He was the cool friend of your Uncle who would slip you a beer or some weed at a family picnic. A slight, frail man who wrote some memorable and introspective rock and roll. He's one reason why I play a Rickenbacker.
Tom Petty died today, aged 66.
We saw him here in June. Paid a ridiculous amount of money for tickets, because you never know, right? Especially after 2016. He played his last concert, ending the tour he said would be his last, on September 22nd.
Some retirement.
But we knew he'd never stop making music, because that was what made him magic, what gave him joy.
What kept him going.
See your heroes when you can, even though you know they are not perfect. Take a shitty picture.
Thank you for the music for over 40 years of my life, Charlie T. Wilbury Jr.
I first came to know Cait Brennan about twelve years ago, through our Live Journal accounts. Her writing was intelligent, creative and incredibly funny. I added her to my feed, she added me back and we commented on each others posts. She kept me awake and entertained over the late night hours when my infant son stayed awake, which was many nights. As I have still never met Cait Brennan, I am guessing she remains as witty as ever.
Over the years, we do not have the long threads we used to, but we make occasional comments or click “like” on our Facebook posts. There have been many changes in our lives over the past decade, some of them quite profound.
Cait has been working very hard on her music the past few years. Even harder because she has reasons to. You can almost call it a race against time. As she says, "She was Cait before being Cait was cool." She’s trying to maintain her health while writing and playing at such places as the International Pop Overthrow Festival. A couple of years ago she released a neat little ditty called Madame Pompadour.
It became one of my favorite songs of the year and remains on my iPod.
Recently, she recorded a whole record of songs in five days. She still needs a bit of help getting the record finished and that’s where we come in. Her Kickstarter was completely funded in a couple of days. The goodwill she has developed from friends and strangers is awesome. Here’s the link for you to click on and read.
Full disclosure: I’m in for the vinyl.
With the project fully funded, any additional money will help promote the record to a wider audience, get her to possibly go on tour to do a few shows and more. I admit to being the biggest cynic about crowdfunding but this one means so much to me. The background of why this record is being made is an important part of this story. As many people as possible need to hear this record. Keeping the momentum going would be incredible.
As longtime record industry maven Marc Nathan says, “because every 40-something person with a catalog of great songs and limited resources to record them the way they were intended needs a gentle shove into the loving arms of the unsuspecting general public…”
I was reading an interview with Elton John last night and he was raving about this band. So I looked this group of Irish kids up on Youtube and was very impressed with what I saw and heard.
I mean, what the Hell was I doing when I was 16? Compared to the ramshackle band I was involved with, these kids were on a stage at Glastonbury. They're also quite talented, with polish provided by the production skills of Chris Thomas and the management backing of Elton John's empire behind them.
There's a lot that can go wrong here, or simply fade out to remember whens or what ifs. Right now I'm going to focus on the promise and enjoy hearing about their ascent.
