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.