Back in the early 80s I managed to play drums on a part time basis for Open Highway, which is Paraphernalia without Russ around but I was chomping at the bit to play more of my own stuff. Most of 1982 would find me at Dewayne's house and getting my ears blown out by Doug Bonesteel's loud amps, thus the reminder if you can't play well, play loud and nobody will notice. But after a falling out, the Open Highway Band got put on hiatus, which would last for about 8 months. In the meantime I was going to Kirkwood to get into radio broadcasting (which turned out to be a bad idea) and it turned out to be a two year of doing nothing but waste my parents' money. But I sold them an idea I could make money playing in bands.
The Cedar Rapids music scene was your typical bar band classic rock stuff, hardly anything original. Certain bands did play originals, Hostage comes to mind, Madness (later Akasha) likewise, but whatever I was doing was garage rock material and since I just started learn how to play guitar and writing songs whatever I was doing was not suitable for the bars. It was more punk rock than Free Bird. And So Much For That was a rough first album, recorded from reel to reel to cassette. However with Town's Edge Rock, I discovered a new way to record, straight cassette to cassette but using the reel to reel to mix the sound. A good idea but with each overdub, the tape hiss would increase. But I thought that added more to the sound and at that time both the discman player and the piece of shit Realistic player had the same tape speeds. Later on I come to find out that the Realistic played cassettes much faster and later releases would have the song slower than usual. That would not get corrected till I got a real four track a few years later.
T.E.R sessions started on June 8 of 1983, recorded during breaks at Kirkwood and concluded on the 23rd of that month. The original working title was Combat Communications. For the first time, the album was recorded "dry" meaning no echo in the vocals or drums. Most of the lyrics came together during classes at Kirkwood, so much for education, where I would jot lyrics instead of notes. The most interesting aspect of this album was that I didn't use a regular amp for the guitar but rather hooking the guitar up through an old PA head amp, and run through my old Sears Console Stereo, I came across one of the best sounds I ever got from a guitar and with plenty of reverb too. Alas, that was used during the TE Rock sessions. Mom donated the stereo to Goodwill a few weeks later.
Like So Much For That, I tried to capture the drum sound that I was doing in the other bands but I came to find out the hard way that you can't go all out on recorded guitar tracks. The Keith Moon bash and crash sound would have me come off the beat and then have to redo the damn track all over again. I was a notorious cymbal hitter back then. And knowing this now, I would have let off bashing so many cymbals on these songs. I was still trying to find my way in order to make the songs sound polished as well as accenting drum beats and rolls and make them sound good too. I was not blessed with a singing voice, in Open Highway other folk did sing but on my projects I have to sing them. So there's a bit of off singing, but I think it's more of a innocent bashful singing, kinda like Alfalfa from The Little Rascals so to speak.
The songs themselves, there were some good moments and some of them have been used in later albums, with better results. Jack Orbit and I did wrangle about with the arrangements and believe me there were some interesting drum rolls, the forced Bo Diddley, drum roll of Morockin Roll, the stop start of I gotta let you go refrain on Hole In The Head and the stutter beat of Summer Breeze (although the corny high end vocals made that song somewhat painful to listen to). I certainly worked my ass off on these songs, even though the all over the place Driving With Ned is a fun song to listen to. Some songs do stand out. All It Ever Does Is Rain was a song written about a friend that committed suicide and the end results. Moonlight And You was written about my brief three week get together with Amy Holtz, Summer Breeze was written about trying to locate her a year later and the third verse pretty much explain things. However the best known song remains All Over Now. Yes it was a very angry bitter song aimed at the girl that I wasted my high school years waiting for, but she never returned and ended up having three kids before she turned 18. I think in some ways Jeanette may have been instrumental in keeping my rock and roll dreams alive, if we were together I doubt there would be any Town's Edge Rock or any other album for that matter. But in the end Jeanette turned out to be the worst girlfriend I ever had and what better way is to write about that in a song. I had a friend that was a relative to Jeanette and when she did get married, somehow All Over Now got played at her reception after the wedding. Needless to say, the groom didn't like the song and pretty much destroyed the cassette. Nevertheless, while Jeanette's marriage didn't last too long, All Over Now has been one of my most requested songs when I play live.
Another first was the overdubbing of vocals on side 2, starting with You Ride On It, a simple call and response played with two chords. I think we did about 6 overdubs before settling on just 4 of the vocals. The object was to have a high vocal and a lower vocal to go with the main vocals. On Baby Wanna Dance, I added cowbell and tambourine to the mix and it's a mess, but on later songs such as Cant Seem To Make You Mine or Hole In The Head, I overdub the vocals only. Driving With Ned was the instrumental but on the song Highway, the "drum solo" is nothing more than me banging out a beat on the guitar but kept going since it made some interesting feedback sounds from the guitar. Not bad for a 30 dollar K mart guitar. I do believe that the vocal overdubs on side 2 made T E Rock a much more worthy listen and it would set the foundation of the sound of Rodney Smith. I really have not ventured too much out of that sound since then, only tweaked and polished it up on each new release.
While 30 years plus may have dated the sound and the intention, Town's Edge Rock is the important first album that gave me the confidence to continue to make albums. But it also proved that good albums take time to complete, unlike the first takes of the Big Crash Years While So Much For That begins the journey, it's Town's Edge Rock that gets things going in the right direction. The followups would be forthcoming, but it would be a while before anything topped the rude tenacity and garage rock logic of Town's Edge Rock.
Tracklist:
One Track Mind 2:58
Two Lines Backwards 2:50
Baby Wanna Dance (Smith/Orbit/Miller) 3:00
13 Minutes To What? 1:35
Moonlight And You 5:05
Ever So Much 2:55
All It Ever Does Is Rain 4:17
Morockin' Roll (Smith/Orbit) 2:40
Driving With Ned (Smith/Orbit/Miller/Jackson) 2:10
You Ride On It 3:25
Fix 2:10
Can't Seem To Make You Mine 3:35
Hole In The Head (Smith/Miller) 2:41
Highway 4:06
Nowhere City 2:20
All Over Now (Smith/Orbit/Strobie) 4:14
Summer Breeze (Smith/Orbit) 3:36
All songs written by Rodney Smith (c) Rodney Smith except where noted
Recorded as is at The Rock Room aka Maier Studios, Marion IA June 8-23, 1983
Recorded by Rodney Smith, assisted by Ken Miller and Mel Strobie
Produced by Jack Orbit with Rodney Smith
All instruments and vocals are played by Rodney Smith
Mel Strobie-Bass on All Over Now
Jack Orbit-additional guitars
Ken Miller-Bass
Originally issued as Maier Records MRK 24199
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