Third Gear Scratch

As Executive Director of the Midwest Music Foundation, Rhonda Lyne sees it as her duty to see through the vision of her friend and musician Abigail Henderson, a talented singer/songwriter with her band The Gaslights in the mid 00's. Abigail was diagnosed with cancer in 2008 and a benefit called Apocalypse Meow gave her and her husband Chris Mecke a platform on which to create the MMF. Abigail passed in 2013 and Rhonda as taken it upon herself to see the vision through and has not only done that but has created a team and board of professionals to create a network to help local KC area musicians with health care costs, advanced artists careers through performance opportunites and expanding the social safety network for midwest musicians. She does this in addition to a full-time job and pursues this agenda like a musician would find the time to write and create; she finds the time to help the creators.

When Stephan Hawkes was but a teenager, he and his band at the time called Tibanna, made their first recording with Paul Malinowski of Shiner in the midwest, far away from his hometown of Portland OR. That band ran its course as bands do, but Stephan caught the bug for recording and fell in love with every part of the process. Not only is he a gifted guitarist and drummer as exhibited in his longtime band called Shelter Red, which released their 5th full-length album in 2021, Beast of the Field, he turned out to be a prodigious recording engineer, working with many many bands and establishing his name as the go-to guy in PDX. In the past few years he's migrated not only into mastering music for many artists (think Air Supply!) but has also migrated into the City of the Angels, bringing him that much closer to artists who need his talents and enthusiasm.

Singer/actor Taylor Dupuis has had the same dream as many of us dreamers of living a busy and successful artistic life and she's definitely been living that nocturnal event out to a T. Her band Roanoke which she started with her then boyfriend Joe Beesley has just released their new EP called Wolf Motel (Kill Rock Stars) and it is a shining example of the professionalism and attention to detail typical of her career thus far. The indie film Lost Heart is one of the standouts of her acting career as she continues to fine tune her chops while also recalibrating exactly what it means to have success in a chosen career. It's a long road and she's the one driving the bus for as long as needed.

After more than 15 years of drumming for Quicksand, Seaweed, Burn and before--and after that, Beyond, with a fair amount of storm and stress in the Quicksand years in particular, Alan Cage wanted to prove to himself that he could master something else in his life, completely unrelated to anything musical, and he did. For 10 years he had a successful career as a labor organizer and besides a couple of one-off gigs for other bands, had almost zero connection to his former life. Quicksand had put aside the blood and guts to release their first studio record in almsot 20 years with Interiors (Epitaph) in 2017. It's success convinced them to make another in 2021 Distant Populations (Epitaph) and are still aglow from their long tour last year with Clutch and Helmet. This second act includes the welcome addition of a family and a career giving drum lessons in NY when he's not killing with Quicksand.

Big A is back from an end of year hiatus and takes Episode 145 of TGS to reflect on the year that was 2022 and some positive thoughts on the year ahead, 2023. Last year was tough for many people for many different reasons but we're all hoping for a fresh start moving forward, beginning with the release of AE's first and only solo record called 'Everything' due out on Spartan Records on Jan 6th 2023 with a big release show at the Empty Bottle in Chicago the same day. There are always many irons in the fire for our hero and this year is no different. With the release of 'Everything' new possibilities are opened, while the joy and beauty of creating continues to pay big dividends in the emotional, intellectual and sometimes financial well-being for those who are creators and take the leap of faith to live this unique hustle.

Growing up in upstate New York, young Kendall Wind took piano lessons before migrating to bass guitar and leaning into The Rock Academy founded by School of Rock's Paul Greene. Her piano knowledge would later inform her bass and guitar playing in the band she put together at Rock Academy with singer Sam Quartin called The Bobby Lees, now on it's 3rd LP Bellevue out now on Mike Patton's Ipecac Records. She's working with Jon Spencer regularly now who also produced the bands 2nd record before working with Vance Powell on Bellevue. It's been a whiplash ride for Kendall and The Bobby Lees, touring heavily since their inception. Unsurprisingly they were a bit relieved when the pandemic offered them time to make new music and refuel the machine.

Austin TX has evolved for better and worse over the past 50 years and Texas blues guitar rock legend Van Wilks has been witness to and in the middle of all of it. In fact the city named November 6th Honorary Van Wilks Day in 1997. Van gets much love from guitar wizards like Eric Johnson and Billy Gibbons, and songwriting masters like Christopher Cross, each of whom were featured on Van's last record 21st Century Blues. Billy and Van have been old school road dogs for many moons and he's written several songs for ZZ Top over the years. But he's also been a long time teacher of his brand of guitar magic for young and old. Great rap with a legend.

Right after Jarboe had migrated from the Deep South to New York in the early 80's, she saw Michael Gira and Swans perform and knew that was her destiny. Swans impact today is felt in bands like FACS, Godflesh, Neurosis, Isis and Napalm Death with Jarboe and Michael as the figure heads of Swans. Jarboe's career is 33 albums deep between solo work/collabs/Swans, and now is reissuing one of her most enduring and celebrated solo albums Sacrificial Cake (The Circle Group) from 1985 and is also heading out on tour to Europe for her first shows since the pandemic shutdown. She's an electrifying and eclectic singer, a practiced and studied performer and a passionate human with a long story that is still going strong.

Many musicians, waiting for their new record to be pressed, have mused to themselves about starting a vinyl manufacturing business, but John Lombardo actually put a real plan together with 3 other friends to create Smashed Plastic here in Chicago. John pieced together this coalition from his life and times within the music business as a record store guy, a tour manager, and with his own bands in the Cleveland music scene and it has seen unbelievable success despite the slow downs in manufacturing since the pandemic because of supply chain issues among others. Smashed Plastic set out to create a new standard of ordering online transparency between artist and manufacturer instead of the long-standing model of little communication and no sense of progress through the process. Illuminating rap with a hard working change-maker.

When Ben Jorgenson began to write a new record for his band Armor For Sleep, their first new music in over 10 years, his mind began to conjure a dystopian world, a post apocalyptic Earth with a museum that held pieces of the old world to remind us all of the past. It also happened that he was working through and dealing with a difficult divorce, and those troubles inevitably found their way into the narrative as he dovetailed them into a piece of music he called The Rain Museum. It's a dark and beautiful peice of work that is easily their most accomplished. Now AFS is gearing up for another tour and their fans have grown with them and refuse to let go as they pack in to every venue and sing every dark and beautiful word.