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.