glenn Miller song.

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: Stone Darling (A Bio I’m Afraid Not To Believe), Them Crazy Multi-Tasking Artists, Time-Travel to Washington D.C. Circa 1970, and Notes…..

I swear to God, when Kim Grant is not pushing me toward something, she is.  A simple post of a video in her last newsletter (see the link at the beginning of the Notes section) regarding The Grand Ole Echo dragged me in an unsuspecting direction, this time to a group out of L.A. calling themselves Stone Darling.  Kim, of course, knows my Achilles Heel (Whispering Pines, for all who don’t know) and knows I cannot resist a short walk through the pines, and I’m pretty sure she posts these things just for me because I ask around occasionally and none of my friends seem to know anything (but come to think of it, they don’t know anything about anything).  This time, though, I’m not sure what she’s gotten me into.  Want a hint?  Read this bio written by one Eric Filipkowski: