Category: Uncategorised

PART THE FIRST

How does one get rid of condensation that’s inside a double glazed window? Is it even possible? Googling the subject suggests, yes, one can remedy the situation. Although it sounds like it’ll recur.

I need to heat the window, prob’ whilst open, to remove damp air. Then close it, with – one hopes? – only warm dry air inside. I’ll give it a try. But not immediately.

Why not straight away? Because I’m proving ridiculously tardy, when it comes to photographing and listing my drum hardware for sale. I think what I’ll do, in order to make the latter a manageable job, is do it in chunks.

First off, I’ll do the Yamaha hardware. As that’s both what I have the most of. And also, possibly or probably, the most valusable. Being as it’s heavy-duty double-braced pro’ level gear.

There’s also the issue of ‘what do I want to keep?’ Once upon a yesteryear, it’d’ve bean the Yammy stuff. Not so any more! It’s too heavy. It’s good for a studio set up, that once erected is left in situ. But it’s too much hard work for carting around gigging.

Mind, I’m not actually doing either any more. But I might resume?

For now I’m going to keep the Gibraltar hardware, and the few bits of Gretsch that go with my Catalina Club Jazz kit.

I may well sell the Club Jazz kit. In which case I’ll certainly be selling the Gretsch hardware that goes wi’ it. But that’s only floor-tom legs, bass drum tom mount, and, er… well, I think that’s it?

If I recall aright, my Gibraltar stuff – hi-hat stand/pedal, kick pedal, straight cymbal, boom cymbal, and snare stand (poss’ a seat as well?) – came with the Gretsch kit?

Then there’s the Mapex stuff. This includes: a cymbal stand mounting ‘free floating’ tom arm/clamp, two sets of floor-tom legs, a double kick pedal, snare stand, and one or two cymbal stands.

If I sell the Mapex kit – and I must admit I don’t really want to, at least not yet – the issue of hardware is more confused. I might want to keep the double-kick pedals? But once again, I don’t use it. In fact I’ve almost never used it. So mayhap I should just move it along?

And then there’s various other bits and bats, such as my two Big Dog snare stands. I think I’ll keep both of those for now. One for a practice pad. The other for a practice snare. And having two is useful when teaching. Although whether I’ll ever be doing that again is questionable.

Right now it’s tea break time…

Part the Second

Having spent the afternoon photographing and listing various bits of Yamaha hardware, and a Premier triple-mount stand, plus a pair of Fastball clamps, on numerous interweb drum selling pages, we had dinner.

After dinner, I shifted my efforts to clearing and organising the drum room/office. Here’s what it looked like before tidying:

The room was literally full to overflowing! Mostly with drum kits and related gubbins. There are three kits in here at this point: Yamaha Club Jazz four piece; Mapex Meridian five piece; Ayotte Custom Maple (all wood hoops!) five piece.

Plus sundry other bits: lots of hardware, a number of cymbals, extra snares, a pair of congas, and a heap of non drum stuff. The latter includes tech bits and bobs, and other instruments, like guitars (and pedals/pedal-board), assorted percussion, and even a double bass (three-quarter size).

And here are a few post tidy-up pics:

It’s great to get a kit set up again. After quite a few months of not playing at all. Getting the set back in place felt good. I’m actually looking forward to resuming playing.

Ok, the room is massively improved. There’s a playable kit set up. And I can move about the room, where before it was a chock-full cluttered disaster zone. But there’s room for a great deal more improvement.

One thing I did, which improves the ergonomics and practicality of the room massively, is move the printer from the opposite side of the room to the computer – a stupid arrangement I persisted with for aeons (doh!), constantly causing me to trip over dangling leads – to the same side.

As can be seen in the above photo, I’m experimenting with placing crash cymbals higher than formerly (although I’m limited as to how high, by the low sloped ceiling). I used to usually have two crashes. At prez I just have the one. But I’ll prob’ set another one up, as soon as time allows.

I also want more lighting options. Which again, I’ve had in the past. And I want more art or inspirational imagery up, on the walls. To which end several previous posts here attest (find them here and here), with my gradual accumulation of music and drumming related prints.

Wow! This is wonderful. I will always love David Munrow, even if only for the music he Contributed to an old BBC Radio 4 adaptation of The Hobbit.

In the opening sequence he proves himself to be the bastard love-child of Bamber Gascoigne and Louis ‘Satchmo’ Armstrong, with his knowledge of and prowess on this ancient wind instrument.

He also demonstrates here why aesthete snobs throughout the ages, all the way back to the Ancient Greeks, felt that wind instruments were not for true gentleman. Look at what they do to one’s face! Those bullfrog puffed-out cheeks?

He wasn’t just good at playing these one or two instruments, but could play many, with an impressive level of proficiency. And he not only kept old repertoire alive, but composed as well. Writing music for all sorts of uses, including the OST for the film Zardoz!

Munrow proves to be yet another person that I love with a tragic tale to tell. This immensely talented young man hung himself, at the very young age of 33! So sad. What a waste.

Having frequently experienced depression myself, and not only entertained but even tried out what they nowadays call ‘suicidal ideation’. You’d think I’d understand. And maybe I do? Or maybe I don’t?

I fully intend to dig deeper into the man the was David Munrow, and his multifarious musical machinations.

MUNICH, 17/8/‘72

Ah, this takes me back. Not quite to ‘72. As that’s the year I was born. But to my mid- to late-teens, when I discovered The Mahavishnu Orchestra.

I’m a bit more reserved or circumspect about my enthusiasm for and admiration of these guys than I was ‘back in the day’, when the intensity of my love for them was akin to, albeit not quite on a par with, their own volcanic levels of energy and intensity.

I do still love these guys and their music. And perhaps at this early point in their career most especially so. This is basically their debut album Inner Mounting Flame, live.

Setlist 
Meeting Of The Spirits
You Know You Know
The Dance of The Maya
(Cobham solo) One Word
The Noonward Race
A Lotus on Irish Streams

Inner Mounting Flame
1) Meeting of the Spirits
2) Dawn
3) The Noonward Race
4) A Lotus on Irish Streams
5) Vital Transformation
6) The Dance of Maya
7) You Know You Know
8) Awakening 

That was the first album by them I got, as it happens. Prob’ off the back of hearing The Life Divine, a collab’ ‘twixt Santana – who I was already a huge fan of – and McLaughlin, from Love Devotion & Surrender.

Oh, those heady youthful days of emergent ecstasy! How naive was I?

LONDON, 25/8/‘72

This is the same band playing much the same repertoire. But the video and audio are slightly better quality. Hence the extra half star.

I love how the internet has made exploring music a lot easier. Watching a live Billy Cobham video, from Norway, in ‘74 (see below), I was as taken with some of the clothing as I was with the blisteringly intense post-Mahavishnu prog’ fusion.

I was also introduced to Milcho Leviev, a Bulgarian jazz pianist I’d not been aware of before. I’d heard him on recordings, but not been aware of him as an individual.

Turns out he was not only a sideman with Billy Cobham and co, touring and recording with the drummer during the seventies, but he also worked with trumpeter and composer/bandleader Don Ellis.

Trivia fans might be interested to know that track one of Don Ellis’ 1973’s Soaring album is a certain Whiplash, by saxophonist and composer Hank Levy… as used in, and indeed giving it’s name to, the 2014 ‘jazz studies horror’ film of that name.

Anyway, back to Haiku, also released in ‘73. It’s the kind of album that causes some, so called ‘jazz purists’, for example, to break out in sweaty or clammy hot n’ cold flushes, and all manner of other febrile eruptive ailments, wondering, ‘but… is it jazz?’

Who gives a good goddamn? My main criterion for music is, do I like it? Or put another way, does it move me, or in some way connect with me? And the answer with Haiku is, yes, in a mixed bag of ways.

Don Ellis is yet another character, or star, within the many galaxies of music, and jazz music within that, that I simply must explore more. I didn’t realise he was also a drummer, as well as a famed trumpeter and bandleader, composer, etc.

He’s done a lot of film soundtrack work. And is also known for composing and performing music in unusual time signatures, and what was once referred to as ‘Third Stream’ experimentalism. This last refers to bringing elements of the so called classical tradition to bear, on jazz and popular music.

As well as featuring Leviev, on keys, who I just discovered thanks to the Cobham concert footage, these two also share contributions from trombonist Glenn Ferris. And there are other notable and/or recognisable names, such as guitarist Jay Graydon, famed for his solo on Steely Dan’s Peg.

The above video captures a later Don Ellis group performing live at Montreux Jazz Festival. Holy guacamole! Seriously intense. The more I hear Don Ellis, the more I want to hear.

I definitely want to add Haiku to my music collection. Being totally broke at present that’ll have to wait. But in the meantime I can enjoy it via YouTube. Which is better than not being able to hear it at all.

FOOTNOTE

A rather sad coda to this post: I discovered Don Ellis died, of a heart attack, only a year after the above 1977 Montreux performance. He was only 44 years old! He seems so full of life in the Montreux footage. Rather ironically, for an artist who is so associated with unusual time signatures, it was his heart doing just that – irregular rhythms – that killed him!

Well, Teresa just told me she’d heard that Monty Don is retiring from his role as chief presenter of the BBC’s Gardener’s World.

He’s been stepping back gradually for quite a long time. So I guess we could all see this coming.

Teresa also told me Don is now 68. Funnily enough, as I type this she’s watching Rick Stein, who, now in his late 70s, is still going strong.

Having mentioned these two, it’s interesting, to me, with our family history of depression, to reflect that Monty Don has been very open about his struggles with the ol’ black eyed dog.

And… something I didn’t know – until today – Rick Stein’s father committed suicide, when Rick himself was 18.

Don has been very vocal in reminding us all how good gardening is, for both us as individuals, and the planet as a whole, on so many levels. Here’s a good quote from Don’s website:

The real importance of gardening is the empowerment that it gives people, however small or seemingly insignificant their gardens might be. It is surprising how liberating it is, if you can grow anything at all.

Yep, very true.

Of course Gardener’s World won’t be the same without Monty, and his garden, from which the show has been based for many years now. I for one will miss his very deliberately and conscientiously old-fashioned slightly patrician style.

Will he make the occasional return appearances? One can only live in Hope!

Whether I ultimately sell this amp, or keep it and use it, this little refurb job is good. The logo is, or rather was, very worn and battered.

Looks like this amp saw a lot of heavy action before I got it. I have the to confess I more or less haven’t used it at all. Shame on me!

I removed the plastic plate, masked it all, and then sprayed it black. I think with Rustoleum matt black? Left it a while to dry (actually encouraged that process a bit with a hair-dryer… feeling impatient!).

The ‘reveal’, aka peeling off the masking, is peculiarly satisfying.

One minor gripe is that I’ve left lines visible where I cut the masking. I could’ve either cut more accurately, or masked a different way; e.g. filled the recessed lettering with plasticene.

Oh well! You live n’ learn. And I’m happy enough with the way I’ve done it for the time being. It looks very nice n’ crisp. And it’s undoubtedly a massive improvement.

And finally, the two little Phillips head screws hold the logo plate in place, as it was before. Only now, looking so much better.

Very gratifying and highly satisfying!

After giving up on ever hearing this album, thinking it’d either got lost in transit or disappeared into a black hole in our home, Teresa recently found the CD. Still unopened, in its cardboard postal envelope.

So I’ve unwrapped it, and today, finally, played it. And, I’ll be dog-goned, it hasn’t disappointed. In looking for some info on it online, I found the following review. Normally I’d want to write my own. But this nails it:

‘A deeply pleasing sensation arises when terrific cover art not only fully delivers on the music, but also bears a distinct resemblance to it. Ryo Kawasaki’s 1976 jazz-funk album Juice is one such record.

Bright and refreshing like a piece of citrus, peel the skin back and you’ll find an electric fantasyland of traversing wires and circuits. Over the course of its seven tracks, the visually sci-fi-tinged world of Juice feels at once perfectly of its time, yet remains delightfully vital in 2022.’

Okay, so it’s 2024 now. But that’s as true now as it was in 2022. Ryo-san, and cohorts… we thank you!

The above is one of my favourite ever single frames by Hergé. It’s just perfect. It’s funny, dramatic, beautiful. I just love it!

Visual perfection. The clear line. Perfect compositional and colour balance. And a whole story and ethos, distilled into a single image. Breathtaking.

It’s funny, for me, now, thinking about Capt. Haddock’s penchant for whiskey. What part might his character have played, if any, in my own troubled relations with booze?

The funny drunkard is an ages old comedy trope. And a good and reliable one. But once one passes through the personal hell of severe alcoholism (or what passes for that in one’s own limited ways), it changes this perception.

Or is that Thomson and Thompson? There are subtle difference; moustache shape, exact form of buffoonery.

Snowy is a great foil for a Tintin. As is Haddock. And lots of other characters. Including Nestor, the unflappable manservant or valet, inherited from the unscrupulous Bird Brothers, along with Marlinspike Hall. ‘No, this is not Coutts, the Butcher’s!’ Ah, me. Simple pleasures.

We all know or occasionally meet folk like insurance salesman Jolyon Wagg. Boorishly assuming, in love with their own trite and repetitive anecdotes and jokes, and unaware when they’ve overstayed their welcome. And yet we tolerate them. Perhaps aware we may all have the potential to rub folk up the wrong way at times?

An intriguing character. Quite ambivalent in some respects. Whether running a South American country or moonlighting as a knife-throwing act, he’s manly, gruff, and not entirely of good moral character. A rogue and an adventurer. But… well, you know…

Hergé… what can one say? I can’t be bothered to even try here, right now, to be honest. I’m too exhausted. I’ll simply register my great admiration for and appreciation of his great body of work. A life well spent, no matter how tortured an artistic soul he might’ve had.

My interest in Colin Furze and his many activities, most especially his underground stuff, has lead me to the above video. So, I now know a very little about Radon. Which is more than I knew about it before. To learn more, you can read about it here.

Apparently (according to some sources) it’s the number one cause of death by lung cancer in non-smokers.

Thanks to this video I’ve also learned that there’s an online UK Radon map, where you can type in your postcode, and learn about Radon levels in your area.

It turns out that Colin Furze lives in a high radon concentration area. We, on the other hand (blue markers on maps), live in a very low concentration area. Phew!

And so it is that I learn of a new cause for concern. But also, mercifully, that it really need not concern us unduly. As we’re in a low risk area.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

I’m not posting this because I particularly rate it. I just find it interesting, as a kind of nexus for multifarious issues, from poetry and art, to race and identity, nationalism and compassion, etc.

For those who don’t get it, the misquoted title is a reference to Count Arthur Strong, a contemporary comic icon who I really love.

As my uncle Terry occasionally notes/laments, things like blogs are often quite shallow. However, I make no apologies for the degrees to which I take my interests; sometimes I dive deeper, others I don’t.

On this occasion this is really just a place for me to note the existence of the famed poem, not explore its many tendrils of potential meanings or interpretations.