Where Are We?

This is the first of three posts dealing with the question of should the Wild West stay or should it go. Should we just call it a day? Keep in mind that we have taken a two plus year break. A hiatus. These three are a kind of a sorting of why I do this, why I want to continue to pursue this. For those wanting to find the other two pieces, here are the links:

So, Again, Where the Fuck Are We? (The second of the three)

So, What’s It going To Be? Finally (The third of the three)

I feel I have asked that question previously. I am sure we all have. I feel I have used it previously for a post here. Most likely. The question becomes how similar my response below is to my prior responses. It is after all a different time and place but the interrogator is one and the same. Kind of.

I was lucky back in 2003 or so. In the early part of that year, I had somehow made an introduction to Mr. Bernie Torme, who gave me the go ahead to raise $10000 to $20,000 to bring him over to the states for a proper tour. LOL. That was my mission. Never quite happened. Sadly, that project crashed and burned pretty much. It was simply before such things as Kickstarter and crowdfunding, which was basically what I was trying to do. 

So that was not why I was lucky in 2003. Ah, maybe in a way it was, but when I say I was lucky up above I am here pointing more to my tripping over the release of Radical Record’s “New York City Rock N Roll” CD. A CD featuring some of the best rock n roll talent in the city at that moment. And for me it happened almost simultaneously with the Torme project. 

And together, the two really worked for me. I loved the mix of new and old loves. I recall trying to turn Bernie onto some of the bands and songs on that album and he finally responded, “Bob, WTF, I am not some kind of A&R dude. . . Not my thing.” Fair enough. 

I look back in hindsight though and all those bands on that album were just a gift. Banana Fish Zero, the Sex Slaves, Slunt, Joker Five Speed, Queen V, the Firegods, the Drive, etc. All good stuff. They were handed to me on a silver platter. I saw a good number of them multiple times. Some I followed for years. Others were gone before the record was released. It was so easy. One album featuring some of the best bands playing in NYC at that moment.

My fantasy of mixing up some of them with Bernie’s US tour never happened but just going and seeing them and later promoting at least a few shows up in Westchester featuring some of them was pretty-damn cool. My wife thought I was fucking nuts but let me go at it. I was approaching 40 so she just wrote it off as a classic midlife crisis. Maybe it was. It was fun. Jump to 2025. Those folk have pretty much all moved on. Few of those folks are in NY anymore. Some are. The bands are long gone. It is 2003 again. I mean before I tripped over that CD, I did not know where to look for such music. I was tuned onto Don Hills and CBGB was still going. Both were good leads, but this was even more so. 

More to come. . .