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
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