Thoughts From The Townedger-July Edition

This is the end
Beautiful friend

The End-The Doors

It's been a very sad ending to this month.  What started out to be a promising year celebration of me playing drums in various jams, the highs of sitting in with Julie And The Mad Dogs and West 66 and with Hostage, came crumbling down, with my boss being let go, along with 10 other comrades and now me having to go to days.  Out of all the bosses that I have been under in 30 plus years of working at my place of employment, Ellen was the most fun who somehow managed to get me to feel better about myself and not get so angry over the little things.  I've known her since 1985 and she came to my rescue and got me into her department for three years.  It has been a sad day, and I don't think I cried so much about the loss of her and Kay and Jean.  Not since Dennis Pusateri's passing have I been this down in the dumps.

If anything Ellen cared about each and every one of us and till the end kept our spirits up despite the odds.  It feel like my heart and soul got ripped off from these layoffs. But I did talk to her this afternoon and she seems to be quite happy now and don't have to worry about the long drive up to work anymore, nor Kay for that matter.  Or Jean.  Sure I butted heads with Kay and Jean but in the end they were family as well.  I'll miss all of them but most of all Ellen.  Nobody can ever replace her.

So I'm at the crossroads of life once again and wondering how long I can last there.  2nd shift has been the best spot for me, but 2nd shift made it impossible for me to consider joining bands and I have had offers about getting bands started with some of the finer musicians in town.  Going to 1st shift will enable me to jam more often on week nights, maybe hit a acoustic jam at Checkers, or the blues jam at Parlor City on Tuesday Nights.  Hell, I don't sleep nights anymore so getting up at 5:30 won't be a problem.   I'm not liking changes but all I can do is roll with them.

I don't play drums, I assault them.  That has been known from the past few popcorn jam sessions.  But it also ushers in the fact that I am back to how I play during the glory years of the 1980s with Open Highway/Tyrus/Paraphernalia.  It's a very self destructive style of playing, and nobody around here can play that way like me.  Pat Geisland comes close.  However, I do know that if and when I get into a band full time that I must confine myself to the way the song is played, and I do tend to play a bit faster than what the record is, be it Dreams (Fleetwood Mac) or Ramblin Man.  An undisciplined style doesn't fit very well for the type of rock and roll I play, unless I get into a Who Tribute band Live At Leeds style.  Then the inner Keith Moon would feel at home then.  Where Rod Smith fits in remains to be seen.

Terry McDowell has done a fine job with the popcorn jam but his band Threshold have managed to score some cool opening spots for playing music. They're opening up for The Bulletboys in Moline  July 28th.

When I see Tiffany Zweibohmer play drums on stage, I can see a lot if me in her playing. Like Mike Serbousek, Tiffany is a attack drummer, not subtle but driving the band in the way that she plays.  Like Mike and Terry McDowell, Tiffany is a better disciplined drummer than me, more toward how the record goes.  Myself I improvise all over the place and throwing odd drum roll and cymbals crashes, just like the good old days.  I try my best to see her band when she is in town.  Her band 50 Shades Of Rock played North Liberty and I managed to hang with Julie Gordon and Craig  who hangs out at Checker's Tavern.  Julie sang What's Up for a special guest star, she sang it well.   50 Shades does play the standard bar band classic rock hits and I know y'all don't care about Free Bird but I'm telling you Tiffany nailed the whole 10 minute song all the way to the drum and cymbal boasts on the jam part and even the Bolero beat coda at the end.  Most drummers stumble all over the place on that damn song (I know too well about that myself), but she played it just like the record. She may be living up in LaCrosse now, but once in the while she'll pop in with her band just to let us all know she still kicks ass and remains one of the best drummers I ever heard, male or female. 

I don't think I'll return to the desert this year or anytime soon. Since they're closing all the Hastings stores down there, I won't be able to find very many cheap music anymore.  At least they still have Half Priced Books, but so do we.  Ours is closer.  And I'm not a fan of flying, especially dealing with TSA and their body searches.  Allegiant  Airlines is non stop, but they nickle and dollar you at every GD thing, (seat locations, early boarding, carry on baggage etc). I love the desert but the only time I'll go back there is when I move out there or rent a car and drive out there.

I will not comment on the President race.  Don't like either the piss poor reality crap star nor the other one.  If people want to vote for Bernie or a 3rd party candidate, then they better vote in droves. I'm sick of voting for the lesser of the evils.   Sure in the hell ain't voting for Chuck Grassley either, he's out of touch  and been in office way too long.

The Townedgers is my collective and creative outlet but in order to play around here, I have to resort of playing bar band classic rock songs.  Which I don't mind, to an extent.  I don't have problems playing Mustang Sally nor do I have problems playing Skynyrd but I grew up with 60s garage rock, soul music and 80s garage and alternative rock and not hair metal. Which means it would be what Paraphernalia Tyrus did for main songs, their set list and whatever covers The Townedgers do.  But as I explain to Russ or Duwayne that if and when we want to do something on the side, it will fall under another name.  The best case would be the return of Open Highway.   Or I could follow Dan Johnson muse and go more into blues type of music, although I'm not a fan of that Texas shuffle.  I send song selections to Russ, and he sends some back, I'm sure both or our reactions to song submissions are WTF?!

No setlist on this weeks' popcorn jam, it was all hard rock and metal and I was dealing with carpel tunnel issues so I sat this one out but did show up  supporting the local musicians.  Ernest The Soul Man wanted to get up on stage and do The Twist song with me on drums but since most of the musicians were hard rockers and metal heads we couldn't find a suitable guitar player and I'm sure Rick Clay didn't want to play bass to that.  Had Tommy Bruner or Dan Johnson hosted this week's jam, we would have played it, me with bad wrists and all.  With the likes of Karie Skogman, Stu Fondle, Rick Clay and Terry McDowell it was going to be more loud rock and roll.  No shortage of power drummers too, Dawn Sedlacek even played drums for three songs, Pat Giesland damn near destroyed Terry's drums, Troy Mitchell better suited to Bonham songs than myself.  There was six drummers out there that took the stage.   Peter Stark didn't get up on stage, nor did I.

Perhaps if there's a storm cloud to the jam it was an half hour break that probably would have gotten more folks up on stage.  With 8 drummers, even that would have been impossible.  I know Terry does the best he can during these jam sessions, but Tim Duffy is missed.  I think Duffy's hosting the sessions, there seems to be a bit more variety of music going around.  The hard rock and metal does bring out the hardcore rock and rollers and that's fine with me.  But if we have this many drummers turning out, I might consider seeing what Parlor City has for a Sunday Afternoon jam, or even Cooters.   I'm sure Terry loves to end the whole shebang with Comfortably Numb, but it's getting late in the year and we're losing daylight, and I tend to enjoy my exercise.   And I must get that in before the snows fly.  

Not sure who would get my DW set when I'm dead and gone but  Mike Serbousek would get my Paiste cymbals.  Tiffany Zweibohmer would get my old Zildjians. Rod Albaugh would have my Guild Acoustic guitar.  Not sure what I would give Russ, probably my Fender guitars.  I also wish not to return back to Lincoln Illinois, just cremate me and sprinkle my ashes at around the Chain Of Rocks Bridge, or have somebody take them to Crookton Pass outside of Sleigman, or Kingman Arizona.  I still think I'll end up having a heart attack playing on stage.  That'll be a nice way to go don't ya think?

That's all for now.

notable quote

  I kind-of always associated you with Keith Moon. I always thought you two were more similar than anything. With all the egos running wild in the Who, he had to play the way he did. When he died, so to did the Who. Tyrus, in it's hay day was always driven by you. The rest of us jut jumped on the train and held on tightly-Russ Swearingen