Volume 21, 2024 Summer Issue
Buenos Dias, buckaroos and buckarettes!
I'm Bob - welcome to the bunker! You may know me from the band Big Medicine Head or daytime television. This seasonal missive from the land of tumbleweeds and the lonesome six string guitar features news from the frontier, music and prose. Each issue will have a downloadable track and lyrics, along with the backstory of the song. We'll also feature live Songs From The Bunker. Call me crazy, but I'm giving all this away for free.
Tell all your pals to sign up for Tales of the Western Hemisphere at bobgemmell.com. If you'd like to revisit past issues you can find them at https://bobgemmell.com/newsletter-archive. If you're fans of ragged prose, check me out on Medium.
SONG of the MONTH
Sit back and relax as we explore the Bob Gemmell and Big Medicine Head song catalog. The download instructions are at the bottom of this newsletter.
Slowtown
A long time ago Big Medicine Head was playing a gig in San Luis Obispo. It was a crazy paisley psychedelic hoedown. After the gig we roamed the streets in what had become essentially a giant street party. When I got home we wrote a song about it.
Now, all these years later, I've reimagined the song, and rerecorded it. I always felt that the lyrics were strong, but there was more that I could've done with the melody. I hope you dig it. Check out the video here or click on the image above…or, listen to the audio here. Or check it out on Spotify.
Slowtown
Lost in Florida, Part Two
(This is the story of my expedition to Florida to find the lost guitarist of Big Medicine Head, JD Devros. If you'd prefer to be fully oriented before you dive into this installment, check out Part One here.)
Sirens
If Ulysees had never heard the Sirens - if his ship had sailed wide of the rocky shore and their beguiling wail was inaudible to him - would his life have been less memorable? Would anyone have bothered to capture his story for the ages? Will light shine at the end of life's journey if we've sailed wide of any element of danger?
JD Devros had wrestled a few horned animals in his life. He grew up in Belleville, Illinois, but he hauled out of there on the back of a Chevrolet flat bed after leadership at the local American Legion discovered his role in what amounted to the Crime of the Century in Belleville. A note on that:
Each year the local Boy Scout Troop has a pancake breakfast fundraiser which is followed by a Box Car Derby Race, with racers built by little kids and their parents. It is a colorful event in the fall, when the leaves turn and the enthusiasm and spark of summer eases into the melancholic embrace of autumn.
JD discovered that there was a taste in the seedier corners of Belleville for betting on just about anything; he was handling action for anyone who wanted in on the derby races. On the night before the race he locked in his profit forecast by slipping into the equipment shed at the local high school where the race vehicles were kept and greasing the brakes on certain cars. The effect of this the next day at the race was that kids were flying off the track at the first turn, with the exception of those cars that were not tampered with by JD. Our mischievous friend stood to make a tidy bundle but he never got to collect. An inspection of the derby cars and the grease smeared on his overalls led to his undoing.
When his transgression was discovered the stain on the community was too much for his family to bear. At the behest of those who loved him, he beat it out of Belleville, but his mom stayed in touch with him and forwarded his mail.
Drums
Drums played and a conga line was dancing in JD's cranium when he came to in the Alachua county jail. The stabbing pain when he opened his eyes made him aware that flourescent light is the cruelest of man's inventions. The sickening sweet smell of a fresh coat of institutional green latex on the cinderblock walls completed the assault on his senses. He closed his eyes.
The next time JD awoke he was not alone. He opened his eyes enough to filter light through a squint, and made an attempt to order the thoughts in his head. Where was he? How did he get there? What happened last night?
When he could open his eyes enough to absorb his surroundings he was staring at a pair of shoes. They were patent leather faux alligator and connected to fat ankles. He followed the ankles up to a pair of white linen pants, which complimented a white linen suit. These garments were inhabited by a corpulent gentlemen whose nose breathing was audible over the electric buzz of the flourescent tubes overhead.
“Son, I've seen road kill that didn't look as bad as how you must feel. Do you mind if I finish my breakfast sandwich while we chat? Want some coffee?"
Mr. Leroy Beauchamps was an attorney in Gainesville. He was not a blue chip listing in the Gainesville social register. Invitations to prestigious local charity events somehow never found their way to his mailbox. The vagaries of the legal profession were especially acute for lawyers that worked out of strip mall offices, and the client list was not particularly robust for legal professionals that spent their afternoons at the bar at the Ocala race track. He was working off the community service portion of a DUI infraction by doing pro bono service for indigent prisoners in county lockup, and this morning JD appeared on the clipboard in the Gainesville jail assignment board.
“Not a lot of notes on you, young man. Johnny Law found you passed out next to a car in the parking lot of Munegin's on 13th. Funny thing: Munegin's claims to be 'the #1 dive bar in Gainseville'. Isn't that like bragging about being the tallest midget in the circus?"
JD rubbed his head and tried to focus. “First of all, they don't like being called ‘midgets’. That's an offensive term. You can call them ‘little people’ or ‘elevation challenged’. I think 'altitudinally diverse' is acceptible. Secondly, who are you?”
“I stand corrected. My name is Leroy Beauchamps. The fine people of Gainseville and our beneficent justice system have selected me to represent you. I believe from your appearance an assumption has been made that you do not have the level of affluence to that would allow you to hire your own attorney.”
“And why do I need an attorney?”
“Well, passing out in a parking lot isn't specifically legal, but not an unusual occurrence at Munegin's, and a bit of a low-rent crime for the police to concern themselves with. However, in your case, there were circumstances that would not mitigate to your benefit. When the police officer tried to lift you off the pavement you came to. You must've thought he was the person who whacked you on the head with the tire iron that was lying next you. The report said that ”the suspect's arms began flailing wildly and made contact with the officer's head. Suspect was subdued and incarcerated".
So now JD could add the pain of humiliation to the throbbing ache that was pulsing at the base of his skull. He remembered a few details. The Jersey muscle guys he had met at the racetrack had set him up with an envelope full of cash for the exchange of contraband and a grip of cheddar for his expenses. He was to meet a guy in a green wind breaker and a Florida Marlins baseball cap. The illicit cargo was an ice chest filled with bottles of salted caramel horchata that was not actually salted caramel horchata. It was Louisville champion horse semen and JD's job was to get it down to Sand Key, a barrier island a couple of miles off Key West. He recalled that as the cops stood him up to drag him to the patrol car he caught a glance of the empty trunk of his car. No envelope of cash, no ice chest, no salted caramel horchata.
Next issue: New Jersey wrath and a lap dance with fate
Road Kings and Hobos
If you've been on this train for awhile then you're probably aware that this seasonal missive skews toward a certain aesthetic. How do we define such things? The passle of words that I might use are beer soaked paisley cadillac road dust railroad boots.
Me and a bunch of my Facebook pals got together and created a list of of the essential songs to come out of the west coast cowpunk movement. I turned this into a Spotify playlist called Road Kings and Hobos. I've used another passle of words to describe the playlist:
There is sound that can only be described as a Dodge coming over the horizon on a desert highway. Or the sound of Hank Williams and Joe Strummer clinking glasses in a roadhouse bar. Truthfully, we don't know what makes that sound, but if you listen it is between the notes on this playlist.
If you're hip to what I'm laying down you are going to want in on this. Give Road Kings and Hobo Kings a spin, or better yet, make a recommendation for what should be added to it by messaging me at bob@bobgemmell.com.
While you're on Spotify check out the Bob Gemmell and Big Medicine Head playlist. It is the entire catalog of everything I've written and recorded since me and Jailhouse Johnny were released from the penitentiary! New music has just been added!
Each month we spin up a new song from the foxhole we find ourselves in.
SONG from the BUNKER
Reset The Dial
Michael Clark was the King of Reno. He wrote lot of great songs. He was the leader of The Boston Wranglers, a cowpunk outfit that dominated the bar scene on the inebriated side of the Sierra Nevada mountain range.
Michael and I played together in a band called Magnetic North for a time in Santa Cruz, with John Thigpen and Jaco Lascot. We made some noise and wrote together.
Michael is gone now. He passed while Big Medicine Head was putting together our first album, Rex Hotel. In fact, I wrote the last song on that album for Michael - penned in the parking lot of the recording studio. The song is Chronic Young. It's about all the nights we spent closing down a specific bar in Santa Cruz, bashing on guitars, sitting on the pool table. Here are the words:
Time pushes a broom
down the hall from room to room
Two guys abusing guitars in an empty town in an empty bar
beer-soaked truth on battered guitars
singing about things that don't matter
like everything mattered
like anyone cared at all
I can see clearly now, can you?
A longer road beneath a brighter sun
for the chronic young
Time rolls down the road
on puncture proof tires with limitless load
No one corrupted your taste
big time in a town with no soul and no taste
sober truth on drunken guitars
in the radio penny arcade
dropped your coin in a slot
but you could not get played
I can see clearly now, can you?
along the road beneath a brighter sun
for the chronic young
Time opens its arms
shines on the faithul, protects them from harm
Fingers were dancing on strings
like sparks from a fire
like kids on a swing
when I get to the other side I'll call…
I can see clearly now, can you?
A longer road beneath a brighter sun
for the chronic young
The last thing I said to Michael when he was in the hospital was “What can I do for you?” He responded, “Keep playing the songs.”
So I will. Forever. I think Reset the Dial was one of his best.
Listen here, or click the photo of Me and Rex, below.
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Me and Rex 
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