Hello friends!
This month we present the most obscure of the obscure: Tom Dyer – The Good Life!
In 2024 I was given a writing project as a Christmas gift from my daughter Kate, writing about my life every week. It ended up as a two-volume book set, 923 pages. Ridiculous! I may take that and turn it into an actual autobiography, edited down to a reasonable length. We shall see. But of course, I thought my book needed a soundtrack. Of course! At first I thought I would make it a “best of” from my twenty-two albums. Then I said nope. All unreleased recordings, going back to when I was six.
These are notes for the CD accompanying the book. Originally my plan was to cobble together a two-CD sampler from my twenty-two releases. I started creating a big ol’ document with liner notes copied from the various albums. Then, I started thinking about it and went a whole ‘nother way. Instead of a Tom’s Greatest (un)Hits (title courtesy Richard Peterson), I decided to go with 100% unreleased material, music that I recorded going back to when I was five. These are mostly songs with a distinct purpose, they were written for people’s birthdays, anniversaries, for class projects or work events. They were not intended for release, most of them had a different job. I am the sole player on these songs unless otherwise noted.They are presented in roughly chronological order.
1. Susan, Tom & Bruce Dyer – Iowa 1958 (feat. “He’s The Lone Ranger”)
Recorded at a radio Station in Des Moines, Iowa (where I was born) on December 12, 1958. We were there to make a record to send to our Kroll grandparents in Olympia. This is my first known composition and my first known recording. A classic! The highlight of the disc is little brother Bruce O.’s refusal to cooperate with sister Susan on naming his best friend. According to the script, it was supposed to be Jesus. Bruce said “Keeko, a kangaroo” and would not budge. Recorded to an acetate, which I captured and digitized many years ago.
2. King’s Choraliers- “You’ll Always Be Happy” (Peterson)
The lead-off track from “Presenting The King’s Choral-Aires in Sacred Song” with a 3rd or 4th grade Bruce Dyer vocal solo. This was a kid’s Jesus choir that my Mom took me and Bruce to. We rehearsed at the director Mrs. Yates’ house in Tumwater and then would go perform at area churches. I vaguely remember singing at a Pentecostal church where they would speak in tongues and that sort of thing. No snake handlers! We both recall Mrs. Yates as being a meany, but we were probably just brats. Released on Century Custom Records, Delores M. Yates- Director, recorded by Ted Hannan. From Pete Blecha’s Northwest Music Archives: “The Century Custom Recording Service was a franchise operation that allowed audio engineers all across America to run a business producing recordings in their local areas. The firm primarily focused on location recordings of school bands, choirs, and orchestras — plus community groups, etc. with an eye toward using the recorded product as a fundraiser. In addition there were also some private parties — singers and bands — that chose to utilize this service. The parent company then provided disc-pressing, and cover design and/or printing services for each audio engineer’s clients.” Probably 1965/6.
3. Tom & Susan – Silver Turns To Gold
The true story of my grandparents. One of my very early compositions as well as one of my early 4-track recordings. Sister Susan & I played this for my grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary, in their living room at their Mud Bay house. They liked it! Susan’s on the recording, too. I considered re-recording this, but decided to keep the spirit of the day, despite any performance warts. That became my general approach to this whole release.
4. Happy Birthday, Heather
I wrote this sweet song for my niece Heather when she turned eight and the only offspring amongst me and my siblings. I have been her Uncle Geek since she was little and still am. She wears size thirteen shoes.
5. Drift Away
Written a million years ago. I may have played this at Susan’s wedding to Dan Willott – I have some vague association of that in the back of my mind. My Eno “Another Green World” song.
6. Tom & Kate – Have Yourself A Merry Christmas
Daughter Kate and I recorded this on Christmas Day up on the third floor of our Cranston, Rhode Island house our first year there and sent it to our West Coast relatives that day. It has never made it to any of my Christmas albums – perhaps a little imperfect, but the sweet spirit is there!
7. Institutional Effectiveness
When I was the Dean of Academic Affairs at Massachusetts Communication College (later the New England Institute of Art) in Boston, we started an Institutional Effectiveness committee to help us be a better college. We had a big ol’ staff and faculty meeting to explain the whole concept. I made this silly song plus a possibly sillier video, where I would reverse people’s head shots so their head flipped back and forth to the beat, to introduce a serious topic to the campus. It worked – we improved. I don’t remember who did the backing vocals, someone from the college. Around 2003.
8. Tom, Kate & Ben – The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership
This song was written for my doctoral program at Johnson and Wales University in Providence. It is essentially a book report with a beat. I don’t believe I wrote a single word for this, they all came from Kouzes and Posner’s book of the same name. I contacted Jim Kouses and got his permission – he was pretty amused. I then recorded the tune up in my third floor Cranston office with Kate on drums and son Ben on bass. It was fun. We also performed it live for my class at JWU as the warm up for a spoken/PowerPoint presentation of some sort – the typical boring grad school presentation. Got an “A” of course.
9. Tom, Kate & Ben – It’s Policy
Also written for a JWU class. Don’t exactly recall the assignment any more, but it was some “do a paper about a topic” sort of thing, so I did this. Still had to do the paper, so it was just extra work, of course. The file name for this is “It’s Policy – one mic”, which leads me to believe it was recorded with one mic – sure sounds like it! Kate and Ben rock it of course!
10. She’s 18
I wrote this on Kate’s 18th birthday. She had informed us a couple weeks earlier she would move out that day. She still had half a year of high school to go. While I was fully supportive of her decision, I was sad.
11. Chet and Margaret Come Out To Play. This was written for my wife Vicki’s parents’ fiftieth anniversary. I believe the tale is basically factually correct, but you should check that with Vicki. I played everything.
14. Students
An Argosy U. Seattle classic. I was President when I wrote this for some special Student Appreciation Week thing and then thought it was too dopey to use. So I didn’t. I just printed the lyrics and stuck them in a display case. Done. Several years later, I rescued the tune for the first True Olympian album, “12 New Recordings” and turned it into “Hegemony”, a song about Gromsci’s theory of how the elites rule the masses. I added the “Hegemony Chant” and “Gromsci Rocks” onto the ends to make a complete song. Amusingly, before the solo on the Olympians’ album, I yell “Dr. Walker” because that is what I did on the “Students” recording and I just liked it. When I wrote “Students”, my intention was to have one of my Argosy faculty, Dr. David Walker, do a ripping guitar solo. I played the solo on the Olympian’s version but kept the “Dr. Walker” yell just cuz it rocked! This version is the one I recorded back in Argosy days, but with (at long last) that ripping guitar solo by Dr. Walker, recorded in February 2025.
13. Hegemony Chant/Gromsci Rocks
Written for Diana Gromala’s Communications class at the University of Washington around 1996 and used to open a news/talk show style video that I made for her class called “Hegemony Today”. I interviewed the “man on the street” about hegemony and got a pile of “huh”? The term hegemony has a much broader popular culture base in 2025 than it did in 1996 – it casually gets tossed around on NPR. We also did a hilarious interview with one of my prof’s, the late Dr. Tony Chan, on the topic of hegemony. Did I mention hilarious? This recording predates the “Students” recording, but fits better here musically with its peppy tempo.
14. TD & Some Olympians – Lisa Is 70
Whipped this one up a couple days before her birthday for Lisa Ceazan, singer in the True Olympians. To make it more fun, I wrote and recorded all the music myself, all except the singing on the verses. I told Olympians Gene, Jeff and Joe they each had to come up with their own words and melody in one day, then come over and sing them for the recording. They did! None of them heard what the others did before they created their parts, which is why all the verses sound radically different. Pure genius!
16. Bird Is Thirty
Written for an admissions rep at Argosy Seattle who used to be pals with all the Pearl Jam dudes. Her boss, the great Christina Shade, used to call her Shirley Bird. She was now ancient and I whipped this out for her. She is even older now!
17. Gail Hanson
My pal Gail Hanson was the long-time admin for the Art Institute of Seattle education team and a core member of the AIS/Edgewater Inn drinking team. I wrote and recorded this song for her fortieth birthday, at least a couple hours before her party.
18. Climb Every Mountain (Sound Of Music/Fugees – The Score)
When I was in Boston, President Rick Jerue had an off-campus strategic meeting for the Executive Committee where we were all supposed to bring a song for an ice-breaker activity, something that would bare the essence of our souls. Rick the Prez brought a Dylan song. Nina the accountant brought the Darth Vader theme from Star Wars. After careful deliberation, I made this mash-up. Don’t remember which Fugees track I grabbed the beat from. I thought it was inspirational, groovy and weird. All the other EC members thought it was just weird.
19. The Christmas Wrapper (Run DMC)
I recorded this for the first Green Monkey Records Christmas comp. Many of the songs on the first two GMR Xmas albums were loaners from Etiquette and Popllama Records – I could stream them for just that Christmas and then had to take them down from the GMR web site. I later combined all the remaining holiday tracks which I had rights to into a single album, “It’s A Green Monkey Christmas”. https://greenmonkeychristmas.bandcamp.com/album/its-a-green-monkey-christmas That is what you can find on the internet today. Kate always hated this song, so I left it off the combo version. I don’t know why. What could be better than an old white guy rappin’ Xmas over Run DMC’s “Kings of Rock”? Nuthin’!
20. Seventy-Five
Written for Ma’s 75th of course. I thought it would be fun to come up with something that was as morose as possible, while still celebrating Mom’s special day. Somewhat preposterous.
Last month I said we would be releasing the late Evan Schoenfeld’s debut album now, but I have decided to wait until next month,ok?
Also upcoming, I have tracked all the songs for “History of NW Rock Vol. 2: 1970 to 1980” and am finishing overdubs and mixing. My current plan is to have it out by July. Like “Volume 1: 1959 -1968” https://tomdyer.bandcamp.com/album/history-of-northwest-rock-vol-1-1959-1968, these are my interpretations of my favorite songs of the period.
The songs?
The Accident – “True Detective”; The Colorplates/Adults – “The Thinker”; Ballin’ Jack – “Found a Child”; Jim Basnight – “Live In The Sun”; The Beakers – “4 Steps Toward A Cultural Revolution/I’m Crawling”; Chinas Comidas – “For The Rich”; The Enemy – “Bang Bang You’re Dead”; Heart – “Crazy On You”, The Heats – “Have an Idea”; Jimi Hendrix – “Peace in Mississippi”; The Macs – “Walking Down The Street”, Red Dress – “Pterodactyl Teenagers”; S’nots – “So Long To The Sixties”; Student Nurse – “Lies”; Telepaths – “Frozen Darlings”.
We released a couple of these songs almost two years ago, it took me a while to get back to the project. I was quite happy with the simple video for “Frozen Darlings”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=colHzo9UVN0&list=PLtM-hI2W6ontQf0zcIBickcA97nluiEV-&index=3
My idea for the History of NW Rock series was always that it would shed some light on music created through 1986, after which SubPop’s Sounds of Grunge became a well documented phenomenon. At the moment, I plan to get to Volume 3 right after completing Volume 2.
In other news, I hear tell Grrrrizzly has got a new single or two heading your way and Band of Certainty were just at Crackle and Pop Studios in Ballard tracking their second release. It is rumored we will be re-issuing the first two Hinges releases this summer. Ray Mobley has played me some tracks from his new album so it is moving toward actualization. John Carey informs me the long delayed third album from The OF is taking shape. My radio sidekick Steve Trettevik is working on his second solo album. And of course Richard Peterson is hard at work on his “Richard Peterson Plays The Beatles” album.
You are now informed.
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