Thoughts From The Townedger-July

It's been a fairly busy month.  However, on Tuesday I had surgery to repair a belly button hernia and by Thursday Night I made it out to jam at Wrigleyville with some of the finest jammers around town. Perhaps I should have taken it easy but then again after having my appendix removed in 1996, five days later I was recording once again.

The strange thing about the Thursday Night jam is how much singing of the bar band classics that I had to do.  It's one thing when I have a guitar in my hands, another when I'm behind the drumset and truthfully I'm not a fan of singing behind the drums.  Only at gunpoint.  However, these past four weeks of doing a jam session has kinda opened me up in a way.  I suppose if I can keep doing this I'll get a bit more comfortable behind the mic and be able to sing those classic.  Provided if I can remember the words.

Every jam session we seem to have at least four or five drummers, so my jam time is limited. Terry McDowell plays in about three or four other bands, Peter Stark likes to wear the old tie dye T shirts and with his wife they are magical together.  Herm Sarduy is super smooth, can adapt to any beat at any time and is highly regarded.  Of course they practice a lot more than myself, which I tend to get extremely lackadaisical and out of focus. I rely on instinct.  Certainly I need to practice more often and I have been.  But I'm still not up to the standards of the Tyrus/Paraphernalia years or even The Routers.  I can hold my own but in reality, I'll need a few more hours under the spotlight to be in their league.

In the meantime, I'm suppose to take it easy and not lift anything over 10 pounds while recovering from hernia surgery so I'll be picking up a guitar and piecing together the new album. Three more songs in the can and more ideals to follow.  With no Arizona trip this year (maybe never) they say no traveling for another week or two anyway.  Diggy Kat and I traded ideas for a new song, plus a couple more too.  Since Forthcoming Trains turned out to be a bigger deal than 30, I still have been promoting that and the top ten hit of We All Sleep Alone which stayed in the top ten all month.   I need to start on the subject of the Townedgers back catalog with comments and memories of each album that I did from 1983 onward.  These things don't write themselves.

Would I consider doing a Townedgers song at a jam session?  I don't think the songs would fit in the regular songs, nobody knows them.  Unless I bring a guitar up there and show the boys how its done than probably not.

The Official Albums Of The Townedgers (and related) 1983-present

In light of things, I have been very lax in posting the albums of myself and what would be The Townedgers.  I admit the discography is a mess and probably will be till the end of time.  I started out recording in 1973 (and all of them got erased over time or the cassette fell apart). My dad then purchased a Reel To Reel Sony and from 1976 to 1982  I did a variety of forgotten albums, the best moments coming on a 1982 The Best Of Rodney Smith.  For some reason I decided to keep three albums on CD preserved. 1980's Rod Smith Tonight, 1981's The Power Of Positive Thinking and 1982 Bizarre Behavior which were released last year as the Big Crash Collection series.  While the tapes of the other recordings are still on reel to reel, the best moments were preserved on CD.


Back then, I worked with how much tape I had, and most of the time these hour long tapes had plenty of filler songs to them.  That continued when I started going back to cassette recording.  Most cassettes were hour long or 90 minute long, and had plenty of filler songs as well.  The first true album So Much For That, I found a 45 minute cassette and was happy with the end result, but when I couldn't find a 45 minute tape, I ended up getting an hour long cassette and added songs from the Big Crash Years.  Town's Edge Rock, the second album, was the true beginning of a long career which I never became more than a closet cult artist at best.

The Official Releases:

So Much For That (April 1983)
Town's Edge Rock (June 1983)
Living In The Twilight Zone (September 1983) (No longer available)
Love Sucks (originally titled Hey You) (November 1983)
Rodney Smith's Infinite Loop (June 1984)
Contractual Obligations EP (later 1984)
Rock And Roll Made Me What I Am Today (May 1985)
Rodney Smith And Route 66 (July 1985)
Wapisipinicon Dreaming (September 1986)
Every Hour On The Hour (November 1986) (No longer available)
Tales Of The Red Caboose (July 1987)
Postcards From The Edge (December 1987)
Travelogue (October 1988)
State Fair (April 1989)
Moonlight Chronicles (June 1989)
Floodlands (November 1989)
Purseyors Of The Truth (September 1990)
Nice Weather We're Having (November 1990)
Diamonds In The Skies (November 1991)
Drive In Blues (June 1992)
The First And Last Reunion (April 1993)
Modern Problems In Reflected Living (July 1993)
Weather On The Nines (November 1994)
These Things Must Past (June 1995)
Light At The End Of The Tunnel (March 1996)
The Townedgers Live-The Art Of Deception (November 1998)
Land Of Abandonment (December 1999)
More Rodney Smith And The Townedgers (2000)
There's Nothing Left (April 2001)
The Road Less Traveled (March 2002)
Observations From The Forefront ( July 2002)
20 (November 2003)
A Long Time Forgotten (November 2005)
Christmas With The Townedgers (October 2006)
The Highway Home (May 2007)
Pawnshops For Olivia (June 2008)
Townedgers' Country ( March 2009)
30/No Exit (April 2013)
Forthcoming Trains (April 2014)

In the CD age, So Much For That and Living In The Twilight Zone got issued as 2 on 1, with a few tracks deleted due to time considerations.  Likewise the 1985 albums got condensed.  I was thinking of giving both of their stand alone CD but the master tapes of a couple songs have been lost in the archives and haven't been found.

I did include three compilation albums (More, Observations and Country) since I considered them to be part of the recorded history of myself and the TEs but have not included any Best Ofs.  There has been talk and thinking about putting the best songs on one cd but again I want the songs to fit a format and quality as well.   Stories Of The Road (2000) is the only official best of but with the surprise success of We All Sleep Alone, a new upgrade best of might have forthcoming.  I also did not include two cds of two 2007 live in the studio stuff, nor the 1991 We're Getting Nowhere, for KRUI which didn't get aired.  Take away the comps and the TEs only have 8 official albums in the 2000s.

Although 26 albums and an EP was issued in the 80s, those years remain a garbled mess.  With prices for CD recorders fell in price, in 1995 I tried to set the record straight and issued the 80s albums in the intended way, less filler.  Basically Town's Edge Rock was left with all songs from the cassette, warts and all.  That was the CD that gave me the confidence to continue to record original stuff.   By the 1990s I was beginning to shelve albums, Perseyors Of The Truth got put on the backburner in favor of Nice Weather We're Having.  First And Last Reunion was delayed in favor of Modern Problems.  And Mixed Blessings, the unofficial album of 2005 was canned, only Nevada Streets was good enough for inclusion on Long Time Forgotten.

The 80s and 90s were a much bloated time, with the lesser known and filler kinda ruining the tempo and feel of the albums.  In the 2000s I started redoing the lesser known songs on later albums.  If you haven't hear them before it's new to you and they were pretty good written songs.  But it's well known that I was spending more time buying records and CDs and not focusing on The Townedgers.  I got tired of writing songs about women that used to be high school sweethearts or casual flings, especially songs toward the one who turned out to be a 38 year old mind fuck.  Which is why I don't play Running In The Rain anymore.  She never gave two fucks anyway, even back then.

30 and No Exit are one and the same, 30 I took out a few songs and added one and perhaps should have kept The End as the final track but I wanted Goodbye Doesn't Mean Forever the last song.  Still there's a possibility of returning No Exit back to print, or start a new comp.

Albums don't mean much anymore in life.  People want singles or snippets and not support the local starving artist. The five year lapse between Pawnshops and 30 wasn't intentional but at that point I kinda stepped away from the drumset and guitar for a spell.  I'm still old guard and the old ways of playing albums (even my own).  And with a CD recorder, I can now record 10 to 12 songs and keep it around 40 to 45 minutes, rather than the ones that last more than an hour.  I still love the full hour albums such as Light at The End Of The Tunnel or Modern Problems. And if I can still play these albums 20 years after the fact, then I think I did my job of making a good album.  And that's all that matters.

And as I get older, I'm finally at peace with myself and the songs that have been a part of this 30 plus year journey of original garage rock.  I have started coming out to jam sessions and play and sing too. Never thought that would happen playing a jam session and shouting out to Rocky Mountain Way or Can't Get Enough.  I'm more at home with my own originals but as they say Better Late Than Never in getting together with new musicians and friends along the way.  The Cedar Rapids Jammers have been nice to me and who knows, maybe some other new band might pop up from all this jamming.

But for me, this discography is the one that I'll be best known for.  And I can live with this too.

We All Sleep Alone

I told Diggy Kat if he kept this song in the top ten, I post the lyrics and dang if it didn't top the top ten at Lucky Star Radio.  This week's edition of the top ten on Lucky Star Radio is a who's who of music plus some of the exciting new bands coming up. Pet Engine's song rocks, Rob Nichols and Songbirds too. We'll forgive them for 18 And Life.

Some notes about my biggest hit ever. Jack Orbit and I wrote some of the lyrics way back in the 1990s but sat on it till I was working out the G C chords at the beginning and as you can tell it's a very simple song about the struggles of love and keeping it together.  Men want one thing, women another and we never seem to get on the same page.  The second verse was updated with a few twists and turns about the he said she said thing.  And getting to the chorus, which basically the break up. (What do you look for when you open that door and find yourself alone, you'll compromise).  At that point gone and gone and there's nothing left to compromise.

The chorus was out of the blue, the what do you look for segment really came up on the spot, that wasn't planned when the recording was laid down, nor the sing along chorus.  Upon mixing the album, Martin kinda left the singalong further in the mix, a new single version has the vocals up further.  Once that is delivered to my A and R guy, I'm sure he'll put it to better use. By then, the song will probably be out of the top ten when that happens.  I never did plan on having this song being number 1 or anything, but since they decided upon that I guess I should learn this better for future shows.

Funny thing about this song and the album Forthcoming Trains is how I continued to promote it, over a year after its release.  Usually I'm on the next effort but I have loved most of the songs off this album and continue to tout this while driving Martin and company up the wall with the inactivity of the new album.  I promise things are getting done as we speak.   It's a special feeling to have a number 1 song anywhere, a reward for working on songs in my little tight music room upstairs.  I don't expect We All Sleep Alone being played on Corporate Rock Radio, or even NPR although the latter would be incentive for me to get off my butt and play live more often.  I may have to quiz Diggy Kat on the reason why this is still on top of the charts the past three weeks.  But as long there's proof of it being number 1 on the charts, damn right I'm going to document it. 

I guess it's the best of 2015 on Lucky Star Radio and thanks to all who listened and supported this song.


We All Sleep Alone


Well I'm surprised to see you here
Must have taken some effort to conquer your fear
Not that I'm the first to tell you so
But it seems like you're the last to know
Now if you're looking for that perfect man
Then you're simply on the wrong planet
The pieces of that puzzle are never complete
So maybe you should wake up from that dream

And we all sleep alone
A reason that is known
And we never get this right
When you sitting right by my side
So what do you look for
When you open that door
and find yourself alone you'll compromise

She says we never agree on anything
It's guys like you who make love such a pain
And if you think you got the key to my heart
You better sober up cause you're drunk
I said you may not want to admit to this
But I bet you'll dream about me tonight
She said ain't you got the other way around my friend
I may say you're wrong but you know that I'm right

And we all sleep alone
A reason that is known
And we never get this right
When you're sitting right by my side
So what do you look for
When you open that door
And find yourself alone you'll compromise

You'll compromise

(c) 2014 R.Smith/Townedger Music Emporium