Swamptooth Live Again

It Hurts Me Too
Big Tin Truck
The Dark End of the Street
Billy (with John on lead acoustic & backing vocal, and Jose on percussion, pictured here without me)

Quandary

With the launch of a second aircraft project, it may be time to spin off the MNI Aircraft Works into a separate blog, and return Swamptooth to its original raison d'etre, music.  Hmm.

Phase 2 of MNI Heavy Aircraft Industries

http://www.sonexaircraft.com/aircraft/waiex.html.

To my complete surprise and delight, Bill informed me today that he ordered the tail kit for my birthday!

Other major events today:

1) Kent, who was the first person on scene when the Bearhawk arrived, and who has been great fun to hang out with over the past year, took a large part of his day to walk us through the puzzling array of tools we received. I'm not sure that I've seen anyone in a field possess such an in-depth knowledge of almost every item in a tool kit.

2) The Great BatmobileTM vs Airplane Of Our Choosing Race was formalized after a contentious battle over terms. The opposing party, dressed in a red jacket of questionable pedigree (possibly stolen from a waiter or the recently deceased Michael Jackson) is now in a heated wager with the keepers of this blog. Stay tuned for details.

3) Discussion of the formation of MNI Party Barge, LLC, a Nevada Corporation, was entered into. This would complete our domination of air, land and sea. Not to mention sound. The discussion was tabled for a later date.

With or Without You

Don ponders his favorite U2 song.

Semi-Gloss

Picked up two gallons for the top coat. It was late, and I knew Don was not coming tomorrow, so I then played the guitar instead of opening up the primer can at this hour. Oh, did I mention the Squier and Pignose have been in here for a couple of weeks?

Sang an electric version of "Jim Jones" (great natural reverb and got the creepy feeling that I was being listened to from behind the metal wall). Time to go sleep.

The vehicles in here are not what I always imagined.

Generacions

Back in action, this time with a belt sander.


Now this isn't your father's belt sander. 'Cause it actually belongs to MY father. Unlike my grandfather's finish sander, which actually belongs to me. That's because my grandmother (on my mother's side) gave it to me last year -- my grandfather (also on my mother's side) having passed on years ago.


Before SHORTING OUT last night after a few days of operation, Grandpa's finish sander hadn't been used since (at earliest) the first half of '95.  Probably more like '85.


Enter the belt sander that belongs to my father (on my father's side), which is technically on loan, but in a "I'll never want this again" kind of way.  Just a few days ago, the belt sander had been spurned, in favor of the finish sander. Yes, It seems this simple paint-prep job is shaping up to be an epic generational contest.  At the moment, the advantage is clearly with the fully functional and reasonably safe baby boomer tool.  Okay, that's what I must use to make some progress tonight.  But after only a few square feet, it is obvious that the belt sander is way too ham fisted for use on paint.  Of course, Don knew that already.


So should I try to repair the metal behemoth that NEARLY FELLED ME last night?  Or buy a new tool just to finish the last hour's worth of work?  My father-in-law (on my wife's side) just arrived in town, and told a harrowing tale of an old acquaintance who was fatally electrocuted by a metal-chassis power drill.  After that, my father-in-law gathered up all his all-metal power tools and dumped them in an all-metal trash can. 


Hmm.


But now I am SURE that I hear the sound of a band rehearsing in a distant hangar, and I must investigate.

Swamp Update

Actually spending time in the swamp, playing the guitar.

Upper Deck Construction, 4 January 2009

Later that evening, the construction crew pictured recorded a jazz-rock version of the D.H. Lawrence poem "The Snake."

The Great Gig in the Sky

Today we're in (supposedly) the worst financial crisis since the twenties. Funny how that sort of once-in-a-lifetime superlative seems to crop up pretty often. Sort of like lunar eclipses and close approaches of Mars.

None of it bothers me as much as the passing of Richard Wright, dead today from cancer at age 65. If you don't like Pink Floyd, you're excused now; I don't really want to talk to you anyway. I swear to God, five minutes before I found out (ten minutes ago), I was hearing a Pink Floyd song in my head as I drove up to my house. The song was "Welcome to the Machine." Why that song at this time? Probably because it was my oldest son's first day of preschool.

You've been in the pipeline filling in time
Provided with toys, and scouting for boys

My guess is that Richard Wright will begin to get more recognition. I can't say that he was some groundbreaking genius or pioneer synthesizer musician, although maybe he was. He wasn't the main songwriter in Pink Floyd, though he did write a bunch of good stuff. What places him in the pantheon for me, though, and occasions a deep sigh and a dark mood with his passing, is his piano playing throughout The Dark Side of the Moon. If it's possible to reach across the anonymous void and attain certain knowledge that you are not alone in the universe, the expressiveness of Richard Wright's playing in the song "Us and Them" gets it done. Like the individual notes are reaching right into your brain and triggering synapses that tap directly into your soul, almost as an extension of the instrument. That quality is exceedingly rare in any music.

Sad, too, how he was treated callously by his bandmates from The Wall on.

I was pleasantly surprised when Pink Floyd put the old rancor behind them to reunite for Live 8, and genuinely moved by their performance in a way that could not be explained by the pretty-darn-good musical standard maintained.

Why does it happen that fantastic bands so often fall into fratricidal behavior that leaves bitterness lingering for decades? The Beatles, The Eagles, especially Creedence Clearwater Revival? How could you give up something so good - the ability to tap into that rare elixir - and make that same leap into meaningless solo careers?

To find out, I started my own band. The elixir wasn't as good, but we did the same thing as those others. Various band members who were best friends and (more or less) grew up together now won't speak to each other. I can't say I'm any wiser for it, but at least now I've seen it up close (apart from the "fantastic" aspect).

I think it's like getting a divorce, although I've never done that. I've seen a few up close, though. Not that close.

Too Much, Too Fast

Today I had that conversation with my older son, now that he’s pushing four. I had to explain to him all about … Jimi Hendrix.

We’ve been going on regular sunset outings to playgrounds, harbors, hilltops and such. Today his sister couldn’t come because she had missed her nap. My son requested that we take “some songs in the car, from the cabinet” (meaning CD’s, not the iPod or the radio).

After I assented, he got the ponderous CD cabinet door open and grabbed about a dozen jewel cases for me to carry to the car. I said “Are you sure you have enough?” He thought for ~1 millisecond, and grabbed several more. I said “You really want to listen to these?” and to make my point, “which one do you want to hear?”

Giggling ecstatically, he answered “I want to listen to the full moon one!”

Huh? Bad moon rising? Oh, Tom Petty. I get it. “You want to listen to ‘Full Moon Fever?’ He nodded vaguely and we got in the car. Rather dated, and still a little stale, but love is a long road. Anyway by the time we jumped in the car he had changed his mind and wanted to listen to whatever happened to be in the double jewel case. Okay, works for me: The Siegel-Schwall Band. Huh? That’s for another post.

“You want to listen to ‘My Starter Won’t Start’?”

“Yeah!” he giggled with glee.

My starter won’t start this morning

My gasoline won’t perc-u-late

“No! You don’t sing that!” Okay, fine, I won’t sing. He listened intently to his song, and the next one (‘Jim Jam’), and then pointed to the cover and said in his high register begging voice “I want to hear this one!” I re-examined the cover photo, showing the band looking moody, approximately mid-’66 first-trip greasy but not yet hippy.

“Okay, let’s put on that song.” I selected an instrumental that I happened to be in the mood for, called ‘Break Song.’ He studied the CD cover and listened intently, no doubt linking song and image in foundational association. When we got to ‘Down in the Bottom,’ I again attempted to sing along, and was once again shut down.

We went to Hesse Park. Very nice place, quiet, up high, with plenty of open space, and a playground overlooking Santa Monica Bay. On the way home, I grabbed the next CD in the stack. Jimi Hendrix: the Ultimate Experience. It’s a high-quality collection which, back when I bought it, affirmed my original opinion that I like his early stuff better. Anyway, with my son, I thought it might be hard sell, so I handed him the jewel case just in time for the opening chords of ‘All Along the Watchtower,’ which (though a later recording) is possibly the best Hendrix track after ‘Hey Joe.’

I pointed to the hard-to-see cover photo and said “That’s Jimi Hendrix. He plays the guitar.”

My son didn’t miss a beat; he jumped straight to the hard questions. “Did he die?”

A little back story here: he already knows about Stevie Ray Vaughn, and how he died in a helicopter crash on his way to a concert where Uncle David was going to see him play. But that’s another adventure in bad parenting.

“Well, yes, he did die. But this is his music.”

“Why did he die?”

Silence. “It was an accident.” Unease. “But that was a long time ago, before I was born.”

“Why was it an accident?” Go ahead and answer that, those of you at home. I must have mumbled something.

We were at a traffic light. To change the topic I opened the jewel case. “See, that’s him when he was a little boy.”

“He has his guitar. Does he play his guitar and drums?”

“Well, he has his friends to play the drums. He likes to play the guitar and sing.”

“Oh. Does he have a costume?”

“Yeah, sometime he dresses in a Halloween costume. He likes to dress in funny clothes while he plays the guitar. How about you? Do you like to dress in funny clothes when you play music?”

“No! Just regular!” Well, me too I guess. Comme pere, comme fils.

“Was it on the street?” Huh? “Did he get died on the street?”

(No, he was in bed. He died in his bed because he took too much medecine. Which is good for you, if you are sick, but only if the doctor tells you to take it. No, the doctor didn’t tell him to. If you take too much, it’s bad for you. By the way, yeah, I know it wasn’t as simple as a straight OD.)

“How did he take too much medecine in his stomach?” Good point. If you’re almost incapacitated, how do lift that last spoonful of cherry Robitussin? Well, it takes a while to kick in. I didn’t mention anything about needles.

“Why did he take too much medecine?”

“He thought it would make him feel good.”

“But it made him feel bad in his stomach?” Yeah, that’s about right.

“But the doctor fixed him at the hospital?” This was not fun to answer. Can’t we just enjoy the man’s music?

“I’m sad that he died. I don’t want him to die!”

“Well, it’s too late now.” What a wonderful father I am. “Yes, lots of people are sad that he died. They like his music and wish he did not die.”

“Maybe he can go to the hospital, and when he wakes up, he can look for the hospital people to make him feel better.”

Well, that was a long time ago, and after you die, no one can make you better. Now I was starting to get a little bummed.

Paging through the liner notes: “Is this when he died?” he pointed to a grainy b&w that, yeah, kind of looked like Jimi with his eyes closed lying on a sheet. What is this: liner notes, or a comic book adaptation of the Passion of Jimi Hendrix?

“Yeah. That’s him after he died, in his bed.” Yes, I am ashamed, but I was actually pretty tired. Anyway the pages kept turning.

“Is he dressed like a bad guy?” Speaking of comic books I recently saw a 1978 New York City comic-inspired gang movie called “The Warriors” (special edition) which features a character called Cochise who tied feathers in his afro and the whole nine yards, Lakota-style, like Jimi Hendrix. Great movie, by the way.

I said “Sometimes people dress like bad guys so they won’t be scared.”

“But he’s not a bad guy.” It’s good to end on a high note. I was already getting into the ‘Manic Depression’ groove. One of those early songs that Don and I learned.

Broken Finger Update

Got a second opinion on my mangled left middle finger this morning. The last guy had said there was a good chance I would never be able to fully extend it. And once he found out I was right handed, he gave me a look like "Oh, okay, so what's the big deal!?!" Then he left the room and had the high-school age girl assistant splint it up, and only bothered to look it over when I protested.

I bet Jimmy Page's doctor showed a little bit more concern several weeks back.

Anyway, the guy I saw today is a hand surgeon named Steven Shin, who has previously attended to a number of professional athletes. He listened to my sob story, looked over my X-rays, unsplinted me, probed it thoroughly, had me try bending it slightly, took some new X-rays, examined them closely, and informed me that I was very lucky in the way the fingerbone had begun to re-fuse over the ten days since I had been splinted. He said he might have tried surgery if I had come in right away, but that if it were his injury, he would be ecstatic that the joint could be straightened so well at this point.

I'll take some credit for fine tuning the splint rigging and manipulating the bone fragment. I nearly worried myself into a heart attack, fiddling with that thing every hour of the day.

Then he gave me a much more comfortable splint for the top of my finger, instead of the one on the bottom bending it slightly backwards. "Come back in three weeks," he ordered.

Bottom line: Dr. Shin says I will have no problem playing the guitar (he plays the violin, I think). Okay, so I will have a noticeable lump on the back of my joint. And there is a chance I won't be able to hyperextend the joint the way I could before. Which does "bug," but honestly I can't make a rational argument to support the notion that my playing would be affected.

Phew.

In the meantime, I've started building up some piano skills.

Good Were the Parts We Played in Our Game

Last night I got down my acoustic and played a few songs with a splinted finger on my fretting hand:

1. Sweet Jane
2. Blackbird
3. The Ballad of Geraldine

“Sweet Jane” was a cover song played by Ten Dollar Helmet, the band I joined right after My New Invention broke up. “Sweet Jane” was usually led by electric guitarist Mark Grozkreuz. To this day, I have never heard the original track. Mark drifted out of the band in 2002 and I replaced him on guitar. Up until then I had been enjoying the low-key novelty of a bass guitar role.

Fast forward to 2007. With my broken finger, I had to try new chord fingerings. After a while, without thinking too much, I gravitated toward Paul’s White Album spotlight number, “Blackbird.” This has always been a prestige piece, a S.M.A.R.T. goal for many guitarists (I will have to defer to Matt on the exact definition), but it turns out the difficulty is not much higher without use of a left middle finger. After a couple of tries, “Blackbird” was definitely on my broken-finger setlist.

Encouraged by my disovery of one splint-friendly song, I found another: Donovan’s “Ballad of Geraldine.” A sissy song? Yeah, pretty much. But “oh, we could go to the land of your choice” in a storm. I’ve always liked this one. No false shame knocking on my door.

Which Finger?

Left middle finger still out of commission. While my guitars gather dust, here I am showing off the injury, along with some admirable parenting skills, while Don and Julian mark the demonstration with all due gravity.



Photo taken the day after Thanksgiving at The Kingston Foundation.

Singing Blather

The key skill for a musician is listening. The ability to play or sing is built upon many instances of making sounds, and then adjusting technique based on the result.

The same applies to bands. No matter how good the individual musicians, the band sucks if everybody doesn’t listen to each other very closely. If it’s just one guy, the band can play along with him, but if you ever wind up in some garage with two “band members” who don’t really listen, you might as well pack up your stratocaster because you’ll just be adding to the godawful din.

About six months ago, my singing voice was in great shape, because I’d been playing songs almost every day for months, and making small adjustments. I had good pitch control, and was getting pretty happy with my ability to phrase things in a way suitable for my voice, and without sounding like I was “putting on” an accent.

My current goal is to get back to that state.

I was not gifted with a natural singing voice. Fortunately, the great thing about “rock and roll” is that it’s an everyman’s music; you don’t need opera-quality “pipes” (they would help), but you do need to learn how to make good use of the equipment you came with.

First and foremost, that means hitting notes accurately. You can sneak up on them from below, but not above (a problem for me). It also means finding a way to avoid unflattering sounds: strained high notes or bleating like a lamb, in my case. Unfortunately, you may wind up having to sing every song in the same couple of keys because of a restricted vocal range where you actually sound good. That’s okay; if Ringo just sings a song or two per album, nobody notices it’s the same five notes. That’s one good reason to have more than one singer in a band – odds are their ranges are a bit different and you get a few extra keys to choose from.

Harmony singing is another great dodge, because two mediocre voices listening to each other and hitting the notes in a tasteful arrangement tend to fill out any harshness, and can easily sound comparable to one really good voice.

I like to sing with Matt, because we’ve played together for years, so we each know the other’s style idiosyncracies well enough to quickly knock together a pleasing harmony. Matt has a better natural vocal quality, but I have a good instinct for harmony and a slightly higher range. Back in the Stickmen/My New Invention days, I would do a couple of lead vocals, and also sing harmony about half of the time. It made things more interesting, and covered a lot of sins, I hope.

(Originally written 23 Jan 2007).

Rats!

Stoved my left middle finger playing post-turkey basketball. Was planning to record some guitar. Oh well. Can still work on lyrics for the Black & Blue Christmas record.

Long Road Review, Part 1

I’ve never done this, but I’m tempted to write a review of the Eagles’ new album. I’ve had a couple of weeks to get acquainted with it. Overall, Long Road Out of Eden is a solid double album, and has been worth the wait. No, it is not another Greatest Hits 1972-5, and there is no Hotel California or Take it Easy on there, but I think it beats their other studio albums, and will please four groups: (1) longtime or hardcore fans of the band, (2) casual fans of the eighties solo stuff, (3) new listeners of the adult contemporary persuasion, if such an animal exists, and (4) Mild sufferers from BDS (Bush derangement syndrome) who harbor a sneaking fondness for Nashville pop.

The advance single, How Long, is what I would call Nashville pop. That is to say, nominally country instrumentation, but actually thrashed out like rock and roll, with those cloying, siren-like artificial harmony machines put on the vocals. Thankfully, since the Eagles can do the flawless harmony thing without help, they only used the “robot” harmony on the choruses of How Long, and they left it off the rest of the album.

True Nashville pop requires a “cowboy” voice: the adam’s apple thing, liberal use of double negative, and downhome themes like pickup trucks, thankin’ the Lord, and knockin’ boots. For years I maintained that I disliked country, all the while savoring the Eagles. The Eagles make quasi-country music accessible through California-friendly accents, jaded LA cocktail party scenes, and penny-ante literary forays. Unfortunately How Long sounds good, but the lyrics are a disjointed mess of over-familiar one liners hanging in space, and lacking the focused, vivid purpose of say, Tequila Sunrise. Apparently it’s an oldie that they used to perform but never recorded, written by one of their old songwriting stablemates, either Jack Tempchin or J.D. Souther. Mrs. Swamptooth claims the song is about a spurned lover who still pines for her rock-and-roll beau. Fine. Whatever. But “Like a bluebird with his heart removed?” Sounds like a depraved adolescent animal cruelty thing. Still, quite catchy, and I found myself coming back for gratuitous repeat listens, and even singing along.

Along with the rest of the brick-and-mortar crowd, I had to find my way to a Wal-Mart to pick up my copy of the new album. That’s because the Eagles have an exclusive agreement with the chain for the first one-and-a-half years or something. A bit out of the way for me, but a good value at $11.98 for a double CD set, especially in our currently devalued yankee dollars.

Bear with me while I talk about the package; I’m a sucker for album sleeves, cover art, et cetera, which is why I still have yet to actually purchase any music in mp3 format. So ... Long Road Out of Eden. Of course it comes in the eco-friendly cardboard gatefold, rather than the clunky, creaky old jewel business. De rigeur for a band of conscience these days. Smelled like gasoline. I like the foldout design, but I have to admit I was put off by the title, which struck me as labored, pretentious, and a retread on the Eden territory already strip mined by so many book titles. Fittingly, the picture of the band has them walking across a desert landscape. Maybe the dune sea near Yuma where Victor and I re-enacted Tatooine droid action years ago. Later, when I heard the title track, I softened my stance on the album title.

Bob Dylan once said that the Eagles write good songs, but every note is predictable. Like their quality control is actually too good. The danger there is that overproduction can kill the feeling on the track. I suspect that’s why my friend Victor Allen, among many others, has complained that the Eagles have “no soul.” Well, I am fairly well steeped in Bob Dylan, and enjoy the spontaneous richness of his unstructured approach to song arrangements, which relies on superbly talented, empathic studio musicians – who often have never heard the song properly until he starts playing the master take. But I have to disagree with the premise, which is that music played crisply and with absolute authority cannot be played with emotional weight and exceptionally good feel.

Bottom line: the Eagles are an arrangements band. So were the Beatles. The songs are structured set pieces. Bob Dylan, along with jam-based blues groups like Led Zeppelin, are more akin to jazz combos in that individual songs “defy definitive interpretation” and the performances vary significantly. The test is when see the band live. With the Eagles, if you liked the records, you’ll like the show.

Tres Generacions

The dilemma now is: what instrument will Brandon be required to play? Will seems to be headed toward drums. Erika just might be a pianist. Well, there's always the guitar protege thing. It worked so well for "Bad 4 Good."

A New Birth of Swamptooth

Twelve dozen, four score, and seven years ago ... er, uh ... no. Two-to-the-fourth-power years ago, our four fathers (including Rich Amtower at that point), brought forth upon this land of fruits and nuts, a new music group, conceived in semiotics class, and dedicated to the proposition that a half dozen in-jokes mumbled along to a half-original tune resulted in a rock and roll song somehow interesting to the population beyond our parents' houses, and worthy of inclusion on Kevin and Bean's Christmas Tape (yes, tape). Now we are engaged in a half-hearted struggle, that occasionally tended domains and Classic Stickmen mp3s, though far below our paltry powers of expression to elevate into genuine classics, might not vanish from the earth, or at least the most used search engines. What was said here today will be but little remembered, but ... well, yeah. 'Nuff said. Long tall hat tip: Abe Lincoln.