More Thoughts From The Townedger-December

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