Frank Gutch Jr: Tania Stavreva; Sometimes It Takes a Choir; Plus Them Damn Addictive Notes

Time to bust outta this place, amigos.  Time to strike out into the unknown— well, lesser known— and visit city cousins, because we are definitely heading toward the city.  No Hoi Polloi allowed where we’re going—  nothing but royalty and coronation balls.  I would make a joke here but lowering standards is beneath us today, okay?  Today hamburger is not on the menu.  More like foie gras— to the more common among us, goose liver.  Not just any goose liver, though.  This is, like I said, foie gras, a mixture of specially fattened goose liver to please the palate if the mind.  And of the ears.

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: The Millennial Kickstart!!!, Life In Proctorville— We The People’s Wayne Proctor Talks Sixties Music Scene in Florida, Plus Notes and Vids!!!!!

Welcome to the new Millennium, ladies and gentlemen, and in this case, the new Music Millennium.  I don’t have to go into details to explain the situation with record stores these days (okay— “music” stores, but they will always remain record stores to me).  They are struggling, even the biggest of them.  Even the best of them.  Even Portland, Oregon’s legendary Music Millennium.  Sure, they’re hanging on and doing better since the recent vinyl revival, but hanging on is not what owner Terry Currier wants.  Hanging on is the least that he wants.  And he has never been one to pocket money, either.  Most of what Terry has made over the past 45 years he has put either back into his store or used toward something to strengthen the music community.  And not just that of Portland.  He has stepped beyond that city more than once, mainly in a capacity to organize indie record stores.

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.