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).
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