Outtake #1: All Friends - Walk Like A Busby

                                    THE BAND PLAYED ALL NIGHT

            Wind him up and watch him do the Busby Walk!

I haven't posted for a while because there was computer stuff I couldn't do and I had to wait until my computer guy son, Webmaster Ian Lee Grinstead, had time to walk me though. I've got most of it now so I should be able to limp along. All of my kids are up on this new fangled computer stuff, but it's beyond this old-timer. Just give me a chisel and a flat rock and I'll get the message out. 

 "All Friends" was written and recorded during the first sessions for Won Out but left unfinished (like almost everything else). The recording provided here is a rough mix we put together after the basic tracks had been laid down. We slathered it with echo for fun. The surfy instrumental coda is called "The Busby Walk" because I took it from a pattern bassist Jeff Busby used to play around with between songs. I've always hated most of the lyrics and have tried unsuccessfully over the years to rewrite it. I was trying to write a song about the band, or being in a band, or something something band. Still, it has the potential to be an exciting recording and it's one of my few songs not about wanting, having and (mostly) losing love. It always got a good response when we played it live. Funny story - even though I consider this one of my worst sets of lyrics I entered it in the Great American Songwriting Contest  - one of those rip-offs  perpetuated by clever marketers to get starving musicians to part with their money by promising prizes of cash, equipment and studio time - and it won second prize. I still have the cheap little placard - suitable for framing! - commemorating my achievement.

All I wanted was a rock 'n' roll band

But things kinda got out of hand

I haven't really lost control

But I'm just crazy 'bout rock 'n' roll

Living life in 4/4 time

I started to speak in patterned rhyme

I don't see how people can get along

Going through life without a song

The band played all night

They sounded all right

The band played all friends, all friends, all friends all

I like to feel that rhythm drive

And see the people come alive

But then I don't know what to do

When the night is finally through

So come friends you gotta gather 'round

If we're gonna get this off the ground

Come on friends we gotta make you dance

If we're gonna have another chance

repeat chorus

The lights had me blind

The music was mine

And the band stayed all friends, all friends, all friends all

Okay there's a couple of clunkers in there, but most of it isn't all that bad. I remember having the chorus: "the band played all night..." and forming the rest around it. It's a good little rocker. I regret never going back and finishing it but during the time it took to put my studio back together I'd moved on and lost interest in a lot of songs from the pre-burglary sessions. It took nearly two years to acquire enough equipment to return to multitrack recording and I had a lot of new songs that I liked better. Maybe someday I'll...nah.

  

                                                   The Busby Walk, The Busby Talk

Jeff Busby was the the world's laziest bassist. He was good but couldn't be bothered to learn the songs. We made him a book with all the songs mapped out for him so he could follow along. He learned all of two songs during his tenure as a Bonkeenie - and one of them was a Chicago cover! Oh yeah - we auditioned for some function at our old high school, Oakland High (go Wildcats!), and they specifically asked for a Chicago song. I can't remember which one we played but my arrangement rendered it all but unrecognizable. We didn't get the gig. Jeff was also a very accomplished magician. Not the pull-a-rabbit-out-of-a-hat kind - he was card guy. He wrote several books about card magic. I discovered later that he wasn't very highly regarded among his fellow magicians, many of whome considered him a plagiarist and a deadbeat ("I loaned him 20 bucks and he never paid me back!") He looked much older than his years and seemed to enjoy being the old cynical uncle character in our musical sitcom.

 Here he is as a grownup. Looks kinda like a cop or a used car saleman. Once I figure out how to scan pictures the right size I'll post more here!

The last time we crossed paths was in 1977 when we encountered each other running in opposite directions around Lake Merritt. It was nice to see him getting in shape. At 20 he looked 40 - a pot-bellied smoker and heavy drinker. We had a brief conversation about his new health regimen. I never saw him after that but he eventually moved to Idaho where he met and married another magician (magicienne, sorry) and opened a magic shop. He passed away in 2014 at 59 in Wallace, Idaho. So long, Jeff!

One of the great man's books. One reviewer said "Brilliant" while another said "He still owes me forty bucks!'. Tom T. Hall did a song called "The Ballad of Forty Dollars". Coincidence? Well, yeah. 

 

Time to igloo. I think I've got these "go here type that download this upload that" computer stuff figgered out so I can start writing again. I'm having fun - I hope you are, too. Fun is good. As I sang in one my of less-celebrated songs "Train Wreck On Prom Night": Fun ain't fun unless you're the one who's having fun. Get a broom!