Thoughts From The Townedger-October Edition

I had an amazing weekend for a change.  Saturday I got together with Rod Albaugh, our scanner technician repairman.  We talked about getting together to have a bit of fun and so I took him up on a offer to blast away the blues.  He lives in Clarence, about a forty minute drive from my place and its on the way to Davenport on highway 30.  Clarence is a small town, it has a Casey's, it has a pizza bar and it has the Union Pacific going through it.  Rod has played in other bands, most notably Fluid which they opened for Mean Street And The Hell Horns one New Year's Eve, and I have heard their CD, it's pretty good.  It didn't take much for convincing, he had his own drumset up there, so all I have to do was to bring some cymbals.  He's got a PDP set, an offshoot of DW and he had set up just right for my type of drum playing.  He has a room in the basement that has not only a practice spot but a place to record things, Shit I wish my room was that organized. He had guitars, amps, PA system, mixing board, practically a place for a band to play at.  His next door neighbor plays bass and he was part of Tan Yer Hide.  Rod can play guitar, bass and drums too.  In fact, he was playing them drums pretty wild when I took over vocals and guitar on Summertime Blues.  We all switched off instruments and ran a few songs of note and I got to play a couple of Townedger songs, Wolfie and Be With Me, but we mostly extended the songs into jams and impromptu things.  I don't think much will be made into this, but if it did I think it could be a nice jam band of sorts.  But they need a lead singer.

Sunday, there was a jam tribute to Kyle Oyole, a fine musician who quickly passed away on  Thursday, so most of Cedar Rapids' finest musicians spent five hours playing tunes in tribute to the fallen guitar ace.  While my previous blog post remains true, I do wish I would have known Kyle sooner than the three months of jamming on the weekends.  Bart Carlizzi did an excellent job giving everybody a chance to play, including the 10 drummers that did show up including myself.  Patrick bought some of those bongo drums to pound on, but give him a real drum set and he tears into it.  I wished I could have gotten to jam with Brook Hoover on Spirit In The Sky, that honor went to Herman Surdy, the drummer who works at Guitar Center and plays in Kick It.  My favorite local band Wooden Nickel Lottery played two originals that the crowd loved, and they're getting ready to open for Anthony Gomes in Davenport next month.  I got to jam with the insane Craig DeWitte on guitar and Dan Hartman on a wild Johnny B Goode and Evil Ways, (with the bass player from In the Attic in tow, don't know his name but he was a trooper).  I'm sure Craig had a few beers in him when we hit the stage, he's the most craziest person I ever share the stage with but his guitar playing is so good I have to shake my head on how he does it.  Tim Duffy came on bass to do the last two number which we finished with Merle Haggard's The Fugitive.  Here's Mr. Dewitte having fun with Terry McDowell on perhaps the last song of the night Can't You See.  Special props to Big Mac for providing the drums, to which I owe him a new pair of sticks after turning his into toothpicks.

I guess there's a method to my madness that has won the musicians over, that I have received so many compliments about my style of drumming and that they're surprised to find that I'm not playing in other bands other than The Townedgers. D.J. when he took the stage to drum on Dreams That I'll Never See (Molly Hatchet Version) he played damn near like the record.  He plays live a few more times I got to hang with him and Terry as well, talking drum stories.   Mike Lint, he's 22, up and coming and the future looks bright for him too, he had an interesting viewpoint,  he noticed that when I go up stage I get jittery and a bit tight and he suggested that I lighten up and not get too tight.  He does have a point, I always go on stage nervous as hell, part of it is butterflies, part of it is stage fright. And of course being too much of a perfectionist.  I should loosen up a lot more often.  I think a caffeine buzz and a bit jittery. but in all reality after I was leaning back against the wall after Johnny B Goode, it was actually kinda of an act.  I tend to rest my elbows on the hi hat cymbals, it may look like I'm bored but in reality it's an act.   I can be a character of sorts, but not as wild and wacky as say Craig or Ross is.   Mike's a good guy, you'll be hearing a lot more from him in the CR music scene. I promise you that.

The jam sessions and getting together with fellow musicians has put the Fitting Finales on the backburner, but the deadline to get the record out looms near and I'll be finishing up the drum tracks on that soon, but I think I said that last blog.   I come to conclude that the summer jams made me miss interacting with fellow musicians and that perhaps I can keep a beat with the best of them.  It feels good when people say that I'm a excellent drummer.  Most of the CR musicians have been very nice and have welcomed me into their circle too.  Will it lead me to join new bands around town, well I'm not giving up my nighttime job, that pays the bills better than a weekend gig at the Chrome Horse.  But if the situation is right, and I get the right kind of people anything is possible.   With the focusing on drumming, I haven't picked up the guitar since finishing the tracks for Fitting Finales, except for this weekend when I was howling into the microphone on Let's Work Together.  I am happy of my work with The Townedgers to the point that I can move on to the next big thing.  The Townedger won't be going away anytime soon mind you.  But as I get into working within a band mode and seeing what new goodies are out for drums, I will turn my focus into drumming once again. If the next band can tolerate me for more than two songs on jam sessions nights.

But in the great beyond, I'm sure Kyle was looking down with pride and amused that so many came out to give him one final send off, but regardless he'll always be one of us, and be with us in spirit.  RIP Jam Brother.  We will miss you.

RIP Kyle Oyloe

The time on this earth is so precious and so short.

Since coming out of retirement to play in jam sessions in town I was lucky enough to share the stage with Kyle Oyloe, a unique guitar player with a heart of gold and was nice enough to talk tunes with me in the short couple months we played on stage at Rumors and Wrigleyville.  And the sad fact is that he was only 46, when his life was cut short so quickly and so unexpected.

He has played in many bands, most recently Julie And The Mad Dogs who was supposed to play next weekend in Anamosa.    There was a tribute tonight at the reopened and brand new Chrome Horse Saloon and this week's Rumor's Jam Session will be a jam held in his honor.  To which I will participate along with many of his friends and fellow musicians.

Although I didn't know him very well, I do wish I would have known him sooner than I did.  Here's to a good man.

Thanks for the jams Kyle.

PS 2017

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yP20Mpb84sY

Album archives: Pawnshops For Olivia 2008

When I think about the this album Pawnshops For Olivia,  I didn't expect this to be the last album of the decade, much less for five years, but 2008 damn near wiped me out.  For the most part Geoff Redding was non existent on this record with myself opting to do most of the music and songs.  Like the previous album Geoff had his life to live and since The Townedgers hardly did much outside of the recording studio, I let him live his life and let him seeing his daughters grow up before his very eyes.  But the winter of 2007-08 was the most snowiest on record it seems, every day it was either snowing or icing the roads,  when March came around it rained every weekend and I spent many a weekend trying to dry the basement with ongoing water issues.  To spend every fucking day trying to keep water out of the basement and seeing the skies open up and rained once again I was no fun being around with.  During the lull in storms I would jot ideas down for the next album, which would be entitled Pawnshops For Olivia, originally I was going to use that title on what would become The Road Less Traveled.   At age 47, I was becoming the elder statesman of Town's Edge Rock And Roll, caught in the crossroads of life and getting nowhere fast.  And as we started work on this record, I wasn't impressed with the songs that we started up, nothing sounded very inspired and even Diggy Kat, my biggest fan was wondering if I could put together another winning album like A Long Time Forgotten or The Highway Home.  Martin Daniels also had doubts too, there was a concrete writer's block and I couldn't seem to shake it.  Somehow the one that shook me out of my doldrums would turn out to be the woman that I welcome the new 21st Century with, when she came down here to visit.  That would be Olivia aka Lisa.

I lost Lisa in 2000 when my last trip to Portland turned out to be our last time together and it was decided that she wasn't the one for me.  There was somebody closer to her, he wasn't a record/Cd hoarder and he wasn't a musician, so basically three strikes and I was out.  Even after they became a couple and family, I maintain a platonic and friendly presence by emailing her from time to time to see things were going.  After not hearing from her a while, I send a farewell note to her, which she surprised me by writing back, that she remembered the good times that we had and maybe just maybe we can still be email pals.  Somehow, she got me to write some of more startling candid songs of my career.  But while Pawnshops For Olivia was a look back of what we once had, the album also gave a bit of what my future would hold in store for me.  And the future would be with a new girlfriend a year later and perhaps the last great chance of having that relationship that would last a lifetime.  And the future would be with The Uptown Chevy Girl, a song that was dedicated to Nicole, a Mingles friend of mine that was supporting of the band efforts.  Nicole also helped me write a song called Place And Time, which kinda got me out of the sad songs that comprised of Pawnshops.

For the first time ever, I had help from outside songwriters, helping in their own way.  Diggy Kat co wrote Downer's Grove and contributed to the middle eight bridge lyrics.  Elizabeth Chaffe, lead singer of Lizzy Williams Band got credit for the title of Can't Be What You Want Me To Be, which she did a song called Can't Be Who You Want Me To Be.  I've been friends with Elizabeth for close to ten years now, after buying her Lucky 8 CD and commenting on how good it was and she answered back and we have been  friends ever since then.   And of course Nicole Passmore who was instrumental with her help and even making a couple Townedgers needle point artwork.

As for the album itself, I don't think I ever been so emotional on some of the songs.  The pain of lost love got to the point that my voice kinda wavered in such numbers as So Alone, or perhaps Beyond The Sun, the most depressing song in The Townedgers' catalog.  But that song itself foretold the future more so than it did when I took Lisa back to the airport on that fateful day, that perhaps the only time that we could be together was when we were beyond the sun, meaning the great afterlife, if there were second chances but it came into play three years later and with another woman.  I Don't Fall In Love is another futuristic song that warns the next love interest to seriously consider what she's getting herself into before committing herself to me, but the words were written in 1988 for Postcards From The Edge.  Coincidence is the term of this song.  But I know while trying to sing and tear up on So Alone was that once again I got caught up in the good times of the past, and that whatever the outcome, Lisa was gone.  We may have talked about getting together out in Arizona when I moved out there, but that was wishful thinking on my part.  Although I tried to put some humor into the line that the waterbed is much roomy at night, although not having her next to me anymore made things a bit more lonelier than it seems.  Perhaps the best song that was about Lisa was Dear Lisa, to which summed up our love together in two minutes.

I didn't intend Pawnshops For Olivia to be a mostly acoustic album, but it was less hassles than trying to get the right sound from the amps and electric guitar, therefore I Wonder and Uptown Chevy Girl were the only songs that employed electric guitar.  However, I went back to borrow some Townedgers songs from the past to try to lively up the mood and not make it the total bummer that it was coming to be.  Therefore, songs like Forgiveness, The Perfect Life and Long Walk Home were left off, in favor of a drum solo called Topsy (Part 3), which was a nod and a wink to Cozy Cole, who I gave credit to the song as well as The Townedgers although, the guitar ending was done by me.  Plus the aforementioned Place And Time and something off Town's Edge Rock called Ever So Much, which really really gave that song more of a country flavor than intended, complete with cute backing vocals.   Somewhere Down The Line was originally done in different form on There's Nothing Left and once again attempted during Mixed Blessings but Martin Daniels did a good job in suggesting to keep the song shorter than the bloated five minute version done before.

We started recording on February 29, 2008 and concluded things on a wet and rainy weekend in May, before the flooding rains came and on June 3, we ended up with 10 inches of rain on saturated ground. And then  watched our fair city succumb to the biggest flood in history, 31.3 feet of angry Cedar River turning Cedar Rapids into a ghost town.  Had we live in Broadcast Manor, we have would have had five inches of flood inside the house.  Out here in the country, we got a underground spring turning our basement into a stinky mess.   After completing Pawnshops For Olivia, I started working with Russ Swearingen in a new band we called I/O meaning Input/Output and for about a month doing rehearsal at his makeshift home. His house in Marion catching fire and uprooting him to a rental to which we practiced for about a month with a new guitar player before a riff started between this guitar player and Russ and the band was put on hold.  For the first time ever, I sang a couple songs for the I/O band, one being Dead Flowers and another I Wonder was submitted for a song idea but nobody wanted to do that one.  So eventually Russ went back to the golf course and hanging at the Mexican place drinking copious amounts of Tequila, while I returned back to the record store and hanging in Arizona during the summer months to get away from the flooding hell that was Iowa at that time.

Pawnshops was produced by me without outside help, although Martin added a few things into the songs and mixing of the album. Cover art was by Patrick Jennings' depiction of an old pawnshop somewhere in Oklahoma and Matthew James Smith had a drawing that I used for the back page.  Mr. Smith is an excellent photographer as well.  Perhaps the best photo shot was used on the jewel case song titles was taken by Ryan Adams of a statue of a guy with his palm in his face.  Which really showed how I really felt during that time.  Certainly Adams remains one of the better rock and rollers out there but some of his photography is even more classic than his songs.

Again I promoted the record by adding some songs on My Space and put it out for sale, but like the rest of the albums, nobody bought it, despite the efforts to promote it via social media and net radio. And I think the disappointment of pouring your heart and soul out to make a definite and to me a classic album just took the joy out of making music and I closed up shop for a while.  The outtakes of Pawnshops was called Country and while I slated to issue it in 2009, it would take three years before I did finally signed off and released it to an indifferent and uncaring world.  By 2009, Nicole and I would meet together in St Louis, 9 years after meeting at a Mingles party and becoming boyfriend and girlfriend for a couple years.  Even though I reconnected with Lisa during the sessions that became Pawnshops, we traded off and on email till late 2013 when the lines of communication ended.
And sometimes when things do end, it's best that they remain in the past.  So I wish her well in life.

While I recorded something like 14 albums in the 80s and 12 in the 90s, the actual albums that I did issue in the 2000 (official releases) were 6 plus A Christmas album that we did after finishing up A Long Time Forgotten in late 2005.  Pawnshops For Olivia was the final album of that decade.  It's a grand statement about the loss of love and failures to live up expectations, and while 1983's Love Sucks, and 1992 Drive In Blues chronicled the subject of failed love, Pawnshops shattered both of them in scope and misery but with a hope for the future.  And with that, The Townedgers and Rodney Smith took a long break from it all.

In the 25 years of me playing original music, beginning with So Much For That and ending with Pawnshops For Olivia, the Rodney Smith sound was made and perfected and revisited time and time again, with something good results, sometimes great results and sometimes not so good but each and every album was done with the fire and passion of a somebody who wanted so badly to play rock and roll and not have to work a day job. Well that failed, but in the process I managed to make albums that still sound pretty good to this day.  Pawnshops For Olivia was that grand statement and for that Mel Torme comment of If we're gonna fail let's do it style, we took his comment to heart and ran with it.  In fact I lived it.  I'm proud of that fact that the Good Lord or the powers to be gave me the music and lyrics to make it work in my own way.  And even if the failures of my life and loves damn near drove me insane and almost killed me, the songs really do speak for myself.

And if anybody read this far, I thank you for reading these album archives and by reading them, you have supported this starving artist.


The Songs:

I Wonder (Smith/Orbit)  4:47
Summer Of Your Discontent (Smith/Miller)  2:05
Uptown Chevy Girl (R.Smith)  2:30
There Are Times (Smith/Orbit)  3:33
Can't Be What You Want Me To Be (Smith/Orbit/Chaffe)  2:53
Dear Lisa (R.Smith) 2:10
I Don't Fall In Love (R.Smith)  4:30

Somewhere Down The Line (Smith/Orbit)  3:22
So Alone (R.Smith)  4:40
Downer's Grove (Smith/Kat) 2:30
Topsy (Part 3) (Smith/Orbit/Redding/Daniels/Cole)  4:00
Ever So Much (Smith/Miller/Celica)  2:48
Time And Place (Smith/Orbit/Passmore)  2:33
Behind The Sun (R.Smith)  4:12

Lyrics (C) 2008 Townedger Music Emporium

Recorded at Smith Brothers Studio, Springville, Ia  From Feb 29 to May 15, 2008
I Wonder Produced By Rodney Smith With Richard Dennanbaugh
All other sections Produced By Rodney Smith
Recorded by Martin Daniels, Rodney Smith and Nicky Drummond
Mixed by Daniels/Smith at WTF studios Stone City IA

Thanks to Geoff Redding and Martin Daniels for their help on the songs.

Thank You:  Diggy Kat, Nicole Passmore, Rick Smith, Russ Swearingen, Jessica Somebody, Chelsea (RIP), Maggie May (RIP), Mom, Dad, Pearson Inc for 20 years of being there, Liz Chaffe and to Lisa Poe for the inspiration that went in the making of this album. Without them, I would still be spinning my wheels.

And to the Uptown Chevy Girl, it was a wonderful ride, let's do it again soon.

Released as Radio Maierburg Records RMR 25355 Pawnshops For Olivia, June 2008

Album Archives: The Highway Home 2007

Rodney Smith as de facto leader era.

As I got older, I became less and less known on the music circuit in town. Being the recluse and retiring out into the country, the music of The Townedgers rapidly become the vision of Rodney Smith as The Townedger, or like Dave Edmunds when he had the Rockfield studio to himself and making the one man band albums of I Hear You Knockin.  Once in a while Geoff Redding would come over to add guitar to a song or two, or Martin Daniels popping up for emotional support, but in all fairness I was The Townedger and with a four track I could do a song by myself, at my own time and then head to work or come home late night and do a quiet number while my brother was sleeping next door.

I started off on coffee cans and toy percussion in the 70s, then got a real drum set in the 80s and learn how to play them and also guitar beginning with So Much For That although the results were very rough in those early years  Town's Edge Rock begins the journey.  Then the low fi years, then in 1989 getting a four track to finally put the songs into shape.  It's true that it was me that shaped the sound and vision of my music but even back during TE Rock, through the years, I did my best to make Route 66/The Townedgers to be a band collective.  But I worked alone in composing the lyrics and reworking the same chords to make the songs sound a bit different but any professional can play these songs.  Or working the E to A riff on It's So Hard to the chorus going from A to D back to E on the tag line.  Anybody can do the song, however I tend to play them over and over to the 4/4 beat.  I only select a couple musicians simply of the fact that I trusted them to play the riff over and over as prescribed.  But by being a drummer by trade, I was content just to keep the songs playing as The TEs rather than at some jam session and knowing that the other guitarist, not hearing the song beforehand would get it down just right for me to sing it.

By this time, the internet had social media sites that you could share your gift of music and I had mine via My Space, the now worthless social outlet that lets you show off your music.  And like the rest of the budding stars out there, I thought that this would get me into the spotlight, which in the end, didn't.  You have about a million other artists and bands out there flooding your timeline to check out their latest song or buy their album for 10 bucks on CD Baby.  While I had 400 friends and followers, only one of them did buy any of my music CDs and I dated her for a couple years.  Thus, the closet cult artist tag was brought upon me and it was a inside joke that only a few did actually care about my music and one of them, I bestowed the A and R tag on him.

In order to be a fan, you have to love the music that you put out.  Which was why Mixed Blessings got shelved, I didn't like the overall sound, so I went and redid the songs unplugged and called that A Long Time Forgotten.  Not only I play and sing these songs and albums, I am too a fan of The Townedgers and it should be that way.  To enjoy the 30 plus years of music that was created.  I was trying to make something that would last for the ages.  There certainly wasn't an eye toward making money out of this, if that was the case, I'd be starving in the streets.  Even the best albums that I did, I couldn't give away for free.  The album is still up there if you take the time to seek it out but in the ten years that it's been put up, the royalties aren't there.   The only hope that I have to be discovered is to have some fans from aboard come across it by accident and become such fanatical fans that they go on a quest to find me, like they did to Sixto Rodriquez in the movie Searching For Sugarman.  Chances by then, I'll be probably be dust in the wind and there'll won't be anything on the internet about The Townedgers or that Rodney Smith.

It's strange how five years ago The Road Less Traveled sounds like an actual band, but The Highway Home sounds less of a band collective and more toward Rodney Smith, the solo artist masquerading as The Townedgers, but somehow The TEs was more of me than if I used my name as a solo artist.  In a indifferent world it may have been better to use my real name but as far as those who knew me I was THE TOWNEDGER, from Mingles, a failure in realtionships but I could write those failed relationships in songs.  Although I was six years removed from my last failed get together with somebody, there was no woman I was dating at the time of The Highway Home and thus actually wrote with a clearer mind.  But the Highway Home itself is a different sound, I was trying for a more professional sound.  The drumming was different, more beat driven rather than cymbal accenting.  And I was using the back catalog for song covers, Correspondence appears as a more CCR sounding although Geoff Redding put in a different type of riff in the middle of the song.  Town's Edge Rock Again was very tongue in cheek although the vocals didn't come out as well as planned.

I still wrote about love and failed love.  It Doesn't Matter Anymore was about me planning to get together with a woman from that dating site I was on and we were supposed to meet in Madison but she never showed up, which I knew that she wasn't.  It sounded contrived from the start.  She eventually did find somebody close to home and married him but it was for the better, she really wasn't attractive.  I Miss A Good Woman's Love, is self explanatory, even a recluse does miss female company.  It Was, was co written with Sophia Celica, a daughter from a late friend.  She used to be known as Songbird but she changed her name after her dad died, she's a fairly good soul singer and when she approached me on doing a song, we traded ideas until we got this song laid down.  Basically a song about a woman that worked at the Red Robin uptown that looked like somebody I used to date in high school, but really wasn't.  Donnellee, was the song we worked on most of the sessions and I was writing along the context of trying to write a hit song.  I know Martin mistakes this song title as Donna Lee but we did have a co worker named Donnellee and I thought that would one day make a good song.  Geoff would work on one part of the song, Martin on another and when we did the electric version, it still didn't sound right to these ears.  So once again, we did an unplugged number and used that on the album.    And this was the beginning of doing alternative takes of songs, do them electrically and then take out the acoustics for another go at it.  But Donnellee remains a frustrating song, we could never figure out how to write the chorus outside of repeating things twice. This could have been right for country radio if we had the right words to sing, but I suppose the catch phases of Donnellee Donnellee, can't you see (repeat), What you mean, mean to me, Donnellee Donnellee.

I also wrote about the death of Brad Delp, the troubled Boston lead singer on He Rides Alone, a sad morbid tale about a guy who had it all, one of the most played songs on the radio and still nobody knew him.  It's interesting to hear the whispering of He Rides Alone at the fade out and even done as acoustic, still sound like death metal.  Out of anybody I would have loved to meet, Brad Delp would have been one of them and he sounds like he could have joined this band as well.

There were new things I tried, Borders is a song about having a state of purpose in life, even for a closet cult artist like myself, these songs are going to be my legacy in life if they get heard or not.  I love a harvest moon night, I love watching trains and I love my come and go ways although it be nice to get laid once in a while, everybody thinks that way. And when the day is done point the way back so I can go home.  Someday Soon, was another attempt to try to write a radio friendly song and out of all of the Townedgers music, this one could work on the Americana channel.  If nothing else, I think some of the words come across as Christian Gospel, especially on the verse after the break.  But it falls in the same vein as I Miss A Good Woman's Love, which meant I do miss a good woman's love and someday soon if the Lord is willing, I could have that someone to hold.  Which would happen a few years later.

But of course, I dip into the archives to pull out For A While, the 1976 Freakbeat song from KROD. You have to remember back then, I didn't learn guitar and although the words are primitive, there was enough substance to rearrange the song into something listenable.  For A While was dusted off in 1986 Every Hour On The Hour Live At Wendy Oaks showcase and while that version was a bit too goofy, this version I finally found the right type of rock goodness and a trainwreck ending that was commonplace way back then.  But in all fairness I didn't tear up the drums like I did 20 years prior.  And somehow that got some radio airplay via Lucky Star Radio a few times.

I started work on The Highway Home on March 3, 2007 and concluded it on April 19.  Steve Rasmussen was credited as co producer.  I did this as a favor to him as he helped me through a few things at our work place when I was working in the now long gone Printing department.  Basically the ultimate shout out.

Without the anger and explosion that was 20, or the acoustic attitude seeking Long Time Forgotten, The Highway Home seems to be a complacent attempt to show The Townedgers as now content in their ways and I think we played it safe, maybe too safe in this collection.  I guess it was the coming of age so to speak, but with Geoff and Martin, we did a couple more live in the studio sets revisiting past songs but never giving them official releases.  If anything, The Highway Home shows more of a heart that is me, I'm human, I like my come and go ways but I also enjoy a good woman's love if and when that happens.   But compared to the next album, The Highway Home was marking time for the next set of stormclouds that were forming on the horizon.  The next album would be my last for five years.

The Songs:

Town's Edge Rock Again (Smith/Orbit/Redding/McClelland)  3:05
The Hardest Thing (R.Smith)  2:30
It Don't Matter Anymore (R.Smith)  3:05
I Sure Miss A Good Woman's Love (R.Smith)  2:31
Borders (Smith/Orbit)  2:23
Donnellee  (Smith/Redding/Daniels)  3:40
He Rides Alone (R.Smith)  3:50

It Was (Smith/Celica-Glarington)  4:55
Hearts Don't Know (Smith/Redding)  3:20
Correspondence (Smith/Orbit)  2:45
For A While (R.Smith) 4:18
Nobody Stays In Love Anymore (Smith/Orbit)  3:13
Someday Soon (R.Smith)  4:23
Next Time (R.Smith)  3:15

Words and music (C) 2007 Townedger Music Emporium 

Recorded at Smith Brothers Studio, Springville Ia, March 3-April 19, 2007
Recorded and mixed by Martin Daniels, assisted by Rodney Smith and Richard Dennanbaugh

Band: Rodney Smith, Martin Daniels, Geoff Redding, Sophie Celica-Glarington

Released as Radio Maierburg Records RMR-25336 The Highway Home in April of 2007

Album Archives: 20 2003

The end of The Townedgers as a collective band.

Since Light At The End Of The Tunnel, the band had its most stable lineup, with Geoff Redding and Mark McClelland in tow, but there was discontent growing, basically upon me and not promoting the music as well.  Family issues were at hand, Geoff had a family and Mark wanted more of us getting out and yours truly basically happy hanging at record stores and buying cheap music and talking about it on various social media sights.   The problem was Mark was not a singer, nor Geoff and I really didn't want to sing the majority of songs live.  Another problem, I would forget words if we did play live and it pissed me off to fuck up words to the songs I should know by heart.  I mean I sang It's So Hard for 30 years, why is it that some of the lines are blurred in my brain and I can't remember them?  This has been a lifetime struggle for me to even sing songs and be convincing at that.

All my life, I have been a stutterer, which is why I don't talk much and when I do, sometimes the words that I want to say I can't.  A fucking disability if there was ever one.  That might explain why I never got the girl in the end or the ones that I did get would find somebody new.  After Isabella I really wanted no part of the dating scene, even though I did meet up with a couple of women on line they would not last for more than two dates.  Another drawback, stage fright.  I always had it while playing guitar and playing live with guitar in hand were very few and far between, I would rather play drums and let somebody else sing the songs but in the case of The Townedgers I had to sing the songs since I wrote them and neither Geoff or Mark had the vocal capability to sing them although Mark could sing Hey Cowboy Nice Hat.

For the TE album 20, I had to do something to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Town's Edge Rock and the bright idea was to do a half live and half studio album. There were two unplugged dates recorded.  One was at The Mill in Iowa City on a acoustic jam night, the other was in Platteville at the Pizza Uno Annex, where they too have a jam night and we did Northern Light in tribute to Ty Longley, the Great White guitar player that was killed in that awful fire.  But in the way to record the warts and all sound, Geoff hit the wrong high note on Remembrance Wind, the drums were off on Yuma.  Some songs we did some radical changes, the original version of You Tell Me Why, the bridge part nobody could hit the high notes, so we redid that to better effect.  Hugh McConnell mixed Back Again and sped it up on the master recording.

For the first time ever 20 might have been The Townedgers as product and not a good one at that. So I haven't promote it much or talked about it.  Most of the songs were rewrites or tossed off efforts trying to be songs.  I think we were trying to be funny on MB 20 (or matchbox 20 sucks) or trying to rekindled a love song in the short You're A Hoot.  Love's Not Here, originally done for Nice Weather We're Having, is more blistering and more angry than the original, and basically not because of Melissa who by then was 12 years gone but perhaps it was Hugh McConnell telling me to sing it as if she was in that room and leaving with her friend to go to Burger King without you tagging around.

The only time Town's Edge Rock, the original intent to celebrate that release, ended up that only One Track Mind came from that album and looking back perhaps we should have revisit that album on a song by song basis and put it up to date.  But we all got bored with it, and did absolutely nothing till late November that we did a quick two weeks of recording of whatever lyric sheet was laying around and whatever guitar riffs that were thought up on the spot.  If anything, I did do All Night Dancing, the 1981 song from Power Of Positive Thinking, improvising along the way.  Up to the crazy ending to which I yelled one two about 8 times and ended the thing.  Oh, we did a cover of I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight but took the arrangement from The Fresh Young Fellows rather than Boyce And Hart.

Martin Daniels did then mixed and mastered the tapes and that was that.  However in the archives of The Townedgers' tape masters, the masters to 20 have disappeared or have been misplaced.  And the record was issued a week before the new year.  In that time, the friction between me and the band came to a head and Mark McClelland was let go to do his own thing, I couldn't work with him anymore.   From here on out, The Townedgers simply became me and the four track with occasional help from Geoff and Martin.   The stage fright was winning out, I didn't feel compelled to hit the stage singing ever again.

In any case, 20 is actually where I changed my drumming from a smash and crash made famous in the 80s and most of the 90s to a more rhythm beat driven  and a bit away from the Keith Moon book of smash and crash.  For the first time, I felt more comfortable this way rather than try to do a drum solo in every song.  My drumming has always borderlined on trainwreck beats and outrageous cymbal crashes when I was playing in cover bands and in bars.  As for 20, the album itself I may have made references that it wasn't one of the best but when I play it in the car, it seems to sound the best and I have to hear the songs all over again.  Perhaps it was Martin Daniels adding more of louder drum sound that makes 20 all worth hearing, warts and all.   Perhaps it was the tension that was between me or Geoff or Mark that made the record sound angry.  I cannot get over the fact how angry that I sound on some of the songs, be it Love's Not Here or One Track Mind or even the cover of I Wonder What's She's Doing Tonight or All Night Dancing.

To further confuse the listener, This Will Happen No More renamed Rainy Night In Portland was a sad song about the best time I was with Lisa when I saw her in 1999 and four years later, the loneliness and yearning to return to that time is evident in the vocal.  Or the playfulness of You're A Hoot a small time love song about forthcoming love making.  Certainly when I'm in love I can write a love song that's playful and fun.  Even on the throwaways such as Winds Of Change, it comes with a bizarre waltz odd time beat that Geoff Redding was playing through a delay amp.  Later, I revisited I See You, a song that Russ Swearingen wrote the lyrics and I put to words on a 1985 album not used, but 18 years later, I worked the melody into something that doesn't sound out of place on this record. Russ and I rarely write together, we only have done a handful of songs in our lifetime, and all of them happened before 1985.  He remains a progressive rock kinda guy, but on I See You I turned that into a an acoustical power pop number.

In the long run, 20 does deserve its place in the Townedgers music resume and history and has stood the test of time and so so reviews and is perhaps the best album that captures The Townedgers in sound and vision and fury.  We all worked our asses off to get to this point and even when I think about the process of how this record happened, it tends to work against a damn good sound that we got from these sessions.  In the early 2000's I still bank on The Road Less Traveled as the best of the lot but 20 might suggest otherwise.  Certainly, 20 remains one of the more aggressive and angry albums I ever recorded, but sounds are deceiving, I think I was in a pretty good mood when the album took shape.

The Songs:

Eternal Youth  (R.Smith)  4:05
Northern Lights (for Ty Longley) (Smith/Redding)  2:30
Remembrance Wind (Smith/Maier)  3:44
Yuma  (R.Smith)  3:00
Rainy Night In Portland (Smith/Redding)  3:33
One Track Mind (R.Smith)  2:50
You Tell Me Why (R.Elliot-Clears Music ASCAP)  3:35
Back Again (Again!)  (R.Smith)  3:48

You're A Hoot (R.Smith)  1:30
All Nite Dancing (R.Smith)  3:45
Winds Of Change (Smith/Orbit)  3:53
Love's Not Here (Smith/Redding)  3:41
After You Go (Smith/Orbit)  3:50
MB 20 (Smith/McClelland)  :40
I See You (R.Swearingen/R.Smith)  2:20
I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight (T.Boyce/B.Hart EMI Blackwood BMI)  3:10

Lyrics: Rodney Smith, Music: Where indicated.
Except I See You: Lyrics:  Russ Swearingen
(C) 2003 Townedgers Music Emporium

Band: Rodney Smith, Geoff Redding, Jack Orbit, Mark McClelland

Live Recordings recorded at The Mill, Iowa City IA 1/25/03 (Track 2,3)
Pizzeria Uno Annex at Platteville  WI 2/1/03 (Track 4,5)

Studio Recordings Recorded At The Junkyard, Springville, IA (Nov-Dec 2003)
Recorded By Hugh McConnell, Martin Daniels with Rodney Smith
Mixed By Martin Daniels at WTF Productions in Stone City, Iowa
No Pro Tools were used in this recording.

Thank you:  Russ And Debbie Swearingen, Steve Anthony, Bruce Stanley, Diggy Kat, The Smith Family and GOD

Special Thanks to Donna Will

Thank you Brian Mullahan for the memories

Issued as Maier Records MRK 25220 in Late December 2003

Produced by Rodney Smith with Hugh McConnell

Album Archives: The Road Less Traveled 2002

To me, rock and roll and my music has been a long journey of bumps and bruises.  A journey of left turns and trying to make noise and be heard.  What started out in 1973 of one take nonsense became echophonics of 1976 and more nonsense.  In 1980 I got a real drumset but still chose to do more drum solos than actual songs although they were beginning to take shape.  And then in 1983 at the suggestion of Jack Orbit to actually learn how to play and write where the dirt road becomes gravel and by Town's Edge Rock became a paved road.

Along the way, I formed a band with my best friends and we managed to make the corner tavern.  When that fell apart my attention turned to original music.  Basically I couldn't do anything else.  I did not want to join any hair metal bands nor oldie country acts although in hindsight I'd be a bit well known and perhaps legendary.  So basically I took the road less traveled.

The journey of life is heard in the albums and songs although they might have been a bit crude and unpolished, these albums are my life diaries.   I fell in love or in infatuation with so many women so many times that I was blinded by movies of happy ever after couples.  Problem was I never picked the right ones and those who came and gone, I would never have the chance to find them ever again.  That one in a million girl in my P.R. class in junior college was seen only one time at Kitty's bar and once she left the place, she would committed for the ages and never again we would meet.  I was duped into thinking that the thin as a stick honors cheerleader that was in my history class years ago, along with her fat liberal thinking girlfriend that maybe that thin as a stick honors cheerleader was the one that got away.  That turned out to be a lost cause.  Or getting back together twice with the other high school sweetheart in the 90s, which didn't work either.  Took me years to realize you have to move forward and not look back at the past.  For the past is that and there's no way you could ever return back to those forgotten days to make nice or get a second chance.  In the end, there are two types of people in life, there are those who cannot live without somebody in their lives for better or for worse, and then there's us who have come to conclude that we're better off alone.  And life doesn't end when love is over.  At least not yet.

When me and Isabella split up, I decided that from here on out I was on my own and there was nobody out there that could change my mind. To this day I really don't know if she was serious about some of her actions, it rather pointless to bring them up but I really did my best to try to cheer her up, to try to convince her that life is worth living and that if you have a guy that loves you, he'll support you.  I guess she took that to heart, she's still married to that dude she claimed they were separated.  And she's still alive, and she keeps busy on Facebook.  Perhaps she did get clean but one look at her FB and she still remains the crazy woman everybody told me to stay away from.  I don't hate her, like the rest I still love her in a way and the best song that describes this whole disaster with her was something called I Miss You.  It's perhaps the most heartfelt breakup song that I ever done.  I have no idea how the chorus came to be, but I think part of it was inspired by My Heart Will Go On, that odious crappy song that Celine Dion sings.  But I think it sums up when I said this fond farewell to Miss Isabella Marks  And ever if we never cross paths again, my love will go on...LONG AFTER YOU'RE GONE.

Amazingly, The Road Less Traveled is perhaps the album that doesn't go deep into the breakup with anybody, that for the first time in history, this record doesn't rely on past breakups nor welcome the new woman into my life.  There wasn't any and with a clear conscience most of the songs took shape. A lot of the songs do go back to the 1992 Art Deco sessions with I Always Wanted To Be With You and Back Again, the latter song one of all time favorites despite me being a step off on one of the lines.  The guitar playing the riffs over and over I enjoy a lot.  Walls, really goes back to 1983 and was written but not recorded for Love Sucks.  I co wrote it with the late Ron Glarington, and while we toyed with the song back then, we couldn't find the right sound to record that song.  Another Highway, might have been done for Postcards From The Edge.  Wonderful Love was a summary of failed love and I think most of that came from the last time Isabella and me were together.  That may have been the part of Emotional Baggage came in, when I sang that part I might have been looking at her picture as we recorded it.

Met Her At The Pawnshop aka Pawnshop Girl was a true story.  I was in the old Mister Money pawnshop in Ames when this woman came in and we talked a bit, she was bitching about not being able to find somebody as she pawned a few things off to buy some smokes.  I don't recall much of our chat but she did mentioned that there's no such thing as soul mates and those who think there are, are full of shit.   Tavern Town, was inspired by Webb Wilder's Human Cannonball although you don't hear it in the music but I think that came into play when I was up at The Horseless Carriage (now Wrigleyville in Marion Iowa) and they were playing the new country hat acts and we were referencing Willie, Waylon and Buck rather than Garth.  Looking back upon that now, Garth is a lot better than the crap that is country, the Locash, The FGL, Cole Swindell, Brantley Gilbert.  Believe me it would get much worse than it was back in 2002.  But one of the key lines is something that rings true today; even in a crowded barroom you can still be all alone.  And I still do feel that way even when I participate in jam sessions in town.  Two months into that, and I still don't know anybody well.  What's Not To Love is a rip off REM's Monster album and that bizarre delay on I Don't Sleep I Dream.  The line 6 amp had a delay that I could repeat that riff over and over and it would keep a straight beat throughout the song.  All Geoff had to do is follow it.  And he did a fine job.

The album took a month to do.  We started it on January 14, 2002 and finished it on Valentine's Day (a year after Russ and Deb got married and four years removed from Clarice).  And basically we got the same production and recording lineup that gave us Drive In Blues.  Brian Mullahan, on a chance meeting said he wanted to work with me again and so we put aside our differences.  As we finished everything up, Brian had some prior commitments to do and there was enough tape left to do a couple more, so Geoff Redding and I finished up the album by doing three songs, Where It Leads, Past Times Behind and Let The Train Roll On.  I guess you can call them filler songs but I love the easy going groove and the Brown Eyed Girl type arrangement of Where It Leads, the odd ball guitar riff to Past Times Behind (with a line 99 percent of people are not with their first love, what does that say, quoted from Willie Nelson) and Let The Train Roll On, complete with a tag riff I think was stolen from Petticoat Junction.  Remembrance Wind, was another let's all go back to the past song but I think we wanted to do with acoustic guitars to make it sound bluegrass but that wasn't meant to be. I left the drums off that one.   Finally, I decided to close the album with a remake of Social Distortion Sometimes I Do.  We attempted to do it back in 1992 for Drive In Blues and I didn't like the end result.  This one a bit more akin the Mike Ness and a slower beat.  I think it was better to have the backing vocals way in the back to give it a more personal sound.

We chose 14 songs to make it a viable single album but I did put up a deluxe edition to which two bonus cuts were added.  One was Teri, a song that perhaps I should have included it.  I love this version to the point that when we put together a outtakes album Observations From The Forefront this got included and made into a single.  Basically it started out as a warm up song to the album, which is why it sounds a bit rough but Geoff had the right feel while playing it.  The other song was It's All Over, a song that was done twice back in the 1990s, a rejected version for Nice Weather We're Having and again on Drive In Blues where I tagged the ending of All Over Now to see if it would work better.  It did not.

The Road Less Traveled is one of my favorite Townedgers album and I think I like it the best since I left most of the emotional baggage off this one unlike the last couple of albums.  It really does sound polished and thanks to the tireless efforts of Hugh McConnell and Richard Dennanbaugh they worked overtime to get it right.  They had to.  Somehow the masters got destroyed, the drums are hardly audible so whatever remains on the master disc, we'll have to go with it.  This record is the best of how the Townedgers sound and although later in the decade the critics would like the newer releases better, I'll go to my grave calling The Road Less Traveled our ultimate album.  It's somewhat a bittersweet album, it would be the last that I worked on with Brian Mullahan, from here on out, we really would be on our own, especially after his passing a couple years later.   It's an underrated classic and it is one of my five all time favorite Townedgers albums.  I'll leave you to guess the other four.

The Songs:

Another Highway (R.Smith)  4:17
Wonderful Love (R.Smith)  3:50
I Always Wanted To Be With You (R.Smith)  4:05
Walls (Smith/Orbit/Glarington)  4:25
What's Not To Love (Smith/Redding/Orbit/McClelland)  4:47
Tavern Town (Smith/Orbit)  4:27
I Miss You (R.Smith)  4:30
It's All Over (Smith/Orbit)  4:20*
Teri My Love (Smith/Redding)   4:55*
Remembrance Wind (Smith/Maier)  3:45
Back Again (R.Smith)  3:45
Met Her At The Pawnshop (Smith/Orbit/Redding)  3:53
Where It Leads (Smith/Redding)  2:20
Past Times Behind (Smith/Redding)  3:43
Let The Train Roll On (R.Smith)  3:00
Sometimes I Do (Mike Ness-Rebel Waltz/Sony ATV (ASCAP))  3:53

*Bonus tracks on deluxe edition

Words: Rodney Smith, Music: where credited (C) 2002 Townedger Music Emporium

Band: Rodney Smith, Geoff Redding, Mark McClelland, Jack Orbit, Johnathon Maier

Recorded at Smith Brothers Studios, Springville Ia (Jan 14-Feb 14, 2002)
Recorded by Richard Dennanbaugh with Hugh McConnell
Assisted by Miles Delancey and Rodney Smith
Mixed by Hugh McConnell and Martin Daniels at Studio 66, Fillmore Ia
Produced by Rodney Smith and Brian Mullahan
(Past Times Behind, Let The Train Roll On) Produced by Rodney Smith and Geoff Redding

Released as Radio Maierburg RMR 25169 The Road Less Traveled On March 3, 2002 

Album Archives: There's Nothing Left 2001

I remember spending new year's 2000 in East Dubuque with my best friend, and his girlfriend Debbie and it was me and Lisa, my new love for the past three months that came all the way from Oregon to check out Iowa in the wintertime.  It really was the high point of the new year and 21st century and hopefully the sign of better things to come.  At least I thought it would be.

Lisa being the west coast girl, never experienced wintertime in the Midwest, which could be the bone chilling cold or ten feet in snow and although I'm sure she would have jumped at the chance to move out to be with her new discovery and boyfriend, I told her to check it out first before you uproot yourself.   So she took my advice, came out a couple days after Christmas and ended up getting phenomena in the process, which she still fighting when I went to see her in March.  By then, it was ending.  In our final quest, both of us did convince Debbie to hang with Russ and she eventually not only stayed with him but did move from Rochester New York to be with him and marry him on Valentine's Day 2001, three years after my breakup with Clarice. When Russ and Debbie got engaged, me and Lisa split apart.

That became the start of the new album There's Nothing Left.  The song that started off the album Another Year, I was still reeling from breakup with Lisa and toward the end of the song, I ended up doing a wail that the hurt from the breakup, came from deep within.  And a lot of the songs on that album dealt with the breakup.  I Rather Not Cry, really spoke volumes about us breaking apart.  I'm losing you and you're not even out the door, is a very cryptic line.  I don't know if I wrote that when she was down here with me, or my last time up in Portland a couple months later.  The sad feeling of This Will Happen No More, is the realization that even an intimate moment that it wasn't meant to last.  That also comes up on After The Dance, a two note song later in the album.   Or It's Not For Me To Say, which is basically a you can't call it cheating if both parties agree to it song.

Although like Land Of Abandonment, There's Nothing Left does analyze the failures and falling apart of love, it's not a total downer like the previous album.  For the first time, I let another singer sing one song, Mark McClelland on Hey Cowboy Nice Hat, a tongue in cheek parody about bullshit artists.  Could You Ever I think was a viewpoint toward Debbie when she had her doubts about my best friend.  Last Chance Train Song stems from the 1992 Art Deco Sessions of the songs that were used for Drive In Blues and the 1992 version was a demo which I revisited 9 years down the road with a more rocking and driving beat.  Bring It To Light, is really Same Old Thing, from 1981's Power Of Positive Thinking with an extra verse and chorus, Geoff really does a fine job playing the guitar on this number.  For Your Love is another Redding showcase of processed guitars going through the four track we used on the previous album.  You Chase Me Till You Lost Me, was another songs channeling Neil Young/Crazy Horse Ragged Glory era, complete with trainwreck ending.   What I Thought, which ends side one, is another Crazy Horse attempt with yours truly actually doing a guitar lead and at the end having a very long and feedback driven ending which ends things.  But it sounds druggy and the words are not very well thought out of.  I have no idea why I started out with Well It's Stardate ten thirty one, and I'm staring into the sun.  It may have been influenced by Hawkwind but in all reality it's a long throwaway song.

The last song is Isabella, which is about the woman that replaced Lisa as my girlfriend.  This woman hailed from Spokane, had snakes for pets and had a CD collection which rivaled mine, she had plenty of them.  And yeah we talked about being together.  But looking back upon that, I feel that she used me as a pawn in her game of life.  At that time, she was whacked out on drugs and while folks in the social media dating site warned me of her and her antics, I thought I could change her.  Another burr in the saddle was that she was actually married to somebody although she swore they were not together, it seemed weird  to once again aligned myself into another sticky situation that was going to end bad.  While we did get together in July for five days in Seattle, things seemed to go quite well, it didn't rained up there at all, the skies were sunny and blue and the sunsets at 10 PM were beautiful coming off the ocean.  And we hang at the finest records stores and enjoyed each others company.  Alas, when I saw her in October, things changed for the worst.  There was 9/11, the worst terrorist attack on our soil and somehow Isabella was making excuses after excuses not wanting to get together, however the ticket to Spokane was bought so I had to show up one way or another.  Needless to say it was a disaster, Isabella was cold and distant and she did some of the strangest things I ever seen from a person.  Even bringing a pet rabbit to the motel room to which Bugs Bunny would peed on three different sets of pillows.  The last straw was an outburst from her losing her methodrome prescription in a pizza joint after spending three lost days in Seattle and fighting a snowstorm.  And then somehow catching her body piecing on something and her in the bathroom for about an hour.  By then it was over and I wanted her gone.  The disgust of that encounter would make me not even date anybody for almost 8 years.

Nevertheless Isabella is really one of our better harder rocking songs, including a tag ending that ends the record.  Unlike the previous albums, the session notes are lacking and nobody bothered to write down the session dates and times and songs.  The album started around November 2000 and concluded in March of 2001.

I tend to look at There's Nothing Left in a positive light.  Once again The Townedgers music was changing and evolving as well, there's plenty of music styles on this album and Richard Dennanbaugh did a great job in getting the sounds out although the new Line 6 guitar tended to be a bit more deeper in sound which cause some bad mastering on the first go around.  It was impossible to get the feedback right on the end of What I Thought.  The sound of Bring It To Light is damn near perfect.

Overall, There's Nothing Left is an emotional rollercoaster that does have some highs and lows to it.  The inspiration of failed love has always made some great songs that came from the heart and even if Isabella turned out to be a failure of love on the rebound, she did inspire me to still believe in love, although in the despair of having enough of her antics in the cold October night up at the Super 8 in Spokane to the point that I took half an Xanax to come my nerves after her Methodrome misplacement, I still hoped that we could work something else.  But then again all I was to her, was a prop in her misguided life.  She may have been a cosplayer for all I know.  She's still alive and doing fine up there and I wish her well.   I still think There's Nothing Left is one of the better TE albums done at that time.   The next album would turn the tide for the better as well.

The Songs:

Another Year (R.Smith)  3:10
Hey Cowboy, Nice Hat (Smith/Redding/McClelland/Dutcher)  3:48
Could You Ever (Smith/Orbit)  2:20
The Equation (R.Smith)  3:52
Last Chance Train Song (Smith/Redding)  4:45
It's Not For Me To Say (R.Smith)  2:21
What I Thought (Smith/Orbit/Redding/McClelland)  6:30

I Rather Not Cry (R.Smith)  4:00
For Your Love (Smith/Orbit/Redding/McClelland)  4:45
This Will Happen No More (Smith/Redding)  3:39
Bring It To Light/Same Old Thing (Smith/Redding)  2:23
You Lost Me (Smith/Orbit)  5:00
After The Dance (Smith/Redding)  4:05
Isabella (R.Smith)  5:30

Lyrics: Rodney Smith, Music: Where Noted  (C) 2001 Townedger Music Emporium

Band: Rodney Smith, Geoff Redding, Mark McClelland, Jack Orbit

Recorded at Smith Brothers Studio, Springville Ia (November 2000-March 2001)
Recorded by Richard Dennanbaugh, assisted by James Marvetts and R. Smith
Mixed by Hugh McConnell

Released as Maier Records MRK 25143  There's Nothing Left in April 1, 2001