Category: Music

Buzz is in da house (well, actually Paul’s ’cause that’s where the amp is).

With singing heart, I tell you that after a year long search, I have acquired an electric 12 string. He’s a solid body, glossy black, strung Rickenbacker style, and the action is so light I can play for an hour – bar chords even! – and his name is Buzz.  (The six string is Kehaar (cause it’s a Seagull, bonus points if you get the reference) and the mandolin is Edith).  Buzz sounds AWESOME and I’m very lucky that Craigslist Dude was downsizing his immense guitar collection.  Everything on board is super clean and all the bells and whistles work.

There are enough effects on board that I shouldn’t have to buy any additional gadgets for quite a while.  I followed Jim E’s advice about buying, and played for a while with the practice amp on, and once I had some volume, I got ze shivers.  I didn’t completely get into tune until I got it back to Paul’s so we could practice, and once it was completely tuned up, that was it, it’s love love love all the way down.

I left it at Paul’s ’cause he’s off today so he can mess around with it and I didn’t even let him touch it last night.  Mother’s Day SOUNDS VERY VERY DIFFERENT on an electric 12 string.  OMG.  I suspect I will be writing more tunes.

My transition to folk rocker is occurring!

Last night I dreamed I was at outdoor SF convention and the organizers had strung EVERY KNOWN SPACESHIP MODEL, some two meters long, above the audience at the bandshell.  I woke myself up going, Holy Ship!  where’s my cell phone camera!  and of course I was dreaming.

The TV show House came roaring back from it’s script battiness last night, and I’m very glad to see that.

Anyway, time for a shower and I’m off to work.  Oh, and I got a raise.  Yeah, this week’s turning out okay.

Lulu becomes something else

Lulu is a traditional African American tune.  lulu

So now I’m gonna do what white folks do best and STEAL IT.  To write about a different minority (your mileage may vary) member.

I’ll sing of Chang Apana / who inspired Charlie Chan

He once took out his old bullwhip/and arrested 40 men x 2

He had a wife in China / in Honolulu too

But he supported both of them / as the honest thing to do x 2

(alternate verse –

Young wife in Honolulu / China wife was old

But he supported both of them / cause that was how he rolled x 2)

He never learned to read or write / but he was a mighty gent

And the only thing that could take him down / was an auto accident x 2

Houseboy and a cowboy / and a policeman too

I’m telling you there wasn’t much / Apana couldn’t do x 2

His loyalty a legend / and when he came to die

A woman that he once had served / was sitting by his side x 2

Hard and fierce and upright / he feared not work or pain

You know that we will never, ever/see his like again x 2

Brief new tune

Oh my love for you
is like dried up glue
once it kept us close and sticky
now it’s lumpy and it’s icky
and it don’t do what it’s sposeta do.

Darlin’ understand
my love’s a perished rubber band
Once it held our shit together
now it’s crumbled with the weather
And divorce will cost me twenty grand.

Oh and I’m working on yet more tunes. Brain full now.

Spag with organic beef ‘n tomato sauce for dinner.

Last night was SO wonderful.  Daughter Katie joined us for all the singing and playing and she was so enthusiastic I tossed her the lap snare I got back from Candace’s over New Years and she tapped and brushed along – so there’s me, Paul, Brian C and Katie formed up in a diamond facing each other and playing and singing our little hearts out. I also hauled out the cajon (box drum, which you can sit on), which sounds GREAT in circle.  AWESOMESAUCE.  With beer.  Mmmmmmm beer.  And the wind —– cried —– MARY.  And tonight, it is FRIDAY NIGHT when we catch up on shows and c’lapse.  I was going to go to a poetry reading but it was cancelled.

Just got off the phone with Paul, he’s booking a truck to help Katie move.  Huzzah! 

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I am in a lot better shape than I was two months ago.

Weather SUCKS!  I’m skidding in the wet grass when I get out of my car, but since the snow tires went on Ziva is like a rocket sled on rails.  Brian admired her… he said that was his fave year of that model, and like almost everybody he says the spoiler actually made it look nicer.

He has a Les Paul and a whole bunch of TOYS to go with it which make it sound amazing.  Fuzz, Wahwah, etc.  And that tube amp.  Suck up that drool girl.

Happiness washes over me like a cleansing rain….

practice

For the next little while my poor left hand is going to feel like hamburger as I go back and forth between the guitar and mandolin. And practice. We practiced Jack Frost and Hope Eyrie and Queen Isabella and I debuted something I ought not to have as it isn’t finished. Paul looked at me in astonishment and said “That’s yours?” … Hey, I’ve been trying to write an atheist hymn for ages … That didn’t stop the folks as they were playing along right away and +++OOO did it sound good. mOm you would have loved it.

Brian C – whom I have not seen in yonks – is coming over tonight and we will play + sing some more.

As always Peggy’s bass is astonishing in that room, and the bowed bass even more so. It makes me happy. I dunno why my November burst of creativity decided to come in January this year, but I am not going to complain – I am having a hell of a run.

Bloody hell, not another song!?

Blow you winter winds
blow where you please
hang your icy bunting
on the barren trees
decorate the windows
with capricious lace
send your clouds scudding
across the moon’s pale face

Dandelions dreaming
underneath their banks of snow
Soon they will be blooming
and soon enough the seeds will blow

Blow you winter winds
gales and chills
howl around the hollows
echo through the hills
Bringing snow and fog
bringing ice and rain
A moment of the sun
then all is dark again.

Dandelions dreaming
underneath their banks of snow
Soon they will be blooming
and soon enough the seeds will blow

Blow you winter winds
blow where you will
Now my heart feels
oh so small and still
Soon we’ll close the door
on your bleak refrain
For we will rejoice
and we will sing again

Dandelions dreaming
underneath their banks of snow
Soon they will be blooming
and soon enough the seeds will blow

Blow you winter winds
mark my skin
Soon I will be warm
with my loves and kin
Two foot and four foot
All will be within
There’s a roaring fire
at the Dandelion Inn

Dandelions dreaming
underneath their banks of snow
Soon they will be blooming
and soon enough the seeds will blow

Sunday roundup

I was feeling like I missed Leo and Linda so I made Finn pancakes last night.  Paul stopped by on the way to work and devoured some.  I think he’s missing the kids, I am definitely missing them, and Katie posting that she was sad on Facebook diddint help.

We also sang and played a bit last night.  He sure makes my Seagull sound purty; I’m working on a new tune and it was a treat to work it up in guitar first and then hand the guitar to Paul so I could noodle on the mandolin; there was some tasty stuff in there.

Jeff and I watched the last episode of The Wire; for each part of the ecosystem of the drug trade and city infrastructure, folks die or retire and others take their place; that was the point at which I realized that The Wire is really about corruption.   A corrupt system only needs a bit of corruption from everyone and a whole bunch of corruption from the big players to work; now there’s research indicating that maybe that is how it’s supposed to work. Humanity will always have corruption with it, but how does one cope?  Carlyle said make of yourself an honest man and then there’s one less rascal to deal with, more or less.

Eclipse on Tuesday/Wednesday.

Of the many, many things I am grateful for, having a mother who never made me a sweater like this is one.

It snowed last night, but not enough to matter; I checked a webcam rather than going to a window, does that make me a bad person?

So glad I’m not travelling for Christmas.