Thoughts Of The Townedger-Feb

Two months into this year and no new songs to speak of.  Course it didn't help when I slashed my finger on a piece of shit made in China garbage can, that has set me back about 2 weeks.  This weekend is D day, to decide if the 1980-1982 albums get the CD treatment.  If not we'll put the cassettes back in place and forget about them till next winter.

I really don't get much views out of here but I get less at the Facebook TE site. I use this as a archives site for lyrics and albums and since I don't tour, nobody hears anything unless they buy the CDs (which is nil sales) or frequent the sites that have the Townedgers album for your disposal.  But a few of you do care.  At least I hope you do.

Ever since I turned 40, recording anymore depends on the way I feel or what mood I am and so far, these sessions are just as chaotic as they were the last few times.  The Roland VS 880 took a shit and died and the hard drive they don't make anymore so that got recycled. Wished I would have gotten more use out of it did the 2,000 dollars I paid for it back in 99 but that's the story of my life.  Just like trying to find the vocal tracks from 30 and trying to pop them out front.  Sometimes it doesn't feel like it's worth the effort to make an album anymore.  But I'm due a couple more before everything is said and done.  Martin Daniels does his damnest to keep me going and inspired.  And the folks at Radio Buzz'd who supported my efforts by playing my albums continue to ask for more music, so here we are.

The magic number is 55.  Which means about 2 more new albums to complete before I retire from it all. For a hobby it feels more like work when trying to record and have everything that goes wrong will go wrong and I end up in a screamfest with the producer and the recording engineer but I'm thinking Richard Dennanbaugh is getting altzheimers as well. About 4 times he hit the wrong button and songs got lost since the red light didn't come on.

The Purple Passion woman still works up where I'm at and Laura has a cute smile and when she says hi, I just melt like a teenager.  But that is as far as it goes.  For a 25 year old song and events, she's still looks good in her late 40s but we're not getting together.   I'm not interested. Neither is she.

Good news to report on Mike Swearingen, he's gone from 350 pounds to around 200 and dropping more each day, I like to know his secret but if it has to do with smoking more cigarettes and drinking schnapps I'll pass. Looks like he will live and has gotten his groove back.  He's telling his silly jokes again.

The Townedgers remain a non tobacco and non smoking band. Neither Geoff or Martin are smokers.  Nor drinkers.   I really wish I can get my BFF Russ to quit smoking but don't believe he really wants to.  Amazing over the years of bar band playing that we played some of the most smoke filled rooms and had to fumigate everything afterwards.  I did drink back then but an enlarged liver changed that.  So I don't although I do crave a Jack N Coke from time to time.

I haven't mentioned much about Will Sigsbee that much, he played in Tyrus in 1984 for a spell.  Not a very good guitar player, Will has actually gone on to bigger and better things it seems. After leaving our band, Will enrolled at Iowa State and got a 4 degree and went into the health care business.  He's now general manager of HIE (whatever that is) services, at IOD Incorporated in the Twin Cities. He might be the most successful band member that ever played in Tyrus/Paraphernalia.

I only dated once since my breakup and that was a casual going out, nothing more.  History has shown that I am the worst boyfriend anybody could have.  It didn't help back in the 70s that I chose the wrong one to be a steady date and the other bad choice was the one in town that we couldn't get on the right page when the time was right.  The former was a Gemini. Worst relationships I ever had were by Gemini but if they're guys and play guitars then we got along fine.  Geoff and Martin both are Gemini.  Thank God they're not female.

Isabella is a Gemini and as split personality as they came. Our getting together in 2001 was a combination of the highest of highs and lowest of lows later in our second and final meeting.  But happy to report that she's still alive and doing fine and living in the Spokane area.  And married.  Basically the inspiration of the song Isabella from There's Nothing Left (2001) before we got together.  We had some good times together but a lot of bad as well.  Wonder if she still have her snakes of long ago though.  No intention of getting catching up though, she damned near drove me insane in the time we were together.  But it's good to know she's still alive, another piece of the puzzle that has been found and placed into position.

When you have depression, you never get rid of it.  Some days I'll be fine, some days, especially in winter when it's snowing and cold all the time the sadness does creep in.  Drugs for depression never helped me, in fact they made me worse. So basically I pray to get through the day.  Again results vary.

Despite the onslaught of rap and Bro Country and cookie cutter music, I still believe that the power of guitar rock bands will return, since I'm in the twilight of a 4 decade music lifetime I'll doubt if I'll be around to see that happen.  Too much Corporate interference has ruined free radio and the major labels but I'm sure some band in the garage will be making use of the same 3 chords and the truth to become the next big thing. Millions of people and bands have been using them for decades.  But there will be a band out there that will be inspired and original enough to take it to the next level.

Sloppiness is art.  And Keith Moon taught me how to bash on the drums as well.

My Drums of the 1970s

The so called coffee can years.  Sad to say that no pictures of those exist (thank God) but this submission actually got me to thinking about the long forgotten Folgers' years.  This is as close as it gets.

And better to leave them back there! ;) 

In This Town

In this town every morning I awake
Leaving for the city just to get away
Just for the privilege to say that I work
And get paid just enough  to survive

Days may come and days may go
But this in my heart that I know
There's a reason of being here
Placed here by the powers that be

But I feel that I'm getting nowhere
And I know that my girlfriend don't care
And my friends have since done left
Looking for a better place on the edge of nowhere

In this town I just don't exist
I am invisible, lost in the crowds
You see my presence but don't see me
There's a million like you who just pass by

Don't understand me cuz you don't know
You're too busy chasing those dollar signs
You change for the wrong and not the best
Assuming the worst and ask questions later

C1995 R. Smith

A Love Like Backfire

Love Like Backfire (1984)

One cherry is right beside me
Two cherries are right behind me
She said baby I love you
But you'll never catch me

I said oh yeah that's what you think
She just smiled and gave me a wink
And if she thinks she's leaving me running
She's got another thing coming

(c)
She's got a love,   love like backfire
Rev up your engine and spin your tires
She's got a love like backfire
She's taking me for a ride

So I caught up and got her by my side
Said come on baby let's go for a ride
She says boy I love your upholstery
Get out of your car and get inside of me
(c)

I didn't know what to do or say
You know the chase is better than the catch
She said don't worry you got plenty of time
The time I need to make you be all mine
(c)

She just loves being taken for a ride

Words: R. Smith/Dennis Lancaster/Russell L Swearingen III
(C) 1984

From Infinite Loop

Tyrus never wrote many songs together.  Most of this came from a notebook of lyrics Dennis had written and I put to music with some minor altercations. Still a juvenile attempt to be like Motley Crue I guess.  

Barbed Wire Fence

 


Barbed Wire Fence


Well nobody in this world has got it made
If they think otherwise it's a grave mistake
If it's not one thing then it's another
Before you know it you're six feet under

Like a barbed wire fence going cut you down, cut you down
In a wide open space you're running free
Then a barbed wire fence will cut you down
Life's not easy, it's never intended to be

Got a million things but there's nothing I need
Taken up my space and used up my green
Standing in the open with the wind cutting through me
Nobody knows  the things that  I see, the things I see

Like a barbed wire fence gonna cut me down, cut me down
In a wide open space I'm running free
And a barbed wire fence will cut me down
Life's not easy, it's never intended to be

C1988 Townedgers Music Emporium

In some ways a protest song that made it's debut at the old Whittier Town Hall (you really can't miss it) for the Travelogue album, I did a one take with Brian Mullahan pounding on the tom toms Indian style. And got a nice reception afterwards.

What the song means is that nobody how free and easy we think we got it made, there's always a barb wired fence ready to cut us down if we're not careful.

Love's Not Here

Writing songs for me was a way to relieve my frustration with life and the opposite sex.  Plus it was much cheaper than going to a Psychologist too.

Around 1990 I struck up a conversation with a dancer/stripper from Denver who seemed to be interested in talking to me so she left me her number.  And throughout 1990 I managed to talk to her answering machine about four or five times.   But "thinking" I could be the alternative to her lifestyle, I actually thought I could her one and only.  Such a naive dude.

Melissa seemed nice, we could talk tunes and at the same time she do her dance routine and do the usual things that drive me wild and write crazy songs in the process but I also found out the hard way that it was a business not personal thingy, to entertain the other guys in the room at the old Dancers Ranch in Hiawatha or Cedar Rapids or Coralville I'd invest my time to waste three or four hours hoping to talk to her or at least go out for supper.  That never happened.

I wrote a couple songs that dealt with Missy, one was Star! which appears on the so so Purseyors Of The Truth and then this ditty bopper that was part of the sessions for Nice Weather We're Having but left off.  It made it on a outtakes cassette (you remember tapes don't ya?) but later was remade for the 2003 20 album during a sound check and Hugh McConnell (GD I can't type today) captures all the glory. With myself sounding more pissed off than ever, even though by then Melissa and I never seen each other after 1991 to which Sweet Melissa was composed for Diamonds In The Skies and perhaps the best song written for our favorite Dancer From Denver.  To which I started recalling certain things in the song and thus the vocals got a bit more pointed.   I do recall this fat dude that bought her a big batch of flowers on the night that I gathered up the courage and bought her a vase of flowers at the local flower shop and have them delivered.  While she thought they were nice, she spent most of that time in the fat dude's arms, and after promising to go grab a sandwich at Burger King proceeded to bolt out the back door to McDonalds with another stripper friend.

That pretty much ended any attempts to keep this waste of time relationship going.  From 1990 Love's Not Here (A lesson learned the hard way).


LOVE'S NOT HERE

She pulls the shades to begin her routine
She didn't even bother to say Goodbye
She even said that she would call later
But we heard this story before

Just a big time dancer and a small town boy
Who thought he found the perfect babe
Disappointed but I'm not surprised
You look for love but love's not here

So he brought her flowers just to show that he cared
Well she did think that they were nice
Till some guy one bettered and brought her two
He really expected more from her

He wasted his time, he wasted his money
Just to show he was special
He took a chance on a billion to one shot
Looking for love but love's not here

It appears to me that we're not making progress
She's sending signals but our line's are being crossed
I'm getting tired waiting just to hold her
I'm not going sit in this place forever

See the stripper sneaking out the back door
There goes your dinner date
Still he waited till she got back and said
Goodbye you've seen the last of me

She was her man? No just "casual" friends
Although he wished it could have been more
(he said) Somebody's looking for me and I know
It's not you bitch, and Love's Not Here!

C1990 Townedger Music Emporium

Purple Passion

Purple Passion

My passion's running wild better let me out
After a long week I'm gonna take five
Stopped at the store to stock up for the weekend
Saw her coming, I lost my mind

Thinking strange thoughts running in my head
What would I do just to butter her biscuits
She turned around and said I can read your mind
And that led me to a short circuit

I never thought it could be like this
It all started with a little kiss
What do I do, What can I do
I just got gotta get through to you

Take her out, take her out take her out
We don't care
Take her out, take her out, take her out
We don't care, take her out

You sat there and didn't say a word for five minutes
Listen babe, these things take time
She said I'm beginning to think that you're no fun
There are other guys just waiting to be mine

I stand there with my teeth in my hands
Let me catch my breath you know this is hard
I must be crazy, you must be crazy
There'll be justice if I let you get away

Take her out (3)
We Don't Care (repeat above line)

And now  I stand here with my heart in hand
I just wondering if you'll understand
And now I find myself in a different situation
And my ship is about to sink

And now I stand here naked
I'm hoping that you'll understand
As we come together I begin to think
That you put something,
Something in my drink!

Take her down (3)
We Don't Care

C1989 Townedger's Music Emporium

An odd one.

In trying to come up with a new idea we fused AC/DC riffs and turned it into a straight ahead rocker with the oddball middle 8 (The and now lyrics)  which Geoff Redding came up on the spot while we trying to arrange this into something manageable.  It turned out to a chaotic mess that found its way on Moonlight Chronicles.

Purple Passion was dedicated to Laura Henry, a co worker who always wore purple at some form or another and still does to this day.  Even having not seen her for 24 years she's like a fine wine, improves with age.  And still have her infectious smile too.

True story, we did run into each other at the Hy Vee after work which I think I brought up that I played in a band and wrote my own stuff and could probably do one for her to which she thought it was cool and would to hear it someday. 

Maybe some day she'll get to hear it. For the record we were mutual friends, nothing serious.

Girl On A Bridge

 From the album The First And Last Reunion,  this is a weird one that me and Robert Muncie thought up. We were trying to write a story song and try to get away from the usual life observations and failed love songs that we are famous for and came up something like Dickey Lee's Laurie (strange things happen in this world) but with a bit of Rod Serling's Night Gallery type of melodrama.  The story goes, naive driver picks up a cold and lonely girl on a bridge on a forgotten road and tells of a story of eloping with her boyfriend and somehow goes down in a murky river, she survives but he doesn't, but she wants to go back home. So the good Samaritan takes her back to an an old rundown country estates to which her dad freaks out and tells the do gooder that she's dead.  To which our hero turns around and the girl that was with him disappears. *cue up old pipe organ*

Where did she go?  Back to the haunted bridge to wait for the next do gooder to try to take her back home.  In some ways, this song didn't turn out that bad when we did the take on March 20, 1993 at the old Broadcast Manor on the SW side of Cedar Rapids, actually a duplex to which my brother had one side of the house and I had the other side. Which worked out pretty good since I could play drums and continue making music.  We lived at that house from 1992 to 1997.

The song clocked at 8 and half minutes but was edited down to 7 minutes and faded out at the end. 

Girl On A Bridge (Smith/Muncie)

Met a girl right on a bridge
Looking so cold and all alone
So I asked "where are you going"?
All she said was to take me home
She told me she was to be married
But their parents did not agree
So they eloped and after that
The bridge, the river, things went blank

But she'll never find the answer
To the question that she asked
She hung herself on a golden thread from the past
Now she'll never go home again

Wreckage down in the river
Muddy waters covers up the rust
He's down in there and turned to dust
Still she waits under angry skies
So I drove her to a country estate
Enshrouded in gray and seen better days
Paranoid man says "you don't understand"
Her spirit haunts me cause now she's dead

And the girl disappears into the night
She returns back to the scene of the crime
Another soul will give her another ride
Even in death as in life she'll never realize
That you can't go home again
No you'll never go home again.

C1993  Townedger Music Emporium

Thirty

1)  Abstract Girl (Smith/Redding) 3:39
2)  Queen Of Anamosa (Smith) 4:00
3)  One More Time (Smith/Orbit) 5:00
4)  Cannery Row (Smith/Redding) 3:30
5)  Keep On Walking (dedicated to Samantha Fish) (Smith) 3:25
6)  Into The Now (Smith/Redding) 4:19

7)  All Along The Watchtower (Dylan) 3:48
8)  You Know I Not Good For You (Smith/Miller) 3:10
9)  A Passage To Yesterday (Smith/Redding) 2:47
10) Law Of The Land (Smith/Orbit) 3:29
11) Curio (Smith) 2:47
12) Goodbye Doesn't Mean Forever (Smith/Passmore) 5:05

More than five years after Pawnshops For Olivia, I finally issued 30, a simple title of the fact that I have been doing this for three decades, not bad for somebody nobody knows about.  Except a select few.  Yeah it's garage rock and it may have been the long awaited followup to Town's Edge Rock, that came out late June of 1983.  Unlike the mostly acoustic Pawnshops, 30, I just cranked the amps up and hope that the voice could hold over the noise.

For this album, I started out with a blank sheet of paper and guitar and let the ideas flow.  Geoff Redding plays a vital role in this, he was left out of the the last album and everytime I got the acoustic out, he was left out in the recordings but this time out, he participated in all of the recordings.  Originally known as No Exit, I actually released that album and Diggy Kat was kind enough to play all of the songs off that album but I wasn't happy with the end results and in September revisited and left off three songs in favor of  All Along The Watchtower, a very ragged run through.  Richard Dennanbaugh recorded the one take, to which I didn't play drums for a few months and then added the drums once the guitars were laid down.  One More Time, the lyrics were written in 1992 and fitted upon a shoegazer melody that I think came from The Charlatans UK.  Law Of The Land was co credited to Jack Orbit even though he didn't have much to do with the album and Ken Miller helped out with You Know I'm Not Good For You, which may have been a play on words from the Amy Winehouse song.

Keep On Walking was my account of going to Davenport on a chilly night in Davenport and got to see the up and coming Samantha Fish and damn she tore up the place, and even got off into the dance floor, wailing on the guitar and coming up face to face with me. A fun night, till going home the radiator plug fell out and I had to spend a sleepless night at  a hotel in Eldridge after coming to conclude I couldn't make the hour and 20 minute trip back home with it spewing anti freeze over the Casey's store parking lot. 

Goodbye Doesn't Mean Forever was co written with Nicole Passmore around the time we got together in 2009 and I came across some words that she jotted down in a letter sent to me and I discovered it upon a pile of lyrics.  The chorus she had a hand in helping out. Amazingly that song was the only acoustic number on that album.

Curio was thought up after a bargain hunting trip to the Springville junk shop and seeing all this hoarder house stuff all around the place, it inspired me to write a song about relics of yesterday and about getting rid of things in life you really don't need.  I don't consider it to be a love song or breakup song, but rather a observation of we accumulate so much shit in our life, no wonder we can't find room to breathe, sounds like our recording studio and place of residence, called the Hoarder House.  Perhaps the most telling of song is Passage To Yesterday, which explains my love of records and perhaps lack of being a person to settle down with.  One of the oddball waltz time songs I ever did, it's basically me playing snare using the infamous hot rods, which is a step up from brushes but the forced hi hat playing sounds like I am using the bass drum to keep the beat, I'm really not. It just sounds that way.

Martin Daniels helped out on the sequencing of the songs. On No Exit, the album ran over 55 minutes and included a cover of The End by the Doors, originally done in 1976 and not in a good way on the forgettable but given an A for effort on the 1976 effort  Beautiful Renditions.  It's really a great song if you take out the bizarre interludes and sections that Jim Morrison gave it's epic 11 minute saga, but ours was 9 and half minutes, and I can listen to it without problems.  We may take another stab at a shorter version and leave out the Killer Woke Before Dawn part.



No Exit was met with discouraging reviews,  the cover art was quite controversial, which showed a painting of a nude woman and I thought it would fit the music quite well. Alas, the faint of heart complained about the double entree which wasn't the case but later on we pulled the cover in favor of the one that you see in front of you.  With 12 songs at hand and a shorter time program, the end result results in a better flow of songs going into one another.  With 30 reviews were much better.

And I can live with the end result.