End Of Month Thoughts From The Townedger

I have had the pleasure of jamming with Tim Duffy over the course of the 7 months of coming back from retirement and he's a cool guy to hang with.  Tonight he has put his house up for sale and will go through on his promise to return back to the south (Atlanta I think is his destination) within a few months.  I'm really sad to see him go, but he has lived down in the south for a time or two (he says Miami is still a nice place to visit) and perhaps these winters will cause anybody to move south.  I wish him well in his life journey.

I turned 55 Sunday and it wasn't a very good birthday.  I was sick with the dreaded winter cold that wiped me out for about 5 days and a steady diet of pills and Nyquil didn't help much either.  My boss prescribed Honey Tea and I think I have finally turned the corner.  Now if I can stop this post nasal drip going down my throat I'll be in a better mood.

Since being sick, I have stopped recording on any new projects, don't have the voice and if I did, it's mostly Tom Waits/Chuck E Weiss/and latter day Leonard Cohen and not in a good way.  Next month I'll try to salvage what recordings I did with Rod Albaugh behind the control board.  Since Fitting Finales was recorded on a subpar tape I may redo some of the songs for the next project.  I'm not used of recording guitars first and then vocals as Rod has suggested, but he knows the tricks to sweeten the vocals whereas if a flat note comes out.  I rather punch in and redo that messed up words or lines but his way saves wear and tear on the recording equipment.

Diggy Kat was kind enough to give a whole afternoon of Townedger Radio reruns on Lucky Star Radio this past Monday when I was home sick so I managed to catch the majority of those repeats. The only new song of the Townedgers I heard so far was Just To Satisfy You.  I must be missing something, unless I'm not listening when I'm supposed to.

I don't hate Glenn Frey like a few folks do out there, I didn't worship The Eagles either but I did like some of their music and albums.  Already Gone, my favorite song from them, On The Border my favorite album from them.  67 years is not a long time, I'm 12 years from that and anytime might be my last time on this planet.  Losing Glenn Frey, David Bowie and Lemmy the past month is a wake up call that I spent too much time on the negative and not enjoying the positive of life.  But I do worry about the fate of man and the sheer greed and hatred that seems to be more widespread.  I worry about the overpopulation of this world and one day Planet Earth is going to find a way to rid itself of mankind.  It's sad to see the world falling apart with the hatred of the right winger who use hate and warmongering and racism. We were not born with that when we came to this world but was taught by others in the name of religious beliefs.  Last time I checked the God that I know loves everybody.  God is love.  Never of hate.

Isabella still lives up in Spokane, we had a fling together in 2001 and have bittersweet memories of the whole encounter.  If you look hard enough you'll find her hanging around certain social networks putting selfies of herself from time to time. I'm glad that she is still alive and I wish her  well.  Spokane is a nice town to visit but it's not high on my places to go see anytime soon.  The four hour plane ride to there takes a lot out of me.   I do miss going to Seattle, haven't been there in 15 years, which was the last time I seen Isabella. 

The only person I will endorse for President is Bernie Sanders.  I have no use for Donald Trump nor Ted Cruz, the former is a blowhard that likes the spotlight, the latter is more dangerous if he becomes President.   The problem remains that the public could have fixed the 2014 elections by showing up to vote.  When they didn't, the idiots got in, Joni Wonderbags Ernst is one of them.   She doesn't represent my views whatsoever, I did not vote for her.  And never will.

I have musician friends that are both Flaming liberal left wing and radical Conservative  right.  And as long as they stick to playing music and keep politics out of things, I'm cool with that.  I never bring up anything political when it comes to jamming.

I'm not impressed with what the major labels put out for music anymore.  It has no staying power and whatever passes for alternative rock is awful, an instant channel changer.  My favorite bands are local, Wooden Nickel Lottery, Tommy Bruner, made fine debuts and I'll do my best to promote them the best way I know how.  Word of mouth.  Surf Zombies with Brook Hoover another fine example of out of the ordinary music.  These folks welcomed me into the local scene too.

While classic rock has its fun at jam sessions and during my formative years of playing in bands, I was more into the pub rock scene (Rockpile, Ducks Deluxe, Motors, Pirates, Eddie And The Hot Rods) or more notably (Robin Trower, Foghat, Ozark Mountain Daredevils) off the wall stuff that seldom gets played anymore.  If your into bar bands, you can do Free Bird in your sleep or Sweet Home Alabama or Mustang Sally.  I would love to see them dig deeper into the catalog or songs out there and I have suggested a few of them, mostly to deaf ears unless I grab a guitar and do a simple version of Let's Work Together.   Which might be the reason I have yet to host a jam session.  What are they going to do if I pull out In The Midnight Hour?  The Rascals version BTW.

Brian Mullahan worked on the majority of my albums back in the 80s and 90s.  I tend to think we had a genuine fondness of liking the songs and the direction that the music was going.  It also helped having a different point of view as well.  Had we had access to a real recording studio back then, I think the recordings would have been more classic, probably even better known than the low fi and the cassette to cassette overdubbing that I used back then.  I had no money for a real recording studio and still trying to find my craft in the early years.  And the truth was that my songs were not bar ready.  I couldn't see Paraphernalia Tyrus doing It's So Hard or All Over Now.   And the only song they ever did, Cocaine Train was a throwaway; Russ and Dennis found the right riffs for the song. Alas the lyrics didn't fit the music.

The Tyrus Reunion of last May also had my ex girl friend Penny's reception at the same bar.  Ironic at best but she couldn't find a better man for her than Karl.  Third time the charm?  Hope so.

 Highlights of the popcorn jam from January 5th here.  I don't appear till 4:51 on a version of Dreams and later at 6:35 on part of Little Wing with Dave Bonham on Guitar, Tim Duffy on Vocals and Kenny Webb on bass guitar.  Cecie Stark is the singer on Dreams. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G0gX9uEjWA