There are two sides to every story, except when there are three.

Most musicians likely picture Andy Doerschuk wearing a green visor at a desk lit by a glowing banker’s lamp, tirelessly crunching copy during his 30-year career as former editor of DRUM!, TRAPS, How to Play Drums, Drums & Drumming, and Bass Player magazines. Many might not realize that throughout the years, once the sun set and the evening crept into the wee hours, his alter ego continued to play drums with such artists as Steppenwolf, Chet Atkins, Rick Derringer, The Pop, Leslie West, and Billy Vera & the Beaters, to name a few.

While those parallel passions kept him busy for decades, Doerschuk also continued a lifelong pursuit of songwriting. The only hitch was that he could rarely make use of that particular talent. Having always played a supportive role as a drummer backing countless songwriters, he long ago accepted that he’d never contribute to an original project beyond hammering fills and beats. Song by song, his original repertoire expanded in the background with no real outlet for it.

Until today. Now retired from journalism and living in Nashville, Doerschuk adopted the pseudonym Waldo Picasso and began recording his backlog of songs in 2021. The result is his debut album, Fly in the Ointment, Pts. 1 & 2, on which he covers vocals, keyboards, programmed bass, and drums on songs written between 1975 and the present day.

More of a personal diary than a typical album release, Fly in the Ointment Pts. 1 & 2 brings to life ten compositions, written throughout a lifetime, which previously existed only in the imagination of a mythical dude named Waldo.