Here's the link to the Flaming Lips review in Honest Tune

The Flaming Lips review in Honest Tune

(click above)


Drove to Fine Musical Instruments in Statesville this morning, to pick up my Yairi DY-40 (that I bought there last year). It needed a set up and now is very easy to play. James did an amazing job on the Mid-Missouri Mandolin I bought in 1999. I set down after my ex- number 4 complained about the sound, repeatedly. Never understood that, but during her time in my life I pretty much stopped playing guitar as well. Oddly is was the break up of my next romantic relationship that got me playing again.

While testing out the Yairi guitar James and I discussed music and we exchange numbers with the intent of playing together soon.

So I found my little book of mandolin chords and will learn how to play it.

Here's a picture of Russell catching his ball.

tripping down memory lane

So I am watching a movie on Netflix Instant View called "Athens, Ga Inside and Out. It is chronicle of the music and art scene in Athens, Georgia between 1982 and 1986. I first saw this movie just before ( i think it had only recently been released) I moved to Athens. I vaguely recall hearing the B-52's first but knew nothing about the band. While writing my Master's Thesis, I won an REM Extended Play on the ECU student radio station and these were my first exposures to the Athens Music scene.

I decided I wanted to get a Ph.D. in Family Therapy so I packed everything I owned and rented a room in a house in Normaltown, a neighborhood on the west side of Athens. I move in June but did not start classes until mid-September. I think I saw about 35 bands during that summer as well as catching a few Dead shows. Very quickly I began to meet folks in various bands and even was guest listed by several, including WideSpread Panic before anyone had heard of them. One of the first people I met was William Orten Carlton, commonly known as Ort. I used to see him downtown the first summer I lived there and he would talk my ear off. He is the narrator of the film. Even though, once classes started I was working 3 jobs and studying 17 hours a day, I managed to get to shows and got to see most of the classic Athens bands. I knew some or everyone in the local bands; Flat Duo Jets, REM, B-52, the B.B.Q. Killers, Dreams So Real, Pylon, Love Tractor, The Squalls, Hillbilly Frankenstein, KilKenny Cats, and WSP. It was one of the greatest times in my life. I fell in love with Athens immediately and stayed that way until I had to move in 1993. I had to leave because there was not reason to stay. I celebrated my 30th birthday that first Summer and left after 7 years.

I had so many great experiences during my years in Athens. I met and married my second wife, Deborah, and after we divorced, dated many great girls and made so many good friends. The intellectual climate suited me so well. The conversations on Friday afternoons in the Clinic office, great restaurants, great record stores, it was just an excellent climate for all kinds of folks to live. Not to say there weren't difficulties; the academic rigors,and being dirt poor, and picking up the NA fellowship and carrying it, nearly singlehandedly for many years was taxiing. One thing I experienced that I never had experienced before was an environment where I could be a smart was I wanted to be and be recognized for my intelligence.

Watching the movie, I got to see so many old friends, places and trip down memory lane.

Hello Readers

I have to confessed that I am surprised to see so many of you dropping by to read the daily musings of a disabled brain cancer survivor who is no longer able to work and spends his days, playing his guitars, playing with his dogs, listening to world radio on shotwave, occationally getting out to concerts and attending Narcotics Anonymous meetings.

So hello to my US fans as well as those in Germany, Canada, Russia, Brazil, Denmark, France, Iran, Japan and Hungary. I would love to read your blogs, just post a link or send an email.

I started this blog after blogging for 4 years on MySpace. During that time, while finding out I had developed brain cancer, many of friends and acquaintances were able to keep up with my amazing and difficult remission and recovery. Here is a link to that blog: previous blog.

With my new SDR-IQ radio I've logged 51 different countries, mostly hard to get stations, regional Brazilians, South American and African stations. My lastest catch was Guinea. Anxiously awaiting the sunspot count to rise and increase the radio wave propgation around the world. SDR radio is so cool.

The new Santa Cruz guitar is wonderful. I've decided to go with a Fishman Anthem SL pickup and get the action set a bit lower. Once I get back from the New York City vacation, I'll take it to my guitar tech for that installation. I play each guitar every week, although the Santa Cruz does get a bit more love these days. Number 2 is the Gibson J-200, which is a fantastic instrument. The gods were smiling on me on the day she came into my life.

I must confess that I do get lonely sometimes. I am what Sociologists call "field dependent." I get energy from my relationships with others, but there are few others in my life. Everyone is so busy that sometimes I feel a bit ignored. It appears if you aren't putting yourself out there, people forget. I attend concerts and know so few people, unlike a few years ago. Of course, my weakened condition does keep me home most of the time. Still trying to deal with the solitude. Not complaining, just the way it is now.

Damn it's hot.

93 degrees at 5pm. I could feel the water being sucked right out of me. Even the puppies were panting, and in fact, still are. It is still 4 weeks away from Summer. The Summers are getting hotter and hotter.

4 weeks to the day until the 2nd annual Big City Birthday trip. I bought an updated Frommers Guide today and have been searching the Internet for events to attend. It was so hot in Washington, DC last year (set records every day) and we tried to do so much. I am thinking of taking it more slowly and spending more time at each gallery and museum. We may wander down to Greenwich Village or through Central park. Probably no fancy restaurants this time. We don't want to bother with the proper clothes or the expense, reservations or waiting. I hear there are Italian restaurants up there.

Got my desk cleaned off and filed over a years worth of paper. First I had to clean out the file drawer. That took about three hours. I even found my tax returns from 1994. Then came the organizing of the files I wanted to save. Another two hours. Still, another task off the "things to do list of things I'd like to do, but can put off until another day" list.

Made an appointment to get new glasses, finally. Feeling fatigued the last few days, more than usual.

good evening friends

I guess it has been a few days since I gotten around to writing. Oddly, haven't had much to report, not too many thoughts. It is strangely peaceful for a guy who had a fevered and busy mind and life for the past few decades. A relaxed, calm life is still like moving to a foreign country where nothing happens in a hurry and very little has to happen today.

Finally got around to taking the Yairi D-40 in for a set up.  If I don't fall in love with it again, I may sell it. In either case, a good set up will help. I also took my Mid-Missouri Mandolin in as well. Jeff (the tech) said he'd sold a couple of them in the past (factory burned down and they went out of business) and had a favorable opinion of their mandolins. Thought I might see if I can learn to play again. I quit playing after my ex wife (#4) complained so of the sound. The frets are small and the chords strike me as weird. But, maybe I can add bass and madolin to my recording, when I get around to actually recording. I've found the Zoom H2 to be an excellent little recorder but think it may be easier to get a usb mic and go straight into the computer. I wonder if I can use the H2 straight into the computer. Research time.





It is getting hot here in the daytime. The puppies are anxious to go out and very quickly ready to get back inside to the air conditioning.


Look like the New York City trip is still on. 29 days from today. 3 weeks until Phish!!!

not much going on

Hi Friends and Readers,

Haven't been posting much. This is mostly due to the headache I have had for about 6 days now. It is so draining. I suspect the etiology is the extended pollen season. Charlotte ranks 3rd worse in the country for allergies. I tried for years to find a way to control my symptoms but nothing ever worked.

I have been trying to get to Fine's Musical Instruments To get James West to adjust the action on the Yairi DY-40 and take a crack at making my mandolin playable. Driving that far just seems like too much of an effort. I did manage a breakfast date with my friend Marsha on Monday. I was able to get to The Flaming Lips show and stay through the whole show on Tuesday evening. On Wednesday evening I made to a meeting to see a sponsee pick up his 90 day chip. Thursday a checkup at my dentist. This morning I awoke to find it had rained a bit, into my car as I left the top down yesterday. Oops. Not much though. I've spent most of my time this week, just playing with the puppies in the yard. Made Orange-Cranberry muffins with Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, and a side of analgesics.

Today Rebecca and I are planning to smoke cigars (Arturo Fuente 858) in the backyard when she gets back from work. We are having breakfast at Toast on Saturday. Speaking of Saturday, some religious loony has predicted (apparently for the 4th time) that it will be Judgement Day. Wouldn't it be funny if it actually happened?




Offered to write up the Primus show on June 1st. We'll see if Honest Tune comes through.

The Flaming Lips

Saturday night this rainbow appeared after a brief but intense storm.


Tuesday night I wandered down to Charlotte to catch The Flaming Lips at the Fillmore. I was assigned by my editor at Honest Tune to review the show. Once it is published I'll post the link.

speaking of wondering

I just plugged in the J-200 and played and sung better than I have in weeks. I wonder why? What did I do? Just walked in the kitchen and kept on walking to the guitar room and was possessed by the urge to play. Guess I need to get a pick up system in the Santa Cruz. Anyway, the Gibson sounded so good I lost the urge to buy another Gibson. Electrofied acoustics are so cool. Even used my harmonizer in serial with the tone correct pedal. Think I'll go electricfied more often,

I wonder

I wonder if the folks who raped our economy ever thought about the people who would lose their jobs, the one's who would lose their houses, the 401k losses for people who saved all their lives and the poor and elderly who would lose their healthcare. Did they think that owning that bigger house, larger yacht, simply deserve what they stole.

Do they even care?

more life stuff

As I've mentioned before, it is getting harder and harder for me to make it to shows. I'm getting ok with this for now. Doesn't mean I won't be going, just not as often, and to one's I more want to see.

Since late 2005 and now, about 5.5 years, I have seen over 110 bands and over 450 shows. I've attended Jam Cruise (x4), Caribbean Holidaze, Langerado, Echo, Vegoose, Amberland (x3), Music on the Mountaintop (2), and AllGood.

Upcoming; the Flaming Lips, Phish, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Primus, A Perfect Circle, Gomez, Tony Rice,  and surely others.

I could never make an accurate list of all the bands I saw between 1972 and 1995. After that, all the Bluegrass shows through 2004, or my reentery in to the world of jam bands, 2002-2005.

Summer trips: New York City, June 22-26 (birthday trip) and Erin's Wedding at Pawley's Island, SC, July 10-12.

My memory is a bit worse but my guitar playing a bit better. But mostly I am still here!

More and more of you are visiting here. Thanks for reading.

Coffee

You know I love coffee. Even though much of my sense of taste was burned out for the radiation treatments, I can still taste coffee. Well some anyway. You may not know that the entire crop of Jamaica Blue mountain coffee is sold out (most of it goes to Japan) soon after the harvest. I managed to grab a bag from this year's crop. It is less expesive if you buy a big bag.

a bit more on HDR

Manual shooting for an HDR exposure is pretty simple. As the images need to be the same, a tripod is very nearly required. Photoshop will adjust for slight variations but not much. I use the manual setting and adjust for the images from there. I get one good reference shot; ISO, Shutter speed, and apurture. Then varying the shutter speed to collect the images to use in creating the HDR image. Shoot underexposed and overexposed. The number of shots must be at least 3 with one being the proper exposure. So far I've found 5 to be workable. In Photoshop go to file> Automate> merge to HDR and then choose the images you want to combine. The more images you use, the longer it will take PS to complete the image. I am still experimenting with how many and which exposures, 1/2 stops, full stops. I suspect I'll find using different stops will be useful depending on the eventual photo I want to create. Lighting, dynamic range, detail, all play a part.

Once the images are combined in PS there are several setting available in the HDR mode. You can see from the previous blog that each of the photos were "developed" with varying degrees of each of the setting available. As in the Camera Raw program, there are slider controls to create the image that you want. The Photosig website has many images created in HDR software.

http://www.photosig.com/go/photos/browse?id=45047

As you view some of these photos on Photosig, you might find that this effect can be wildly overdone, lol.

The Nikon D300 (what I use) can be set up to fine a present number of shots at different stops (shutter speeds). I still haven't quite figured that out yet. When I do, I'll post the instructions here.

More HDR photography

A few more photos using High Dynamic Range. Russell the Corgi helped. These were taken around1pm EDT on the campus of Davidson College.

Double click to enlarge.

http://jambandfan.smugmug.com/Photography/High-Dynamic-Range/16664661_cpkn43#1256502567_qmRsfFR

good Monday morning

Errata.

Lovely morning. 60 degrees at 8:20am. Door open to let in the fresh air. Birds all chirpy. Broke down and ordered 5lbs. of Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee, even though I have three pounds of good coffee already. I just can't resist a bargin. Of course, Jamaican coffee is available seasonally and one must order it when one can. I may be poor but I try to live well.

Saturday morning, after a traditional breakfast at Toast with brother Eric, we sat in the backyard with the puppies. While we were there two juvenile Cardinals played and chased each other around the trees for more than 1/2 an hour. I thought they'd be exhausted. One would take off and the other chase as soon as the first landed, who then took off again. They never left the yard or were out of sight for more than a second. A delightful entertainment.

On Friday night I managed to get to Charlotte to shoot my 86th PGroove show. Much like the old days, several people introduced themselves and many old friends were in attendence. Got back stage early and hung out with the band. They are such great guys.

Too damn many LCD lights in use these days, making it very difficult to get a good photo. Managed to get a few but nothing like I could take a few years ago.

Waiting for the official word from the Fillmore about the free ticket, but have the assignment to write up the Flaming Lips concert next week. Not much planned for this week. Plan to take the Yairi DY-40 to Fine Music to get it set up and see if I can love it again. If not, or even if, I think I may sell it as well as one of the DY-67s. Plans to restring the Santa Cruz with EJ-16s (light gauge) and see if it will play a bit easier and still mantain her amazing tone.

Not much else this month. I'll not make Amberland this year. A 6 hour drive alone and staying up until 3am and sleeping outside for 3 nights, I fear, would be a bit too taxing. Might catch Primus at the end of the month.

Thanks for reading.

more info on the Santa Cruz Custom D

I wrote the factory representative Lizabeth, to find more of the history of the guitar. Appears that nearly 70% of all Santa Cruz guitars are special order. So, finding one in a guitar shop is pretty unusual. I checked all of the inventory I could locate across country and found only 2 Dreadnoughts for sale. There were more of the "pre-war" designs but they are designed to be a bit less expensive for the guitarist's first Santa Cruz, differences in bracing, etc.

Here is her response:

That guitar was supposed to be yours. I am glad you tried it out. The funnest part about this job is that the guitars truly do sell themselves, I just need to encourage folks to give them a chance.

The guitar you are now the owner of was completed in 2009. It actually has a funny story. It was made custom for a patron that Richard (the owner of SCGC) knew. This guitar is custom with back & sides made of Black Walnut, custom diamond & squares inlay pattern on the fretboard, a solid F shape peghead, tobacco stained back & sides with a sunburst finished top. All other specifications of this guitar default to the specs of our standard D model (which can be found on our website). The kicker was that the guitar was supposed to have a cutaway but there was an error on the order and it was built without.

We ended-up remaking the guitar for that gentleman. At this time as you know, the economy was taking a hit. We had a few available guitars to sell to stores including this guitar. This one just didn't sell. It sat for so long eventually we felt we could not sell it as brand new.

So, that guitar has now gone to 3 festivals and now is in your hands. Essentially it is a new guitar but due to its age we no longer were offering it as a new guitar to our stores.

Looks like this guitar is one of a kind. From the moment I played it I knew it was made for me. Being at noisy festival I had trouble hearing during the four times I went back to play it. However, I could feel it in my gut, I mean literally, in my chest and stomach. I like have guitars of different wood and the chance to have a Walnut is exciting.

Yamaha LL26   Englemann Spruce/Rosewood          very bright tone
Martin D-15       Mahogany/Mahogany                         bluesy
Gibson J-200    Sitka Spruce/Maple                             deep
Yairi DY-40        Sitka Spruse/Mahogany                     bright
Yairi DY -67       Cedar/Rosewood                                  mid to bright
Santa Cruz          Sitka/Black Walnut                             deep to mid bright
Yairi WK-1-12    Sitka/Rosewood                                    bright

I find that certain guitars work better with certain songs or genre, 70's folk, country, Bluegrass, americana, indie, whatever. I also like to match the tone of the guitar to my vocal range. The J-200 sits below my voice. The Yamaha above. The Santa Cruz very slightly below. Once I get around to recording here I'll be able to explore this more exactly.

Tonight's agenda, Shoot Brock Butler at 8pm and PGroove at 10:30. Been too long since I've seen the band. This should be my 86th PGroove show.

Santa Cruz 1st day pictures

Had a few good days in a row. It is cloudy and cool today and there is hint of rain in the air. Nothing planned for today. PGroove is coming to town on Friday. After it rains I'll spread the weedkiller but fearful of what the yard will look like without much grass. Going to take a guitar and maybe the mandolin to my guitar tech for some minor adjustments this week. Thinking about selling 2 or 3 of them. Too damn many 'round here.

I was pretty tired yesterday after spending the day with Eric and Dawn at the Bluegrass festival in Wilksboro. I attended from 1996-2004, but not again until this one. They went for three days and I joined them only on Sunday. It was too cold, then too hot. I wandered over to the guitar tent where, in past years there was much activity and lots of manufacturers. Very few showed up this year. I walked past the Taylor guitars (they are generally to bright sounding for me) but stopped at the Santa Cruz booth. I'd never played a Santa Cruz. Played several, more out of boredom than anything. Kept going back and narrowed my interest to one. Went back, left, went back, left, started negotiations, left again. Sat at the stage for a while debating "would I regret not buying if I didn't or regret if I did?" It appeared that I would be facing regret either way but one way I would have the guitar to help me through my regret. I mean regretful and empty-handed seemed silly. I finally decided if the price was right, I would buy it. The factory rep was forced to call her boss (on a Sunday no less) because I offered $850 less than their sale price. Hardest bargaining I"ve ever done. I was ready to walk away but didn't have to.

I have a wonderful top of the line Yamaha, a Gibson J-200, either would have any guitarist deliriously happy, and now a (sold as used but not a single mark on her (they're all female to me)) Santa Cruz model D Custom. Santa Cruz only makes 700 guitars a year. The don't ever need to discount them. So getting 45% off list for a basically new guitar seemed like a good idea, esp. since I would likely never get another chance to own one.

Dreadnought size, Sitka Spruce top, Walnut back and sides.



  http://jambandfan.smugmug.com/Personal/Santa-Cruz-D-custom/16873530_qQZTKB#1274237665_8xDbQKt

easy weekend, bluegrass and a surprise

Made meetings both Friday and Saturday nights. Had breakfast (at Toast, of course) with Rebecca. Spent much time sitting in the sun discussing the fate of the country with Rick. I'm lucky to have two tenets I enjoy.

Sunday morning off to the Bluegrass festival, Merlefest. This was the 10th time I have attended, the first in a long while though. I attended regularly from 1996-2004. That was during my Bluegrass phase which came after my Grateful Dead phase (1986-1995).

I spent a lot of time in the musical instrument tent. There were many fewer dealers and guitars than I remember from before. There were a bunch of mandolins and while I did play any of them, I was tempted to take mine to Fine Music in Stateville and get it set up. There was a large display of Taylors, but I just walked past them. I've played a few I like but next guitar purchase was to be another Gibson.

Be waiting on that Gibson for a while yet.

Exhausted from lack of sleep and the Festival. Oh right, that was good too. Saw Doc Watson, Alison Brown, Infamous Stringdusters, Tim O'Brien, and Robert Plant's, Band of Joy. A good day.