Hmmmm… who needs a synth when you can grab a 76 key almost grand piano along the lines of the good old Yamaha YPG 235 at Musicians Friend. Damn. I mean, I love my solid (and inexpensive) 88 key Williams allegro (even though, as an Amherst graduate, I should have personal issues with any instrument that has Williams in its name) but a digital GRAND piano for less than $250… hmmmmmmmm.
As I ramp up my middle-age mega indie rock recording project, I can’t help but wonder if my digital piano really was the right call over some sort of crazy ass synthesizer like the Korg R3 at Musicians Friend. I mean, I am generally an old school guy with old school needs, so I wanted a digital piano that would sound more or less like a real piano. When I got it, I was going for inexpensive piano sounds, not thousands of bucks worth of synthetic top-40 bullshit sounds. I’m not a fan of autotune and massively synthetic sounds – at least in the sense of reproducing otherwise acoustic sounds (like that of a piano or a human voice). But every once in a while I get a She Blinded Me With Science vibe and wonder about a good ol’ super synth.
Sometimes I spill a bunch of nonsense. I know it. It doesn’t mean I don’t care. It’s just how I have to roll some days. But really, tell the truth, don’t you get a kick out of it? At least sometimes, right? Here, check this out: Raleigh creditor rights bankruptcy lawyers.
You’re like “what the… is he on drugs?” then you think, hmmm… after following his Dylan advice you suspect I may be a little unbalanced. You recall that my brother lives in NC and it comes up here once in a while. You know I sometimes have issues with legal entities and creditors. Hmmm. Maybe I should just hit you with a little Bob, in case you haven’t yet followed my advice.
Rosemary started drinking hard and seeing her reflection in the knife
She was tired of the attention tired of playing the role of Big Jim’s wife
She had done a lot of bad things even once tried suicide
Was looking to do just one good deed before she died
She was gazing to the future riding on the Jack of Hearts.
Listen.
I don’t know what you’re into these days, but you should go find a copy of Blood on the Tracks by Bob Dylan. Or just do a Web search for Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts. It is not one of his best songs. I mean, musically. But it is a great story. It is just a great, fun, crazy ass story. If you go through life without spending 9 minutes in a dim room doing nothing other than listening to this song, you are less of a person for it. Seriously. This is bucket list shit. If you can’t spend 99 cent son this, or borrow the record from someone, you’re a dick. I have it on cassette, vinyl and CD. I will totally let you borrow it.
Is it the greatest song in the world? Hell no. the band fucks up at the beginning. Listen. They play an extra couple of bars because Bob misses his intro. It’s fucking GREAT. It’s what music once was. Great stories performed by a bunch of musicians and captured as a moment in time. Not this plastic shit we have come to expect. This level of raw awesome was the Indie Rock of its day. Don’t be a dickwad. Find ten minutes and close yourself up in a room and pretend you’re in a smoky dorm room with a couple of cool kid upperclassmen.
Hey, be super extra awesome and listen with headphones. If you’ve got a decent pair of headphones and the CD (earbuds and iTunes generally fail on this part) you can actually hear a recording studio anomaly in the first section. You can hear where they were recording over tape that was previously spliced. Because the splice removes a very short segment of recordable media from the process, there’s a fraction of a second of nothing. The aural effect is kind of similar to what a cassette tape sounded like when the tape flipped over. Over 30, you might have heard that in your walkman a couple times. Listen for it. You will be a better person for having spent the time. Your children will love you more. If you’re a guy, your dick will be a little bigger. Ladies, your breasts will be exactly the same size because, let’s face it, they are totally perfect just the way they are. But your bra will be a little more comfortable. Trust me. This shit is golden.
I mean it.
Listen.
I’ve had a number of young people asking me about guitars lately. I guess it’s somehow related to my oldest getting to an age where some of his friends are starting to play. Now they need solid instruments to really get going on. And since it is an age when parents skip right over the standards and go right for the bling, most of these kids have never played a real acoustic. Most of them have half-plastic Walmart specials that have a machine made paint job that looks like Anjelina Jolie’s tramp stamp.
Sure, it may impress a room full of 12 year olds with its looks, but it sounds like an ass. (As in donkey… that’s not a flatulence line – though on the other hand…)
I could easily say new Epiphone DR-100 acoustic guitar at Musicians Friend and hope they actually apply some reasonable practice hours. But I’m old school and believe in the value of working for it. Or working toward it. And actually playing it and feeling it.
The reality of your first “Real” guitar is that it can color your future instrument choices for years to come. Better make a good one. This is a time to beg, borrow, and… well, borrow a lot. Hit the music shops and play their new and used instruments. Find the right fit. You’ll carry it with you for years to come. Maybe even forever, if you’re like me.
Of the 15 or so guitars I have owned in my life, I have sold only 2.
I have this tendency to surround myself with open items. I speak now, of course, outside of work (the good ol’ day job). I have a couple of books I need to do a last edit on. I have hundreds of songs I want to focus on and record. I have at least 5 comic book minis/graphic novels to find artists for. And then there are the hybrid works… don’t even ask. And at one point I was going to pull out a couple of additional card games to complement Mad Science the Card Game.
Oh Kickstarter, where do I begin? The home studio is in great shape. Can I do a record or two. Or ten. I don’t even need a new preamp or great akg at musicians friend to make the rock rock. I’m all set, baby. I just need the time.
Wasn’t it supposed to be on my side?
I was talking to this young guy in the office the other day and we were talking about computers. He’s a Mac guy, which is something I used to be, and something I’d love to be again. But the business world and short-sighted CTOs conspired against me 12 years ago and I’ve yet to go back. As much as I love the elgance and simplicity of the Mac, the cost at this point is beyond prohibitive.
Not for one machine. But the reality is that I would need to outfit my entire family with new machines. I couldn’t bear to have a screaming new Mac while my wife and kids struggled forward with Windows 7 and 8 disasters. The guilt would be too much.
This guy at work didn’t get it. I was explaining that my oldest is going into middle school and he is practically required to have a laptop in the relative near future. Oh yes, the times truly are a-changing.
Sure, they sell textbooks at becksbooks.com, but think about the college kids who will forego the used market to ebay their old laptops. Egads. Is this what those tech heads in 1999 were talking about when they called it a “new economy?”
One of the reasons I am having difficulty finding something to blow my musical instrument birthday gift certificate on is that I recently made a big purchase. I bought a really nice Taylor guitar with some pre-birthday windfall cash and… well it’s just a dream. I mean, it wasn’t a $40 purchase, but it also wasn’t anywhere near enough to have me looking for a free bankruptcy consultation. It’s nice, though. So, so, nice.
The recent four-oh descended upon me, and in there with the booty was a $40 gift certificate to an online music store I have frequented in the past. Musical instruments? For only $40 you ask? Well… not really. Maybe a decent harmonica or a starter ukulele. But knocking 40 bones off the price of, well, anything, is a start, right?
I could always go the accessories route, but I really wanted to put a dent in something more… I don’t know, real I guess. Something that will show up on a track on a record so I can point to it and say, “Hey! That’s the <insert instrument name here> I bought with the gift certificate you gave me.”
Hmmmmm.
Summer is coming and we’ve got the all new 5 by 9 foot screen and projector ready. Killer movies at my house people! I can’t wait to rock it out in the front yard. Let’s all go to the lobby indeed. We’ll be grilling up a storm and rockin’ it old school with cartoons and serials and the whole nine yards. Maybe we’ll even have an intermission dance party with a strobe light from musicians friend and pounding hits from the 70s playing all night long.
We keep it real in Northern Dutchess.