Basically we have promoted the new album the best way we can. I'm sure Lucky Star Radio has been playing some tracks off it and we got played 87 times last month. But the fact of the matter is that once again, the cd is not selling, nor the reviews have been so so. It cuts at the heart of all the time and effort to make the record and then release it and watch it sink like a stone. With that, this might be the end of The Townedgers. I have talked about the return of Ken Miller into the fold and have Mark Glarington play guitar for one final performance, take our bows and head off into the sunset and back into the basement, like the title track of Fitting Finales suggests.
It's been frustrating as well to host the local jam session in town too. I'd love to but the dude who puts together these jam sessions have not signed off on any future appearances as host drummer. And I am beginning to lose interest in the whole thing. But I do give kudos to fellow jam buddy Tim Duffy for opening up the vaults and trying out new songs for us to do. Last Sunday, only me and Seth Williams were in the small crowd and hoping to spell Terry McDowell after his gig the night before three hours away in Illinois. I did four songs and fifteen minutes later call it a day and the folks at Rumors Bar And Grill held a Super Bowl Party with plenty of Bar B Q pork sandwiches and sloppy joes. It saved me about 10 dollars going to Panda Express.
But I don't hold much hope in hosting upcoming jams and the Wrigleyville Jams have cease to exist. If I get time off on weeknights I do owe Julie Gordon a couple of appearances at Checkers for the acoustic Wednesday Nights thingy the Acoustic Kitties. After all, she's been one of the few folks who have vouched for me for any drummer vacancies in local bands. But I also need to get over this fucking cough that has stopped any recording that I have been doing with Rodney Albaugh in revisiting songs off Fitting Finales, but my heart hasn't been into it, especially after the failure of the album itself. But I do enjoy playing guitars with the other Rod and sometime in the future and if we both have the night off, I'm sure we'll invade a acoustic session somewhere.
Rock n roll is a young man's game, and I'm feeling my age. But there's still plenty of musicians my age that are still playing in town. Being 55 years old, it's hard to fathom that 33 years ago, I begin to really knuckle down and start writing and playing original songs. And perhaps I may have slit my throat by doing original songs, rather than keeping Tyrus Paraphernalia going. Perhaps we should have done the Sunday jams around town to find the right replacements for those who left the band. Russ n I have talked about this time and time again, and the reasons why it didn't work. We leaned too heavily on our lead singer to get gigs, while he was in another band and making more money at it. Our bass player going back into the Services after getting married. The argument that we were not ready for the bar scene. We needed a lead guitarist that could compliment our guitar player at that time, sad to say, we were a young band, and didn't have the gigs lined up, and the choice guitar players wanted a steady income and steady gigs. We borrowed our lead singer's guitar player for the OK Lounge show and by the time we made it to the stage, we were done. Yours truly wanted to focus more on songwriting and original stuff and the only serious player in the band was Dennis and six months later he relocated to Arizona.
In all fairness, nobody is blame. Like many other bands, we started in basements and managed to make it to keggers and graduations, and we were good players, we were not great players and trying to live the rock and roll dream was that. I sold that line of bullshit to my folks and they managed to let me stay home a few more years writing originals music and playing rock star in the basement. What it did was set me back in the working world for another five years and basically I never recovered from that. What suffered most was that I could never find the right girl to settle down and have a family. In 1980s I dated twice at best. And the one that got away, was in one of my college courses and I managed to see her smiling at me across the table at Kitty's and I did nothing but watch her leave in disappointment that I never made an effort to say hi. I was very shy but I thought I would get another chance to see her at school and explain myself. But I never would see her again, a loss that continues to haunt me. What if. We'll never know.
Valentine's Day is special for some but for me, it signaled that in 1998 Clarice, my GF of 3 and half years announced on that day she wanted out and she had been seeing somebody for at least 6 weeks. In my lifetime it's been painfully obvious that my choices in girlfriends were poor ones. I look back at 40 years of who came into my life and who left and the only ones that ever gave a shit was Belinda in the middle 80s and my last GF Nicole. I had a love interest that after being with me for a couple weeks told me that it's impossible for her to be with me, she looked at me straight in the eye and said, you married to music and records. And then got married to the next guy within three months.
My old guitar player from the Open Highway Band Dewayne Schminkey became a grandpa over the weekend. I know his wife is more ecstatic than he is. My best friend has managed to have a cool son as well. I'll never know the satisfaction of hearing my son or daughter play guitar or drums or sing. It's too late, I certainly don't want bring any new life into a world of uncertainly where money and greed go hand and hand and watching the world go into Chaos with global warming and wars. And by the time if I did have children becoming teen agers I'd be in my 70s. There may have a time, in fact I did do work part time at a day care center. In the end, my blind date was right, I was married to music and records and basically was a waste of time.
So, here I am at the Crossroads once again, depressed as Hell and tired of life itself and what could have been had I not been so gung ho on originals, knowing that no bar in town is going to go for that. And being depressed of reminders of the past and the failures of seeing the one that got away still looking at you from afar on that fateful night at Kitty's. Frustrated that all the work on Fitting Finales turned out to be yet another forgotten album that nobody outside of myself and the small handful of friends and fans will ever play again, (although I know I continue to play it at home many times).
With The Townedgers I have accomplished everything that I set out to do and Fitting Finales might be the final chapter. There's other things to consider, other bands that might need a drummer or fill in. For the past thirty years, me and my best friend Russ trade ideas and songs about starting up what used to be Tyrus/Paraphernalia and we did attempt to make something of it in 2008. I always kept an open dialogue. Chance of once again getting back the old Yamaha I sold off to his son that he doesn't use anymore now he's working and married and there's always talk that he's going to get the set back, but this has been going on for almost two years now. My take remains the same: Russ will always be my favorite bass player and when we got on stage for the first time in years it was the most fun I had since the OK Lounge. But he has a different mindset than I do. Once springtime comes around, all band talk will go out the window and he'll be back on the golf course picking up where he left behind. I'm sure he knows a few more singers than I do but in the long run, they have not panned out, at least back in 2008. I can give him the song set list of what the TEs do and what cover songs I can do and we can go on that. The difference between now and then is I can sing with more confidence than back then in 2008 or 1984. It's a shame that I didn't have that confidence when Tyrus was around. We might have lasted longer. It might help if he showed up for jam sessions like he said he would and not do so. If your work ethic is just to dream about it while shooting on the back nine for golf then it won't happen. I love him like a brother but he's becoming No Show Russ. In any part of any band that I played in, what annoys me is making promises you're going to be a gig and then don't show. This is why I don't take stock into any Tyrus reunions. If I'm going to brave snow and cold and icy roads just to get there, and you're in town watching the golf channel, just say you won't be there. It'll save you from the embarrassment of playing in front of folk if you're not ready. Save the Rush tribute band to players that want to do it. In the end the only sure thing is The Townedgers and with Kenny Miller back on board, we might swing something fun in the future. As for new albums, only for my benefit.
This week I did managed to jam with the guys in Blue Scratch on a couple of songs. Jay Dean is a solid bass player and Jeorgia Robison is a fine guitar player too. I exchanged greetings with their regular drummer too, fine fellow he is. We talked about doing a few more songs before it was over but in these jam sessions the host drummer starts and ends the sets. And Terry McDowell is second to none in playing drums. As I told Julie Gordon after the thing, don't worry about it, there's always a next time if you want it. I still think there's a good chance we'll all be somewhere playing. And I'll leave it at that.
I'm not sure if the Feb 2016 Acousta Kitties jam signaled anything about the future. That might have been the night that Julie came to my table and hang out a while. Little did we know that we would be crossing paths a lot more in the coming months.
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