1

We sang. Starting in the first grade. I don’t remember singing in kindergarten, coulda happened, but my memory of that year is sketchy.

But the first grade classroom was right next door, we lined up outside, and the teacher was Mrs. Godfrey.

We had two recesses. The first one included milk, but no cookies. I never drank the milk, I don’t remember EVER drinking white milk, but if you put enough Bosco in, I was down. And those brown boxes of Hershey’s in the grocery store…I’d implore my mother to purchase them, sometimes she’d accede to my wishes.

And I don’t have that many memories of first grade either, except for making a map with Mark Levy. That was the assignment, a map of our classroom. And I insisted that it needed red lines, roads, because I always saw them on my dad’s maps. I drew one, from the bottom to the top of the heavy paper, and then Mark convinced me not to draw any more. I didn’t, he was right.

And there was always music in school. Mr. McCann taught the junior high students, but we saw him too, at this point the elementary and junior high schools were still in the same building.

But in the afternoon, before the clock hit 2:30 and we exited, we’d sing with Mrs. Godfrey.

Now you’ve got to know, this was back before the boomers became parents and were overinvested in their children. Sure, we had some kids records, but our parents weren’t enriching us, scheduling us 24/7, we went to nursery school, that’s what they called it, what’s up with “pre-school,” and learned in the classroom, outside of it we played. As for watching TV…it was illegal in the daytime, at least in my house, you had to go outside, but at five we’d sit in the den, the three of us, my two sisters and myself, and eat buttered noodles and watch “The Mickey Mouse Club.”

And in Mrs. Godfrey’s class we sang “The Volga Boatmen.” Funny thing about the internet, now I can listen to it on Spotify, but it’s different, I remember it in my head at six.

2

We took piano lessons. I didn’t know a house without a piano. Not that they were Steinways, mostly Knabes, compacts not grands. I started at six, a the Dranoffs’ house. With five other people. Three of us on each piano. I learned to read music, we played “Hot Cross Buns,” but then baseball interfered and practice was so boring and Mrs. Dranoff was a taskmaster and I stopped playing. For a while anyway, when the Beatles hit, I could play chords and did, occasionally.

3

We sang at summer camp. Mostly folk music. We had singdowns. That’s where you have to come up with a song using the topic provided by the other team. That’s right, you not only had to come up with it, you needed to SING IT! I remember faking “The Days of Wine and Roses” at Camp Laurelwood, but it got us over the hurdle.

And when I got to junior high, we had club period, I tried out for the Glee Club. One year they admitted me, the next I was cut. This was the sixties, when everybody did not get a trophy. I ended up being in the shop club, and ultimately didn’t build anything.

And when the Beatles hit, everybody got a guitar. It was kind of like everybody buying a computer to be on AOL back in the nineties. Then again, today’s college students may not have even been born in the nineties. I’m trying to think of something that ubiquitous. And instant. We all have smartphones, but it didn’t happen overnight. Ah, I guess you had to be there.

And you’d take your guitar with you, and you’d sit in groups, and SING!

4

Most of my social life revolved around the Aspen crew, Jim Lewi’s conference in Colorado. But a funny thing happened in the last twenty years. People lost their jobs. Labels became secondary to live. And now it’s a whole different slew of people. Some of whom weren’t even old enough to attend back in ’96.

Used to be everywhere you went you had an Aspen friend. Show up at a gig, there they were. You got privileges. Institutions roll on, people do not.

But in the last few years, some new people have come into the family and when Marty said he was gonna be in L.A. last weekend, Craig reached out and said we were all invited for a party at his house.

I came late. I was doing my taxes. I was lucky I could get a Saturday appointment as it was, I booked it a month in advance.

And the atmosphere was festive, and Craig made Mexican food. And we were hearing about how Craig and Rick marry people. Craig’s done ten, Rick eight, Craig’s had one divorce, Rick two. And then…

I moved over to the couch where the women were talking. The women’s conversation is much more interesting. It’s not about cars and sports, but people and feelings. And then when we heard the singing from the other room, Felice asked why I wasn’t joining them. I told her I was talking to Lewi. But when I was finished with Jim…

5

Craig Newman is an agent at APA. He came to L.A. and tried to make it as a performer, but that didn’t take, he had to make a choice, and he did.

But the truth is your passions never leave you. You can suppress them, but they’re still there.

So Craig has a music room. At one end of his living room. On the other side of the fireplace.

He’s got a bunch of guitars. A Martin twelve string, a mellow-sounding Gibson. And bongos. And a snare drum.

And a piano.

Turns out Craig showed interest and his parents got him lessons at six, and when he purchased this house, they bought a piano for him, believing every house should have a piano, a twentieth century construct if there ever was one.

And when I got to the music room…Marty, Rick and Craig were preparing to do “Scenes From An Italian Restaurant.”

HUH??

We never sang Billy Joel songs, and certainly not ones as complicated as this.

And the thing is, Craig hews to the record. He doesn’t cut verses, he includes it all. And he’s a maestro on the keys as well as the frets and off we went.

And suddenly I understood the story of Brenda and Eddie.

Oh, I’ve heard the song zillions of times, but when you’re singing along to your smartphone…

At first I just sang from memory, but I didn’t remember every word, so I dialed up the lyrics on my iPhone and…they made sense, they resonated, in a way they never have before. I could see Brenda and Eddie out on the Island, and I wondered where they were today. In their New York State of Mind.

Some folks like to get away
Take a holiday from the neighborhood

It was never a hit. But after 9/11, “New York State of Mind” really got traction. And if you grew up in New York or New England you get it.

It was eighty degrees in L.A. And I yearned for the change of seasons on the east coast.

And I thought what a marvelous song this was.

And now I was so energized I asked Craig if he knew “Summer, Highland Falls.”

What closed me on Billy Joel was the album “Songs In The Attic,” a live LP where he recut all his initial songs the way they should have been produced, after he started working with Phil Ramone. And “Summer, Highland Falls” is a keeper.

Craig explained the history, the war between right hand and left, AND THEN HE PLAYED IT!

No one else knew it, but Craig and I sang it at the top of our lungs, we felt so good.

And if you’re singing Billy, you’ve got to sing Elton.

And now Jamie and Greg are in the music room. Andy and Amy. Felice. We’re huddled around the piano singing the songs of our youth.

6

Now I’ll be honest, I thought this was an impossibility with today’s generation. The records don’t usually have melody, but it’s something more, back then music was everything, it drove the culture, we all knew the hits, people don’t today.

And Craig’s whipping out one after another.

And then we get to Simon & Garfunkel. He plays “Mrs. Robinson,” which he used to open his sets with when he moved to L.A. and played the bars.

And we did “Homeward Bound.”

I’m sitting in the railway station
Got a ticket for my destination…

What exactly was that destination?

I never wanted kids, except for when I turned forty and my ex was living separately and ultimately rejected the idea.

I never wanted to be rich. I mean I didn’t want to dedicate all my time in the pursuit of money.

I did want to go skiing, which I still do.

And I wanted to pursue feelings, explore my identity and art.

And “Homeward Bound” is wistful. The story is clear. The musician is on the road and he wants to get back to his love and his music and…he wants to feel comfortable, not out of sorts and lonely on the road.

And the truth is we all feel lonely a lot of the time. We go to the gigs of oldsters to assuage this feeling. We want to be connected. The music connected us. Sure, the players made money, but it was about feelings, setting your mind free primarily.

There was experimentation. There was always something new. New sounds, different styles.

And the thing was the music was made by the musicians, but it ultimately became ours, we own it.

And when you’re singing along to the hits of yore, the songs you think you know by heart, you’re brought back to who you once were, there’s a thread from then to now, you’re ten once again. You can see the old girlfriends, the teachers, the Little League games. It’s all laid out before you, both the victories and the losses, the good memories and the bad.

And you never run out, there are always more songs to sing.

And I’m always the last to leave. I guess I don’t want to be alone. But even more, I want that feeling, with the music in me, thinking of nothing else but the moment.

That’s the power of rock and roll.

They’ve broken the system.

We used to get it, there was a ladder to the top, a room where everybody was inside doing dope with the cool people. If you wanted to make it, you knew how to do it.

But not anymore.

Not that the media has been alerted. The media keeps going on like it’s the twentieth century, and we’re still interested in charts, lists, a veritable pecking order of what’s important and what is not.

But that just does not work anymore.

It started happening about six or seven years ago. The internet cacophony. Everybody was online, everybody had an opinion and they wanted to express it. Meanwhile, the institutions to do just that were established. We thought everybody was gonna have a blog, but the truth is we just wanted to post on Facebook and then tell stories on Snapchat and are now all on Instagram.

Actually, that’s not true.

Oldsters are on Facebook. Hipsters are on Twitter and vapidity rules on Instagram. As for Snapchat, it’s like Second Life, something overhyped that never broke through.

This is important. Because now you no longer get the jokes, you cannot connect with others on a superficial level, because they have not seen the same movies, the same TV shows or listened to the same records, even though certain products are vaunted as being ubiquitous. “Game Of Thrones” is not, it only reaches a small fraction of viewers of a hit show in the pre-cable era. Drake and Ariana Grande are acts inhabiting the lower half of the Top Forty in the sixties. As for politics, we’ve all got our own sources and don’t disabuse us of our beliefs or disbeliefs.

It’s a veritable crisis of culture.

But in America, where it’s only about money, don’t expect anybody to address this. At best we can debate climate change, but our society, its likes and its mores? No way.

Not that anybody studying for a business degree has any idea what a more is, at best they believe it’s part of the title of an Andrea True track.

So we’re isolated and lonely. Not because we have smartphones, they allow us to interact with our friends, but how do you become a part of the culture at large? It’s veritably impossible.

You go somewhere and everything they’re talking about you don’t know or you haven’t seen.

The only icons we know are the tech companies. Apple, Amazon, Google and the aforementioned Facebook and its variants. You can pledge fealty to one, abhor another, but it’s all we have in common.

To the point we’ve got a whole culture of “influencers” online. All in their own niche promoting products via these tech titans, they own a sliver of eyeballs. And it’s all about selling, even if it’s just yourself, and even though we’ve been told over and over again these people are icons, not a single one, from Jenna Marbles to Logan Paul to PewDiePie, have broken through in the culture at general. It’s like hearing over and over about a minor league pitcher who never makes it to the majors.

So you sit and wonder, am I the only one, who feels out of it, who doesn’t want to invest in trying to catch up and finding out it’s not worth it, like viewing every episode of “Orange Is The New Black”?

And the truth is a lot of what’s successful is not hyped, and takes time to percolate. Like “Fauda.” New episodes are in the past, but the show is just reaching critical mass.

This is the opposite of “news.” News is about the new, what’s happening now, it’s not about the old, it’s not even about trends. It’s as if you have to run and see all the movies that open each weekend, even though it would eat up all of your time, and then next week there’s a whole new crop and only one is successful and is not remembered that long anyway.

No wonder people live in their silos.

And the reason we’re in a golden age of television is it’s all about story. We’re searching for humanity. And you’re certainly not gonna get it in pop music, nor in superhero movies, but on the flat screen.

And it’s still like the internet in the early days. They’re not exactly sure what works, so they’re trying new things, which leads us to “Dating Around,” which I don’t recommend watching if you’re single, which I don’t recommend watching at all unless you want to delve into the human condition.

To what degree are we self-aware? Have we developed our personalities? Are we good conversationalists? How do we manage uncomfortable situations? These are the building blocks of life, pushed under the rug in the news, but more important than ever in a world where we feel lost, where we cannot identify with what we’re being force-fed.

Moving to the big city, in this case New York…

That used to be a thing, now most people can’t afford it. And they’re too tied to their families to do it.

Your career. Is it all right not to be on the path to fame? Certainly the media says you’re inadequate if you’re not striving to be a world-beater.

Are you willing to bend, or do you need to be accepted for who you are, to your detriment and ultimate aloneness?

Do you judge too early?

Beauty fades. You’re intrigued by the most beautiful people and then you know them and don’t want them.

And what we have in common is our fear, which very few acknowledge.

And do you know how to get along? You may be right, but is it working for you?

All these concepts come up in “Dating Around.”

Netflix green-lit this show obviously thinking they had to get into the reality/dating show genre. But it being Netflix, they needed credibility. The problem with network TV is it’s all manipulated, cut for drama, starring bozos who will do anything for their few minutes of fame.

But “Dating Around”…

Is inherently uncomfortable.

How do you meet people if you’re single?

This show is a great advertisement for meeting people at work or through clubs or charity. Where there’s no pressure. Where you can truly get to know somebody.

And is there a shoe for every foot? Watching this, I’m not sure. One woman says she never has a relationship and then abandons the man after dinner.

Then again, do you know when you know?

These are the questions we ask ourselves every day. These are the questions not in the media. How do we navigate our own lives? What should be the target? How do we meet people?

The twentysomething Luke is a bore. The women run circles around him.

The divorced Gurki really isn’t looking for a relationship, she hasn’t looked at herself, she’s too busy looking outward.

As for Leonard…

What happens when you’re single and old. Even if it’s not your choice. Leonard’s wife died of cancer.

Leonard looks weird and acts a little weird. Is there someone for him?

A couple of these people you think would have a hard time finding anyone.

And then there’s the widowed gym teacher who reads texts from her live-in post-college daughter during the date. Reminds me of a woman I went out with who took calls from her mother. Just hearing her revert to her adolescent self, servicing her mother, convinced me this was no one I wanted to end up with, even though we’d had such a good conversation the night we met.

Conversation. Do you know how to do it?

You might think dressing up nice solves all problems. And I’m not underestimating attractiveness, but if you think it solves all problems you’ve got a lot to learn.

“Dating Around” is a funny show. It can be boring, but you can’t turn it off. Because of its humanity.

That’s what we need to focus on more, we’re all just people, human, what’s it like to live in 2019?

It’s not about arguing about politics, dreaming of being a rapper… The truth is almost none of us will be famous, and fame ain’t what it’s cracked up to be anyway, neither are riches. Sure, a modicum of both are to your advantage, but overload yourself with these and you end up chasing something that doesn’t exist while you get more and more unhappy inside.

Watch a couple of episodes of “Dating Around,” you’ll have more questions than answers.

Just like life.

Dating Around

I didn’t want to go to the Wiltern. I’d already been back and forth to Hollywood earlier in the day. And in L.A. there’s substandard public transportation, so you have to drive, which is why we all believe Howard Stern is our best friend.

And I fired up all three map apps and compared and decided to go with WAZE, which is always funny, because of the detours. I’m on 6th Street and the app tells me to go up one block to 5th and back down Fairfax one block later to rejoin 6th. And I’ll be honest, I get angry at the people who won’t go right, who wait until the coast is truly clear…IT’S NEVER CLEAR! And you wonder why we have road rage.

But the reason I was going so early was to make sure I got a spot in the structure. It fills up really early and then there’s nowhere to park, and it’s not the safest neighborhood either, I know more than one person who’s had their car broken into there.

And I used to park underground, when Rena ran the building. But now Nederlander doesn’t even run the Greek. Time passes, and not so slowly like Bob Dylan says. I walk into the Wiltern and I don’t know a single soul. Is it me or them?

Actually, business was soft, way soft. Is it that Jamey Johnson hasn’t had a hit in eons or that L.A.’s really not a country town or both?

And it’s such a hassle going to a gig. Not only the driving and parking, which was $25, which seemed excessive, but the security. I get why people stay home. And the truth is people go to the big gigs of oldsters and hitmakers who’ve broken through, but in between…

Now the reason I went so early was to see the opening act, Marty’s new client Erin Enderlin.

First and foremost, she could sing.

And she can write. Actually, someone yelled out “Are you a songwriter?” And of course she said yes.

But Erin was a revelation. Because this is how it used to be, when it was about songs and one person and their guitar could get the message across. I’m standing there…and why they tore the seats out from the Wiltern…who declared that we must STAND to listen to music? They don’t at Disney Hall. And I’m getting into it. I’m suddenly glad I came.

But I couldn’t tell Marty how to break her. Country radio likes guys. And singer-songwriter music went out with the seventies.

Not that there aren’t singer-songwriters left, but most can’t write. Pull up the playlists on Spotify and wince. It seems the elixir has been lost.

But Erin has the next Reba cut and for her final number…

Jamey and the band came out. They duetted, it was so smooth, this is the kind of collaboration that should be featured on the Grammy telecast. But the truth is music doesn’t work on TV. You need to be there.

And Jamey Johnson sure was.

Now the guy looks like he came out of…THE SEVENTIES! Like an Allman Brother in his jeans. With his long hair and beard like he couldn’t do anything else. And he’s from Alabama and he was in the Marine Reserves and you realize…you don’t know people like this. Like Erin, who grew up in Arkansas. I mean I’ve stayed in a hotel across the river from Arkansas, but have never been there. And one night in Atlanta we took a wrong turn and ended up in Alabama, but otherwise…

Of course people live there. But so many of the coastal residents have no idea what’s going on there.

And Jamey’s featuring a ten piece band. Which makes no economic sense whatsoever, there aren’t even three hundred people there. There’s a horn section and a pedal steel player and a background singer and counting the bass player and Jamey, four guitarists.

And at first the numbers are noodling, kinda quiet. And you realize you’re at a Grateful Dead show. In that they don’t know where they’re going, you’re on an adventure together, and if you’re lucky, the building will levitate, with you in it.

Jamey’s picking out notes on his giant Epiphone. At times there’s a flute, there was even a Jew’s Harp solo, and you realize, not only can you not get this on TV, you can’t get it on wax, this is a one time only performance, and you are THERE!

Which is just about when Jamey pays tribute to Tom Petty and plays “Southern Accents,” which I get, but is not exactly the song I want to hear.

But that segues into “Room At The Top.”

Okay, these are the songs that resonate with him.

But then, the unmistakable riff… HE’S PLAYING MARY JANE!

And I have to run right down to the front of the stage, to get closer to the music, to feel it, to watch Jamey pick out the notes.

Last dance with Mary Jane
One more time to kill the pain

And I’m thrusting my arms in the air and singing along and thinking that after Erin I was contemplating leaving, wouldn’t that have been a mistake.

But then comes a super-slow version of “You Are My Sunshine.”

Yup, Jamey’s got a whole band, he’s not making real money, and he’s not even always using them!

And I’m checking setlist.fm. And every gig is different and some songs he’s never played when…

He goes into “Willin’.” Not the Seatrain breakthrough version, not Linda Ronstadt’s take, not even the remake on “Sailin’ Shoes,” but the slow talk/sung take from the very first Little Feat LP that no one knows.

I been warped by the rain, driven by the snow
I’m drunk and dirty and don’t you know…

This is bedrock. This ain’t evanescent Top Forty, but music that lasts forever. You know every word, and unlike when I first heard it, I’ve actually been to Tehachapi, but I’m still waiting to go to Tucumcari.

And there’s a Jerry Reed cover. And Tony Joe White’s “Rainy Night In Georgia.” And a Merle Haggard number. And, of course, Jamey’s cowrite of George Strait’s “Give It Away,” with the dancing matron next to me singing along with the chorus.

And then the band is chugging along with “Tulsa Time.” And you’re pinching yourself, YOU’RE ACTUALLY THERE!

Not that anybody seems to care.

There’s no backdrop, no fancy lighting, just music, the way it used to be.

And then comes the hit.

Jamey also played “Macon,” but every night he has to play “In Color.”

If it looks like we were scared to death
Like a couple of kids just trying to save each other
You should’ve seen it in color

I’ve been scared. Of my father. Out in the elements. In my twenties, thirties and even forties, wondering where it was all going, how it was all gonna work out. And when I hear “In Color” I resonate, especially with the concept of seeing it in color. It was so much worse than the retelling.

And I’m thinking of Hal Blaine. Who had to be a security guard after his studio heyday was through.

And no one is offering Jamey Johnson a sponsorship, he ain’t a brand, he’s a MUSICIAN!

And he isn’t the only one in Nashville, but they all seem to be in Music City. On the coasts it’s all about electronics and rhythm and it’s far from the basics, humanity.

And the truth is we’ve figured out distribution, but we’re still foundering with marketing.

I was talking with Jeff Garlin yesterday and he told me you can’t reference pop culture in standup comedy anymore, most people don’t get the joke, they haven’t experienced the underlying event/show/song.

That’s right, we parade the hits like most people know and care, but they don’t.

Jeff said the only thing that resonates is real life, living, relationships, those are universal.

And that’s the essence of a country song.

And big time music has lost the plot, lost its essence, lost its ability to resonate. It’s background noise. So why bother to go to the gig?

And most people don’t, even though the total is healthy.

But it used to be an addiction, to go out to see an act without dancing and pyrotechnics. Tech does whiz-bang better than any stage show. But AI ain’t human, it can’t make your skin prickle and have you thrusting your arm in the air.

Maybe Jamey realizes it doesn’t pay to make a record. What for? To be ignored?

Maybe we’re in the pre-recording era. Maybe it’s just about singing and playing, trying to capture the zeitgeist, climbing that mountain each and every night, a new adventure each evening.

Most big acts go on the road to replicate the show for dozens of nights. It’s an endurance test, done for cash, all aligned with digital triggers. It ain’t about music, it’s about celebrity, about brand extension opportunities.

Whereas music used to be made by outlaws. People who had to do it because it was the only place they fit in.

Like Jamey Johnson.

Now his memory has been made.

1

I was going to write this last night, after being shocked by the passing of Kilzer. His track “Memory In The Making” goes through my brain on a regular basis. There are a handful of tracks like this, ones that not everybody knows, but are embedded in your brain and pop up now and again and are on endless repeat for a few days.

But the album was not on Spotify.

So I checked Apple and Amazon, not there either. Nor Deezer Premium, which sometimes has different stuff because of European rules.

And I could find “Memory In The Making” on YouTube, but it didn’t have the richness of the original track, so…

I decided to look for the CD. Which is quite an effort in my house. Even after selling thousands there are still thousands left, and fewer than four digits are alphabetized. But there it was, under “K,” and I cracked the case which was worse for wear with its yellowed booklet and…

Turned on the amp and the CD player.

These are things I do rarely. Shortly after buying the NAD, the digital revolution in music occurred. I got the CD player a few years earlier, but…

Neither of my computers have CD drives. I was forced to power up the big rig.

And being late at night, I decided to listen on headphones. I broke out a pair of Sennheisers and the cord was long enough but the volume…

You see I decided to plug it directly into the Sony. Yup, this is the last CD player I’ll ever need. You put a weight on top of the disc, the disc moves not the laser. But I needed to control the volume with the remote and…

The remote didn’t work.

I figured it was a battery problem.

First I had to check if I had any AAs, everything is AAAs these days. But I had a pair. And then I pried off the cover of the remote and…

I was confronted with corrosion. The batteries had leaked. Wasn’t this why you bought Duracells, so this wouldn’t happen?

And my OCD flared up. I remember those batteries I had in my BMW 2002. They’d crap out every two or three years. I’d have to clean the battery posts to get the car to start. That’s where I learned the acid could burn you, because it did.

So I wanted to clean the battery compartment without ruining it. I’m delicate, but I oftentimes overdo it, to the item’s and my detriment. And it was a hard job. Took half an hour. I lost my appetite, and my interest in writing about John Kilzer. I was confronted with the passage of time.

This album came out thirty one years ago. Chances were Sony no longer stocked the remote. I saw my entire life in the rearview mirror. When you’re a kid products are history in a few years, an oldster keeps his stuff forever.

And after inserting new batteries, the remote…DIDN’T WORK!

I was deflated, after cleaning it with a paper clip and an old toothbrush.

Maybe I was out of range, maybe it was the angle I used it at, but no…nothing seemed to matter, it wouldn’t work.

So I removed the cover and checked the inside and still saw corrosion and checked that the batteries were installed in the right direction and…NOTHING!

And then I rotated the new Duracells and…IT WORKED!

But then I gave up. It was too depressing…trying stuff and having it not work. I confront this every day. There’s no tech help, replacement is easier than repair and life is imperfect, full of challenges, but hard to accept in this world of zeros and ones.

2

I went to lunch with John Kalodner. I played him Shawn Colvin’s yet to be released “Steady On” and he was not impressed, even though he ended up helping her get Grammys when he moved on to Columbia.

And after lunch at the Palm, where Kalodner had his skinless chicken as usual, we went back to the office and…

He opened the closet.

This used to be a feature of going to the office. We were record junkies. Discs and tapes fueled our habit. You didn’t want to be greedy, but this was back when music was scarce. If you didn’t take it, you might not ever hear it.

This was also when if a label signed it, it was worth hearing, even if it wasn’t a hit. Especially at Warner Brothers and Geffen.

And speaking of Warner Brothers, I was at the ski lodge shortly thereafter having lunch with Jeff Gold and in the closet I found Rhino Bucket’s debut, a band I hadn’t even heard of, it’s the best AC/DC album since “For Those About To Rock…”

And it was there, that day with Kalodner, that I took John Kilzer’s “Memory In The Making.” I think Zutaut had signed it, but I took both the cassette and the CD. The CD for home, and the cassette for the car.

3

And sometimes when I wake up in the morning
I sense her ghost on my pillow forming
Incense of imprints that leave me breathless

When I bought that BMW, which I drove for twenty years, I was debating whether to install an aftermarket stereo, like I had in my 2002. And my shrink at the time opened his mouth, I figured he was gonna put me down, which he eventually was prone to do, and said…

“One of the things you like to do most is drive around and listen to music. For someone else it’s an extravagance, but for you it’s a necessity!”

So I drove the car directly from Santa Monica BMW to Auto Stereo Warehouse on Beverly and dropped $2600 on ADS amps and speakers all around, with the best Alpine head unit. Boy did that stereo wail.

But that was back in ’85, at this point in ’89, my ex had just moved out. This was about fifteen months before I completely ran out of money. I’d drive that car and listen to…

The John Kilzer cassette.

The above lyrics are from the opening track on side two, “Loaded Dice.”

But the lines I sang along with were…

I can’t take no more of this baby

My internal angst, and her come and go, saying maybe we could live separately and still be married.

And:

I can’t take any more disappointments
I can’t take any more disappointments, baby

Like the song said, I didn’t know what to do with these feelings. It’s taken decades for me to find a place for them.

4

And then the radio got stolen.

It was not like today. When things work for a long time. This Alpine went on the fritz and needed to be replaced. For $500 I got a removable unit. This was back when they still stole car stereos, in the 2002 I lost five, before they switched to airbags, before it became about online scams.

To tell you the truth…

I didn’t remove it every time I left the car. I learned to do this.

I was just running in for a minute, which turned into about ten, but when I came back the glass was smashed and the radio was gone.

First I had to get the glass replaced. You can’t drive a car, never mind a BMW, anywhere with an open window.

And after getting that done…

I had no money for a new radio. I drove around in silence for a couple of months until my father gave me $500 for a new unit. The only good thing was I didn’t have to pay an installation fee, I just slid the new radio into the old frame.

But what I didn’t tell you was the cassette in the radio when it was stolen was…

John Kilzer’s “Memory In The Making.”

5

Once again, this was when music was scarce. You knew the music in your car by heart. Your glove box was filled with cassettes. It wasn’t until about five years hence that CD changers in the trunk became de rigueur.

6

Today you’re not impressed if someone makes a record. But back then, to get over the transom, to get a deal, was a really big thing.

And these were not the days of the internet, when information was available at our fingertips. Rather, we got stories in the rock press and…

Kilzer was definitely making rock music. With guitars. He played basketball in Memphis, had taught school, and now he was a musician. His voice wasn’t the best, but it was more than serviceable, and the tracks sizzled, I was hooked.

But the second LP, “Busman’s Holiday,” wasn’t as good.

And then Kilzer disappeared.

We heard he had substance abuse problems.

He became a pastor, and then he started making music again. But sans the major label budget…you could hear the difference. I feel the same way about James McMurtry. Live, it doesn’t make any difference. But on wax, all that money does.

7

Now the track on MTV, however briefly, was “Red Blue Jeans,” which was too generic to make an impression, launch a career, it’s better to come from left field.

And “Memory In The Making” is not one of those unheralded albums that’s phenomenal from start to finish, although to say it’s uneven would be too negative. But there were other memorable tracks on the LP, like “If Sidewalks Talked.” This was back when your LP was a statement of your identity, you’d waited this long, you might as well record what you want to. This was long before the endless wash of music, most of it me-too, when musicians were still considered artists and some in the straight world thought them so.

But “Memory In The Making” is most memorable for its title track.

8

Throwing roses at the moon
Overdosing on perfume
That arises from your picture
An inviolate fixture

Most rockers got soft at times. Albums had ballads, which were oftentimes the best cuts, even though the hair bands overdid it in search of a hit.

“Memory In The Making” is the type of track you’d hear on AC radio if there were any justice. It’s perfect for Sirius XM’s Bridge, but they only play songs you know by heart.

This is more than I expected
It’s as though I have erected
A mausoleum for my heart babe
I’ve reserved the best part babe

Men are the romantics. They suffer in silence. Oftentimes women don’t know about the crush, see the interaction as a minor fling, but to a man it’s everything. The music filled the space in a man’s heart where the love should go, welcome to the world of rock. You mind-melded with the artist. It wasn’t about bumping asses, it wasn’t about partying so much as feeling rooted, connected, with this music you could make it through.

Guess it only stands to reason
There’s a time and a season
A place and a purpose
I guess that verse don’t include us

9

Now that he’s gone don’t expect a huge bump in sales/streams for Kilzer. First and foremost, like I said you can’t stream or buy “Memory In The Making.” He’s gone. Floating off into the ether like the rest of our memories.

We lived for this music, it was everything. And then, while we were fighting the battles of the internet, it evaporated. We can go to see our heroes of yore, but something has shifted, it’s not like it used to be, and it’s not like sports, the game has definitely changed and it doesn’t include us.

But…

We used to buy guitars, we used to go out to feel and hear the sound. Our record collections were our most treasured possessions. And within those tracks lay our history and our identity.

And if this piece is more about me than Kilzer…

Maybe that’s the way it’s always been. The tracks are stones in the river, that we sometimes go back and touch, but we move on from them but they’re frozen in time. If we get to meet the artists we get a story, but not closure, for somehow we don’t know how they reached down deep into their souls to create this stuff, and so many of them are inscrutable anyway.

But John Kilzer had a place in my heart, in my life. Whenever I saw his name I perked up, I wanted more information, because he made that album thirty years ago, that got me through a bad time, that rode shotgun in my life.

“Memory In The Making”

“Loaded Dice”