These Days

Pictured Above - "The Trim" circa summer of 1978
From left to right back row: M.T. Vanus - Guitar,Keys, Bk vox; Terence "Terpy" Douglas - Guitar and Lead vox / front row: Dave Rigel Five - Drums; Quill "The Nipper" Knip - Lead Guitar, Keys and bk vox; The Viscount - Bass guitar.

It was 1977. Classic rock was about to shot between the eyes in the USA by the second British Invasion, but we didn’t know and didn’t care. We loved Steely Dan and thought it would be cool to have a song in 7/4.

A friend of ours who was in his first year of Medical School decided to marry his college sweetheart. Our friend (let’s call him “Dr. S. Papers,”) was a bit of a lady’s man, and had some issues with fidelity. His college sweetheart, (let’s call her “Sophia”) had a couple of misunderstandings with reality. Her father, who owned his own construction business and (it was rumored) had some “friends” who sat in the back of the restaurant, if you know what I mean. I know, because she was my ex-girlfriend and her parents didn’t want a wannabe rock-star for a son-in-law who (by their standards) came from the other side of the tracks. They wanted at least a Doctor. That’s ok, because I didn’t even want to be a son-in-law. The romance died of natural causes mainly because we really didn’t like each other all that much and I had no Romeo and Juliet illusions.

Anyway.

Dr. Papers and Sophia got married, and the two songwriters in my band made a prediction with this song. Fortunately for the Doc, the predictions were not entirely accurate. He is still alive and well, practicing medicine. Sophia is apparently living off of a very generous divorce settlement.

This was done in a nice studio on an 8 Track machine. We recorded bass, drums and rhythm guitar first and then over-dubbed the rest of the tracks. I had one cassette copy that was damaged, but prior to that I had copied it tape to tape on a compilation. I used that copy to create the MP3, so there is some loss of fidelity and hiss. Still, the song comes through, and it remains one of my favorite tracks that I have been associated with during my long non-career in music.

"These Days"
By M.T. Vanus and Terence Douglas Copyright 1978