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.
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