Hokay, so maybe I do, but I've been so long without a girl that I wouldn't know what do do with one if I woke up to find one nekkid under my duvet.
So guitars and drums it is …
Besides, they make a much better noise than girls.
Good folk of Blogville, kindly permit me a brief interlude from all those photos of beautiful buildings and instead come and join Phil and Dive down at Woody's rehearsal rooms for a good, therapeutic thrash about.
"What the fuck do I do with all this stuff?"Because I am retired from gigging, my careful set-up routine has long gone from my woolly old mind.
Hence the look of stupefaction on my face whenever I open my box of leads.
While I'm figuring that out, let's help Phil set his kit up, shall we?First up … The good old bass drum.
Easy, that one.
These stands are a bit of a pig to set up correctly though, so we'll leave Phil to get on with it himself and stand around drinking coffee.
That's the tom-toms done. Now where are those pesky cymbals?
Ah! That's better.Phil has a acquired a new snare drum and a new china cymbal since we were last down here.
More boys' toys for the boys to play with.
It sounds awesome, but then it's a Pearl Reference kit and it cost about as much as the US budget deficit so if it didn't sound totally fucking brilliant he'd be doing something very wrong indeed.
Plus, Phil's a bloody good drummer, which helps.A lot.
Here are his new snare and china cymbal.
And again from a slightly different angle.Musicians (and drummers) can never have enough photos of their instruments.
Which is why I can't resist taking photos of my guitars.Especially this little beauty.
Behind my beautiful PRS sits my yummy, hand-built Mesa 25th. Anniversary special; the most totally fucking glorious amp the planet has ever seen.Oh, and my Converse hi-tops, which Phil wanted to try with his kit as he's after a more sensitive drumming shoe than his current pair of squash shoes.
Hot valves! Yay! Now we're cooking!Round the back of the Mesa when things get warmed up.
This amp responds like a living thing. It has so much sensitivity and expressiveness it takes my breath away.
Being a Godless Heathen I know I don't have an immortal soul but I am certain that this amplifier does.
Yet more drum porn. You'll notice I was a good boy this week and carefully cropped out Phil's bald spot.
Mine - on the other hand - is there for all to see.
I make the dumbest faces when I play.Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel would look frighteningly intellectual stood next to me on stage.
I think I must be squeezing out a fart on this one.So … That's what flabby old folk do to relax.
Maybe I'll get back to proper posting tomorrow but I did enjoy that.
31 comments:
Looks like you bth had fun, that drum kit seems to have grown a lot since I last looked.....
See you later this morning....
Yup; it's gruesome.
Now it's grew some more.
Oh, well. You know how I love old jokes.
Am I the only person salivating for some audio?
Glad you enjoyed this Dive. That's what hols are for! Doing what you want.
The face: well... someone once told me that it's pretty accurate that a musician pulls his 'sex face' whilst playing. What say you Sir? ;)
Lucio: I've posted so much music people got sick of it.
One day I'll buy a proper video camera and start recording these sessions but this year I have other priorities.
Lynn: I can't remember sex, let alone whether I pulled any faces.
All I know is that when I'm playing my brain forgets about my face and it sags like an elderly labrador with all its bones removed.
ditto what lucio said! sound, sugar, we need sound! xoxoxo
Maybe one day, Savannah, if I stumble across a nice digital video camera laying in the street, unattended; one that can handle high sound levels.
Until then I'm staying quiet.
xoxoxo
Yes, Dive. As I said. A sex face. lol!
That was fun, Dive!
And, I think all guitarists make weird faces when they play. (I prefer not to think about faces my blogpals may make while having sex. I trust they'll return the favor.)
Lynn: Eww!
Hee hee.
Hi, T. be very glad we don't know what you look like!
he he I've done it now haven't I. Each time you play with your bands, you musicians you, you'll remember my words as their facial features twist and turn excrutiatingly and earnestly through note by note, increasing tempo and rushing to the ultimate crescendo. Ba ha ha! Yes I'm an ex girlfriend of a musician, can't you tell? Ba ha ha. Happy sex face watching, All. Oh how cruel I am.
Ah...been down this road many times with Bing. She has two drum sets, one is a pearl and the other is a ludwig, I think.
When I showed her the photo of your guitar, she said, "That is sweet and it cost a pretty penny. You pay for that kind of sweetness."
So, yeah...that is one sweet looking gee-tar, Dive.
I still want to paint that guitar, but probably wouldn't do it any justice. (esp. from a photo) Those cymbals intrigued the hell out of me. I've never seen anything quite like them, but, I'm not much of a musician.
Your guitar sex faces are quite fun! Does she have a name?
Even though guitar and drum talk is all a mystery to me (Pearl Reference kits, hand-built Mesa amps, leads, China cymbals?), you all do seem to be having a totally fucking brilliant time, at least for flabby old folk. And it cracks me up to think of a debate about which shoes would allow for the most sensitivity - Converse or squash shoes. I agree with Maria - sweet looking guitar. Can you play Free Bird?
What did you guys play? Any songs we would know?
Dive: They got what of it? I post music all the time, so they must absolutely fucking hate me!
Katie: See what a deleterious effect your use of the f-word has had on my vocabulary?
I'm going off to play with some nuns. (No, in that way! Sheesh! ... On second thoughts ...)
Lucio now I feel bad for having had a delewhateverthehellyousaid effect on your vocabulary by resorting to common sailor slang. I meant to put quotes around "fucking brilliant time" as that's how Dive described the fun they were having. I'd never say anything like that. Much.
Lynn: Luckily I will never gig again and I've seen all my musician friends naked so many hundreds of times that it's beyond nauseating.
We do have sex together but not how you might think. Our sex is the interplay between the musicians, which - especially when improvising - can get more intense than you could possibly imagine and we lose ourselves and become one with the music and what we are spontaneously creating together.
It doesn't happen every time but when it does it is special in a way that people who've not been there could never know.
Maria: It cost a lot more than Bing realises. It is a hand built one-off to my specifications. Theres a post about it way back at the start of my "Guitar" posts that goes into all the pornographic detail.
And yes, it is indeed sweet.
Neetzy: does WHO have a name?
Painting guitars is tricky unless you're going for the photorealist option. I much prefer to see semi abstract guitars like Picasso's.
Katie: Drummers are a weird bunch. They communicate in grunts and sniff one another's bottoms when they meet. And yes, they talk about shoes.
And never EVER mention Freebird to a musician! There's an exchange about that particular excresence way back in the archives but you really don't want to go there.
Cali: It was mostly improvised jazz and bop stuff. A lot of Larry Carlton and Robben Ford things, too. No "songs" as we were just there to jam and groove along and enjoy ourselves.
Lucio: Yup. They clamoured to hear me playing and then after a few weeks it became the least commented thing on the blog so I dropped it and no-one noticed.
Katie is such a potty-mouth, isn't she? Hee hee.
Enjoy your nunnery (or whatever else you call playing with nuns).
Ha! Katie I am so ashamed that Dive's appalling influence has rubbed off on you.
I am not angry, merely disappointed (I love saying that).
Go wash your mouth out with soap, young lady! You're not too old to be put across my knee, you know!
Er …
Gosh Dive that's just a little smutty, that image in my mind. I too am disappointed LOL but it's not the first similar description I've seen and heard from musicians. Ew.
Katie said fuck! Then Lucio said fuck! Oh my goodness, shock horror, now I'm saying fuck! Oh no, I don't do that. You all are spoiling my innocent and ladylike mind. I trace it all back to you Dive, who peppers his sentences with the word f... like he got it for Christmas. Swoon.
Incorrigible. I'm reading Pride & Prejudice again and this just will not do, Sir! I may have to pick up my skirts and leave the room, indignant.
Who needs girls? Both of you. One girl with a bass, that is.
Kate said she'd wrap me up in a cardboard box and send me over.
I'll go back to Lucio's "Am I the only person salivating for some audio?" - that's twho of us, Lucio!
Come on Dive, if we were sick of your music we would have moved to another part of Blogville long ago!
en français:
la musique !
la musique !
la musique !
la musique !
(excuse my French LOL)
Oh by the way, you inspired me to get playing and post about it today. Thanks!
Lynn: I was enjoying Andy Hamilton's Radio 4 show "Old Harry's Game" over the hols (I have them on CD). It's the one where he plays Satan and is basically a sitcom set in Hell.
Anyhoo: Jane Austen pops up in the show from time to time. She drinks, swears like a trooper, starts fights and has a broad Brummie accent.
Just so you know.
Vic: Make sure she puts holes in the box! Old Knudsen sent me a Japanese schoolgirl once and she suffocated in transit.
Nathalie: There's shedloads of it in the archives. I might start recording this stuff late this year but not for a while yet.
Vic: So glad you're getting your groove back!
How fun! Guitar player faces have nothing on horn player faces. Smash a mouthpiece in your face and see what happens.
I've always found that red "mouthpiece ring" horn players get is kinda sexy, Robyn.
Hee hee.
Dive, that guitar is beautiful. What is the wood - tiger maple? Im glad you own it and Im sure you will never part with it. I only wish I had been sitting in a corner of that room with an ale in my hand, just listening and watching. Im sure you guys had a splendid time.
Thanks, Mark; it sure is a doozy of a guitar.
More pictures and a description of the woods it was made from are here:
http://smallglassplanet.blogspot.com
/2006/12/for-utsav.html
You are welcome to come over and sit in any time. The beer's on me.
You look like an aging rock star, dive. Gracefully might I add. :)
I'd prefer disgracefully, Rich.
Hee hee.
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