Strange, indeed, as proven by this laugh out loud Christmas video by No Small Children. You have to have followed the string of videos this excellent band has done over the past number of years, but if you have you will get it. Subtle. Very subtle. And funny. I cannot even begin to tell you the joy I have gotten from following their growth. One of the best three-piece bands I have ever seen.
Let’s kick this weeks column off with a brand new video by guitarist Jon Gomm. This dude has worked his ass off to get where he is and deserves all the publicity he gets, which is a damn lot. Brand new and hot off the presses. If nothing else, Gomm is famous for spitting in Simon Cowell’s eye.
In all my years in music, I never worked for a label. I wanted to. But I wanted to work only in A&R. Artists and Repertoire. They were the people who found the artists, who were liaison between the artist and label management, who groomed the performers and worked with them on the songs for their albums and maybe just the direction of focus. I knew a few A&R people in L.A. They loved it. They wouldn’t have done anything else. Most of them, when their A&R gigs ended, got out of the business because it was a sewer everywhere else. Sales? The pits. Promotion? Real work. Management? A path, most of the time, to disaster. I mean, A&R was where the adventure was. And is.
The name doesn’t have the rhythmic cache of Biff Pocoroba or Phil Villapiano, but it has its own feel to it. Brock. How many people have you met named Brock? I’ve known a couple. Well, one. I’ve heard of a couple, though. Zeman. He’s the first one I’ve ever noticed. I say noticed instead of heard of because as sure as the rains down in Africa (apologies to Toto— the band, not the dog), I will now meet a handful of Brocks and damned if every other person will be a Zeman. I know. Never met a girl named Debbie until I dated one, then every other new girl I met was a Debbie. I’m ready, though. I have practiced and have at least ten or so unique greetings for the Brocks and Zemans about to be unleashed on me.
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I want to tell you about four musicians— people, really— but I don’t know if I can. Oh, I could tell a few stories, wrangle up some comments and maybe tell you about their music, which is more than likely what I will attempt to do, but I will not be able to really tell you anything about them. Does a resume ever say anything about the person? I don’t think so. But it may be the place to start.
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Before I begin this, a little heads up. Fort Worth, that bastion of musical lugubriation which has been producing worthy quarter and eighth note treatises since before Rock was born, is gracing us with two projects of which you need to be aware. One involves Jim Colegrove and cohort Roscoe West (and a cast of others) who have come together in a group calling themselves Men of Extinction. With music dipped in Country & Western and old-time Rock with a little Soul thrown in on the side, they have put together a very tasty and sometimes humorous album titled We Made It Ourselves. And they did.
I wrote half a column about my father before I realized it was way too personal to put out in the Net, so I’ve decided to glean what I consider the best Notes I have posted over the past few years. Notes, for those new to my process, are the small items I usually place at the end of each column, usually the more newsy or just musical items. Lots of videos, a bit of news and a lot of fun to put together.
But before I begin passing out (No, wait! There is more!) awards and kudos to those who made a huge difference in my attitude and my life, let me point you all to a problem we in America (including the hat— that be Canada) should embrace— the media. Not that the media itself is the problem, but (as pointed out by Roxanne Tellier‘s DBAWIS column of just two days ago) how we have allowed politics to destroy it.
My original plan was to list fifty albums which totally bowled me over and, in a way, took me in directions I never would have gone— until drummer/writer Bobby Gottesman derailed that idea for what will inevitably be another romp through who knows what to an end which could as easily be a train wreck as a party. Gottesman published a short piece about the old farts in music these days and the blanket idolatry they are afforded in spite of arthritic hands and the need to step behind the stack of amps to hit the oxygen mask, not to mention the voices which on the whole are maybe one-tenth the strength and accuracy of what they were in their prime.
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 9th.
Bullseye Records of Canada
Segarini: Don't Believe a Word I Say 