Icons, Assemble!
(Old Farts At Play)
I’m a guy who seems to have a lot of eggs on his plate, so I must like it that way. Right now I’m in the early stages of seven Tom Dyer-related recording projects. In theory all of them are going to happen. But of course, the future is unwritten.
I am currently enmeshed in a spanky new project with the always mighty Icons. Before I tell you about that, first a little (fascinating) backstory .
The Icons 2026: Steve - Rick - Karl - Tom, Photo by Howie
The Icons were formed in 1983 by me and my pal Steve Trettevik, who is my radio sidekick nowadays on Freeform NW (KAOS 89.3 Olympia, Weds 4-6pm). We’d done a little recording (much of which appears on the 2020 Covid-remastered Tom Dyer - Truth or Consequences release with its 21 bonus tracks). Fuck that studio shit we decided - we wanted to have a real band and conquer the world. Now it’s forty-some years later and we have yet to conquer the world but apparently we are about to give it another try. It’s time for our third album. Our first album was released in 1985 or ‘86 I’m not sure. We recorded it. The band broke up and I just stuck it out on a cassette after the fact. Zzzz. There was also some cassette I released from a live recording at the Hall of Fame.
In 2003 we had a short film The Icons: Proof That They Rocked made about us for the Seattle Fly Film Festival by Jen Peel, based on her internet word search for “Icon”. It amusingly has a much younger John Richards (KEXP King) making up stuff about us.
Our second album was made after I restarted Green Monkey Records in 2009 and said let’s do another Icons record. The biggest change between those first two albums was changing our original drummer, Tim Nelson. Towards the end of our Mach 1 run with Uncle Tim (a mensch), we threw him out of the band because, as much as we loved him, he was an undependable lout. James Gascoigne of The Queen Annes agreed to fill in. When we arrived at Mach 2 in 2009 ready to record our second album, Tim was dead and James was the man.
Fast forward to 2026. Ain’t none of us getting any younger and James just ain’t physically up to rocking out with us. His heart and his soul are in the right place but the body is not responding appropriately.
Now we have our third drummer. Actually third and a half if you want to count George Short, who was a fill-in guy for a short while in the 80’s. Our new drummer is Karl Wilhelm, formerly of the Green Pajamas. Once it became clear James was not going to be able to pull this off, I said, “Who do I know that just wants to rock and is lots of fun to hang with and would be a True Icon in every damn sense of the word?” Joe Ross of the Green Pajamas suggested I give Karl a call. Duh! Well, Karl was the guy, of course.
The first two Icons records were done in the traditional rock band way. Somebody writes up some new songs, everybody gets in a room and practices them up, then you go record them somewhere. Our first record was recorded on 4 and 8 track in my basement back when. For our 2009 record, we recorded basic tracks at Conrad Uno’s historic Egg Studio, had a great time, brought the glorious pile back to my new Pro Tools studio setup and finished the album. Probably 16-track, maybe 8. Our special guest musicians included Amy Denio and Madeleine Sosin of Correo Aereo, Jeff Kelly of the Green Pajamas, Glenn Slater of The Walkabouts, my daughter Dr. Kat and her pal Allison. We then played one show and called it a day.
For number Three, we are not doing any of that rehearsing stuff. We are taking a more simple and direct approach. Dudes write some songs. They make a crummy demo, enough that you can tell what key it’s in, what the kind of basic groove is, and where the choruses and bridges are, etc. Then the Professor Harold Hill method is applied. What’s that? Well Professor Harold Hill is from The Music Man (the greatest American musical of all time. Number 1.) In the musical, Professor Hill has the musicians, the kids that are going to be in the town marching band, think about the music while they’re waiting for their shiny new instruments (and uniforms) to arrive. Just imagine it! When the instruments arrive they will be able to play. And of course, it works “perfectly”.
Now we go a step further than that. We actually practice (on our own) a little bit with the demo tapes - “Oh yeah I get it,” but not too much. On the big day, we pretty much show up, set up our gear, hit record, then run through the songs a couple-three times, and bang - that’s it. Really all I’m looking for in the basic sessions is to get a satisfactorily rockin’ drum track. If we get a good bass track too, that’s just a bonus. All the vocals, guitars, all that junk, they’re all going to be overdubbed after the fact. That is the way it’s done baby!
So far we’ve had one tracking session. We got five very usable drum tracks out of it and we are in the process of overdubbing groovy parts to forge them into masterpieces. Our next basic session for drums is next Wednesday. In theory there’s another eight or nine songs we’re going to record. We’ll see how that all works out. We are old farts at play.
In case you were wondering where that last line came from, here is a slice of lyric by my teenage hero Captain Beefheart (Don Van Vleit) from Trout Mask Replica.
The Old Fart At Play (1969) (excerpt)
Momma was flatten’n lard
With her red enamel rollin’ pin
When the fishhead broke the window
Rubber eye erect ‘n precisely detailed
Airholes from which breath should come
Is now closely fit
With the chatter of the old fart inside
…
His excited eyes from within the dark interior glazed;
watered in appreciation of his thoughtful preparation.