Thoughts Of The Townedger-September Edition

So much going on.  The jam sessions of the past two months are coming to an end at Tuesday Nights.  I love jamming with T Ray Robertson, Dave Bonham and a many others but I'll be working full time once again and bills need to be paid for the next hospital visit.  Once  things slow down I will be back to weeknights jamming but if nothing else I can probably do the Rumors Sunday Jam till the snow flies.  Usually I like to spend the waning hours of the fall watching leaves turn and trains down at the nature center, but they are putting up a new building where the trail used to be.  Not happy about it, but that's progress I gather.

The surprise of the month was seeing DeWayne Schminkey, my old Open Highway guitar player took  a few shots of courage (and a couple shots of Jack) and come up on stage and we did about four or five songs together.  It's irony but when I was wailing away on Rocky Mountain Way, he strolled in.  We did a few songs from the old Open Highway catalog, a version of Oh Boy, a couple of Pink Floyd Wall tracks, one of them Mother was done as avant garde number but perhaps the highlight was a version of Knocking On Heaven's Door.   Of course I knew the words, it was done off Forthcoming Trains and I think we did all right on that number.  Usually Ross, the bar owner of Rumors does that song on Sunday Afternoons, and I think he does it via Guns And Roses.  While his version is more of a tribute to his friends who passed on, my version is more darker and a bit more piss and vinegar, as if that long dark cloud is coming down on us.   While Dave and T Ray have been jam bros throughout the whole two months, it's even more special when I got Russ to join up on stage and just as much DeWayne as well.  I guess it all goes back when we were all friends and knew each other in high school and around town and our band was the first band we got it together.  We played at a new year's party as a opening act, we played the Pink Elephant and drove the undesirables out with country music before getting back to rock and roll.  Like Russ, DeWayne and I share a common bond.  We both stayed way past our bedtime that night but I'd do it again just for the pleasure of hanging with one of my favorite guitar players.  If I get a free afternoon, I'm sure we will get together and play a while.  Just like in the old days.

Another highlight of the month was patching up differences with my grade school good friend Jeff Kewley.  When we saw each other at the reunion party this month, we talked for about a good half hour and he said that he has taken up the guitar at age 50 and has taken lessons.   We went through a lot through grades 4 through 6 at Longfellow School and bad fortune of having a good looking girl tear our friendship.  Even we didn't get that certain girl, Jeff has done quite well being married for over 30 years with his wife and she remains as stunning as ever.  I hope some day that I can convince Jeff to come out and jam a song or two.  Miracles do happen, I got Russ and Dewayne back on stage this year. I hope to convince Dennis Lancaster to pick up a guitar and jam next time he comes into town.

I hope to finish up the album archives next month.  It does bring back memories when I come across the sessions of previous recordings, sometimes good, mostly bad.  But not the songs themselves.  The argument is that Diamonds In The Skies was the classic Townedgers album, but in my eyes, Light At The End Of The Tunnel was the best of the bunch, it certainly was the most emotional one before Pawnshops For Olivia came to be in 2008.   Especially when I had to shelve the album after my appendix burst on me.  While this was the 3rd and final album of the Clarice Trilogy, I think a better term that it was the final album of the Broadcast Manor years, which started with The First And Last Reunion in 1993 and ended with Light At The End Of The Tunnel.  While the last year and half of us being together wasn't much fun, Clarice in the beginning of our time together really was an inspiration and the love songs were written with her in mind, from Undying Love to Listen To Love. I'd rather remember her in that way.

I don't think Clarice is computer savvy.  She disappeared after I picked the car up from her in 1999.

Townedger Radio was a nice outlet to promote the music and to do it for 15 shows was a feat upon itself.  When people ask about where to listen the music, I tend to post links to TE radio and what ever is posted.  But then again, you get folks who rather hear everything for free, since the TEs are not well known, it's best to put it on the net, all of it for no cost to them.  Diamonds in the skies is the free album, it's been out for those to hear for about 10 years now, thanks to Diggy Kat, and I posted selected singles that showcase the best of the TEs.  But I don't make any money doing that, it's a showcase of the best music and if your a fan I'll do my best to accommodate but then I would transfer songs into MP3s or make CDs that nobody buys.  In this day and age, CDs from unknown artists usually get thrown in the dumpster or dollar bins.  I read some of the concerns from fans off the Facebook site and when they mentioned about promoting the music, I direct them to the links that do have the music available.  I can count on one hand how many folks did buy an CD and one of them was somebody I dated for a while.  Certain artists do protect their music, and I do admit that to get a TE CD you really have to really want it to get a copy.  And people's attention spans are shorter than they have ever been.  To be honest if i was a stranger, I would  buy the TEs, it's alternative rock garage fun.   I have the greatest supporter in Diggy Kat, he's the main person that has kept the TEs alive and well on Lucky Star Radio and I suppose some day our tenure there will be over.   But he's had my back in the past 12 years of being friends with him.  I wish there were a few more like him.

I doubt if I will hear my music on Spotify or Pandora.  If I did I wouldn't get paid.  They don't cut checks under a half penny.

And my music should be fun to play and listen to.  If it's not anymore then I'll retire once and for all.

If the jam sessions have done anything, it's that I'm beginning to get more at ease singing and playing. The vocals have been a bit more assured and more confident.  I don't know if I'll ever get used to play guitar in front of a crowd, it's still a work in progress and not a good one, but I have held my own in the studio.  Otherwise who else would have thought up those riffs and words?  And albums too?

I didn't go back into jamming just to see if I can get a bit of lady action.  At this point in time, I have no desire for drunk 22 year olds trying to sing Hit Me With Your Best Shot or Bon Jovi.  Usually when the jam is over for the night, yours truly wants to go home and rewind on the computer before bed.   It's kinda  pain in the ass when your trying to maneuver around some drunk chick shaking her butt to some techno playing on the net jukebox and her giving you the evil eye when you bump into her when she's not paying attention.   I prefer records.

Album Archives: Land Of Abandonment 1999

Around 1996, the R S Crab alter ego started taking shape and I really have no idea how that happened.  Perhaps me and Clarice was talking and she thought I was a sweetheart but I told her I was a crab.  But I found a stuffed toy crab at Wally World and maybe that's where it started.

After Light At The End Of The Tunnel, I took an extended break from music once again.  I tried my best to be the boyfriend that Clarice wanted, we talked marriage at some point, but on the forth of July of 1996, we had a big fallout that would change our opinion of one another forever.  It was beginning to show big time, and nothing I could do made things that much better.  Living at Broadcast Manor, my rental duplex was still not bad, but my brother was looking to leave the premises and he was looking for an acreage.  Clarice in the meantime finally got a trailer over at Summitview.  She then started on losing weight to which she lost over 125 pounds to which I outweighed her.  And to celebrate that we went out on the company party to which when she came over in a a revealing dress, I was very shocked of how much she did lose weight.  But unknown to me she was beginning to look for somebody new and it was beginning to show.  By summer of 1997 we were spending more time apart and the love that was shown and made was few and far between.

Geoff and I started working on some demos for the next project at Broadcast Manor but nothing came of it and when my brother announced that he found a perfect acreage, it was time to decide if I should go with him, or move in with Clarice in a strained relationship, or stay put and hope the next renter next door could tolerate drums. I chose to move out to the new acreage in Viola Flats.  We moved in September of 1997.  With that Clarice and I were done, I saw her three times, one a short lived booty call, the second a disastrous meeting to which she was worrying about paying her bills on time and then showing me the door around New Year's Eve 1997 and then finally the break up on Valentines' Day 1998, to which she finally admitted she was seeing somebody for two months.  And here she was, complaining that I was seeing somebody time and time again, knowing damn well I was at home or the record store.  Certainly breakups bring tears but it also gave me back my freedom.

Which comes to Land Of Abandonment, which went under a few titles (Stranger In Your Town, Avenues) and a few of the songs dealt with the breakup between me and Clarice.  Yes I still loved her in a way, but a few songs was a reaction to the breakup, The One That Knows Me Best and Stolen Heartaches were about trying to keep it together and then failing to do so, The two people, too late chorus of the the latter song summed things up better than anything I've done prior to breakup songs.  ...and so, was written after I got home after the breakup on Valentine's Day 1998, it's a song about frustration of knowing somebody was seeing somebody else behind your back for 2 months.   For starters,  we rented out the Whittier Community Center for a night of playing original stuff, and on that I led the band and Bob Muncie sat in on drums for that show.  It was kinda nice to get the demons out and just jam for about an hour with a small crowd helping along the way.

When we started the sessions that became Land Of Abandonment Brian Mullahan came out during a blizzard in March of 1999 to oversee Avenues and then decided that he didn't want to continue producing the new album.  A clash of ideals, Geoff and Brian had a heated exchange and that was it. So, Richard Dennanbaugh got tapped to help keep me in line.  The next session in April and we came up with 151 Song, a song about the highway I went home on or up to Madison US 151.  It recorded during a thunderstorm to which you can hear in the background.  This album I bought one of those expensive 2000 dollar hard drive recorders with all these effects put into the player and Richard encouraged me to record different types of styles and I did.  The heavy metal guitar of Love 99, the deep reverb sound of ...and so.  It was a lotta fun transcribing songs into tape although it turned out to be hard work doing so.  I wasn't used to a new four track of hard drive recording.  Certainly adding a bullhorn type of vocal to Love 99 gave us a whole new meaning and sound.

But also while the technology was there, the songs were lacking of sorts. The Wrong Side Of The Tracks was a half assed written song about Susan Tedeschi the famed blueswoman who later married Derek Trucks, at that time I thought I could get her as a girlfriend.  What You Don't Get, was a rewrite of All Over Now and Biscuit Girl was a rant against a senior at work Nicole Somebody.

The album also focused on death.  Till The Next Time was written for our 14 year old dog Pepper who was not long for this world, the object was to finish the record and play it for her.  Pepper for many years was a faithful dog who loved jumping the fences and playing with a plastic bat that she would woof till you threw it.  After I got the song done, I played it on the CD player while holding her head in my lap and cried all the way through.  When I went to Arizona to get away from it all, my folks put her to sleep, but not after having rolling down the window and Pepper getting enough strength to pop her head out in the window and feeling the breeze one last time.   The other song Stories Of The World, was written for Paul Sterynski, a one time guitar player for The Routers to which I jammed with in 1991, he lived in Minneapolis, and was friends with Greg Nutter so they played together in this band before I joined up and rechristened them The Routers.  Paul passed away from cancer and best way I knew how was to sing his praises in this song.

Outside of that, it was uneven.  After Pepper's passing I sat on the album most of the year. There are highlights and I have my favorites but I didn't see the need to issue it till December 30 of 1999, to which is considered to be the last official release of not only 1999 but the whole 100 years of the 1900s.    It's a dark album to say the very least.  But I ended up meeting a nice woman from Oregon, Lisa that would be a big part of the final part of 1999, in fact she made me a lot happier at the close of the year and there was promise and a hope that 2000 would be a start of better things to come, even after the bad ending of me and Clarice, something good was bound to happen.  Land Of Abandonment isn't a pleasant listening for the faint of heart but I tend to think it does have its rightful place in history. 

"If we're going to fail let's do it in style"  Mel Torme

Technical notes:

Avenues was recorded March 8th, 1999 during a blizzard
151 Song, originally titled 151 Blues Song recorded May 1st, 1999

Major recording of the album started on May 29  and concluded June 30th

Sessions and songs:

May 29 Session 1
Is Your Love Strong Enough (rejected)

June 1-Session 2
Saving Grace, Love 99 (titled Job Number 234 on Recording sheet), Time To Love You

June 2-Session 3
Wanderlust

June 6-Session 4
The One That Knows Me Best, Stolen Heartaches

June 16-Session 5
What You Don't Get, Pulling The Wings Off Angels (re-titled Find My Way)

June 17-Session 6
Down To You (rejected)

June 18-Session 7
Stories Of The Road

June 21-Session 8
Wrong Side Of The Tracks

June 23-Session 9
Biscuit Girl, Until The Next Time

June 25-Session 10
If I'm In The Way

June 26-Session 11
Shimmer (Rejected), ...and so..., Stone City, The Highway Is For Dreamers

June 30, Session 12
Too Long In The Parking Lot

Drum overdubs July 6,7,8

The Album:

Avenues  (R.Smith)  3:55
Love 99  (Words: Smith/Music: The Townedgers)  3:28
151 Song (R.Smith/R.Dennanbaugh)  3:40
The One That Knows Me The Best (Smith/Redding)  3:55
Stolen Heartaches (R.Smith)  4:11
Time To Love You (R.Smith)  3:10
Stories Of The Road (R.Smith/G.Redding)  5:30
Too Long In The Parking Lot (Bonus CD Track) (Smith/Redding)  2:30

Wrong Side Of The Tracks (Smith/Redding)  3:13
Biscuit Girl (R.Smith)  4:20
Saving Grace (Smith/Redding)  4:20
What You Don't Get (Smith/McClelland/Knowles)  4:20
Find My Way (Smith/Redding)  4:30
and so (Lyrics: Smith/Music: The Townedgers)  4:20
Until The Next Time (Smith/Redding)  2:55

Songs: copyrighted 1999 R.Smith/Townedger Music Emporium 

Band: Rodney Smith, Geoff Redding, Mark McClelland, Pepper

Recorded at  Smith Brothers Studio, Viola Flats Iowa  Feb-July 1999
Recorded by Richard Dennanbaugh, assisted by Ken Miller and Martin Daniels
Production by Rodney Smith and Richard Dennanbaugh
Associate Producer: Geoff Redding

Thanks to GOD, Brother Rick for the recording space, Mom and Dad and You for being you.

Dedicated to the memory of: Mel Torme, Mark Sandman, Curtis Mayfield,  Paul Styrnowski,  Ron Glarington, JFK Jr.  and Pepper.

While The Highway Is For Dreamers didn't make it to the final track listing, it was later issued as a single and later put on the outtakes collection called More Rodney Smith And The Townedgers along with Wunderlust, If I Am In The Way and Stone City.

Released on Radio Maierburg Records RMR-25032 as Land Of Abandonment, December 30, 1999

Album Archives: Light At The End Of The Tunnel 1996

This album took a long time to complete.  Recording started on December 12, 1995 at Broadcast Manor and ended February 29, 1996, with drum tracks recorded March 1-3.

The 3rd and final of the Clarice Musel  Trilogy albums although in hindsight, the fifth and final album of the Broadcast Manor years. Which I recorded at the duplex on N St.  At this point Clarice and I were still a item, still in love and still having fun, although being together for almost two years there was some talk about moving in together somewhere down the road.  When you're in love with somebody at some point you have to include them and their own into more time together.  We talked on the phone if we weren't together but the time of writing songs that would become Light At The End Of The Tunnel.   I had to deal with infidelity issues from her, when you work second shift and then come home and trying to write songs with the guys, I certainly didn't have time for another woman.  The band was changing as well, Mark McClelland came in to replace Ken Miller at bass and would become a part of the band for the next decade, for better or for worse.  Most of the time I would trade ideas from Geoff Redding and Jack Orbit too and we would transcribe, and jam and add words to music.  It actually came together quite nice despite distractions from my girlfriend.

The usual crew was there, Brian Mullahan  co produced.  Richard Dennanbaugh recorded it during sixteen different sessions recorded between December and February, but after December 12th, we would not get back to record the album till the new year.  I think overall, the guitars and vocals were probably the best we ever recorded, and I found a way to separate the guitars left to right.  It's real cool to hear the introduction of Railroaded and having Geoff in the other speaker.  Plus the right amount of echo was inserted into the vocals to make it somewhat mysterious

The songs themselves: Disappearing Act and Late Night both came from lyrics that I wrote when I was working third shift processing Pell Grants at the old National Computer Service in 1985 and found them in a pile of unused words.  I wrote some witty lyrics back then, and these two songs came out of boredom.  Return To Town's Edge is yet another song about my city is gone and coming to the conclusion that it's never coming back.  I'd Rather Not (aka I Don't Think So) was a call and response about things in life.

It's interesting to note that at this time I was listening to John Coltrane and although the music doesn't reflect it, there's a bit of his influence in the songs that we did.  The blues type of Take It Easy, the odd time of Know Your Man, was influenced by hearing both A Love Supreme and Blue Train.  But there's more of a punk rock  new wave sound as well.  And of course kudos to Crazy Horse, the band more than Neil Young.  Although Clarice and I were starting to show growing pains being together, I did write some love songs about the way I felt toward her, Spark Of Life (that keeps me going) and especially Listen To Love, one of the more pure love songs about anybody that I wrote about.   But there was a counterpoint, like Know Your Man which was basically a warning to trust me a bit more than what she was doing.  Or Unfinished, which really wasn't that much about her, but the way I felt that things were not going so well.

A week after celebrating my 35th birthday, I had to go to the emergency room after suffering from a burst appendix and they had to operate on the same day I went to the doctor's office.  So that was a life changing event. Here I was in the middle of recording the new album and all of a sudden I'm on the operating table being sedated and not knowing if I'll finish the record, or being alive for that matter.  I recall when they were putting me under I was yelling at the Hawkeye/Indiana game and then finding myself looking at a crescent bright light from afar.  I don't think I was dead but it could have been the great white light they talked so much of when you pass on.  Next thing I know I was recovering in bed, wanting to go home bad and looking outside and seeing a blizzard going on.  There was a man who was slated to have open heart surgery in my room being a good sport and talking to me while I kept going in and out of consciousness.  I managed just to stay there one night before going home the next day and holding his hand and thanking him for his helping me through those trying times.

For the first four days, I laid on the couch, eating pain pills and watching Perry Mason reruns and the TV.  Clarice watched over me for a while but then she did two things that changed our love together.  One day, she went out on a got a 1994 Corsica and helped me co signed on the dotted line, and then later on, was trying to get me to buy a new trailer house, which I didn't have the finances to do so, not just yet.  I remember half crocked on meds and being in pain as she drove that car up and down the highway saying she needed a new ride.  I told her if she can handle the payments I'd help her but not the trailer house.   Even in pain, I still was trying to come up with new songs, but couldn't record anything till the 9th of February when I came up with Borrowed Time, which basically was a rant and rave about my situation of being cut up open in the stomach and in the wallet.  When you think about it, we all are living in borrowed time and nobody knows when their time is up.

It was a very interesting time with the Hale Bopp Comet in the western skies as well.  Our final session ended on February 29th with Forever Indebted To You, a song thanking my friends for supporting the music and Clarice as well.  She really did at that time inspired me to write better songs when she came into my life.  And as far as I know, she did enjoy the songs that I did write and played for her.  The question remains if she didn't have her boys if things would be different, they would be, but I knew all along that her boys came first and I respected them enough to let her do the disciplining of them.  And I'm glad that she was a part of this life for at least for the first 2 years together, she was everything I ask for from a woman and more.  Sad to say the year and half starting with a Forth of July blowup would eventually become our downfall and our love was no more on Valentine's Day 1998.  It would take another year and half to get things out of my name and I ended up taking the Corsica payments in 1999 to which it would live another 15 years before rusting away and given to the junkyard this weekend.

Nevertheless, Light would be the last album recorded at Broadcast Manor and there would be no new Townedgers albums till 1998's live at Wittier's The Art Of Deception in November of 98. And the last album of the 1990s Land Of Abandonment which we'll continue the conversation later.  Outside of that I love Light At The End Of The Tunnel, it's basically ends the classic years of 1991-1996 on a high note.  It is a double album, but it's very listenable and like a good book the songs go into each other quite well.  Brian and I listened to the songs and put them into sequence.  While some of the leftovers didn't quite fit on the album, they did find new life on other comps, most notably Life And Times.  The drum sound is a bit suspect, but they don't overpower.  Richard and I did a remix of Late Night on the CD reissue to get the drums to at least sound like they are there but looking back on the mixes, the drums were not recorded very loud at all.  The sound of Light At The End Of The Tunnel fits the mood perfectly of how I was feeling and I think we all knew that this record would be the last time we would ever get this sound and feeling of spirit together again.  To which that, this record remains the original fitting finale to a decade that really wasn't that bad.  Even with my shirt bloodstained from ripped stitches getting into Borrowed Time, I think it was worth it.


The Sessions Themselves:
Recorded By Richard Dennanbaugh, Assisted By Hugh McConnell, Rod Smith

Session 1-December 10, 1995
Life And Times
Session 2-December 12
Unfinished (Version 1), Late Night, Disappearing Act
Session 3-January 8, 1996
Material Eyes
Session 4, January 14
Midnight Blue (Incomplete), Railroaded, Exhibit A
Session 5, January 18
Losing Game
Session 6, January 19
Who's The Fool Here, I Rather Not, Midnight Blue (2nd Version)
Session 7, January 20
Unfinished (Version 2), Take It Easy
Session 8, January 21
Years Of Tears, Lovers Night Out
Session 9, January 27
Know Your Man
Session 10, February 9
Borrowed Time
Session 11, February 10
Listen To Love
Session 12, February 16
Return To Town's Edge
Session 13, February 17
The Waiting Club
Session 14, February 26
Spark Of Life, Weak Moment
Session 15, February 29
Forever Indebted To You, You're Gonna Miss Me


The Track List: (Comprised as a 2 record set)

Return To Town's Edge (Smith/Orbit)  4:38
Late Night (R.Smith)  4:33
Disappearing Act  (R.Smith)  4:00
Material Eyes (Smith/Redding) 2:40

Railroaded (R.Smith)  3:59
Exhibit A (R.Smith)  3:10
Losing Game (Smith/Redding)  4:11
I'd Rather Not (Smith/Orbit/Redding/McCarren)  2:30
Unfinished (R.Smith)  3:30

Listen To Love (Smith/Redding/McCarren) 2:48
Take It Easy (Smith/Orbit)  3:50
Years Of Tears (Smith/Redding)  3:32
The Waiting Club (Smith/Redding)  3:30
Spark Of Life (R.Smith)  3:44

Know Your Man (Smith/Orbit/Redding)  3:17
Borrowed Time (R.Smith)  3:13
Weak Moment (Smith/Orbit/Redding)  3:00
Forever Indebted To You (Smith/Orbit)  3:31
You're Gonna Miss Me (R.Erickson)  3:27* (Tapier Music BMI)

*Bonus track on LP and Deluxe CD version

The Band:  Rodney Smith, Jack Orbit, Geoff Redding, Mark McClelland (known as McCarren due to legal technicalities at that time) 

Produced by Brian Mullahan And Rodney Smith
Recorded by Richard Dennanbaugh, with Hugh McConnell and Rod Smith
Recorded at Broadcast Manor, CR IA from Dec 1995 to March 1996
(Between colds, flus, appendectomy, etc)
Final recording and fine tuning were on March 2 through March 17, to which final drum tracking and mixing the songs to tape were done.  Kyle Guttenburg helped on the mixing at Studio 66, Marion IA

"in the darkness of  uncertainly, there is always a light at the end of the tunnel"

Thank you's- GOD, J.C., John Coltrane, Monk, Kevin Salem, Blue Mountain, the guy who thought I played in Blue Mountain, Mike Davenport, Heidi Waterman (this woman who laughed her ass off when I ripped my pants at work), Darryl Coble (RIP), Irene Leeson (I miss you), and of course to the woman that won my heart at that time Clarice Musel, this record is for you.

And as well, to Beverley Madden, Denny Ballard and the late Danny Bowman.  And last but not least to Greg Nutter, ex Router and bass player extraordinaire.

Not to be forgotten: Ron Glaringon who left for the great white light of beyond February 2, 1996

"remember don't expect perfection. Sloppiness is art. That's what make great albums stand out.  And don't forget to support your local starving bands at any bar that lets them play music".


Released as Maier Records MRK 24976 Light At The End Of The Tunnel, April 1996

Record Archives: These Things Must Pass 1995

I first met Diggy Kat via a social network site about classic rock, which is kinda odd ball thing.  He's about twenty years younger than me but he has a love of music and creating it, so I consider him a son I never had.  I did mentioned that I was in a band and he wanted to hear how I sound. I gave him a copy of These Things Must Pass.  And he's been my biggest supporter ever since.

Even twenty years ago, details are getting hazy, but 1995 was a year in transition for me.  I was a year into being with Clarise and things were still going great.  We shared some wild and crazy nights at the old place she lived in Wellington Heights, one of the worst places in town.  The street was the main place to get drugs and the undesirables hung around the corner and off the complex she lived at.  Doors would opening and slamming at ungodly hours of the night and the cockroaches were terrible.  She would eventually move to a better place across town.  Looking back, I think she was a angel of sorts, she still was a band supporter and left me to my own devices on the making of These Things Must Pass.  The term being a comment that it was time to let things go and these things of the past that you remember must pass while looking for the future.  It really wasn't taken from the George Harrison All Things Must Pass album.

Brian Mullahan returned back to co produce and the record showed a better production as well. But I noticed that the music was a bit more harder rocking than Modern Problems or Drive In Blues was.  Brian was more of a pop oriented producer rather than hard rock and this kinda conflicted in the making of the record.  The near Heavy Metal of Best Of Me, the Crazy Horse influence of A Picture Of Someone Not Worth Remembering, or turning the Rolling Stones' Play With Fire into something Metallica would have done, didn't sit very well with him, and half the time we were fighting over direction of what the album was going to be.   If anything, These Things Must Pass was even more schizophrenic than Weather On The Nines.  Nevermind of the love songs that was I Just Might See Her Tonight was about going to Clarise's place and making whoopie.  Or I Am (the reason to be your man).  The record also had other observations:  In This Town was a statement of purpose, of being a loner in town with something to say.  Or the sadness of Fatherless Children, a story about a child being born out of wedlock and his original dad leaving town.  It did hit close to home, it was dedicated to Jessie,  the third boy born into my girlfriend's family.   Jessie is now 21 years old and I haven't seen him since breaking up with Clarise in 1998. Looking back, I think she protected her boys knowing that we may not be together.  And I commend her for being a great mom.

For the first time, These Things Must Pass had cover versions and we settled on six of them.  You Tell Me Why was a cover of the Beau Brummels single, originally on the cassette but it was edited out on the CD, nobody could hit the high notes on the bridge. Heart Of The City, was a Rockpile number done both by Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds.  I love Rockpile and both Dave and Nick brought their own sound to both bands and I wished I could have another person in the band to be that Nick Lowe.  Much Too Much is off the first Who album My Generation and we worked our butt off trying to get right.  Again it saw life on the cassette version but the CD version I left it off.   I Know You, is a B side to either Bits Or Pieces or Glad All Over by The Dave Clark Five.  The DC5 made some great songs, however they failed to include this on their CD best of.  It's simple and fun to do.  And finally The Rolling Stones Play With Fire with an interesting guitar riff by Geoff Redding.  Alas, Surfin Bird totally sucks.  It sounded like a good idea at that time and also made it to cassette, but Clarise didn't like it much and told me to take it off the CD version.

No Mystery is a hoot.  Back in the old days I did the echo phonic recording of one take one song and see where it leads, and No Mystery is drums only.  Brian didn't think much of that one either and wanted it off the record but I overruled him.  Everything As It Was is 3/4 type of waltz that I never tried before.  The herky jerky rhythms is damn impossible to play.

Work on These Things Must Pass started on February 20, 1995 and concluded on March 19th. Basically a revolving door of players came to play. Jack Orbit, did a couple songs, and bass was split up by Ken Miller and Peter Shamrock, a local who played in a country band known as the The Five Of Hearts, not to be confused with the 5 of Hearts band that still plays from time to time.  He lived in Fairfax and had a car repair business.  We talked about having him as part of the new Townedgers band but he declined citing band conflicts.  I think he eventually moved to Minnesota soon afterwards. Geoff Redding and I traded plenty of ideas over this month's worth of recording, and I have to say that this album is one of the more varied of styles. But the overall, when I compare this to the other Mullahan produced efforts, this one is the more looser and radical.  I'm sure he wanted to ring my neck on doing Surfin Bird but at least he didn't vetoed doing it.  However, I really think that Spirit Of 76 was yet another song about going back to a time that doesn't exist anymore and thinking of some girl who didn't care anymore I was repeating myself and not in a good way.  Or Do Your Drugs, which was basically an ode to Kurt Cobain and to what he left behind and could have been.  But I think looking back, fame may have trapped him and he couldn't escape anywhere but out of this world with a shotgun.  Last Dance with Mick Ray Page playing drums on this number, is the same throwaway as Spirit Of 76, instead I was writing and singing about going to a high school dance alone and wishing to dance with somebody and going home alone.  I think the record does fall apart towards the end, concluding with an instrumental Take Me Home Again.   But I thought enough of the record to give to Diggy Kat and thus beginning our friendship into music and record collecting.  Diggy remains a big supporter of the music of the Townedgers   I only wish there were a few more like him around to keep the love going.

That said, These Things Must Pass, is an interesting but uneven effort that showcases we can do anything within reason and vocal range, but it does pale in comparison to Modern Problems or Diamonds In The Skies.  The next album would focus more on our strengths while going through a few bumps on my road of life and a couple of them big potholes damn near finished me in this life. More about that later.

Technical Notes:

11 sessions were done in the making of the album.  Richard Dennanbaugh back behind the sound board to record it.  Dates of songs are noted in the recording book.

Picture Of Someone Not Worth Remembering  (Session 1-Feb 20, 1995)
I Am,  In This Town (Session 2-Feb 23)
Spirit Of 76 (Session 3-Feb. 25)
Everything As It Ever Was/Heart Of The City/I Know You (Session 4, Feb 28)
This Is This/Living A Lie (Session 5, March 5)
Home By The Interstate (Session 6, March 6)
Fatherless Children/Play With Fire (Session 7, March 7)
Do Your Drugs (Session 8, March 8)
Last Dance/Best Of Me (Session 9, March 18)
I May Just See Her Tonight (Session 9, March 18)
No Mystery (Session 9, March 18)
Take Me Home Again (Session 10, March 19)
Drum tracking (Session 11 March 20)

Best Of Me was originally called Wacky Wafer Woman.


The Album and Song Listings:

This Is This (R.Smith)  3:40
Best Of Me (R.Smith)  3:13
Spirit Of 76 (R.Smith)  2:40
In This Town (R.Smith)  2:15
House By The Interstate (Smith/Orbit)  4:04
I Am (R.Smith)  4:14
Fatherless Children (R.Smith)  4:35
Play With Fire (Nanker Pledge)  3:27
Living A Lie (R.Smith)  2:30

A Picture Of Someone Not Worth Remembering (R.Smith)  2:23
No Mystery (R.Smith)  2:40
I Just Might See Her Tonight (Smith/Orbit)  3:23
Everlasting Thoughts Of Everything As It Ever Was (Smith/Redding)  5:14
Heart Of The City (Nick Lowe)  2:45
I Know You (Dave Clark/Mike Smith)  2:40
Do Your Drugs (Smith/Redding)  3:35
Last Dance (Smith/Orbit)  4:10
Take Me Home Again (R.Smith)  3:45

Produced By Rodney Smith And Brian Mullahan
Recorded By Richard Dennanbaugh
This Is This and Living A Lie-Recorded By Hugh McConnell
Recorded at Broadcast Manor, Cedar Rapids IA  Feb-March 1995

Participants: Rodney Smith, Geoff Redding, Jack Orbit, Peter Shamrock, Ken Miller, Mick Page

Special Thanks: The Smith Clan (Ma, Pa, Bro, Pepper, Red), Bruce, Erin and Jerry at Relics Records, Merrill and Shawn at West Music (Coralville), and to Jack, Geoff, Ken, Peter, Ken, Mick and Brian for your help.  And of course to Clarise Musel for being the inspiration of some of the music at hand.  Keep an eye out on the new Maierburg Rocker in Jessie who at 9 months is already banging on pots and pans. Look out world!

This album wouldn't be possible without the help of God.  Thank you for being a loving and caring God and forgiving my shortcomings and endless cussing.

Song lyrics by Rodney Smith, Music by The Townedgers (C) 1995 Townedger Music Emporium with the exception of Play With Fire, Heart Of The City and I Know You, which was written by The Rolling Stones, Dave Clark Five and Nick Lowe himself.

Album released as Radio Maierburg/Maier Records RMR-24955 These Things Must Pass
Released April 1995

Album Archives: Weather On The Nines

In 1994 I was going through a rough go at it in relationships.  Penny and I went out a couple times in high school and made a couple attempts to make it work.  Once in 1989 and then in 1993 after talking about dating again.  But I don't think it was really what she wanted, nor do I.  We didn't have much in common and I was a fucking musician for God's sake. Plus she liked country music better but not the Flying Burrito Brothers during which she called it church music and me lacking any sleep from the previous night shut the thing off and we spent a very silent trip to Bennett and back. 

There used to be a a skywalk path downtown Cedar Rapids that we could walk through forgotten stores like Armstrong's or Killians and the old Killians still had this art deco section still up which would have been nice for a picture taken.  On the way back, I ran into Clarice M, a woman that I have seen a couple times at Desoda's and she was with a coworker of mine.  We kinda became dance partners in Desoda's after their breakup for a time in 1993 but she stopped coming in and we lost contact.  She had 2 boys and a third on the way when we reconnected but I thought I would take a chance on her to see what happens.  From April 12, 1994 to Valentines Day 1998 we were a couple.

The new outlook and new girlfriend changed things around.  Like everything new, it was great but once you started getting familiar with them and seen all the faults at hand it becomes then to adapt but for the first couple years we did get along great.  At that time, I wasn't doing much in music or drumming.  But slowly I was beginning to write songs about being in love and thinking about love and Weather On The Nines was the end result.  One of the distractions of recording the album was when Clarice would show up unannounced and songs had to be redone again.  So I ended up making a sign telling when the recordings were going on.  God bless Clarice, she left me alone when the music was being made.

Weather On The Nines started late August when the first song What Do I Feel was laid down.  It was supposed to be a fiery rocker with plenty of cymbal crashes and stop start beats, which sounded good at the time but nowadays I can't listen to it without thinking overkill.  The majority of songs were composed in November.  Hugh McConnell was chosen as Co producer and it was recorded with vocals through the digital delay which made it sound like it was recorded in outer space.  A lot of the love songs were inspired by Clarice, Undying Love was a response to a song that she came over and dedicated a Glen Campbell number called Unconditional Love.  True love songs were something of a oddity for me, but be it lust or love, Clarice did bring out a romantic side of me that wasn't shown all that much in my life.  And You And I (formerly known as Clarice) was a coming of terms of being together, for she was talking about moving to Texas and somewhat I talked her out of that and continued to be a part of my life.  The song shouldn't have gone that long, but Geoff had a nice guitar riff that we kept playing for about 6 and a half minutes.

If you're in love with somebody, you can write a insightful love song, and basically Weather 9's had plenty of that.  The inner spirit of Our Love (endless highway) and questioning if we're worthy of this kind of love, Light On In The Back, was Clarice having a open door policy of visiting her anytime of day or night or the fun of sex on Can't Stop Loving That Woman Of Mine.  But I also wrote about previous breakups;  Barfly is a not so flattering of the last days being with the ex GF, I'm Through Crying Now was another dig and High School Sweetheart was a skewed  remembering of Janice, and continuing to think that she was the one or just another waste of time.  In all fairness I think this song was better than  Running In The Rain, a bit more   reserved and a even more resigned to the fact that it was a waste of time and sometimes our youth blinds us into thinking it was something more.

For the first time, I did a couple of songs that would be considered grunge music, Toner was our version of Alice In Chains' Would? including the last line I had been had, the last two words into a trainwreck ending.  But Geoff Redding had a very interesting guitar riff that was more Deep Purple than AIC.  And Quit, was an attempt to try to continue the crash and bash and it became the CD version ending of the album. Motel Shot was another attempt to do something in the Nirvana sound, but that one fell short.  Quit may have been me not trying to quit my job at work or give up on the being with somebody, but the metallic sound and banshee screams was a bit out of my comfort zone. I was late to the grunge party; by then Kurt Cobain checked himself out of the world and Alice In Chains was breaking up.  And the rest of the grunge bands, I didn't care much for.

Streets Of Your Town, was selected as the single and it, like many others noted the changes that was going all around the town, but I love the chorus line of We're gonna keep chasing rainbows till they fade away.  The story of my life, looking for the miracles of life and hoping to win the lottery but we never seem to pick the right numbers or high enough to reach for the stars.   The other single, Sail Away To A Brand New Day did not make it on this album, the reason I didn't see the need to do a cover version of something I did once.  I have changed my view on that as you can tell on later albums but at that time I was still searching for the new originals. Eventually, Sail Away would find itself on a best of but even on the expanded CD edition we didn't  include it.

After Modern Problems was over and done, that record ended the classic years and Weather On The Nines started a new and brief era of sorts; the era with Clarice, and the Townedgers sound changed as well.  Even in love, the music was darker and more foreboding although I couldn't figure that one out. While Modern Problems was more polished, Weather 9s was more ragged and sloppy and it's one of the black sheep of the family albums that came from me and the band.  A lot like Perseyors Of The Truth but with better arrangements and a bad attitude.  Even with the love songs it's more like a big FU, torn between eternal hopeful love and total despair and knowing this would not last.  Clarice and I would be a couple for the next two and a half years and the records after that, better prepared and played.

Weather On The Nines is a interesting album and has its moments but it's not one of my go to albums, nor I promote it much.  But it does capture the clash of feelings of being in love and lust, as well as the feeling to be free although you don't hear it much in these songs.  But for once I was happy in my romantic encounter with Clarice and the love songs dedicated to her turned out to be a thank you for loving me type of songs, whereas giving the raspberry to The High School Sweetheart and Barfly and those poor girls who were the subject of my ire.  The most Dr Jekyil and Mr Hyde album in my discography.

The Songs:

Warning On The Midnight Train (Smith/Redding)  3:13
What Do I Feel (R.Smith)  3:56
High School Sweetheart (R.Smith) 4:25
I'm Through Crying Now (Smith/Miller) 4:04
Our Love (Endless Highway) (R.Smith)  3:41
Motel Shot (Smith/Redding)  3:35
Undying Love (R.Smith)  7:11
No Trick To It (R.Smith)  3:00*

Light On In The Back (Smith/Redding)  3:20
Can't Stop Loving That Girl Of Mine (R.Smith)  3:28
Streets Of Your Town (Smith/Redding)  2:45
Barfly (R.Smith)  7:25
Sometimes (R.Smith)  4:30
Toner (Smith/Redding/Miller)  2:50
And You And I (Smith/Redding)  6:30
Quit (R.Smith)  4:50*

Lyrics by Rodney Smith, Music by where Credited (C) 1994 Townedger Music Emporium
*Bonus tracks on CD

Band: Rodney Smith, Geoff Redding, Ken Miller

Recorded at Broadcast Manor, 1432 N St. SW  Cedar Rapids Aug-Nov 1994
Recorded by Hugh McConnell, Remixed By Kyle Guttenburg
Produced by Rodney Smith And Hugh McConnell

Released as Maier Records MRK-24924 Weather On The Nines, December 1994

Album Archives: Modern Problems In Reflected Living

Although The First And Last Reunion was done and in the can, Brian Mullahan made a suggestion about reuniting Ken Miller and Jack Orbit back to the band for the first time since Postcards From The Edge.  But the bigger reason was I could still be on nights for a while longer and actually come up with new music.  To commence the 10th anniversary of Town's Edge Rock, we wanted to celebrate the true spirit of that album with a return to that sound.

Like Town's Edge Rock, Modern Problems In Reflected Living was recorded quickly. Sessions beginning on May 27th and ending on June 12th.  This time, the sessions were documented beginning with four songs on the 27th of May.

Recording sessions:

May 27th
Waste Of Time Wynna
Pillar Of Salt
Hard To Love You
Hey Bama

May 29th-Still Got A Long Way To Go
May 30th-Missing Her
June 1-Minor Miracle, Little Girl
June 2-Lies, Sun Ra
June 3-Away From You, Straight Laced And Gone
June 5-Girl On Your Mind, Don't Let Me Know, How Far It Goes
June 6-Frosted Flakes
June 12-When The Night Comes, Debbie's Winegarden

Waste Of Time Wynna kicked things off, basically a get lost song of sorts and another reminder that I couldn't pick the right woman to save my soul. I'm always constantly reminded all the time about my crappy choices of women, not all of them were wastes of time.  But that time spent with Wynna really left a bad taste in my mouth particularly to the point that if I never chased another woman again it wouldn't break my heart.

A lot of songs came from writing about the night life up at DeSodas.  Missing Her came from hanging around the bar and was about some woman that I danced with.  Frosted Flakes is not about Wynna, I think it was some bimbo on the news but Geoff threw such a goofy little guitar lick that we had to put that into a song.  Debbie's Winegarden aka Deb's Song was supposed to be sung by a woman that I met at work who told me she wanted to sing in the band and if I could write up a song that she could.  So on the 12th of June, I jotted some words down, Geoff thought up some chords and we waited and waited for her to show up at Broadcast Manor, our little makeshift studio in the duplex I lived in.  I called her about 3 oclock that day and left a message for her brother to give her but after waiting five more hours and calling back and having him saying she's out barhopping, I sang the damn thing myself.  Imagine my surprise she called the next day saying she forgot about coming over, even though we planned to record the GD thing a couple days in advance.  I just rolled my eyes over that and said never you mind, there's not a second time go get drunk again, it's what you do best anyway.

Sun Ra was improvised on the spot.  It was a tribute song to the jazz musician who passed a day again and I thought we should do one on one take and see where it leads.  The digital delay came in quite handy that day.  When The Night Comes, is me actually playing lead guitar for a change, although it was very simple, I think the sadness coming from that lead pretty much summed up my frustrations toward Debbie Winegarden and for that matter Wynna but the song does date back to 1988 when Ken Miller and I messed with it and couldn't find the right words till June of 1993.

Recording the album was a lot different than the others.  We used a direct input into the four track to give a different sound to the guitars.  Hugh McConnell tracked two mics into one channel giving the drums a false stereo sound which really did sound quite nice.  And for the first time, the vocals came through bigtime.  I don't know how he did it, but the counterpoint vocals of me and Jack Orbit may have the best we have ever done.

While compiling it for the cassette, I put on two leftovers from The First And Last Reunion, Are You Gonna Be The One and Her Lightning Ways, but on the CD version, Her Lightning Ways was replaced with Still Got A Long Way To Go.  Are You Gonna Be The One was the best song from the previous album and one of the better songs as well.

At the time, I thought Modern Problems was the best of the albums of the comeback era and it still holds very well to this day although I disagree with Diggy Kat on Pillar Of Salt being a major song.  Basically it was a song knocking Oprah Winfrey.  Modern Problems is even more power pop than Drive In Blues and most songs around 3 minutes with the exception of When The Night Comes which is 6 minutes long.  Out of all the Townedgers albums, this one is the most playful and  more humorous and everybody in the band was getting along quite well.  And it could have been the one that might have made me a bit more known around the parts.

But a couple things happened along the way.  A month later, in July, the rains came and it rained about 10 days straight, flooding Cedar Rapids, even to the point that we may have to vacate Broadcast Manor and seek higher ground. In fact I started putting records and CDs up on higher cabinets in the house just in case we have to move.  Thankfully the Cedar River didn't make it that far. (It did in 2008 with the 31 feet of mad river but by then we located out to the country and was 12 years removed from living there).  And then I decided I was going to retire from music and start dating my ex girlfriend once again.  Which turned out to be an even bigger mistake.  

So The Townedgers became on hiatus as they say and Modern Problems In Reflected Living would end the so called classic comeback period.  The guitar and drums would gather dust for a while.  But even more changes would be coming.  A new woman would replace the second and final go around with the ex high school sweetheart and a new sound coming, but in all fairness had I retired there and then and gotten married and start a family Modern Problems In Reflected Living would have been a good record to call it a day.  But more songs were on the horizon and the next album would be a much different sound than the good vibes that was Modern Problems In Reflected Living.

The Songs:

Waste Of Time Wynna (R.Smith)  2:53
Pillar Of Salt (Smith/Miller)  1:40
Hard To Love You (Smith/Orbit)  2:53
How Far It Goes (Smith/Redding/Orbit/Miller)  2:49
Hey Bama (Smith/Orbit)  3:49
Debbie's Winegarden (Smith/Orbit/Redding/Miller)  2:44
Missing Her (Smith/Redding)  3:28
Minor Miracle (R.Smith)  2:44
Little Girl (R.Smith)  2:25
Lies (Smith/Miller)  2:40
Are You Gonna Be The One (R.Smith)  3:27

Long Way To Go (Smith/Miller)  2:48
Away From You (Smith/Orbit)  3:45
Straight Laced And Gone (Smith/Orbit/Redding/Miller/Mullahan) 2:10
Girl On Your Mind (Smith/Orbit)  4:25
Don't Let Me Know (Smith/Orbit/Miller)  4:00
Frosted Flakes (Smith/Redding)  2:05
When The Night Comes (Smith/Miller)  6:45
Sun Ra (Smith/Orbit/Redding/Miller/Glarington/Mullahan) 2:00

Lyrics: Rodney Smith  Music: Where Noted (C) 1993 Townedger's Music Emporium

Produced by Rodney Smith and Brian Mullahan
Are You Gonna Be The One: Produced By Rodney Smith and Richard Dennanbaugh
Recorded April-June 1993 At Broadcast Manor, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Recorded by Hugh McConnell with Tim Wakefield
Assisted by The Townedgers

When The Night Comes and Debbie's Winegarden Recorded by Kyle Guttenburg 6/12/93

Participants: Rodney Smith, Geoff Redding, Jack Orbit, Ken Miller

Issued as Maier Records MRK 24766  Modern Problems In Reflected Living  June 24, 1993

Album Archives: The First And Last Reunion 1993

After Drive In Blues, I was having some successes and getting positive feedback, even though at the expense of a indifferent love interest.  So maybe it was time to move on to other things.

Brian Mullahan was working on other projects so I tapped Richard Dennanbaugh to help with the next effort, which got back to more experimental and longer songs.  While Brian was a bit more restraint on production, Richard favored ideas to try out.  Songs like Wish You Would Love Me with an extended jam and multi tracked vocals, compressing the guitar sounds to make them sound like whacked out Ouds on the song titled ?, with Ken Miller playing a fretless bass.  Or stretching out the song Girl On A Bridge over to 8 minutes long complete with meltdown.  On The CD version we edited it down to 7.   However, still reeling from Wynna and her goofyness, a few songs were basically leftovers from Drive In Blues, Closing In, a song about falling for somebody that doesn't love you (Check), Wish You Would Love Me (which might be more toward Melissa than the soon to be Mrs. Draper), The Love In You (failing to see through the bullshit stories that Wynna was telling me early on).

Of course, the infatuation wheel was spinning here, and Miriam, was about a new temp at work that I took a fancy upon and of course knowing of the end result that this was not going to work as well either. Doomed to failure.  Looking For A Way Out, dates back to Amy, the girl that I went out with for three weeks in 1982.  The one that had a Bubba boyfriend, loved his truck more than her (bla bla) and I was  the rebound guy and I ended that, I knew she'd return back to Bubba anyway.  But this song is that What If I did go all the way on that faithful night that we were together, and she wanted to make love but to me not with Bubba around lurking somewhere.  Had we done that, life might be a bit different today.  Geoff Redding added a cute tag riff at the end but for a 7 minute song, it's a chapter out of my diary of life but as a song it's a long filler one.

The First And Last Reunion is the first album to be recorded elsewhere.  In late 1992 my brother found a duplex on the SW side of town that he had one part of the house and I had another and it worked out very well.  It enabled me to continue to play drums without having irate parents telling me to cut that noise out.  And it made a nice place to record new music.  So I named this place Broadcast Manor, to which I did a song of the same name.  For the next four years it would be home.

For a while Dennis Pearson came on board to play guitar.  We struck up a conversation at West Music one day and he took me up on a offer to play in the band although his tenure was brief.  Geoff was there all of the time, and he did overdub on a couple things that Pearson couldn't do.

In the classic period of the 1990s, The First And Last Reunion is the black sheep of the family. Not as radio friendly as was Drive In Blues or Diamonds In The Skies and perhaps Brian Mullahan not being part of it might have something to do with it.  Strange to say we have this album already done and ready to submitted when Jack Orbit called up and said he had ideas of a new project and Brian Mullahan signed off on the deal.  So this record got shelved for about six months, while we would work on what would be the final classic piece of the puzzle of the classic years.  However, the cover photo basically explains the type of music we were playing.  Junkyard trainwreck garage rock and it sounds like it.  This might be my favorite all time album cover ;-)

Technical notes:

Recording dates were not documented so the guess is that most of the songs were done in February and March.  Miriam does have a recording date of 2/21/93  Tornado was recorded 4/17/93, Wish You Would Love Me  4/18/93.  Still Love Jane 4/29/93

The Songs:

Wish You Would Love Me (Smith/Pearson)  6:00
Holding On (Smith/Redding)  4:05
? (Smith/Redding/Miller)  2:20
Still Love Jane (Smith/Miller)  4:14
Lovers Night Out (R.Smith) 4:08
The Love In You (Smith/Miller)  2:40
Girl On A Bridge (Smith/Muncie)  7:01

Tornado (Smith/Redding/Pearson/Miller)  6:25
Desert Skies West (Smith/Celica)  3:00
Closing In (R.Smith)  3:22
Me And John Lee (Smith/Miller)  2:37
Broadcast Manor (R.Smith)  4:35
Miriam (Smith/Orbit)  3:45
Looking For A Way Out (Smith/Redding)  6:55

Lyrics: Rodney Smith (C) 1993 Townedgers Music Emporium

Band:  Rodney Smith, Geoff Redding, Ken Miller, Dennis Pearson
Bi Celica: Guest vocalist on Desert Skies West

Recorded at Broadcast Manor, Cedar Rapids Iowa from Feb to May 1993
Recorded by Richard Dennanbaugh, assisted by R. Smith and Ken Miller
Produced by Rodney Smith and Richard Dennanbaugh

Special thanks to Mike Davenport for his support and encouragement.

Acknowledgements and thank you to:  Jerry Scott, Mitchell Gold, Alison M, William Pass, Nate Paulson and The Doctor Jones Band, Bruce Stanley, Carol Becker and Erin Tapken at Relics Records CR, Brother Rick Smith and the N Street Crazies.

Also: The Gin Blossoms and Echohouse for a great time at Chuy's, Billy Janey (who never knows my name when he sees me at Relics or West Music), Craig Erickson (Guitar God), Merrill and Skip (The West Heads at West Music) Sonny Lott and Divin Duck (Sonny was the coolest guy to talk music with when he was a Janitor at NCS in around 1992 1993), Mike Swearingen (Mr. Golden Throat) and YOU.

The TEs use Yamaha Drums, Zildjian Cymbals, Fender Guitars, Tascam 4 track and love their mommy.

Released as Maier Records MRK 24704 in late 1993 

Album Archives: Drive In Blues 1992

The amazing streak of making music continues.  Just two months after releasing Diamonds In The Skies, I returned back to the recording studio with a batch of new songs and ideas.  Never had at anytime that I was writing songs left and right.  I think every waking hour was used in writing songs.

A part of the reason why I got things done was that we were working nights for about three months, which meant before back to days, I wouldn't be able come up with songs while my folks were home. As much as they could, they did let me continue to play music and write songs before I eventually found my own place a few months later.

Anyway, the glut of songs I thought about putting together a double album but Brian Mullahan, stung by the bloatedness of 1989's Moonlight Chronicles said no, it's a single album deal with it.  Therefore Drive In Blues was a long LP of sorts, perfectly crafted for the cassette hour long capability.  For the most part, a lot of songs were written about a certain girl that captured my fancy, the dour Wynna Witmer,  a Sarah Palin lookalike with shorter hair and a more dingbat personality.   Given my track record of bad picks with women, Witmer fitted quite well and basically most of my band mates and friends didn't think a lot of her.  The key term, Miss Prim And Proper was bestowed upon her.   Wynna could flirt but everytime I try to get her to go out for a McDonald's burger, she said that she was seeing somebody and how dare you blah blah blah, and then turn around a hour later and start flirting again.  23 years later and looking back, it's too bad I didn't have this attitude and pretty much tell her to go live in harmony with the failed candidate for Muscatine County Sheriff Assistant but back then I was naive as hell.  And it showed.

I think it showed in the songs that were written.  It didn't turn out that way but Drive In Blues is a cycle album about falling in love with the wrong one and at the tail end of songs the desperation of Baby Be Mine to Gone Too Far and the end song Pretender was that this fatal attraction between me and Miss Wynna that it was doomed to fail.   I jumped off the cliff and knowing damn well that I would be splattered in pieces.  In fact I told Geoff Redding that if things ended badly that things would never be the same again in terms of songs and life itself, and that proven to be right.

A slight change in band members, Robbie Knowles broke his wrist snowmobiling and Ken Miller reclaimed his spot as bass player.  Outside of that me and Geoff did the main guitars and vocals. Jack Orbit co wrote a few songs but didn't play on the album.   While Diamonds In The Skies was a interesting and almost perfect idea of the Townedgers sound, Drive In Blues actually goes more into a pop rock direction.  In fact, it was the most pop sounding album that I've done at that time.  But I certainly worked more different types of music beginning with the one minute acoustic On A Bridge Not Far Enough before If You See Her (originally called Song Number One, since it was the first song slated to open up the album).  If You See Her was about Wynna since she was working a different shift than I was at the time.   Come to think of it, this song was written after we attended a company holiday party and she managed to cast a magic spell (or bullshit cause) having me to be really into her.  I can also tell you with her conniving ways, it also led to another song written later in the album, the bitter In The Wind Tonight, to which I question myself why am I there with somebody that's either playing me for a fool or just enjoying that she's getting all this attention given to her.  A shame given that she lost out to a good man but then again, I'll never know what Wynna wanted in the first place.  It's a powerful song if you listen close to the words and the way it's sang, right up till the bitter line of her going home to the man that she loves.  It turned out I never had a chance in the first place.  The Prettiest Girl Is Also The Strangest might sum her up better than In the Wind Tonight.

Not all the songs were about Wynna.   Used Car Blues, was kinda tribute Blues romp to John Lee Hooker who was still alive and kicking at that time.   I wrote about my old piece of shit 1979 Ford Granada. That's Brian Mullahan tapping on the drummer's seat for the beat.  Mullahan had some interesting ways to make things sound like instruments.  Realitiesville is an attempt to go country and has turned out to be one of the main songs that I still play to this day.

Love Me Anytime might have had Wynna in mind but we never talked on the phone so I'm thinking this might have been from when Amy was part of my life and she would call at ungodly hours at night and not say much.  In any case it's a wishful thinking of having somebody over and getting some I suppose. Another song that still gets played live.

We're Getting Nowhere (Rene):  There was this girl in town that I got set up with, her name was Rene and she had a friend that was friends with Ken that thought a blind date would work wonders with me.  So me and Rene went out the first time and it was awkward but we had a good time, the next time it was Rene and me only but somehow the second time around wasn't as memorable.  Like this wasn't going to work anyway.  She lived in one of the older houses in Marion, it looked like one of those haunted places you seen in B grade horror movies and I don't think her dad was that keen on me. A musician drummer!  Still Rene was a nice girl but I think I wasn't for her and vice versa. At least we parted on friendly terms unlike Wynna.

Believe:  A work song.  I worked in a department full of women and of course I'm doing something to piss somebody off.  But that could any  department of any place.  Basically a song telling my co worker to mind her fucking business and do her own work.

Get It Over With:  When things go south and love dies, it dies a horrible death.  For some reason leading off with No arms to hold you with, no marriage in your sights sounded pretty damn good to me.  I don't think Wynna was the target on this song, nor Rene.

Holding On To Nothing perhaps sums up things quite nicely about Wynna who as you can tell was beginning to frustrate the hell out of me. Some of more interesting lines come out of this song beginning with  A memory makes a poor companion.  But I believe this song was supposed to be one of a few songs we were slated to do as The Wapsipinicon Dreamers, a band that Chris Dutcher was going to play a role in., He also figures in Couldn't Tell You, which was the only song credited to the Wapsi Dreamers on a comp record long ago forgotten.  He does play guitar on Couldn't Tell You, but his record label forbid him to contribute anymore to the album without us paying a substantial fee. Chris and I go back to years of collecting beer cans and listening to bluegrass music on the side, by then he went to Nashville and scored a contract with Island but none of his albums ever did come out and they forbid him to play in any bands till his contract went up in 1995.  By then we pretty much went different directions with our music.

I Keep A Close Watch, the lyrics date from the 1985 years to which we didn't put the music together till 1992.  I think I was going for a John Mellencamp sound although the riffs were more AC/DC.  Fun fact: that's the old K Mart amp you hear in the forefront. And it still works fairly well 45 years later.  They just don't make them like that anymore.  At least not in the USA.

Baby Be Mine, was done differently, the guitar was plugged through the Four track itself giving it a new wave type of sound.  Janice Ferguson, later Mrs. Redding was part of a local band called Scanner before changing over to a more acceptable The Night Flowers, and that's her deep in the backing vocals department.  It's a little fun pop song, although Richard Dennanbaugh did record the drums, he forgot to switch the other open channel so it turned out more one dimensional.  Despite the mess up, the drums actually came through sounding very well.

Basically Gone Too Far and Pretender are the dire end of my tenure with Wynna, the former song clugs away at 6 minutes plus, it's me telling Wynna to shit or get off the pot with us being together.  Pretender is a one take, made up on the spot suggested by Brian Mullahan to capture the feeling and the moment and while it's very ragged and loose, I actually have played it live a couple times.  Pretender is admitting defeat on a love affair that never did ever gotten too far.

The record got done, Wynna returned back to her boyfriend, married him and ended up having a child a year later.  I pretty much sunk into a deep depression of being played once again.  Last time I saw Wynna, was when I went across the street for a pepsi and something other and she managed to corner me at the station while driving into town and telling me about her amazing life style.  And I could have cared less.  Thanks to Google and the internet, she works as a Building aide at a Muscatine School, and her hubby is a deputy assistant.   In the end, she did marry her soulmate and that's all that matters.   I wish her well.

But to be the odd man out once again in love, Drive In Blues is a study of human emotions, the infatuation of being with somebody, the fun of doing things together and of course the frustration and anger of knowing it wasn't to be and the continual mind games.  I do wished that the former Miss Whitmer would have heard Drive In Blues just to hear what I wanted to tell her, that somehow would have fallen on her deaf ears anyway.

But in the Townedgers' catalog, Drive In Blues does a fine job to hide the emotional frustrations through the music and lyrics and I believe it's a strong followup to Diamonds In The Skies.  The leftover tracks were compiled later for an album called The Art Deco Sessions, and perhaps adds more to the story than the final tracks that did make it to Drive In Blues.  The songs were good enough to be placed on later albums.

Certainly by now, I had became a expert on failed love through the 90s and I can credit Melissa and Wynna  for being the catalysts to touch my inner soul to come up with these songs.  But it's a good thing they're not around.  I would have had that heart attack years ago after flipping out over them.

The songs:

On A Bridge Not Far Enough (R.Smith) 1:00
If You See Her (Smith/Redding)  4:14
Used Car Blues (Smith/Redding/Miller/Mullahan)  3:23
Realitiesville (Smith/Miller)  3:50
Love Me Anytime (Smith/Redding)  3:55
We're Getting Nowhere (Renae) (R.Smith) 4:44
Believe (R.Smith) 4:30
In The Wind Tonight (Smith/Redding)  4:30

Get It Over With (Smith/Miller)  2:45
The Prettiest Girl (Is The Strangest) (R.Smith)  2:33
Holding On To Nothing (R.Smith)  3:55
I Keep A Close Watch (Smith/Miller)  3:35
Couldn't Tell You (R.Smith)  2:30
Baby Be Mine (Smith/Redding/Ferguson)  3:32
Gone Too Far (R.Smith)  6:06
Pretender (Smith/Mullahan) 5:10

Lyrics by Rodney Smith, Music by those credited (C) 1992 Townedger Music Emporium

Recorded at Maier Studios, Marion Iowa between Feb-May 1992
Recorded by Richard Dennanbaugh
Assisted by Hugh McConnell and Miles Delancey

Band: Rodney Smith, Geoff Redding,  Ken Miller
Chris Dutcher: Acoustic 12 string on Couldn't Tell You
Janice Ferguson: Backing vocals on Baby Be Mine
Brian Mullahan: Drum throne on Used Car Blues, percussion

Troy Paiva: photography

Special Thanks to: Mike Davenport, Jerry Scott, Our parents  for putting up with the noise, Merrill Birchmeier and Skip Lowe at West Music Coralville, James Kibler (I'm guessing the guy from Rock N Bach and sometimes I see at the SW side Goodwill in town), Bruce Stanley (the other Relic), Neil Delanie, Alison Melevelan,  and GOD.

This record wouldn't been possible for Gregory Lee Nutter for getting me back into the groove again.
Contrary to rumour, I'm not in love.

This record is dedicated to Wynna Draper.  To which I hope she can choke on it. 

Produced by Rodney Smith and Brian Mullahan

Issued as Maier Records MRK 24579, Released In June 1992

More Notes:

Love Me Anytime and Baby Be Mine are our attempts to go Top Forty (of course it failed)
Used Car Blues is dedicated for John Lee Hooker (the boogie one)
Couldn't Tell You is an attempt to go country (and failed too)
The Prettiest Girl is also the strangest is dedicated to Wynna Whitmer.
If You See Her, Pretender and Get It Over With suggest otherwise.

Recording Notes:

Drive In Blues begin under the working title of Blue Highway but was changed to Drive In Blues after seeing a show about the demise of the Drive In on I think it was the USA Network. 

Amazingly, we did take notes of sessions that were Drive In Blues.  There were 15 different sessions of songs recorded for Drive In Blues, the earliest started on February 17, 1992 and the final guitar sessions ended on April 27, 1992,  Drum tracks were done on April 28-30, 1992. Richard Dennanbaugh recording the drum tracks, Hugh McConnell helping out. 

Records do not indicate when On A Bridge Not Far Enough was recorded, my guess it was recorded on April 30, 1992, Hugh McConnell recording that.  But we do know when what songs were recorded and what session.  As follows:

If You See Her (Session six, April 13, 1992)
Used Car Blues (Session 6, 4/13/92)
Realitesville  (Session 7, 4/14/92)
Love Me Anytime (Session 8, 4/17/92)
We're Getting Nowhere (Session 9, 4/18/92)
Believe (Session 10, 4/20/92)
In The Wind Tonight (Session 10, 4/20/92)
Get It Over With (Session 5, 4/2/92)
The Prettiest Girl (Session 3, 3/12/92)
Holding On To Nothing (Session 3, 3/12/92)
I Keep A Close Watch (Session 9, 4/17/92)
Couldn't Tell You (Session 13, 4/27/92)
Baby Be Mine (Session 13, 4/27/92)
Gone Too Far (Session 2, 2/29/92)
Pretender (Session 11, 4/21/92)

Album Archives: Diamonds In The Skies 1991

This month, I focus on the albums of the 1990s.  Last month it was the 1980s and the development of the Route 66 sound and various ways to record them.  From the low fi years to a piece of shit state of the art 4 track to a more expensive and somewhat more reliable 4 track. So Much For That was the stumble, Town's Edge Rock the idea and each step of the way new albums and new chapters to write about.

By 1990, Nice Weather We're Having, I was beginning to tire of making music that nobody heard and really didn't want to jump into a oldies rock and roll band so I simply retired and went on my merry way of earning a meager living and paying bills driving to and from Iowa City and hanging at record stores.  My boss at the time, Greg Nutter played in a sometime band, and once in a while they'd be playing at some old barn outside Attalissa which is on the Johnson/Muscatine county line and about an hour and half drive from home.  I was surprised Greg sought me out on this, after a thought I said okay, we'll try it and see where it leads.

Little did I know that what Greg did was that he got me back into enjoying and playing music once again.  He had a neighbor Dave Dolber who played guitar, Greg played bass and a good friend from Minnesota Paul S. (I can't spell his last name) sang and they have done this before.  Greg was a pretty damn good bass player, a bit more technique than the ones that were in the Townedgers/Route 66.  I borrowed some microphones from West Music and hooked the four track up to do the show and although it was a good time, the songs were very rough and not deemed listenable for any new cd consideration.  I basically called this side project The Routers, a play on the Route 66 name.

This did leave open some new doors as I begin work on what would be Diamonds In the Skies.  Brian Mullahan was tapped to co produced, Richard Dennanbaugh would record it, and Geoff and Robbie Knowles would help in the proceedings.  In the mist of things, I got a phone call from a guy named Marvin who was in a Muscatine band called The Pentacle, and I tried out and actually got the job although I not that impressed with the other pushy guitar player.  Marvin was cool but the idea of going to work and then do another hour going to Muscatine just to jam Highway To Hell and make 10 dollars a night playing dive bars didn't appeal to me.  So I thanked him for the chance to play and moved on back Diamonds In The Skies.

Although I thought sessions started in October, the dates were in November of 1991.  And taking a year off actually did breathe some inspiration into the songs at hand.  In fact Diamonds In The Skies would be the first of a series of albums that I consider to be the classic years.  Somehow the years of recording albums and the progressions of the sound I was looking for was finally balanced out between rocking songs and ballads.  The songs themselves was actually a diary of what was going on in my life and the players involved.  Certainly I was still about being in love with somebody or falling in love with somebody but the hopelessness I was feeling about Jayne, a coworker who was married, that I actually go out on the town once.  She wore a fine dress and looked nice but our co worker Doreen, got drunk at the bar and ended up getting kicked out and took drunk to drive, Jayne drove her home and although we would still work together, it was never the same.  I think I saw her at a grocery store in town and she ran away from me as if she never knew me.  Strange how people act.

Sweet Melissa was about the last time I saw Melissa, the strip dancer that I thought loved me from last year and I surprised her at a show around November I think.  We talked about old times and things were going okay till she made a comment that if I could wait a while, we could go out on the town.  I basically said I have to go and wished her well and wrote the song on the way home.  I'd never saw her again after that.

Getting To This was a song about the long tedious drive to work, driving from Marion down to Iowa City and back again for 7 years, I know the route, I know the idiot drivers and the feeling that I wasn't getting anywhere.  For an extended jam song I think it did very well although Geoff's backing vocals didn't come out the way as planned, sounds like he was more up than my vocals but we left it in there since it wasn't that bad.

Still Strangers:  I was seeing Christine C. at the time.  And I thought things were going well till we got way drunk and I left her hanging and in the mood, about 3 16 oz of Jack and Cokes found me home in bed.  Christine was not too pleased and replaced me on the spot with a waiting and willing dude.  It's funny now but it wasn't so much when me and Russ went up to Pete And Tillie's and she was there with the new beau, some small talk and then she bolted to the woman's bathroom and wouldn't come out.  Then I got mad, told Russ to fucking take me home and I ended up trying to drive his piece of shit car with a stick shift and the damn thing kept dying at each stop light.  I went home, wrote up a note saying basically if you're not happy with me that's understandable, but acting like a high school diva and hiding in the bathroom is simply childish.  Somehow through this ordeal I ended up writing Still Strangers, with the catch phase of the world doesn't revolve around you.  Worst relationships I ever  had were with Gemini women, best musicians I worked with were Gemini men. Nevertheless Christine and I never saw each other again.

When The Day Is Done might have been inspired by Melissa or perhaps Jayne I don't know.  I guess it's a love song, to whom your guess is good as mine.

Being There:  Greg Nutter mentioned to me after playing the Routers show how much he envied me and my come and go ways.  He was married and had kids, I was single, hopeless and still living in my parents' basement.    There's a hill on highway 1 about three miles from Solon, that on clear nights you can actually see The Cedar Rapids Airport in the distance and I based the song upon that and the life that I was leading.   Little did Greg knew that I envied his life of having his own house, family blah blah blah.  Greg also had an eye for the ladies which eventually caught up to him and the usual fallout happened.  Since then, Greg and Dave Dolber did play in a blues band around the area called Roadhouse and they did play in Cedar Rapids a couple times.  Their drummer was quite enough to let me sit in on a few songs but I didn't take him up on that.  That was his gig.  Jam session I might have.  Greg later relocated to Austin Texas.  I do miss having him on stage from time to time.

Oh Momma is a funny song.  I was recording something and my mom came barging in about something trite.  She really didn't ruin four songs in a row.  Later lyrics showed more a skewed view about love and marriage and I'm sure Melissa or Christine had something to do with that.  It was supposed to fade out, but at the end Geoff and Robbie kept it going till it becomes a trainwreck at the end.

One In A Million Girl is about that girl that got away in my Public Relations class years ago and I can't remember her name to save my soul.  Everything is in there, including of our getting together at Kitty's by accident and never making an effort to say hi or get off my seat and she and her friend left and she was upset by that.  I really never met her no harm, I really really was shy and nobody was there to boot my butt off that seat to say hi.  One of those moments that if I did say hi, life would be a lot different today.  Of course after she left, I tried to go to Kirkwood to explain my actions and hope she'd give me a second chance.  31 years later I'm still trying to find her.

Victim Or The Crime: If you're in Marion Iowa, you'll know that the cops are hardcore and look crosseyed at them they bust you on the spot.  Back in that time, I like to take a Sunday Night walk and go around the town.  I could go from west to east side in about an hour and half but it seems every other month, I get stopped by the cops and get the third degree.  I eventually gave up walking after dark, especially nowadays.  You can't do that anymore without somebody trying to shake you down for money.  In other words a modern day version of Sic Em Pigs.

Back To Marion:  Back then Marion still had a nice small town vibe, not anymore.  In the Pretoria of assholes in high places, and the urban sprawl had deemed Marion a forgotten town. In 1991 this song concluded the tape version about going home back to Marion where I still had friends and places to go to.  Unfortunately in this day and age that don't exist anymore.

Many Happy Endings is the bonus track on the CD and I think I wrote about Jayne, when she was working in our department she didn't have her wedding ring on.   However, there's a line in the chorus about "and your experience can't compete with my honesty" and that line was directed at Christine.  There are times I can write a song and throw a key line in there to make the whole song sound more important than it actually is.  Some people think it's one of the best songs I have ever written. That's debatable.

The tape version had something called On I 40 which was supposed to be a song celebrating Route 66 the highway, and I spent that summer driving up and down on Arizona 66, which is basically the only long stretch of that road still intact and back then they still have enough of the old buildings that made route 66 a fun road to check out.  When the CD came out, it was replaced by I Like To Know.

Diamonds In The Skies would have never happened had Greg Nutter came into the picture.  Although he did not play on it, his inspiration rekindled my love of playing originals and making albums.  The album got reissued as an free MP3 album.  Even 25 years down the road, Diamonds In The Skies is one of my favorite and best albums.  It's everything that The Townedgers and Rodney Smith stands for, garage rock with bits of power pop and folk country.  It just might be the best album the 1990s and given such other ones like Modern Problems In Reflected Living, Drive In Blues and Light At That The End Of The Tunnel that's saying something. You can hear the album here:

https://archive.org/details/jamendo-080685


Songs:

Getting To This (Smith/Orbit) 6:06
The Road You're On (Smith/Orbit/Mullahan) 3:11
Jayne (Smith/Briley)  3:14
Still Strangers (Smith/Redding) 3:49
Sweet Melissa (R.Smith)  3:43
When The Day Is Done (so will you) (Smith/Knowles) 2:39
Being There (Smith/Mullahan) 5:25

Out On The Town (Smith/Orbit/Redding/Knowles/Mullahan) 1:43
I Like To Know (R.Smith) 2:50
Oh Momma (R.Smith) 5:00
One In A Million (Smith/Redding) 4:40
Victim Or The Crime (R.Smith) 3:40
Back To Marion (Smith/Orbit/Redding/Knowles/Mullahan) 4:47
Many Happy Endings (Smith/Orbit) 5:27

Lyrics: Rodney Smith (C) 1991 Townedgers Music Emporium

Recorded at Maier Studios, Marion Ia from October/November 1991
Recorded by Richard Dennanbaugh with Rodney Smith

Produced By Brian Mullahan And Rodney Smith

Released as Maier Records MRK-24635  in late 1991

Notes:

The recording dates were not documented but looking through the archives, the original title album was supposed to be called World Of Reason or Too Far Gone.  I came across the name Dustin Lasavic who was going to play bass before Robert Knowles came to play (Robbie or Robert he doesn't care what you call him).