Wednesday 28 January 2015

Thoughts From The Townedger January

I have a need to pay automobile loan but thought I take care of a few thoughts and feelings on my mind.

I turned 54 on Saturday and celebrated it the usual way, going to junk stores to find records and 45s.  Came up empty outside of a Steeleye Span Story.  Most 45s were scratched up.  Usually St Vincent De Paul's 45s are always scratched up.

This month I have remixed and remastered my two 1989 albums, Moonlight Chronicles and Floodlands and I can finally say it's great to hear the end result.  The drums stand out much better, the highs were polished off (the early reissues the highs were way too harsh) and I could actually hear the harmonica on Gravel Road Memories. And the goofyness  that is Miss Baloney Brain which is the only attempt at speed metal. The problem of the original 4 track was that the overdubs bled into the original vocal track and every attempt to correct it would have a wash effect on the vocals. Conferring with Martin Daniels was that I have to balanced the drum track to fit with the vocal part on the four track and try to find a happy medium.  Originally messing around with it turned out to be a quick mix and mastering of it and I can finally say that these two important pieces of the puzzle albums are now back in print.  I may attempt to do some more correcting of past projects for updating. Don't know which ones.

The pre 1989 stuff is still dicey and the early albums suffer from weak vocals and wild drumming but I'm itching to finally grant the Rock n Roll Made Me What I Am Today and the S/T album a divorce and let them have their own album space.  But they were recorded on hour long cassettes and there's plenty of fat to be trimmed to make the records work. RNRMMWIAT was rushed out (I had a job offer to join up a bar band at that time) and the S/T album was really forced and labored.  Town's Edge Rock, the songs worked well, but So Much For That was really the first effort I made to make a listenable rock album while trying to play like I did for Paraphernalia Tyrus, good intentions but it hasn't aged very well.  Neither has Living In The Twilight Zone which the only decent songs came from said album was Be With Me and Bar B Q. The rest sounds silly.  Which is why I never issued it via CD outside of my own listening pleasure.

Thanks very much for Deb Rasmussen for making the cookie dough treats and Steven Rasmussen for the best made maid rites too.  I gave Steven production credit for 2007's Highway Home album  for helping me out during the busy season but the this guy can cook up great food.  He should be a chef.

Every album that is planned I consider it to be the last album.  One never knows when your time is due and Forthcoming Trains was a fine effort.  Fitting Finales, the next album will be conjured up eventually and I'll take about a couple weeks and then some to do the songs.   I have gotten positive reviews from folks who have heard it.  As I get older I tend to refine some of the earlier songs I have done, and covering myself is a compliment that the songs ain't so bad.  But I really wanted to revisit Midnight Run, from the 1985 album.  It's really not a tough song to do, although it's situated in a 1/2 beat.  And Just Enough Love done the second time around is more polished and I didn't need to do all those drum rolls as before.  But I still needed to do the cymbal accents at certain parts of the song. 

Having a cat around the yard.  Still awkward, still trying to make it feel welcome around here and tolerate it around the house but Callie seems to taken everything for strive.  I do admit she's a very smart cat although she doesn't realize I came this close to taking her butt to the humane society after finding two of her buddies in our makeshift cathouse the other night.  Haven't seen the other two but Callie remains determined to hang around.

I still think I have a couple years of good music left inside of me before hanging it up.  I do not intend to be a bald headed goatee wearing old fuck trying to impress the young crowd, not that I have done that in the past, but I don't seeing growing a face full of steel wool singing songs at some dive bar 10 years from now.  I don't know if Paul McCartney needs to but I do think Bob Dylan needs to retire if he's going around doing Frank Sinatra standards.

I was asked about the one that got away.  Looking back into my life I have had a very poor track record of choosing the right girlfriends. It goes all the way back to 1975 and Jeanette Ratliff and then Janice Berns later, which really fucks things up for me.  Amy in 1982, she was a trophy girl, petite and tight but she had a boyfriend and I was the other guy.  Which wasn't about to work, she was with him 5 years later.  If I was interested in somebody I'd write a song and give it to them instead of asking them out directly.  Which explains why I wasn't with nobody most of the 1980s.  And the lack of dating really hurt me when I did have girlfriends. And being set in my ways back then didn't help either. Hell, I was trying to impress a fucking stripper in 1990. That led nowhere.  The thing with Isabella really soured me for dating ever after putting up with her antics, I won't say she was the worst I've been with but the worst relationships I had were with Gemini women (although Gemini guys make great bandmates). I can't say if the girl in my PR class at school was the one that got away, I've been looking for her ever trying to explain my situation to her.  But I don't think we'll ever meet again.  I think the best girls I been with was Belinda and Nicole.  At least I wasn't competing with some other guy for their affections.

I don't know what it is about them or what the audience thinks but for the second time I asked the fans of what cymbals to use for the next album and the end result was Zildjian over Paiste again.  I still have yet to use my Innovations Paiste cymbal (may have to do that on a live album)  but Fitting Finales will have the cymbal lineup used for The Road Less Traveled and the snare that goes back to the bar band days.  In other words vintage stuff.

I rarely tout this site outside of references and song lyrics but next month I'll clue in on some more vintage classics and the usual song writing lyrics and stuff.  And post live in the studio shit if and when I get up there to record.  Then till bills must get paid.

Wednesday 14 January 2015

A Long Time Forgotten

We marked the 10th Anniversary of A Long Time Forgotten.  Hard to believe time has flown by so quickly.

2005 was a new chapter in The Townedgers Music History, or yours truly.  I ended up buying a new Guild Acoustic guitar from Bruce Stanley at Segal's Pawn Shop for about 400 dollars and it turned out that I have used that guitar more than the Yamaha acoustic that was the main go to guitar for acoustic songs.  I also ended up selling my Yamaha drums to my best friend's son Matt who played them for a while and decided that this wasn't the way to go in life.  I ended up blowing about 4500 dollars on a new DW set.  All maple shells.  The four track that I have been using died, so another 250 dollars was blown for a Made In China portastudio.

Originally the sessions started out in August  of 2005 under the working title Mixed Blessings and done with Colin Richardson at a Ames studio on a couple weekends but I wasn't too impressed with the results and only Nevada Streets was saved for inclusion on A Long Time Forgotten.  Another song Rolling And Tumblin was issued as a single only.  I have no idea why I didn't include it on LTF. Perhaps it didn't fit the format although it would have been a decent album opener.

I struck up with a conversation of a dude at the pawnshop named  Rhett Morrison, a twenty something that had his eye on music production.  Rhett and Martin manned the recording.  While I listed Jack Orbit and Mark McClelland as the other participants, it was basically myself doing all of the guitars and drums. McClelland would leave after a disagreement about band direction.  Martin Daniels and Geoff Redding helped with backing vocals.  The main recording of LTF was done during Thanksgiving weekend and ended two weeks later.  Drums were added on December 8 and on the 9th.  With a new four track it was hard to get the right drum sound and it shows on Jeanette 30 Years Later, A remake of the song originally done in 1990 on Nice Weather We're Having.   Desolation Angels, another remake from 1992 Drive In Blues sessions was also tacked on.  While I didn't care much for remakes, it seems that when I did revisit a past song that the new versions were a lot better the 2nd time around.  Three songs from Mixed Blessings were redone and I think all three were a lot better as acoustic songs rather than the electric songs.  Please Don't Leave Me was picked as a single and did so so on the local college radio station and some net radio stations as well.   Man Out Of Time, originally known as Elizabeth Greene, was written about a co worker that I had a crush on but of course she had a boyfriend, so much for that.  The electric version was done as a slow brooding grunge number but the acoustic version was stripped down and more to the point.

Everyone's Agreed was a cover of the Stealer's  Wheel song and done with a strange effect sound.  While the loud drums seemed like a good idea at the time hearing it now really is distorted and in need of a mix. When Gareth Cullers mixed it, he took out all the bottom of the guitars and added more treble.  The only time I liked the big drum sound was on To Understand The Sun.  It's been noted that when I hear the playback on the mix, that there's an extra sound at the end of it.  I've heard that our house might have spirits and that a odd vocal can be heard or a odd sound.  But rest assured we have friendly ghosts around here.

Diggy Kat, my good friend and music colleague has always said that A Long Time Forgotten is his favorite Townedgers album ever, at least from him.  I think it's a good record but some of the songs I have problems with.  Easier Said Than Done was a anti Bush/Cheney protest number about the forthcoming of Wal Marts taking over (in fact they were building two Wal Marts in this area) and the flood of Made In China crap but it should have been done better or had better lyrics.  Teen Dream Nightmare, is another oddball song that Geoff Redding wrote the lyrics in the style of Pictures Of Lily by The Who or Girl In A Magazine by The Brains.  But not as memorable as either one.

Despite that the best songs was A Touch Of Gray which was about turning fifty and seeing our hair going south and expanding elsewhere and our body and mind winding down.  I wouldn't say it's a song about death but a song of seeing ourselves no longer young and the things I used to do I can't do anymore.  Which is also suggested in The Things I Used To Do, which was yet another song about missing a chance to find the girl to settle down with.  Which begs the question who was the one that got away.  The answer may surprise you. There was a girl that I had in Public Relations class at a junior college who had her eye on me and I never thought much about it, till I saw her with a friend at a bar one night and she smiled at me for a while.  But I smiled but never made an effort to do anything about it, till she got frustrated and walked out with her friend almost in tears.  I remember she said that he wouldn't do anything about it.  Well, next day I decided to see if I could find her at the college and hopefully get a second chance.  To which I never saw her again after that.

I also enjoyed One From The Heart, which may have been another rewrite of Things I Used To Do.  But the last verse instead of hoping for another chance with the one that got away, basically life has turned me this way and that perhaps I wasn't cut out for an relationship with anybody.  Or in other words, be careful what you wish for.

Troy Paiva's colorful night photography was perfect for the album cover, whereas the inner Cd book had a picture of some old drive in speakers at an abandoned drive in.  The album was issued in January of 2006.
I didn't intend for the album to be mostly acoustic, but I figured it was much more easier to record than the mess that was Mixed Blessings and only Nevada Streets was good enough the make the final cut. But strangely, I would start to do more songs with acoustic guitar for later albums, namely The Townedgers Christmas Album which was done a couple weeks later but issued in 2006 since it was too late to put a Chrsitmas album at that time.  So I guess you can say that A Long Time Forgotten is The Townedgers' Unplugged.   And for better or worse it would be a start of a new era.

Songs:
Everyone's Agreed (G.Raffery/J.Egan) 2:50
Jeanette 30 Years Later 4:30
The Things That I Used To Know 3:38
Love Me Like You Used To 2:45
Touch Of Gray 4:40
Lateness Of The Hour  3:52
Desperation Angels 3:40
Nevada Streets  5:10
Please Don't Leave Me 3:33
One From The Heart 3:14
Easier Said Than Done  4:41
Teen Dream Nightmare 3:00
To Understand The Sun  5:35
Man Out Of Time 3:20

Songs written by R.Smith
Recorded 11-25 through 12-9  2005  Lake Wandu Studios aka The Hoarder House Springville IA
Recorded by Martin Daniels, Gareth Cullers and R. Smith
Produced by Rodney Smith with Rhett Morrison
Nevada Streets Recorded  Aug 2004, Produced by Rodney Smith and Colin Richardson




Friday 9 January 2015

Dear Lisa

Dear Lisa it's me again
The truth is that I don't understand
What you look for in a man
And the time we spent back  in the past is now long gone

And there's nobody such as you
But you know this is what I do
Playing in bands to make a living
And possibly giving.

Dear Lisa, it's you know who
Here I am  your biggest fool
I'm at the front door let me in
It's good to see your living again but living in sin

I know someday we're going to pay
On the day of reckoning
I try to fight it but really
I was more than willing
(really)

Dear Lisa, one more night
Before the train comes down the line
Takes me back to the other side
It'll be the last time I'll see you smile
(the last time we'll smile)


I don't like being the odd man out
But I figured this is about
You were the best girl I ever had
For a day and a half.

C2008 Townedger Music Emporium

Sometimes writing a song can take on new meaning, be it from the past or a relationship that ends too soon.  This is from Pawnshops For Olivia, an album that took shape after reconnecting with a west coast girl and talking of the times that we spent together.  The record itself is an emotional roller coaster of feelings of love had and lost and even if the results would have been different, we were doomed to fail. Especially if she never experienced a winter in Iowa which she ended up getting phenomena for about three months.

Some variations between truth and fiction.  I thought the line about Plane flying into the sky was a bit personal and didn't fit the song well, so I changed it over to Train coming down the line.  The line on the second verse Here he is the biggest fool was changed to Here I Am Your Biggest Fool and I think the original line it's good to see your face again but changed to see your living again.  To fit the but living in sin part.  (I could have used But we are living in sin instead now that I think about it now). But the final verse concludes that I was the odd man out and for that time spent together was the best girl I ever had.  For a day and a half but in reality it was more like a week and a half, maybe longer. We'll never tell.

My good friend Diggy Kat continues to play this song at regular intervals on Lucky Star Radio from time to time and I always get a kick out hearing this on the radio.   And slightly over 2 minutes it gets to the point and fades out.  One of the more hook driven acoustic numbers I ever done.  And suggests to me that perhaps I should keep most of my songs at 2 minutes long..

2019:  Lisa still looks as beautiful as ever and has gotten better with age.  As of this writing she has found herself a new love and lives out somewhere on the west coast.  She was one of most exciting blind long distance dates I ever had,   But I think she knew I wasn't the one as she took me to a couple of the Portland record stores up there.  And she knew that the midwest wasn't for her when she came to visit, she certainly didn't like the cold and snow.  The dead giveaway was her look on her face when she saw the music room, and the drumset and the guitar and all them cymbals.  Despite another trip to Portland in 2000, I knew I lost her.   We did keep in touch off and on before she decided she wanted to move on and close the chapter to our friendship.  It's never easy but I think in the long run, it was the right decision.

She still has her long red hair.  I'm still losing mine.

Wednesday 7 January 2015

Donnellee

Donnellee

Driving on the highway I’m heading nowhere
I feel somewhat a bit rejected
Of thinking of someone that I’ll never see again
From a day long ago and forgotten
She never told me of her intentions
Of if she’s going stay or if she’s going
Or what she really wants or what’s she know
And I feel like we’re going in circles
Circumstances beyond our control
Ain’t nothing we can do about it
But sit back, sit back and wonder

Donnellee, Donnellee
Can’t you see, can’t you see
What you mean, mean to me
Donnellee, Donnellee

I know that there’s something here to address dear
So many years of hit and misses
It takes so long just getting to this                           
Liking someone just to take the risk
And I do hope that the feeling’s mutual
Of a connection that is actual
And don’t you think that this could be a wonder
When we’re together late at night
Holding you as we turn out the light
In sight it must be right
To even think we can take this to flight

And so it comes down to the final scene here
Of what you feel inside and still believe in
You seem to think that you’re the victim
Giving up and then abandon
It’s not that I quit caring anyhow
Or share the fact that it’s always something
But I sense the fact you and I are grounded
In our ways so set that they can’t be changed
Same old reasons that can’t be explained
But all we do is go through the motions
Why can’t you for once mean just what you say?

C2007

Sometimes changing the words to Donna Lee when I play this live but this comes from the Highway Home album (2007) and basically a combination of two songs combined into one.  I had a co worker that was actually named Donnellee but that song isn't about her.  I was trying to write a perfect country song with an acoustic slant and this was the end result.  The final verse may have been referenced to Isabella, the woman that I based a half year relationship of mostly downs and not ups on.  The more I sang out the words, the more bitter they become to the last verse, unlike the first two verses of a promising love.  I may have based this on a E harmony or Match dot com commercial of finding true love but in knowing myself, I tend to be the biggest savatager of relationships.  History has shown that quite well.