Happy Holidays!
It doesn't matter if I say Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays and too many people take exception to those who don't say the former or the latter. What is important is that you share the day with loved ones or friends. As long as my folks are still alive Christmas will continue.
Julie Gordon returns her band the Mad Dogs back to the music circuit since the passing of Kyle Oyloe at CRL. She is one of gifted vocalists in town and a hell of a nice woman too. I hope to see her and The Mad Dogs live around here. They were slated to be in my neck of the woods on the week that Kyle passed away. She does stays busy with Acoustic Kitties though.
So far, Fitting Finales has not done as I hoped it would be. The first single has bombed but my label has two more chances for singles to be issued for next year. There's a bit of discouragement over here but then again it has sold the same amount of copies as did Forthcoming Trains. My A&R person has been very busy of late so we haven't given up yet. The key word is YET.
The Redwing Roidrage I had to encounter this year shot this year down and nothing really got me out of this fit of rage. What really made me mad was that the participants and the ones behind the cancer walked blamed me for walking into the their nest when I was trying to get away from this brain damaged bird and the wonderful couple snickering in front of me. They weren't laughing so much when I told them I'd love it if Angry Bird came after you. I told the security guard or whoever he was that if I had a gun I'd be back to shoot the MF too. If I'm going to do these nice little walks for cancer research to try not to include them during Redwing nesting season. Which is most of the GD summer before the corn grows high enough for the redwings to hide in them and leave the public alone. Can't win the lottery, but I'm not impressed when the luck of the draw has 500 people at a public gathering and one fucking redwing decides it's me to attack.
It hasn't been the best of years, between mother nature's flying shit bags or getting stuck with the NASCAR speedracers on the main roads and one headliters and yacking cell phone people driving but if you scoot through an empty road past a stop sign, all of a sudden there's a Linn Country Deputy in the dark and politely relieves me of 200 dollars after I admitted of doing that. Guess his old lady must have cut him off for the night. Hard to have a nice day when you're lose 225 dollars plus court costs. No need to say have a nice day, when a F U will do. From this side of the fence.
I still think next year will see me more out in the local band spotlight, I really do feel that there'll be a weekend of playing gigs and getting familiar with the music scene even more so. I still think I have a good ten years of music left inside of me to do. It also depends if my body can withstand 3 hours of playing live per night. Or if I can hang on to the drumsticks while playing.
The Townedgers is basically me, like it has been the past ten years. Martin Daniels being the one constant. I guess I should have done Fitting Finales as a solo artist. The thought is that whoever new comes in, we do a name change, end the Townedgers era and start a new era.
Being 55, I'm one of the elder statesmen of rock music; I am one of the older musicians in the area. And still one of the least known in the area.
The low points of this year: The Redwing Angry Bird, Mr. Not So Nice Cop, Madison in September, Buying a junky TEAC CD recorder that gave out 8 months later after buying it, buying this junky Lenovo computer in May that still won't let me make CD cover art and then gives the old blue frowny face when it needs to reboot. A Thousand dollars went down the loo on those two things I bought.
High points: The Paraphernalia Tyrus Reunion in May, Having Russ on Stage in August for the first time in 31 years, Having Dewayne on Stage for the first time in 33 years, Being paired with Tommy Bruner and Jess Toomsen in August jam session. Having Julie Gordon sing a few numbers in November. And knowing Donna Will is still alive. I still love Brooksie to pieces.
Ian Kilmister aka Lemmy is a one of kind musician. A person that didn't have the right voice or sound but managed to make 40 years of three chords rock and roll with a whiskey soaked voice that may have been tuneless to some but for me he was the idea musician. Motorhead did shaped in some ways the music of The Townedgers and myself with his go for what you know and fuck everybody else if they don't like it. Till the end he did things his way. I'm sure he's jamming with Kyle Oyloe right now as we speak. Wish I could have met the man. RIP
Friday 25 December 2015
Monday 21 December 2015
Thoughts From The Townedger-December Edition
I'm dreaming of a brown Christmas. Looks like we not going have any snow for the second straight Christmas in a row. I don't mind but some people do. I'm really have not been in a Christmas spirit mood. At this time I rather spend it with family and friends and forgo all the materialism that is Christmas today.
Outside of the jam sessions it has been another crappy year. The TEAC CD recorder took a dump and crashed once and for all and I only had it for a half a year. Recording new projects and trying to preserve them is getting to be a bitch anymore. Nothing works half the time and when they do there's always a technical fuck up along the way. When things don't work and you're battling the recorder to get a decent take, it does sucked the life out of you and the album at hand. Thankfully Fitting Finales got done before the TEAC took a permanent vacation.
I still can't grasp how this year shaped up and I don't know how I survived this year. Being attacked by some irate blackbird in June wasn't my idea of fun and Madison in September turned out to be such a bummer that I may not return back there again. So the only thing in life left to do was to reappear on the jam session circuit in July and it turned out to be a fun time. It puts a perspective in me that maybe I should have taken up the bass guitar since this area has lots of good to great drummers out there. Even when I thought I was on par, somebody new would come out of the woodwork and lay things down even more tighter than me. The Psychological thinking is that many of these fine drummers do play gigs on a regular basis more than I do, and even though I have held my hold at times, Father Time has other ideas as my drum sticks go flying into the crowd when I over do a fill or don't hold to them. But it happens to each and everybody at times. However most of the musicians around here have encouraged me to keep playing and have been very supportive.
The best memories of this year was jamming at Wrigleyville as a unknown and T Ray Robertson and Dave Bonham the first couple guys that welcomed me into the fray. Terry McDowell has been a wonderful inspiration, the guy plays in four bands and jams on the weekend and I don't know how he does that and stay sane at the same time. Mike Lint, is not the new guy anymore, he's getting better with his singing each and every week. Seth Williams all 16 years of him actually held the beat down to Move It On Over. He's still a baby but I'm sure in due time he'll be on the bar circuit. But the veterans here know their stuff inside and out, Rocky Smith, Herm Sarduy, Tom Miller, Stan Hersom, D.J. Holvenstot: this guy plays songs just like you hear them on the record. Even Troy Harper, who plays bass most of the time got behind the drum set and blew me away. One of the best drummers out there, Keith Lindsay and Don Timmons I have yet to hear and Timmons has been having health issues. I'd love to chat with him in the future.
Certainly the highlights of the year was being paired with Jess Toomsen of Wooden Nickel Lottery and Tommy Bruner on a couple songs in August and got be shown in a video of that although Kevin who took the pictures left me out of most of them except for a half minute snippet. Craig Dewitte can drive me nuts at times but when he's locked into a lead guitar groove I'll follow him anywhere. The highlight was reuniting with Russ Swearingen in August for the first time in 31 years, since the Paraphernalia Tyrus band. We kinda stumbled through Rocky Mountain Way and I Just Want To Make Love To You and it ended much too soon. He came back a couple weeks later but we weren't paired up. He hasn't been back at jam session since then. The other highlight was Dewayne Schminkey joining up to do a few songs, Knocking On Heaven's Door which I actually sang. In fact I sang on Rocky Mountain Way song when Russ was playing bass. Boy we have come a long way.
As I type my thoughts out, the question remains what's going to happen next year for 2016. Will The Townedgers figure anymore? Will the Paraphernalia guys reunite? Will Russ and DeWayne return? Will I continue to hit the weekend Popcorn Jam? I take things on a day by day, week by week basis. Will my health let me to continue to do this? As long as it is fun and if I'm having a good time well why not? There's hope that a new band will come into play or a weekend gig just doing the oldies and getting people to dance. I know I'm coming to the twilight of my playing years, I'm just not sure if the hour is close to midnight or more earlier in the evening. I turn 55 next month, still a youngster in the 50s and 60s oldies music mode but I know I'm one of the older folks when I do show up to play.
When I wrote the song Fitting Finales, it sums up my feeling all the while that there's a day coming that I will retire back into the basement and return to be a couch potato. After all I did managed to share the stage with Russ one more time before everything is said and done and Dewayne for that matter. In reality when most of us got together in May, little did we know that this would paved the way for me to start playing live again and away from The Townedgers' way of 4 track recordings and playing to guitar tracks via drums. At least getting some kind of exposure and drum practice at Jam Sessions did help a lot of getting Fitting Finales done in a hurry.
Who knows what 2016 will bring. I'm not holding my breath about Russ or Dewayne taking a more active role in any future bands. Ever since December 7, 1984 there's been talk about getting things going again but usually a lack of direction, song disagreements and the golf season come into play. We talk about it and that's all it is. Let's face it, The Townedgers is me, Geoff Redding has dropped out to focus more on family and Martin Daniels isn't interested of hitting the stage anytime soon, he'd rather turn his attention to music production of other bands. Fitting Finales is done and if my A and R person wants to get it out in the open, he's has the album ready for the radio stations to hear. And I'll promote that album to the best ability that I can. If a local band has a drummer missing for a gig and need a quick fill in, I'm ready to do that.
I'm not a fan of getting old but it beats the alternative. And one day the alternative will come and I won't be around anymore, and what remains will be in the recordings left behind. With no children of my own, this is the final branch of the family tree. I think it's too late to find the right woman as well, if there was one, I wouldn't quite know what to do to keep her and usually in the end they move on to other things. So be it. In the end, it has been music that is my life and even if I never made it to the big time or even semi big time, I am proud of the music that I have made over the years. I hope in the end, that I did managed to make at least a couple new music fans along the way. It'd be a shame to think that all this effort was done in vain.
All the best.
Outside of the jam sessions it has been another crappy year. The TEAC CD recorder took a dump and crashed once and for all and I only had it for a half a year. Recording new projects and trying to preserve them is getting to be a bitch anymore. Nothing works half the time and when they do there's always a technical fuck up along the way. When things don't work and you're battling the recorder to get a decent take, it does sucked the life out of you and the album at hand. Thankfully Fitting Finales got done before the TEAC took a permanent vacation.
I still can't grasp how this year shaped up and I don't know how I survived this year. Being attacked by some irate blackbird in June wasn't my idea of fun and Madison in September turned out to be such a bummer that I may not return back there again. So the only thing in life left to do was to reappear on the jam session circuit in July and it turned out to be a fun time. It puts a perspective in me that maybe I should have taken up the bass guitar since this area has lots of good to great drummers out there. Even when I thought I was on par, somebody new would come out of the woodwork and lay things down even more tighter than me. The Psychological thinking is that many of these fine drummers do play gigs on a regular basis more than I do, and even though I have held my hold at times, Father Time has other ideas as my drum sticks go flying into the crowd when I over do a fill or don't hold to them. But it happens to each and everybody at times. However most of the musicians around here have encouraged me to keep playing and have been very supportive.
The best memories of this year was jamming at Wrigleyville as a unknown and T Ray Robertson and Dave Bonham the first couple guys that welcomed me into the fray. Terry McDowell has been a wonderful inspiration, the guy plays in four bands and jams on the weekend and I don't know how he does that and stay sane at the same time. Mike Lint, is not the new guy anymore, he's getting better with his singing each and every week. Seth Williams all 16 years of him actually held the beat down to Move It On Over. He's still a baby but I'm sure in due time he'll be on the bar circuit. But the veterans here know their stuff inside and out, Rocky Smith, Herm Sarduy, Tom Miller, Stan Hersom, D.J. Holvenstot: this guy plays songs just like you hear them on the record. Even Troy Harper, who plays bass most of the time got behind the drum set and blew me away. One of the best drummers out there, Keith Lindsay and Don Timmons I have yet to hear and Timmons has been having health issues. I'd love to chat with him in the future.
Certainly the highlights of the year was being paired with Jess Toomsen of Wooden Nickel Lottery and Tommy Bruner on a couple songs in August and got be shown in a video of that although Kevin who took the pictures left me out of most of them except for a half minute snippet. Craig Dewitte can drive me nuts at times but when he's locked into a lead guitar groove I'll follow him anywhere. The highlight was reuniting with Russ Swearingen in August for the first time in 31 years, since the Paraphernalia Tyrus band. We kinda stumbled through Rocky Mountain Way and I Just Want To Make Love To You and it ended much too soon. He came back a couple weeks later but we weren't paired up. He hasn't been back at jam session since then. The other highlight was Dewayne Schminkey joining up to do a few songs, Knocking On Heaven's Door which I actually sang. In fact I sang on Rocky Mountain Way song when Russ was playing bass. Boy we have come a long way.
As I type my thoughts out, the question remains what's going to happen next year for 2016. Will The Townedgers figure anymore? Will the Paraphernalia guys reunite? Will Russ and DeWayne return? Will I continue to hit the weekend Popcorn Jam? I take things on a day by day, week by week basis. Will my health let me to continue to do this? As long as it is fun and if I'm having a good time well why not? There's hope that a new band will come into play or a weekend gig just doing the oldies and getting people to dance. I know I'm coming to the twilight of my playing years, I'm just not sure if the hour is close to midnight or more earlier in the evening. I turn 55 next month, still a youngster in the 50s and 60s oldies music mode but I know I'm one of the older folks when I do show up to play.
When I wrote the song Fitting Finales, it sums up my feeling all the while that there's a day coming that I will retire back into the basement and return to be a couch potato. After all I did managed to share the stage with Russ one more time before everything is said and done and Dewayne for that matter. In reality when most of us got together in May, little did we know that this would paved the way for me to start playing live again and away from The Townedgers' way of 4 track recordings and playing to guitar tracks via drums. At least getting some kind of exposure and drum practice at Jam Sessions did help a lot of getting Fitting Finales done in a hurry.
Who knows what 2016 will bring. I'm not holding my breath about Russ or Dewayne taking a more active role in any future bands. Ever since December 7, 1984 there's been talk about getting things going again but usually a lack of direction, song disagreements and the golf season come into play. We talk about it and that's all it is. Let's face it, The Townedgers is me, Geoff Redding has dropped out to focus more on family and Martin Daniels isn't interested of hitting the stage anytime soon, he'd rather turn his attention to music production of other bands. Fitting Finales is done and if my A and R person wants to get it out in the open, he's has the album ready for the radio stations to hear. And I'll promote that album to the best ability that I can. If a local band has a drummer missing for a gig and need a quick fill in, I'm ready to do that.
I'm not a fan of getting old but it beats the alternative. And one day the alternative will come and I won't be around anymore, and what remains will be in the recordings left behind. With no children of my own, this is the final branch of the family tree. I think it's too late to find the right woman as well, if there was one, I wouldn't quite know what to do to keep her and usually in the end they move on to other things. So be it. In the end, it has been music that is my life and even if I never made it to the big time or even semi big time, I am proud of the music that I have made over the years. I hope in the end, that I did managed to make at least a couple new music fans along the way. It'd be a shame to think that all this effort was done in vain.
All the best.
Wednesday 16 December 2015
The Illusion Of Paraphernalia Tyrus
I'm probably giving too much thought and expression about a band that last played 31 years ago. But I do believe that band was pretty good and could have been on to bigger and better things.
To fill in the gaps and spaces of the happenings many years ago. One thing is certain. We had chemistry and the ability to improvise and extend the jam. Not too many bands do that, even back then most stuck with the record version. But Dennis, Russ and myself we basically self taught ourselves. Out of all the band members who had bar band experience, only Mike Swearingen, Doug Spinler had played in bars. Russ played in the high school pep band. Doug and Russ also took part in variety school talent show. Yours truly did not.
Most of us went to the same high school together, we all were in different classes and graduating years and outside of Russ, I didn't know the others very well till we starting jamming and became then The Open Highway band. Doug Bonesteel took the place of Doug Spinler although, Doug was never an official member. Doug S, was more into country. We were rock and rollers through and through.
Many years ago, when we were in grade school Russ and a third best friend Jeff and I thought about starting up a band called The Living End, but nothing came of it. Jeff had a drum set in his folks house and we basically bashed on the cymbals more than the drums. Once in while we would goof off on Jeff's mom's keyboard. Russ, Jeff and I were pretty tight through the fourth grade and part of the fifth before a certain girl came between me and Jeff and we split apart. Neither one of us got that girl, Jeff found a better woman, as for myself I gave up looking. Recently Jeff and I did managed to talk about the good times and he does play guitar on the side, as a hobby of course. I told him he's welcome to join up to jam if that ever happens.
Out of the Big 3, Russ was the athletic baseball and golf player, Jeff was very handy with the tools and I was a excellent record collector even back then. I had toy drum sets and a guitar to boot but in hindsight I was lousy with practice and didn't invest the time to learn how to play back then. Had I done that, or learn to read music, I might be playing professionally and better known. But I was a loner back then and outside of playing basketball or riding bikes with Russ and Jeff I kept to myself most of the time.
Getting back to Paraphernalia Tyrus. It was hard to keep the band going while Russ was doing his duty to Uncle Sam and since I was very shy and withdrawn, I never did branch out to other bands. I had dealt with stage fright all through this life. And while the guys really want to get serious with the band effort, a part of me wanted nothing more than write original songs. When I came up with Town's Edge Rock, I really thought I could make it on my own with original songs. Problem was Town's Edge Rock was a great album to me but the overall picture was that the songs were not good enough for a downtown bar gig. And the guys look at TE Rock as a hobby album, they tried their best to do a couple songs but looking back, it didn't work out very well. And so I was being dragged kicking and screaming into the new band once Russ came back in 83. It didn't help that I was quitting one day and then coming back the next week.
For a up and coming bunch of friends trying to impress our friends and family, we never could find the idea guitar player to compliment Dennis. By then Dewayne Schminkey found a career job at the sewage plant and couldn't be a part of the Tyrus band. We didn't try out too many guitar players, there was Tom Tjarks but he wanted to be in a working band. We ended up on Will Sigsbee, who like Doug Bonesteel could play rhythm guitar but not so much lead. Will played in the band for about three months and finally we parted company with him after a disastrous outdoor kegger party in May, It rained all day and when we came around to play, the skies parted and they heard us all the way into Cedar Rapids as far as Bowman Woods. And to this day, I can't understand why we started at 8 PM, when we should have started much earlier than that. I'm still amazed that we managed to do about an hour's worth of loud music before the Marion Cops shut us down. To which on Season Of The Witch, Will finally played lead guitar....throughout the damn song. No wonder he eventually went to college and is now a highly successful CEO at a Minnesota health care place.
When we talk about the old days, the biggest gripe was that our lead singer didn't help us get further into the music scene. I know we were constantly reminding Mike to get us to the local bar scene and he had reservations about our guitar player situation. Dennis came into the band as a harmonica player but he worked his butt off trying to be a lead guitar player since nobody else could or would play lead guitar. Shawn Ster came on board as a guest star, like Mike he was in another band and was a hired hand from the start. The thought was that perhaps that Shawn might have connections and maybe he might get the word out but in the back of my mind he was there at Mike's suggestion. And that was as far as it goes. He might have some photographer taking pictures of the band but he had a way to get into her pants. He could play lead guitar, since being in other bands, he could apply what he learned as lead guitarist, even if it meant hitting the whammy bar or hair metal leads. Shawn was a short term player and he would go on to a career headlining his own band and solo career the next three decades. He's good at what he does but in our band it was a clash of styles and it sounds like it on certain songs.
What I recall, the Wednesday Night show, was feedback laden and a painful exercise of getting through but something told me to record the next night show and I did. It's a document of a band that finally made it to the corner bar of their own home town and was proud of being there, and we gave it our all. Listening to it all, by the time we got to the final set, I was wore out from that playing. Musically Dennis and Russ came into their own and even Shawn did sound good from time to time, it did help a lot that he did sing on a few songs and let Mike rest his voice. The roughness of Lonely Is The Night and On The Hunt is evident, as our lead singer struggles with the arrangements. I think we worked up On The Hunt about two weeks before the OK lounge show.
We can only speculate what would have happened after the show. We were losing Russ back to Uncle Sam and Mike was making better money with the other band. We could have played New Year's Eve 1984 had we found a bass player. With Russ gone, Mike elsewhere, it left me and Dennis and I really didn't feel that gong ho about continuing on. I really needed to get a real job since 32 dollars take home pay for one night wasn't going to pay bills or rent. But I did put Paraphernalia Tyrus on hiatus for about 30 years till I finally retired the name once and for all. In 1985, Mike drafted me to join him in a new version of Stone Garden a band with Virgil Hanson and Rick Novak and a bass player who I forgot his name and we did about a couple weeks of rehearsal before Virgil and Rick got into a violet argument and that was it.
Looking back, I should have been more enthused and more into keeping the band going. I know Dennis would have wanted it that way too. If I had the confidence that I do nowadays and be able to sing on some of the songs that would have worked well. But I was trying to find my voice in 1985 and I didn't feel I was up to sing anything outside of what I wrote. Things are much different today; jam sessions have enabled me to sing live and having 3 decades of music written and sang have helped a great deal. Russ still can play the bass, Dennis is now an airline pilot and hasn't picked up a guitar in quite a while but he has two sons that can play. Mike is mostly retired except hosting his karaoke show at Checker's Tavern from time to time. I learn to never say never and I have been hearing from Russ about doing this all over again. And he's been known to show up at a jam session from time to time.
We'll see. If we can work around a evening job and other life happenings it can be possible. All things are possible.
To fill in the gaps and spaces of the happenings many years ago. One thing is certain. We had chemistry and the ability to improvise and extend the jam. Not too many bands do that, even back then most stuck with the record version. But Dennis, Russ and myself we basically self taught ourselves. Out of all the band members who had bar band experience, only Mike Swearingen, Doug Spinler had played in bars. Russ played in the high school pep band. Doug and Russ also took part in variety school talent show. Yours truly did not.
Most of us went to the same high school together, we all were in different classes and graduating years and outside of Russ, I didn't know the others very well till we starting jamming and became then The Open Highway band. Doug Bonesteel took the place of Doug Spinler although, Doug was never an official member. Doug S, was more into country. We were rock and rollers through and through.
Many years ago, when we were in grade school Russ and a third best friend Jeff and I thought about starting up a band called The Living End, but nothing came of it. Jeff had a drum set in his folks house and we basically bashed on the cymbals more than the drums. Once in while we would goof off on Jeff's mom's keyboard. Russ, Jeff and I were pretty tight through the fourth grade and part of the fifth before a certain girl came between me and Jeff and we split apart. Neither one of us got that girl, Jeff found a better woman, as for myself I gave up looking. Recently Jeff and I did managed to talk about the good times and he does play guitar on the side, as a hobby of course. I told him he's welcome to join up to jam if that ever happens.
Out of the Big 3, Russ was the athletic baseball and golf player, Jeff was very handy with the tools and I was a excellent record collector even back then. I had toy drum sets and a guitar to boot but in hindsight I was lousy with practice and didn't invest the time to learn how to play back then. Had I done that, or learn to read music, I might be playing professionally and better known. But I was a loner back then and outside of playing basketball or riding bikes with Russ and Jeff I kept to myself most of the time.
Getting back to Paraphernalia Tyrus. It was hard to keep the band going while Russ was doing his duty to Uncle Sam and since I was very shy and withdrawn, I never did branch out to other bands. I had dealt with stage fright all through this life. And while the guys really want to get serious with the band effort, a part of me wanted nothing more than write original songs. When I came up with Town's Edge Rock, I really thought I could make it on my own with original songs. Problem was Town's Edge Rock was a great album to me but the overall picture was that the songs were not good enough for a downtown bar gig. And the guys look at TE Rock as a hobby album, they tried their best to do a couple songs but looking back, it didn't work out very well. And so I was being dragged kicking and screaming into the new band once Russ came back in 83. It didn't help that I was quitting one day and then coming back the next week.
For a up and coming bunch of friends trying to impress our friends and family, we never could find the idea guitar player to compliment Dennis. By then Dewayne Schminkey found a career job at the sewage plant and couldn't be a part of the Tyrus band. We didn't try out too many guitar players, there was Tom Tjarks but he wanted to be in a working band. We ended up on Will Sigsbee, who like Doug Bonesteel could play rhythm guitar but not so much lead. Will played in the band for about three months and finally we parted company with him after a disastrous outdoor kegger party in May, It rained all day and when we came around to play, the skies parted and they heard us all the way into Cedar Rapids as far as Bowman Woods. And to this day, I can't understand why we started at 8 PM, when we should have started much earlier than that. I'm still amazed that we managed to do about an hour's worth of loud music before the Marion Cops shut us down. To which on Season Of The Witch, Will finally played lead guitar....throughout the damn song. No wonder he eventually went to college and is now a highly successful CEO at a Minnesota health care place.
When we talk about the old days, the biggest gripe was that our lead singer didn't help us get further into the music scene. I know we were constantly reminding Mike to get us to the local bar scene and he had reservations about our guitar player situation. Dennis came into the band as a harmonica player but he worked his butt off trying to be a lead guitar player since nobody else could or would play lead guitar. Shawn Ster came on board as a guest star, like Mike he was in another band and was a hired hand from the start. The thought was that perhaps that Shawn might have connections and maybe he might get the word out but in the back of my mind he was there at Mike's suggestion. And that was as far as it goes. He might have some photographer taking pictures of the band but he had a way to get into her pants. He could play lead guitar, since being in other bands, he could apply what he learned as lead guitarist, even if it meant hitting the whammy bar or hair metal leads. Shawn was a short term player and he would go on to a career headlining his own band and solo career the next three decades. He's good at what he does but in our band it was a clash of styles and it sounds like it on certain songs.
What I recall, the Wednesday Night show, was feedback laden and a painful exercise of getting through but something told me to record the next night show and I did. It's a document of a band that finally made it to the corner bar of their own home town and was proud of being there, and we gave it our all. Listening to it all, by the time we got to the final set, I was wore out from that playing. Musically Dennis and Russ came into their own and even Shawn did sound good from time to time, it did help a lot that he did sing on a few songs and let Mike rest his voice. The roughness of Lonely Is The Night and On The Hunt is evident, as our lead singer struggles with the arrangements. I think we worked up On The Hunt about two weeks before the OK lounge show.
We can only speculate what would have happened after the show. We were losing Russ back to Uncle Sam and Mike was making better money with the other band. We could have played New Year's Eve 1984 had we found a bass player. With Russ gone, Mike elsewhere, it left me and Dennis and I really didn't feel that gong ho about continuing on. I really needed to get a real job since 32 dollars take home pay for one night wasn't going to pay bills or rent. But I did put Paraphernalia Tyrus on hiatus for about 30 years till I finally retired the name once and for all. In 1985, Mike drafted me to join him in a new version of Stone Garden a band with Virgil Hanson and Rick Novak and a bass player who I forgot his name and we did about a couple weeks of rehearsal before Virgil and Rick got into a violet argument and that was it.
Looking back, I should have been more enthused and more into keeping the band going. I know Dennis would have wanted it that way too. If I had the confidence that I do nowadays and be able to sing on some of the songs that would have worked well. But I was trying to find my voice in 1985 and I didn't feel I was up to sing anything outside of what I wrote. Things are much different today; jam sessions have enabled me to sing live and having 3 decades of music written and sang have helped a great deal. Russ still can play the bass, Dennis is now an airline pilot and hasn't picked up a guitar in quite a while but he has two sons that can play. Mike is mostly retired except hosting his karaoke show at Checker's Tavern from time to time. I learn to never say never and I have been hearing from Russ about doing this all over again. And he's been known to show up at a jam session from time to time.
We'll see. If we can work around a evening job and other life happenings it can be possible. All things are possible.
Album Archives:Christmas With The Townedgers
Since it's that time of year again, I thought I bring up the notion that after we got done with A Long Time Forgotten, I spent a weekend putting together a Christmas album. Sessions started on December 15th and ended on the 23rd and quickly mixed together quickly to give to my fans. It turned out the be the biggest selling album in history. A whopping 15 copies.
It's the last album that Jack Orbit produced and long time associate Ken Miller recorded but Martin Daniels worked behind the scenes to get the drums out in front. For the cover art, Serena Gorss, aka Sis, a lovely woman that I chatted in the classic rock chats was nice enough to donate her latest picture of her Christmas window, every year she has a different theme on her pictures, but with the mood setting, I thought it would make a nice cover for a Christmas album. To which I didn't have any songs planned but Jack Orbit pushed me onto doing the project and so I quickly thought up a couple Christmas originals and then added the usual songs of the holidays that everybody does. Scrooge was given to Mark McClelland, a gift so to speak as he was leaving the band.
Not much to speak about the songs, I did Santa Claus Is Coming To Town as kinda slow grim blues number done in the key of E. The only song that means much is One Of Everything You Got, which is about my waiting the last minute to get Christmas gifts. Another one would be Christmas Time Next Year which is a song that the only thing I want for Christmas is to make it another year, and be with family.
The bonus cuts are as throwaway as it gets but tacked on to make the whole album make it a half hour. The Elvis Mix of Merry Christmas Baby is kinda fun in its weird way.
The Songs:
Christmas Time Is Coming (Smith/Orbit) 2:03
Santa Claus Is Coming To Town (H.Gillespie/J.F.Coots) 2:11
One Of Everything You Got (Smith/Orbit) 2:01
Christmas For Cowboys (S. Reisburg) 2:58
I'll Be Home For Christmas (Kent/Gannon/Ram) 1:28
Little Drummer Boy (Trad. Arr By R.Smith) 3:08
Christmas Without You (Smith/Orbit) 1:38
Nothing For Christmas (S.Tepper/R.Bennett) 2:23
Scrooge (M.Mclelland) 1:35
White Christmas (I.Berlin) 2:30
Christmas Time Next Year (R.Smith) 1:38
Merry Christmas Baby (Baxter/Moore) 2:13
Bonus CD Tracks:
Jingle Bells (featuring R.S.Crabb) 2:24
Merry Christmas Baby (Elvis Mix) 2:20
Produced By Jack Orbit
Recorded By Ken Miller/Martin Daniels
Recorded at Lake Wandu Studios Springville Dec 15-23, 2005
Photo credit: Serena Gorss, Ian Hattan (back covers)
Released as Radio Maierburg RMR-25304 Christmas With The Townedgers Nov. 2006
It's the last album that Jack Orbit produced and long time associate Ken Miller recorded but Martin Daniels worked behind the scenes to get the drums out in front. For the cover art, Serena Gorss, aka Sis, a lovely woman that I chatted in the classic rock chats was nice enough to donate her latest picture of her Christmas window, every year she has a different theme on her pictures, but with the mood setting, I thought it would make a nice cover for a Christmas album. To which I didn't have any songs planned but Jack Orbit pushed me onto doing the project and so I quickly thought up a couple Christmas originals and then added the usual songs of the holidays that everybody does. Scrooge was given to Mark McClelland, a gift so to speak as he was leaving the band.
Not much to speak about the songs, I did Santa Claus Is Coming To Town as kinda slow grim blues number done in the key of E. The only song that means much is One Of Everything You Got, which is about my waiting the last minute to get Christmas gifts. Another one would be Christmas Time Next Year which is a song that the only thing I want for Christmas is to make it another year, and be with family.
The bonus cuts are as throwaway as it gets but tacked on to make the whole album make it a half hour. The Elvis Mix of Merry Christmas Baby is kinda fun in its weird way.
The Songs:
Christmas Time Is Coming (Smith/Orbit) 2:03
Santa Claus Is Coming To Town (H.Gillespie/J.F.Coots) 2:11
One Of Everything You Got (Smith/Orbit) 2:01
Christmas For Cowboys (S. Reisburg) 2:58
I'll Be Home For Christmas (Kent/Gannon/Ram) 1:28
Little Drummer Boy (Trad. Arr By R.Smith) 3:08
Christmas Without You (Smith/Orbit) 1:38
Nothing For Christmas (S.Tepper/R.Bennett) 2:23
Scrooge (M.Mclelland) 1:35
White Christmas (I.Berlin) 2:30
Christmas Time Next Year (R.Smith) 1:38
Merry Christmas Baby (Baxter/Moore) 2:13
Bonus CD Tracks:
Jingle Bells (featuring R.S.Crabb) 2:24
Merry Christmas Baby (Elvis Mix) 2:20
Produced By Jack Orbit
Recorded By Ken Miller/Martin Daniels
Recorded at Lake Wandu Studios Springville Dec 15-23, 2005
Photo credit: Serena Gorss, Ian Hattan (back covers)
Released as Radio Maierburg RMR-25304 Christmas With The Townedgers Nov. 2006
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