You hear on the TiVvy that times are tough. But it’s usually only when it comes home to roost, when you feel the burn, that you really get hipped to the pain of poverty.
I’ve never ever been a bread-head. Indeed, I’m actually quite proud of my anti-capitalist anti-monetarist stance in life. Ok, I may not have set the world aflame, or even achieved very much on any level. But for the most part my time has been my own. To ‘spend’ or ‘waste’ – such dumb-ass hooman ideas – as I choose.
So shiny!
But sometimes these ‘lifestyle choices’ can hurt a bit. Today is such a day. Some money went out of my account today to pay for a holiday. The first and only real holiday we’d have had – excepting only Abbie’s glorious wedding! – in about three years. Indeed, we hardly leave the house, except to work, or buy stuff.
That last observation makes me realise I haven’t escaped the rat race treadmill half as much as I’d like to! The money leaving my account to pay for the AirB&B accommodation would take (indeed, may have already taken) me over my overdraft limit. Like Louis Cole… ‘I don’t want to, check my…’
Anyway, to meet the costs of other regular commitments, I’ve been trying to get some casual cash in hand work, and I’ve signed up with Amazon Flex, to do deliveries. But so far, nada. So in the meantime I’ve been flogging stuff.
And now we get to the rub, the pain, the hurt… Today I sold a resonator guitar that I only bought, I dunno, maybe six months back? I’ve hardly even played the damn thing! And whenever I have I’ve really enjoyed it.
In mint condition.
It’s a cheap Chinese jobby. I only paid £60-70 for it (and I just sold it for £75). But I didn’t want to sell it! It was worth a lot more to me as a thing; a thing of beauty capable of the magic that is music. Indeed, checking it over prior to selling it I got ‘in the zone’ for a bit, which only makes parting with it all the harder!
My FODMAP diet is suffering from our total lack of any money. I can’t be buying expensive sourdough loaves, and non-dairy alternatives to milk (Oatly is prob’ my favourite, thus far), when the bank is bereft.
As a consequence, my diet has gotten rather patchy. I’m still avoiding wheat stuff and milk as much as poss. But I am having it with cereal at breakfast most days. Ironically it was seeking to wean myself off that routine that was where FODMAP started for me!
Anyroad, my lunch today – ‘free from’ macaroni, with two fried eggs, omelette style, grated cheese, ‘free from’ pesto, sat’n’pepper – has prompted this post. The pesto at least has a little flavour. Sure,8ts shite compared to the real McCoy. But the macaroni? What that’s free from is texture flavours, or any ability to promote joie de vivre.
It’s the food equivalent of sackcloth and ashes. Why? Surely those of us seeking alternatives to the things that upset our digestion still want food to fulfil that fundamental role, not just fueling our bodies, but bringing us pleasure!
This macaroni, as utterly bland as it is, is at least not totally revolting. Several free-from pastas I’ve tried were, frankly, inedible. Inedible food? Deliberately manufactured as a ‘healthy alternative’!!! That’s got to rank as one of modern humanity’s greatest follies!?
Just stepped outside the front door. Inside I’m sweating buckets. It’s unbearably close and hooomid! Chester is still AWOL. I’ve been out looking and calling for him. When I stepped out front just now, the weather looks and feels like it’s changing. Rain was forecast for today. But has slipped over to tomorrow. At least on my iPhone weather app.
Got the fan on full, and I’m more or less naked! My naturist side is very much in the ascendant these days. Leastways within the four walls that are our home. It’s because I’m always sooo g’damn hot! I associate this with my current meds…
It’s 4.42am whenI start typing this. Just awakened from crazy kaleidoscopic maelstrom of dreams! Votz it all abite, Ulfric!?
Some of the dream stuff is simple and clear: wanting family – parents specifically – to come to one’s aid in difficult times. But the ‘nuclear family’ as it once was went up in a toxic mushroom cloud decades ago. And the radioactive fallout is still blighting life!
Anyway, now that conscious modes have shifted, it’s a quick trip doon the wooden hill, and across the plane of Liv Ingroom, to pee, and to wonder where Chester, our cat is. Hope he’s ok?
After weeks of drought and many days of crazy heatwave, the weather app – and various intrusive newsfeeds – are warning of heavy rain, thunder, and poss’ flash floods. With the ground baked solid, rain water might just run off… crazy times!
Note the baked dry ‘grass’ (!?) path.
I wonder if, re the precipitation, would it be wise, and a potential contraceptive precaution, or solution, to take a fork to the garden?
Teresa wants us to get Chester a neck tag. And it might be wise (if that horse hasn’t already bolted?). Has he also got fleas? Found a solitary flea yesterday, in the home.
Crazy dreams earlier! Fading fast. Got the fans back on. Need them on almost constantly! It’s still soo goddamn hot, close and muggy!
This weird, weird part of the night biz’, puts me in mind to read the recently acquired Why We Sleep (or, sometimes more to the point, why we don’t sleep!). Must read!
Must start reading this!
Teresa’s back to work today. And she’s going to have to travel by bus, as she can’t afford the train indeed, despite me being stony broke, I’ve had to loan her money for travel (a normal monthly occurrence!). That means more time on pubic transport.
We really ought to nationalise so much of our infrastructure; transport, utilities. Capitalism just ain’t working! Except for the billionaires.
Teresa’s doing like I did… off for a middle of the night pee! She just got back into bed, and… Boom!!! Her alarm just went! It’s now 5.10 am. That’s a bit bloody early!!!
‘Tis Sunday. A day of rest! Or not. I was off to Screwfix early, and then back to the shed, doing lots of little bits of work. Such as filling in gaps in the cladding, as pictured above.
Either end of a ‘tie-beam’.
And I added a more or less horizontal tie-beam, to stop the middle of the shed, where, along the longer sides, two panels abut, to stop the shed bowing either outwards or inwards, and to keep it square/parallel.
The tie-beam viewed from the other end, later on in the day.
I was able to fill in most of the cladding gaps. But there are three places where I need longer pieces of cladding than any I currently have.
One of the remaining gaps.This is the longest missing piece And finally this one, at t’front.
Hopefully I can get these gaps filled soonish?
All the windows have now been washed. Including the only ‘original’ one that’s left, pictured below. I still think I’ll want to add more glass, as I want the workshop to be as well lit, naturally and electrically, as poss’.
The sole original window that remains.
And all the original doors have been re-attached, alongside the path. Including both the double ‘barn style’ doors, pictured immediately below. And the larger single one, down another pic. The latter opens and shuts just as it ought to.
These aren’t closing as they should!
As well as the doors above not quite closing aright, you can perhaps also see that I’ve had to add a temporary lower framing member. This is another of the myriad small jobs that needs properly finishing, ASAP.
I’d like to make the additional piece tie in as strongly as possible. Esp’ as it not really supported. Hmmm!? What joints shall I use? We shall see…
And below is a view from the pathway. Showing all the side doors back in situ. I’m tempted to remove the double doors altogether, as they’re not opening or closing quite as they should. And, what with the two larger doors – the new one in the front, and the other older one, closer to the camera in the above photo – they may very well be redundant anyway.
The two side passageway doors back in place.
Teresa and I are currently spending lots of our time at home our in the garden. During this heat wave we’ve mostly sought out the shadier spots. And one of these is the area under the tree that’s now behind the latest shed.
When we’re both home we’ll have our meals outside as well. It’s really rather lovely! And we’ve now got a good deal of choices, as to where exactly in the garden we might want to be. It’s such fun!
Yesterday I started opening up what was formerly just a window, with a view (geddit!?) to introducing a door instead.
The ‘before’ state.
And then today I actually got the door cut down to size and installed. It was a funny old process. I managed to size the door on the first cut. Unusual for me! And I had a load of plastic shims that were massively helpful in doing a better fit/install than most of my previous efforts with ‘Dianas’.
Viewed from inside.
I really like the warm glow in the above picture. The evening sunlight coming through the tree, the leaves dappling the honey coloured light… ‘tis lovely!
Lunching, whilst working.
Backtracking a bit, above was today’s luncheon break. French toast, sliced apple, and cream o’tomato soup. Yum! The door became a temp’ table, in the manner of Alan Partridge’s ‘Apache Solutions’ pitch to Dante’s Fireplaces (what’s the burning issue!?). Like Alan, I didn’t have a hat hard-on…
So, recapitulating the process:
A new opening is cut out.
The new opening was wider than the original window. So I had to add a new vertical structural member. And I didn’t have the exact right timber, to match the rest of the framing.
The internal view: note new right hand beam.Offering up the as yet un-trimmed door.
As you can see, in the above pic, the door was too tall. So I had to trim a few inches off the bottom. But luckily the bottom was oversized (ooh, matron!), so I could shave a bit off. And to finish, a side by side of before and after.
I’m very pleased with this change.
I’m chuffed with how this turned out. And I might also add windows at this end, poss’ even on both sides… Hmmm!?
Potential colour scheme?
And finally (again!), a potential colour scheme. On the left is ‘Wood Pigeon’, and on the right ‘Tell Me A Secret’. Both are Valspar, B&Q’s paint range. Which I really like. And I love the colour names. Silly, perhaps. But satisfying!
This song came to mind after an exchange of messages with my good lady wife, Teresa. I realise I’m incredibly lucky to be in a long-lasting, strong, loving relationship. Love really is a beautiful thing!
Ok, so last night, thinking that my daily listening to The Rainbow Goblins – sometimes multiple times – might be starting to wear thin, or lose it’s charm – I discovered (thanks to YouTube’s algorithm-bots) Takanaka’s unbelievably wonderful live 1981 Budokan performance of the entire album.
Prior to discovering Takanaka and his sublime music I would never have imagined watching a Japanese guy in a yellow plastic outfit, with rainbow hair and a rainbow axe, and a band dressed dressed in giant paper/maché goblin heads, would or could make me so happy. Who knew?
So now it’s time to knuckle down to some extra-curricular work – I’m stony broke, and a teacher in my summer hols (normally I’d be able to coast through the summer. Not this year!) – earn me some doh-re-mi, and (once the wolf is safely chased from the door!) start exploring his wider catalogue.
I know I want Seychelles (1976), his self titled ‘77 recording, and An Insatiable High (1977). Whilst I’m on the topic of the latter album, I wonder, did Jack Stratton of Vulfpeck cop his sporty look from Takanaka? Or is that just an example of what art historian Norman Rosenthal once called ‘morphological resonance’?*
Takanaka’s T-shirt and the road markings chime!Morphological resonance, homage, plagiarism?
Vulfpeck have an incredibly strong aesthetic, from their own font, to the little neo-classical and yet hyper-modern logo/jingle combo that starts their videos, to the sounds and visuals. And yet despite this, Takanaka’s sporty look – or rather the starkly sublime design brilliance of Insatiable High’s cover imagery – manages to be effortlessly and very Japanesely, ‘supelior’! Banzai!!!
* Trust an art critic to coin such a wordy phrase. Why use ‘they just so happen to look the same’, or ‘coincidence’, when you can invent your own snappy polysyllabic term!?
Yesterday I got the two back panels of the shed roughly in situ’. I kind of wanted to go further. But I didn’t have the right fixtures (coach-bolts!). So I ordered some from Screwfix.
They arrived today. So it was on with the show… This shot shows how the tree at the back of the Arden overhangs this newest shed.
Note the little brace, on the left panel. I had a few others in different places, just holding stuff roughly in plane. I did all this assembly on my own. It was quite tricky!
All the panels needed the bottom framing element – at the furthest end, above – replacing, as the shed was pretty old, and the bottom was a bit rotten in places (very rotten in some!). I did all that before assembly, except for this final panel.
I moved a few bits inside the shed, so I could work on it internally.
Got the larger of the two side doors in place. I’m not sure about retaining the doors in the long side, as that doesn’t suit our long narrow garden too well. I’ll come back to this later!
The longer and lower side of the shed, running along Sean’s – our northern neighbour’s – fence.
Note how the panel on the left has five verticals, whilst the one on the right had just four. Evidence of this being a self-build project, perhaps, by whoever made this shed originally?
This panel, originally the left of the shed, is what’s now the back, facing the far end of our long garden. I’m thinking about putting a pretty large window in. So we can see to the back of the garden, enjoy evening sunlight, and see the big old tree that’s only feet away.
This larger opening has two smaller doors that go in it. Again, I’m thinking I might change the layout a bit, in the fullness of time. These two doors are the last major components of the shed walking ‘as is’ that remain to do. Then there’s the roof and floor!
One of the new timbers is very obvious in the above image. Also worthy of note is that the window in this photo survived transit and re-assembly unbroken. Whereas the other window – below – didn’t!
Note another supporting brace, in the above picture. This was the right end, but is now the front facing aspect of the shed, that you see as you come down the garden. As can be seen in the next pic’, below.
There’s another highly visible new bit of timber along the bottom of the above panel. Plus the lowest piece of timber cladding on this face was rotten, and fell off/to bits! That’ll need replacing.
The whole shed might want shifting, about three or four inches towards the fence. I’ll defola need help doing that! But in the meantime, there’s a bit of a gap here.
The neighbours fence is falling down in places along this part. Is there sufficient gap, I wonder, to allow for minor repairs and weatherproofing painting/treatment?
The strip of garden south of the shed, ‘twixt the shed and Ruben and Anne’s garden is pretty narrow! If I can shift the whole shed towards Sean’s, we’ll gain a bit more space here. Albeit only three or four inches!
Teresa arrived home whilst I was chatting to Chris and his partner, our relatively new neighbours, at no. 66. She was really impressed that I’d ‘got it up’ all by my own! Not that you can tell that from this pic’.
Looking into the shed interior as we go down to the rear/far end of the garden.
Teresa’s approbation of my efforts is more visible here, methinks. Also visible here are the two doors yet to be affixed to the larger side openibg.
Looking back towards the house. My what a tight passage we have! If we can shift the whole shed back a few inches, it’ll help ease our passage…
This is the view, sat in our deckchairs, behind the shed, looking up at the venerable aulde tree, around 7pm this evening. What a beauty, eh!?
So, sometimes it really does pay to be a scavenging hoarder! This old door, a Freecycle acquisition going back four or five years, perhaps, is going to be ideal – with some judicious trimming – as the new front door, probably roughly where I’ve leaned it in the above picture
I’ve glistened to this album (it’s like normal listening, only better) several times a day since discovering it. And when I bought the CD, probably about a week ago now, the Amazon purchase came with a free download/stream option.
But there’s a sense of satisfaction, for me at any rate, in owning a hard copy of the music I love. For one thing there’s all the packaging, and artwork, and sometimes liner notes. Anyway, it’s off to bed(fordshire) with a decent pair of headphones to bathe in the rainbow…
Many (most/all?) of the images from Ul de Rico’s book are used on this spread!There’s something a touch psychedelic in all this.For me this is unquestionably the most beautiful artwork. Sublime!And that’s the lot… pretty amazing!
As you can see, having the physical object to enjoy, as well as the sounds – these latter being the main attraction, naturally – is quite something.
The first part of today’s post is essentially a version of my old Goodreads and Amazon UK review of Stick Control, only I can update that and expand upon it here.
And because this is my own blog, I can also give more nuanced star ratings. In this instance I give Stick Control the rare and coveted six-stars, which, on my normal 0-5 ratings system, means off the chart brilliant.
The author, looking very, er… well… um…
Anyway, for starters, here’s the augmented Amazon review:
Jazz legend Joe Morello studied with George Lawrence Stone. That alone is recommendation enough! Morello was Stone’s star pupil. And thanks to Morello’s precocious work on Stick Control, we also have Stone’s follow-up, the snappily titled Accents and Rebounds.
I’ve been dipping into this for over two decades now. Although, to my everlasting shame, I’ve not completed it yet.* I use it in my drum teaching all the time. And I tell all my students it’s THE foundation book, ie essential.
A great tool for developing better reading, and – of course – stick control. Starting with such simple building block as singles, doubles, and groupings of three or four, per hand, the numbered exercises take you though a huge variety of combinations, leading with both right and left.
Joe Morello at the practice pad.
Stone says play everything 20 times. And play with a metronome at various different speeds. This is terrific conditioning practice on a pad, and fun to transfer to the snare. Of course one can then take it to the kit, and orchestrate it there in endless ways. All of this makes this book a lifetime investment. In a way, you can never truly ‘finish’ Stick Control!
Used regularly, and with the appropriate doses of discipline, this book can impart strength, stamina, speed, control of dynamics, and much much more. Definitely one of the most essential non-gear (ie not the instrument itself!) bits of kit in the drummer’s training arsenal.
* UPDATE: Since first posting this review, I am, now (summer of ‘22) making a concerted effort – not for the first time, mind you – to complete a continuous run through of the entire book. At the time of updating this, I’m about one third through the whole volume, getting heavily into the flam section!
A much younger G L Stone (from PASIC).
Some further thoughts…
So, that’s my Goodreads and Amazon UK review take on Stone’s classic work. In the latest update to that review I allude to what I’m calling elsewhere my Stick Control Summer Challenge. That’s going pretty well. One week into my summer hols, and I’m already just over a third of the way through the book.
This seems like a good time and place to add a few further thoughts on taking a deeper dive into this aged but illustrious tome.
For starters, having gotten further into the book than formerly – I did occasionally dip into later sections, but I’d only ever systematically done the first five or six pages previously!) – I’m encountering stuff I’ve not tried before. Some of it easy, some very challenging (for me at any rate!).
But there are also more fundamental issues, such as stick motion, and the exact ways to interpret certain notation. This is where a teacher from the Stone-Morello lineage would be very handy. I intend to explore this online, as I’m sure YouTube will provide some answers.
Morello looking very cool as an ambassador for Ludwig.
I won’t get into massive detail here, as this is an area for more exact exploration later/elsewhere. But taking just one aspect of the core subject, ie ‘stick control’, I’ve been practicing the material in this book sat at a practice pad, and using strokes that range from fairly full to ghost or grace note level.
And sometimes I’m leaning more towards French or German grip, but mostly I’m using American grip, somewhere in the middle. Stick height, grip, rebound, all these aspects start to come into focus more as you dive deeper into the book.
Another thing I’m finding myself fascinated by is, again, like much of what comes from studying this work, nuanced and multifaceted, and that’s how these exercises can become like meditative grooves. If one is playing 20 reps of a two bar exercise and then up to 24 or so different sticking variations of essentially the same (or very similar) rhythms, it gets quite hypnotic!
And one starts to hear the music or the groove in even these quite potentially dry exercises. And it’s fascinating how regularly locking in to a metronome pulse for 20-30 minute chunks throughout the day starts to build better time.
And if you set the metronome volume just right, there’ll be moments where you think it’s stoped, so you stop… only to hear the metronome still going. At those moments you’re achieving nigh on perfect time, as you’re covering the metronome so exactly you’re effectively masking it!
A classic shot of Morello in action!*
* The Guardian, rather cruelly, perhaps, used this shot of Joe for his obituary!
That opens the door on an aspect of this kind of study that I’m definitely falling in love with; the routine of regular practice is, it seems, like we’re told physical exercise is, or should be, both pleasurable and perhaps even somewhat addictive.
Now to lean into the ‘nuance’ aspect a little. I’m finding that the exact position of my hands and fingers on the sticks is coming more sharply into focus: if I find the right spot – esp’ noticeable the higher/harder and louder the strokes are – I can locate a zone where I can minimise the ‘shock waves’ that sometimes reverberate along the stick.
This must be the ‘fulcrum’, I guess? And it’s slightly higher up the sticks than I usually hold them. At least on the Vic Firth 2Bs I’m currently favouring for pad work. this actually coincides with another train of thought I’ve been having about modifying (or better yet making my own) sticks. But I’ll save that for another post.
Anyway, the ‘practice what you preach’ aspect of studying Stick Control over this summer is proving to be both pleasurable and beneficial. And the associated YouTube surfing has lad me to discover yet another meister-drummer, so I’m adding some of his stuff to my practice work-outs, such as this doozy:
