Thoughts From The Townedger-January Edition

This month has been a big ole grey suck with all the snow and cold.  I'm not making any money staying at home and it has impacted all of my gigs this month.  With the event of Sunday being canceled due to yet another snowstorm and fifty below windchill time for me to make some observations of the month.

I had a very good birthday, spending it with Julie who managed to get me to smile in awkward situations.  The Artisan Sanctuary Jam was her first. hopefully not the last.  Her main gig still remains with Ryan and Dreams Of Arcadia, and yes we discussed about doing that long rumored duo known as the Acousta Crabbies but I would have a better name, Jules n Crabby comes to mind, Crabbtones was mentioned in jest.  The more I think about it, I'd love to use the Wapsipinicon Dreamers name.

The situation with Boy Scout Hippies is different, it's a temporary gig for me to sit in on percussion and help Ron n Dakota.  By all means it remains their band.  Ron does a reputation, he's very opinionated and not in a good way. I have worked with him for two months, so far so good.  But I know he will show off his bad side.  He's been good and has come through in paying me fairly good for a three hours work.  I just don't have the time to really give him more than the committed time. I'm not sure how many drummers have played in his band, but I do think I'm the 7th or 8th one in two years.  Bass players seem to run away.  I give the man credit, he has a great stage presence and I can connect with him on the rockers.   He and Dakota will eventually head out to New York for a month or so and get things going, but I will not be a part of that.  I'll continue to help Boy Scout Hippies till the Aces And Eights March 16th gig.   Or till his patience runs thin.  Or mine.  Whichever comes first.

(She's still a beauty)

I have things to do with The Townedgers,  I also have to make time for Julie as well.  I don't know if our chemistry is as strong as it is with Ryan, or memorable as she had with Kyle.  I'm different in style and substance.  I tend to sing more depressing songs than she does.  She's versed in bar band songs that people would like to hear (Brown Eyed Girl, Wagon Wheel) and dance to, I'm into the alternative and avant garde.  Certainly Julie has been exposed to a lot of off the wall bands from Kyle, but my music exceeds farther than his. 40,000 albums and cds and 45s over 55 years has broaden my musical knowledge.  I'd love Julie to really explore the music that I hear, as well as my original songs and ideals and have us grow together, but I will not force that issue on her.  If she's disinterested in my original songs, then it might be an issue.   For Julie And The Mad Dogs, Mike still remains the drummer at hand  tho' Kevin Michel is more interested in playing in the C R Dicks band.  She'd love to steal Dakota back from Ron.

(Photo: Bunny Ranch Productions)

Ever since the beginning of this musical blog adventure has always been about Russ n I reuniting with John Field as the New Paraphernalia Band.  We talk about it but talk is cheap and John Field is not in the best of health.  We can't return back 13 years in John's basement for an afternoon of rock jams and Russ really hasn't been that enthused either.  So until it happens, we're better off just leaving it alone.

Coming in the summer, some gigs with Sirenz, with Cathy Hart, Lorie Parker and Barb Myers, who asked me about wanting to do this.  Well, why not?  Cathy and Lorie have always been very supportive about my acoustic guitar playing and Tim Canfield is a hall of famer.  Everybody was part of Replay, which played a few dates before imploding.  Not sure why that happened but I suspect one of the members threw a tirade and took his stuff and went home.  I'm surprised Randy Faulkner wasn't tapped to play drums.

Olivia looks stunning after all these years and she'll always been dear to my heart.  It's tempting to post her latest picture but I think posting one recent picture is enough.  She wasn't crazy about dating a musician in the first place, it was bad enough when she took me to the record stores when we were dating back then. The drums and all them cymbals was the last straw.  We had some good times back then tho'.

On another subject.  It' might be 23 below right now but it's a summer day compared to my lost weekend with Isabella in 2001.   Hope she's still doing well.

(Leo Kottke Today-Or a future picture of myself 15 years from now)

As we get older, the hair on top of our hair gets thinner and goes south and the need to shave every other day arises.  I hate shaving and I hate the 54 whisker hairs that live on my adams' apple and proceeds to get caught in coat zipper every fucking time.  I have noticed a lot of my musical friends and musicians decide to look the dapper beard master.  Fate would probably have me become a bearded hippie like my brother and dad.  I'm not in favor of that, after 5 days these hair itch like a son of a bitch.  But since we have a minus 25 degree temp this afternoon, I am going have to brave the mountain man look.  This polar blast I hate with a passion, especially when the car won't start, but I've been through this shit before and will do so again and again, till I decide to go back to Arizona and stay there where it doesn't snow and get cold.   But I'm resigned to the fact that I will probably die here before I decide to move. As for the bearded look, that'll be me in 2035.  If I'm still around.

Til next time.

Stone City Acoustic Showcase In The Great Icebox

Songlist: 

Ole 55
Fox On The Run
Good Time Charlie 
Ring Of Fire
Greenback Dollar
Sundown.

With:

Aaron Caryl-Fiddle
Danny Dias-Harmonica
Sharon Eide -Backing vocal (Ring Of Fire, Sundown)

In the third weekend of snow and cold crap, I stayed close to home and went to the General Store and did a jam with Aaron and for the first time,Danny playing harmonica. Sharon helped on Ring Of Fire and Sundown.  Danny has been one of best loved jammers of the Stone City jams and I never used him of the fact that I play more obscure songs.  I may ask him to join me up on later jams.  Anybody can jam with me, provided if they know the song.

Greenback Dollar was done for the first time.

Bubba Joannes  was in for Lane Gaffney as host.

Dave Bonham was there along with Maki Dervo.  And Bill Schlatter too. 

Due to the 30th snowstorm of the month, I was not able to get into town to do the Rumor's jam nor participate in the Kevin Burt invitation jam at Checkers, which might be the start of something new.  But despite the rotten weather Burt did have a pretty good turnout.  Karl Hudson and Peter Ciappiano joined Layne Goldsberry and Tommy Bruner (with Terry McDowell as host) of the Sunday Funday jam and turnout was better than expected I think.  I won't know till the Rumor's Jam Roll Call is posted later in the week.  Helping the Boy Scout Hippies did prevent me from doing Stone City last Sunday but it was a major money making gig for me.  Ron can't be all that bad.

Ron and Dakota did play Friday Night at CRL as a replacement band when the other band couldn't make it due to snowstorm 29.  I do thank Ron for contacting me about that gig, but it didn't work out since I was at work and couldn't make it at all.  They also played Whiskey River Saturday Night, but I had to work and later stopped down to see Karl Hudson and The Buzz (with Jeff Overly at Dirty Shirley's) and later Everlou with Kathy Hart Spina at CRL.  She was quite surprised and happy to see me.   Jeff Brown, the Four Day Creep sound guy and roadie was at CRL and we hung out together before driving him home.  We both agreed that while Everlou did a commendable version of Dreams I'll Never See Again, the band made some mistakes.  Rick Clay can play those leads in his sleep.

Artisan Sanctuary Open Mic Birthday Bash

Set list;

Please Don't Leave Me
Good Time Charlie
You'll Accompany Me
Go Out And Get It
Fox On The Run
Sundown
Logic And Lies
Stop Draggin My Heart Around
Gold Dust Woman

(Patrick Lower: Photo)

With
Julie Gordon-Vocals on the last two songs

NOTES:
58 years ago, my mom had a chili dinner which didn't agree with her which set off a journey into the open for me.  It's the only time I was early for anything and I've been paying for it ever since.  I did spend the afternoon with Mom at Perkins, having the Grand Slam Breakfast and paying for it afterwards.

Julie and I then spent the evening having a salad supper at Ramsey's before going over to the Sanctuary for the open mic.  Ron LaFleur and Dakota McWhorter were in attendance.    They were also at Ramsey's too, trying to score some gigs.  To which I might help out on a Saturday Night.  Provided if the GD temps get out of below zero.

Australia has 115 degree summers, we're having -30 windchill nights and this crap is becoming too commonplace.  If anything, I don't have any gigs this weekend.  But I do hate this cold crap and we have been stuck in the fucking icebox for now a whole week.

It was the first time Julie did the Artisan open mic ever. She was in a feisty mood, leading off with Stealing Time and She's a Beauty and Hey Yeah, before ending on Don't You Forget About Me.

Ron and Dakota did their set without my participation on drums, there weren't any. They did about eight songs, most of the stuff that I have been working with them.  They did a fine job. Ron's wife Fran also braved the cold.  But they all left before Julie came up to do the encore numbers. Too bad they left, Julie nailed Gold Dust Woman and set everybody home happy.

While I help play percussion for Boy Scout Hippies and Dreams Of Arcadia, there's a bit of competition between us.   Ron is passionate about his music, and so am I.   He has the swagger to stake out gigs,  I look at my music as an expressionistic hobbyist. Would my songs be any help to Ron and Dakota's band, hard to say. While Ron was making the pitch to the owner of Ramsey's (and he did score a couple gigs), I stayed out of what they were doing.  It's their band and I'm a substitute. If Julie decided to pitch the Acousta Crabbys we would have to work big time to get the songs ready.

Dreams Of Arcadia/Four Day Creep Live At The Dance Mor Ballroom 1/18/19

The snowstorm that dropped 7 inches of snow didn't help things.
Nor did the 7 below temps.
Probably not the 10 dollar admission price.

But I thank Lisa Fox, Katie Skogman, Curtis Strahan and his wife, Dylan, George and everybody else that did show up.

Four Day Creep-Rick Clay, Amanda Marshall, John Baughman and Troy Mitchell, who always lets me play his drums.  When I die, Troy gets my drums.

Jefferey Brown for running the sound.

Dylan Groharing won the big prize.

I got there early, so early that the damn place was not even open, so I have a find a way to waste 45 minutes and spent talking to the owner of the grocery store in Swisher and bought some stale blueberry Pop Tarts that I haven't seen in a while.  The expiration date was 2017.

Kevin Sinmacher managed to brave the cold and take a few pictures of Dreams Of Arcadia, with plenty of shots of the guest drummer.  This was more of a promotion of Julie and Ryan,  I'm just doing this part time.  I think he goes for the abstract and spur of the moment, some turned out fine, some didn't.  Here are the highlights.

1)   Dreams Of Arcadia.  Ryan and Julie, made for the stage.   The lights were very bright, usually they have one set, but there was about three or four of them, two on both sides of the stage.

2)  The Unicorns was Ryan's idea and they were plenty of them.  I did play Troy's drums through the two sets that DOA did (Four Day Creep played the rest of the way without any breaks).  However, since DOA was unplugged and playing acoustic guitars, I either played hot rods or tapped around the snare using a lighter pair of drumsticks.

3)   I've been told that I look like I'm pissed off at the world but that's not the case.  I'm very locked into the groove not to notice around me.  Not being smug or anything like that.  To be on the storied stage that is the Dance Mor Ballroom, I'm having the best time. My looks in pictures can be deceiving.

4)  See, I told you I'm having fun on stage!

5)  Stealin' Time....Julie has wrote this song and rewrote and reworked it and every time she reworks it, the song takes on a different style.  Recently, I have discovered that this song works great in a reggae setting.  That takes skill to write such a song but when she did the riffs, to me I started doing the one drop beat which is perfect for this song.  Julie takes full credit of the lyrics n music.  I just altered it into something unique.

6)  I'm guessing Tuxedo Junction on this one.  Or Stray Cat Strut. Probably the latter.

7)    Kevin placed a camera in the background to get some candid shots of me.   I'm not used to having that many pictures taken of me, even as a guest star that may have a bit too much. But I think this is the best of the working drummer pictures that he did taken.  I am interested to see what he used as a video.  I know Ryan paid for the photo and video but I did slip Kevin ten bucks as well.  He really does a good job with these videos and photos.

8)  Bobby McGee, which was our final song.  In typical Kevin Sinmacher fashion, he managed to find a picture of me and my big mouth in the background.   About as rock and roll as we got that night.

9)   As always, I give credit to those who helped my cause and Troy Mitchell was kind enough to lend me his drums for the performance.   When I first came back on the scene, I was the new kid on the block, even 35 years removed from the music scene.  I knew a few things but I also played with reckless abandonment which got me in trouble when I used their sets.  Not so with Troy.  Like Terry McDowell, Troy plays rock hard and he's amazing what he does.  He's always been gracious with me when I sat in.  Of course, he doesn't mind it, when I do play with Four Day Creep on Dreams and Cheap Sunglasses, it's a bathroom break for him.  Usually when we do those two songs they averaged about 15 minutes per performance.

Afterwards,  Four Day Creep took over and I guest starred on the usual songs and Lisa Fox came on stage to sing Rocking Into The Night.  Karie Skogman took photos of Four Day Creep's performance.

Julie did take a video of Dreams I'll Never See Again.  To which it was a bit more slower than the one we did during the Big Birthday Bash two weeks prior.  That one was a bit more playful, this version a bit more edgy.  Cheap Sunglasses was played but nobody took videos of that one that I'm aware of.

A)  Amanda and Rick.

B)  John Baughman

C)  Rick again.  Baddest Southern rock guitarist in town.

D)  Troy Mitchell.  Super drummer and all around cool guy.  Has DW drums and his cymbals are a Zildjian 20 inch medium ride and four Sabian cymbals of varying degree.  The 18 inch cymbals sound a lot like the K session crashes that I use on my set.  On the DOA sets, they were a bit overpowering but on the Four Day Creep songs they blend in greatly.  Another fact, that all of his drums were miked up.  Usually mine isn't since I tend to overpower my bands,  plugged in or not.

In the end, I can now say that I managed to play the famed Dance Mor Ballroom stage, even tho' it will be the only time I'll ever be on that stage.  I only wish the weather was a lot better than it was. But then again, I've never had a January gig that didn't either, snow, ice, get below zero or all of the above.

I don't foresee that changing anytime soon.

PS.  Ryan informed me that the video was ready and I took a look at it.  Kevin was very generous of giving me a lot of playing time on the video and even a couple of inner sets with me.  I really need to work on my face when I'm playing.  I'm not used to seeing myself and all the facial expressions that go with it.   A lot of snippets of songs, but most of Me And Bobby McGee is in tact.   Since Ryan funded the video, it was just DOA only.

Strangely, I had no stage fright on this night, nor the Sunday gig, even if the lights did blinded me, I still could look out on the crowd.  A few folks did take the unicorns home but I did notice Kevin riding one of them on Wagon Wheel.  Julie may have bothered by the lights and sound, but watching the video, she hid that well.  Ryan did good too.  I just "filled in the blanks" and kept the beat flowing.   Thought I did fairly well too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nyCgziEaLs&fbclid=IwAR2rGzhM0WWzjmc6LsfOD-Sf_ah8fZjShOG56RbKjwbi7y5j_XUAfvYbMpU

My Sunday Feeling-Office Lounge With Broken Rubber Band/Boy Scout Hippies

As I sit here watching part of the Pats/Chiefs game (to which NE won in OT BOO HISS) I just got done playing a double bill with Dubuque's Broken Rubber Band with The Boy Scout Hippies, the band of Ron LaFleur and Dakota McWhorter with Callie.

(Boy Scout Hippies,  Ron, and Dakota, Callie is the one in the middle)

Somehow this got to be a double booking, with The Broken Rubber Band being originally slated, but the owner booked the Boyscout Hippies by mistake. Thankfully, they were kind enough to lend us their bass player and PA system.

Ron was wondering about how the Cajoe would sound in a unplugged setting, so I took up there and added a snare and convinced him that it would worked perfectly.   I couldn't find any music site for the Broken Rubber Band, Mike Glenn is the leader of the band,

A 2016 photo of Broken Rubber Band.  Josh is the acoustic bass player, Mike is the vocalist, not sure who the banjo player is tho"


Boy Scout Hippies do not employ bass players and drummers are on a part time basis.  I have been on loan to the BSH till the end of March and so far I have enjoyed providing the beats for them.  Josh was very quiet, kept to himself, more like me who tends to shy away from the crowds but I took a liking to him.   Nevertheless he did agree to play bass for us today.

We have great bass players in town, but even tho' Josh never played on stage with us before, he knew where the breaks were at, where to start and where to finish.  Of course he's a music major, but he was professionally smooth and didn't over play.

Broken Rubber Band def' has a bluegrass/folk country sound to it but I hear elements of the Grateful Dead. They did a couple songs that we usually played, Can't You See and I'm On Fire.

For the unplugged set, I used the Cajon and snare drum and on set one played the Impulse 16 inch, but on the 2nd set, used one of the Paiste 602 14 inch cymbal as a ride crash.  It sounded better, but I think in future unplugged sets, it's best just to use small splash and crash cymbals.

So they did the first and third sets and we did the 2nd and last set.  Their percussion player (Mike Christensen?, I'm terrible with names) played on a couple.  For a finale  Micheal Glenn joined us on stage on harmonica and sang part of All Along The Watchtower.  It was a nice ending to a double booked gig that everybody won out in the end.   And was worthy of a spaghetti dinner, tho' Ron and his wife Fran offered supper at the Chinese place, to which closed at 7, which pretty much left everybody on their own (Ron and Fran decided on Shooters, Dakota decided to go home and me off to Diamond Pi for my solitude supper).  I thought they were going to go down there but  it was chilly and nobody really wanted to wait around I guess.  If we got done before 6, I had thoughts about catching the last of the Stone City Acoustic Jam but the gig finished around 7:15.   Rumor's had the Sonya Adair Birthday/Pajama Bash in town but I missed that.   There'll be other jams.

PS;  Mr. Glenn, after we got done, said we did a fine job and that I could go to Nashville and fit in with the musicians down there. That's saying a lot.   I had some great compliments coming from Julie, Tommy Bruner, Greg and Brenda Mein,  Craig Erickson and Dan Johnson and a few others.  Not bad for somebody who came out of retirement just to see what he could do three and a half years ago.   I have come to the conclusion that I'll never be rich playing music and probably would starve had gone after the dream.  The Tom Giblins, the Janey's  Dan Johnson are rock n roll hall of famers for the fact that they were good at what they do and they were playing on the scene for many years.  Myself, had I applied myself better I could join them in the hall of fame.   But I'm happy and satisfied at my results and how I help bands sound better.  Drumming is tough, and takes a toll on the body.  I have shoulder pain and carpel tunnel issues, documenting this on blogs don't help much.  But I have always blazed my trail, most of the time alone and self imposed too.  But as long as this is fun, why not continue.  To play for three hours and take home enough money to put gas in the car, you have to love playing or be a hobbyist.   If and when Ron and Dakota make it to the next level, I won't be there but I'm here for the moment to help them before I return back to my acoustic guitar playing ways.  Or if Julie and Ryan decide to move on with other percussion players, I'll understand.   I'll remain true to myself and the music of the Townedgers, since that band was the only one there that wanted me around.  Of course, I formed that band so they can't get rid of me right?

Maybe in my life it took me 35 years to finally find my voice and music as well.  Perhaps I should have been more active after the demise of Paraphernalia/Tyrus?  But I chose this road and continue to drive on.  I got lazy and quit playing for a while, and I remember the time of playing a blues jam with Mike Swearingen singing and me that haven't touched a drumset in six months and dragging the beat back around 1993 thereabouts.  At that time, Julie was in Lucious Green playing at Big Dogs and me and Mike playing at Attitudes, an old dive bar that is a distant memory. I swore I wouldn't let that happen again....and then retreated back on the couch.

But 25 years down the road, I'm back on top of the game, adapting to the other musicians and interacting with them and making them sound better.  At the twilight of my music career, I do have admit one thing...and that's I have never played better before than now.

And I thank each and every one of musicians that I played alongside for making me that much better.

(Olivia today)

(Olivia then)

20 years ago, I had a long distance relationship with Olivia.  She lived on the west coast, thought about moving out here, came out here, didn't like the weather and returned back to the west coast.  She was the inspiration and helped me write the 2008 album Pawnshops For Olivia and we kept in touch for about five years before reality set in and moved us in different directions.  She still looks as beautiful as when we first met.   This old troubadour wishes her the best.

Stone City Acoustic Showcase And Boy Scout Hippies At Waubeek.

Stone City songlist

Ever So Much
Sundown
Go Out And Get It
The Race Is On


Aaron Caryl: Fiddle

(Jim Jacobmeyer; Photo)

Saturday Night I made my debut on drums for the Boy Scout Hippies in Waubeek on a three month trail run.  I have discussed playing for Ron and Dakota in years past but they do have a way of going through drummers and I think I'm the 9th or 10th one that they had. I won't be the last but I think we had a good time despite the shitty weather and icy roads.  We did have 40 people braved the roads to hang around in the four and half hour gig that we played, plenty of breaks tho'.  It was needed.

(A rare photo of your's truly smiling,  that does happen once in a great while)

Ron is a hard driving performer.  He really gets into the music, to which I had to keep a sharp eye on the breaks and where we was leading it.  Dakota has blossomed into a decent lead guitar player and backing vocalist and Callie comes up to spell Ron on the Lucinda Williams numbers  Perhaps the highlight was the first version of Graciously, and a radical punk ending to Can't You See with plenty of drum rolls and cymbals crashes.  Ron said it was the first time anybody kept up with him on that song. That sez a lot considering he had some great drummers in that band.

For Spinal Tap moments, there were plenty. After the rousing ending to Can't You See, I had all of my drum rings go flying off the snare and toms and the GD snare stand collasped leaving the snare into my lap.  It also unhinged the bass drum to the point that it kept moving on me the last two sets.  It got fucking tiring to see my bass petal leaning one way and the bass drum the other.  The best cymbal stand I had also got loose and collapsed the cymbal.  I should consider just bringing the DW drum petal and stands next time I play.

Of course, there's the usual drunk dude who got on the table to dance only to come off falling since his chair had a broken leg and he went flying on the floor.  I didn't think much of the dude coming afterward and pounding on the drums and cymbals afterwards.  If I had my K's with me, I would have kicked his can but the guy didn't know where he was at anyway.

Katy Merrifield and Danny Dias were special guests.  Katy is to the left.

I returned back to Stone City the next day, still tired from the effects of playing last night and did four extended songs with Aaron playing fiddle.  It saved me wear and tear on the vocals.   Terry McCauley was up there along with Dave Bonham, Maki Dervo, Angie, Sharon, Bill Schlatter and Sue Ellen, who didn't have Carl Meiners helping her, he being in Arizona with Glen Gardner.  They got out just in time for the snows to hit.  And we had our first major winter storm of the winter season.  To which we got 5 inches of the white crap.   And in the meantime, our water pump went out, so we have no running water at our place.  And we have no working toilet as well.  So I ate light. This make me wish for a porta potty just in case but hopefully we can get our water pump working again.   I just hate the fact that a unworking well water pump had to happen in the dead of wintertime.

Next gig is at Swisher at Dance Mor with Dreams Of Arcadia and Four Day Creep.  And the weather forecast is more fucking snow.  It never fails.  Seems like when I have a paying gig in Dec-Jan, it has to either, A) Snow, B) Ice, C) Rain,  D) Cold or E) all of the above. And I'm not liking this one fucking bit.

All photos were taken by The Artisan Sanctuary, Jim Jacobmeyer.  I eventually found these on my own a few months later.  Preserved for historical value.

The Glorious Return of Acousta Crabby 1/10/19

Artisan Sanctuary Setlist:

Stop Draggin' My Heart Around
Branded Man
Good Time Charlie
Ole 55
Go Out And Get It
Sundown
Logic And Lies
If You See Her

With:
Katy Merrifield-Backing vocals on Sundown
Freddy Jones-Harmonica

Photos by Jim Jacobmeyer

NOTES:

A surprise visit to the Sanctuary since I was dealing with a slight cold and took the day off work.  I don't figure we were that busy at work anyway and I did take a 2 and an half hour nap before coming out.   The other jammers, were Gregdon, Virginia, Stu Pershing, Darryl and Phil plus Katy and Freddy doing a long version of You Ain't Going Nowhere to finish things up.  Backstage, I was playing along with Stuart on his version on Fire On The Mountain.  Since he has a very early job, he has to leave and get up in the morning around 3 AM.  Which, usually is the time I go to bed.

Again, the majority of songs have been the ones that I have been playing at various acoustic jams.  Branded Man was the only song I haven't played much of late but since I was in a GCD mode, it came in handy. Stop Draggin My Heart Around was led off simply of the fact I had the lyric sheet in front of me.  Julie would have come in handy but she was working tonight and I'm beginning to get a feel on singing it from a male perspective better nowadays.

Katy returned to the Sanctuary for the first time in quite a while, she's a regular of the Whittier Acoustic Showcase and she is basically a true hippy folk singer, down the foot tambourines.  She was dealing with a cold of her own but she sang and played great.  She did two Ozark Mountain Daredevils songs, Standing On A Rock and You Made It Right.

I have to thank Jim for allowing me to play 8 songs on this night.  Usually I do 4 or 5 but we didn't have many jammers, Glen Gardner and Carl Meiners took off to Arizona for a couple months.  Out of all the venues that I played at, Jim has been supportive of the music that is thrown out there.   With the exception of the New Years's Eve show with Dreams Of Arcadia, I haven't done much guitar playing and singing, I've been busy practicing with Ron and Dakota with Boy Scout Hippies in preparation for the FB Company gig with them, as well with Dreams Of Arcadia.  Thankfully, I knew the songs well enough tonight to do a passable job, tho' I did drop my guitar pick on Good Time Charlie and had to use my thumb to strum along.

I also haven't done much originals outside of Logic N Lies and If You See Her.  Jim requested one last original and I went with If You See Her.  I'm drawing a blank on the others I could have done but since those two songs have been standard material the past couple months, I decided to do them.

Virginia used to go to Checker's to play at Acoustic jams but when she got slighted by the songs she wanted to play, she quit going.  It was the first time that I've seen her since her last Checkers' sighting.

The Artisan Sanctuary is a great place to play the originals and fine tune them.  Jim lets me have the freedom to experiment with them, for better or for worse.  I enjoy the positive feedback for the songs that I do and this keeps me going to play the next acoustic jam, where ever it may be.   And it is fun as always.  I've never had a bum performance there at all.

Replay, the retro 60s dance pop band featuring Lorie Parker, Barb Myers, Bart Carfizzi, Tim Canfield and Randy Faulker (Scott Sanborn MC host) have put themselves on hiatus and probably are done as a band.  I have a sneaking suspicion what happened but cannot say without getting the facts straight or hurting somebody's feelings if I did say something. Bands come and go around here, especially when you have jobs, family etc etc but if somebody isn't playing up to par and can't or won't change then it's a wasted effort.  Usually the weakest link is probably the one that ranting and raving all the time on social media.  I got to see Replay a couple times during their last set and thought they sounded great and made good use of Scott Sanborn as the MC or DJ, tho' he did spell Randy on drums while Randy sang.  And they did draw good crowds too.   Perhaps they'll return (Stay tuned) but me thinks that they did their last gig sorry to say.

2019-The Road Goes On Nowhere And Forever

And so begins another year.

I haven't been much in the mood to really document the preceding gigs of the week.  Not that it matters but rather it's mundane to repeat myself, saying things were great and everybody had a good time.   Opinions vary so we'll leave that be.


New Years Eve saw me playing congas and guitar for Dreams Of Arcadia at The Office Lounge.  We had some freezing rain that made the roads turn into a ice rink but yet we managed to have a decent crowd turning out.   I couldn't understand the crowd's reaction to some of the songs.  We did get them to dance to Keep Your Hands To Yourself and of course Wagon Wheel (sigh) and Matthew singing Piano Man that got about 10 drunk chicks on the dance floor.  I played my usual favorites and of course Gold Dust Woman with Julie singing it.  I thought we did well.

Saturday Night was the annual Four Day Creep birthday bash to which everybody in that band was born under the Capricorn sign; I was born this month but I'm a fucking Aquarius, born under a bad sign indeed.  But I did play Dreams I'll Never See Again and Cheap Sunglasses, to which both versions might have been the best we ever did.  Rick Clay was playing a full beer bottle on the lead of Dreams and taking a drink from time to time.  John Shaw from Smoking Guns was guest jammer. It was a great time, Julie was there as well as Ryan and Matthew, and I think having Julie in the audience made me play that much better.  She was smiling and blowing kisses my way as I was playing.   She was having a rough go, due to a cold and Vance Hanson being a dick (long story but I'd rather not tell it) but for about 10 minutes she was smiling and having a good time.

3 and a half years into this and I have to say I have been playing my best overall.  In 2019, I'm thinking of getting back to The Townedgers and doing something with them. I have gigs with DOA and forthcoming with Boyscout Hippies, the latter will not let me be able to play Whittier. The Hippies are the house band on that second Saturday and Ron did offer a good paying gig,  they draw a large crowd to FB and Company in Waubeek and this will be my debut with that band as a special guest drummer.  I have committed to them for the first three months.  After that, I have to get back to my regular job.

I have potential projects coming up.  There might be finally the return of the New Paraphernalia Band with my best friend Russ and John Field.  I haven't played alongside John since 2007 when Russ invited me to sit in with them.  John has gone through hell, a divorce, a flood that destroyed his house, health issues, being homeless and so on.  Russ is sure that John wants to do this, but it hasn't panned out.  Maybe this year that will change.  I have The Acousta Crabbies with Julie but again my choice of songs is not meshing with her.  I have Meinfield, the project with Brenda and Greg Mein in June, and of course whenever Jay Dean needs a fill in for his band, I'll be happy to help out.

Julie is a part of this life.  She has gone through hell and back as well.  I'm a part of her life. We're still learning how to love one another.   At this point in life, I'm here to at least help her in some way to get through life.   Or at least, help her get a working car.  She is a true musician, broke and poor, but somehow we managed to weather the storm.

So, here we are again.  A new year and a new way.  And if we are all still here at the end of the year, then that will be a victory upon itself.  There'll be heartaches but I'm praying there'll be some good times as well.

Follow me down that road to nowhere, to the next destination.   Wherever that might lead.