Thoughts Of The Townedger November Edition

It has been a trying year to say the very least.  I've gotten word that Steve Rasmussen, my co worker and co producer for The Highway Home is to undergo open heart surgery this week.  I lost enough friends this year, I don't want to go to another funeral anymore.  Also Julie Gordon is going to have hip replacement done on her next month.  She'll probably be out of action for a couple months too.   She's in my thoughts too.

The next Townedgers album is called Jubilee, and it's basically a live album done within the shadows of the old Viola School Gym.  It's cavernous, and it has a good sound to it.  The hope is that the owners will finally get enough money to cover the sunroof top as shown in the photo.  On this project I wanted to revisit some of the lesser known stuff as well do some choice covers.  For this I enlisted Terry Bainbridge to get the sound up to par.  We usually don't give Terry much to work with. In 1987 we did a low fi cassette to cassette album called Tales Of The Red Caboose and a bright idea was to use metal tape to record it.  Not exactly a good move on my part.

For covers and since Lou Reed has done a lot using the same chords we took on Waiting For The Man and I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better, the Byrds song.  And for a finale, I decided on The End, for a second time and without the Killer Woke Before Dawn segment.  Very much improvised and going with the moment.  Like most of the songs, very rough and sloppy.  We never play the song in the same way, every version is different.  I guess that's what they call  rock and roll.

(this does have potential to be a cool place to play, all they need a decent dance floor)

 
(a blurry sunset photo in Davenport)

Is Brook Hoover and I going to record anytime soon?  I look at it, the way I look at any projects with Russ or Julie or anybody else.  If it happens it happens but Brook makes a living playing music and any appearance I'll have to compensate him for his time and efforts.  He also a great guitar lessons instructor as well. 

I still have pictures from my travels in Arizona, this was taken outside Room 220 at the Motel 6 in Kingman.  I love that area, plenty of trains and that Route 66 spirit lurking around.  I haven't been to my adopted home in over 3 years, but I'm there in spirit.

Trains and music.  The only things I know in life.  I guess it seems full circle to bring certain people back into The Townedgers, Mel Strobie popped in on a jam or two and now Terry Bainbridge manning the sound for Jubilee.  I worked on a song list and messed with different types of songs before settling for 15 songs, concluding with The End.  The big omission was We All Sleep Alone was left off, our only number 1 song.  There was simply no room for that song and since the best version is on Forthcoming Trains it was best to leave it there.  But I wasn't too happy about The Live We Lead, the version sounded unfinished on Fitting Finales and the next attempt was cut short at the ending.  I suppose we can attempt to do another live album in the future but in reality, there's hasn't been a live document since 20 in 2003 and the 2008 cuts were simply bootlegs and no attempt to really issue them on a stand alone best of.  The songs are all there but Jubilee is marketed as an official Townedgers release.   And I tend to be indifferent when it comes to reissuing the 2008 stuff.  If enough interest gets shown then we'll see.  But even in a social media world of millions of bands out there wanting your time (and most importantly) your money I still couldn't be arrested, even as accomplice.  But I think it's worthy enough to put on Townedger Radio from time to time.  And even my A and R guy does get the songs played on Lucky Star Radio.  Outside of Diggy Kat, my trust level for anybody else is very limited.  We've been sold up the river without a paddle a few times.

If memory serves me right, Jubilee will be the first TE live album without anything from Town's Edge Rock. I thought about doing All Over Now at the finale but I think the song has served its purpose many years ago when my X Girlfriend and her then hubby destroyed that song during their reception while a friend of mine played it for them.  The best version was the IMU 1987 Midnight No Shame Theater that we played at.  Later versions I'm not impressed with.  I dusted off Remember Me and Perfect Life just to do something different.   Sure a lot of albums were missing key tracks and I did pick a couple from Pawnshops For Olivia and Fitting Finales and four cover versions, but I wanted to give a glimpse of how the Townedgers sound today.  The object was to have fun and keep it simple.   And I think I can live with the results.

Dennis Lancaster found a old picture of me, Dewayne Schminkey and Randy Hartwig. We agree that this picture was taken in the 1980s and since I'm wearing clodhoppers it must be around 1985, or even as late as 1988.  Thought it was an Open Highway Band photo at first.  There are memories of Randy and myself hitting Dennis' wedding in 1990 and there's other pictures to prove it.  Can't believe that's even me in the picture, certainly Dwayne and Randy don't look like that anymore.

As you can tell (Wake Up Dennis and Dewayne!) DeWayne is a Grandpa now.  Guess he has to take his naps whereever he can. The last leftover picture of the Open Highway/Paraphernalia Reunion.

For Jubilee, I used the Fender electric guitar and the Guild acoustic guitar.  Geoff usually plays Gibson, but he too brought a Fender to the proceedings.  I know when we did The End, I played the Gibson Les Paul, and it has a more aggressive tone.  The past two years, I been using the Zildjian cymbals.  Even in the six years of Paiste cymbals use, people still think that the TE sound was the Zildjians, the dark crashes and 18 inch crash rides come in handy.  Not sure if and when I'll dust the Paiste cymbals off, I should give them a good home, if somebody provides enough money for me. Money does talk you know.

Bruce Stanley has now been gone for three months now and there's not a moment that I don't think about him.  You can't replace somebody with that much music knowledge and he was a great guy to be around with.  I've been blessed with the presence of the likes of a Tommy Bruner, a Terry McDowell, a Brook Hoover and Dan Johnson, Tim Duffy, Mike Serbousek, too many to mention.  And they do take their music seriously, or even jams.  I tend to improvise the hell out of things, I don't play it by record and perhaps that throw a curve into things.  It's kinda punk rock mentality, even back in the days of starting out, we would not play the same song twice.  32 years after the fact, Tyrus Paraphernalia played by our own rules.   Even though back then with an eye toward doing original stuff, I think we really did have something special between us.  We were not seasoned musicians known around the area but rather just home town friends that stumbled upon this rock and roll fantasy to which thankfully got preserved on tape.  We were fast, we were sloppy as hell but damn we rocked.  To which to The Townedgers can't duplicate.  Overall, we were not only friends but also brothers of the rock and roll.

The question still remains, will there ever a reunion of these guys?  As long as we're still alive anything is possible.  Dennis makes good money being an airline pilot and hasn't picked up a guitar in many years.  I'd be tickled pink if he shocks us and pops up at a jam in the future.  Anything is possible, even though we might be dreaming, but I do regret that we couldn't keep it going after the OK Lounge gig.  I guess I never knew how good of a drummer I really was when Dennis came back into the fold after I recorded Towns Edge Rock and wanted to get a band going.  Granted with him and Russ, we did have our own groove and sound.  I was more concerned with original stuff and going from there.  Perhaps had I learned to sing and do covers I could have given Tyrus Paraphernalia a more variety of sound and less reliance on Mike Swearingen.  I'm not sure if Waiting For The Man or The End would make much sense in a bar scene wanting to hear Free Bird or Wanted Dead Or Alive, but perhaps we could get people to dance to Feel A Whole Lot Better.

We still haven't had  any snow on the ground.  This may not look like much but this is our Morning Glories still growing on Veteran's Day 11/11/16, the latest we ever had them growing.  But after that day, the killing frost did take them out.  Morning Glories are nice clingy weeds that grow everywhere you put them.  They certainly took over most of our yard this year.  I'm sure they'll will be back. 

The Parlor City Blues Jam is less loud than the Popcorn Jam and sometimes I'd rather to have fun and keep time rather than bashing the drums.  The rare jam came Tuesday Night with Brook Hoover, Dan Johnson and Tom Giblin helping me out, Jon Wilson providing drums.  I got to do five songs for the quartet plus Sam from Mount Vernon heading back to college in California before the snows hit.  He sounds a lot like John Mayer.  Also Heather Brown joined up to do a cover of Crazy.  Sam's songs I wasn't too familiar or know who did them.  Ernest the Soul Man showed up and I concluded things with his rousing version of The Twist to which his vocals was at around 111 decibels. Parlor City frowns upon anything over 100 DB, but you can't blame Ernest.  Me and Dan Johnson backed him up before (with Tommy Bruner on guitar though) and Brook was a bit taken by the power of Ernest's vocals.  I love Terry McDowell and the Popcorn Jam but I have come to find that I get to play more songs during these Parlor City Blues Jams than the Popcorn Jam.  Parlor City doesn't have seven drummers on hand.  They had a young drummer who did a nice swinging Kansas City/Just Got Lucky medley by Dan Johnson.  Tim Wiley was also there, and I know he wanted to jam with me but he got paired up with the young drummer.   We briefly chatted and sounds like Ben Benton is moving on to other things, so he's looking for a new bass player.  And perhaps a new drummer as well. We did say goodbye before he went out into the night. 

And then I took the stage.