Warning the above music visualization video has a lot of pulsing and flashing. I’m going to try and spend more time working on new songs and jamming with myself. I had a lot of fun playing The B Jamb. It was like going through a door and getting lost in sonic spaces, therefore, I used “jamb”. It’s out there, but there’s not much point in jamming if you don’t play on the edge. If you can make it through it, there is a drum solo and a bass solo.
For the first evening that we are trying to save the daylight, which, by the way, is not endangered out here, the Painter went a little wild jamming with the clouds.
Venus and Mars showed up at 6:30 am, the time formerly known as 5:30 am.
Socratis at Oannes has been posting songs about cars. I keep commenting: “I had that car! Oh, I had that car, too. You are not going to believe this, but I had one of those cars, also!” From Oannes I was inspired to put together a spreadsheet of all the cars that have been in the family, and I had driven since I got my driver’s license at age 15. We still have some of the old cars that were bought new. The stats break down as follows: 33 cars over 48 years. 25 Model years from 1955 to 2017. 14 different carmakers. 26 different models in 10 different colors with green, yellow, brown, and red the predominant four colors. We’ve had more Mazdas than other cars with six. Volkswagon came in second with five. We still have two Mazdas, a Volkswagon, a Ford pickup, and a Datsun 280ZX on the property.
I was also inspired to write and record a Car Song about some of the cars that stood out over the years. I played the bass lines on my 5-string, multi-scale bass. I played my black Strat I built a few years ago for the rhythm guitar, and I played my 7-string, multi-scale guitar for the guitar solo (the song is above, lyrics at the end of the post).
Marble Sinking
Sunrise
Car Song By Timothy Price
This is a story about a few of the many cars that graced my life
My dad, he was a Rambler man 1964 classic I learned to drive Three on the tree with no air Bench seats without belts
The ’55 Cadillac was a tank with tits Big silver bumper boobs oh they couldn’t be missed Slushbox tranny liked to bump and grind Lumbered down the road in style
1960 Rambler in Pepto Bismol pink Nearly cost me my life and limbs A boy driving a pink car in 1975 Was worthy of a beating, so the other boys thought
[Chorus] Thirty-three cars have graced my life Over two score and 8 years From green to pink to yellow to blue Red sports cars are the last two
’66 American in canary yellow The cubic inches under the hood wouldn’t do I cut and bent to retrofit a power plant I lost traction, tickets, I paid for my sins
’65 Corvair. Yep that’s the one It was “Unsafe At Any Speed” That car was fun to drive I never rolled it though Not to say I didn’t try.
The Volkswagen Thing was a Thing of wonder As I wandered from here to yonder Weirdly shaped, like a Jerrycan on wheels It did nothing for my sex appeal
[Chorus] Thirty-three cars have graced my life Over two score and 8 years From green to pink to yellow to blue Red sports cars are the last two
[Bridge] Cadillac, Chevrolet, Rambler, and Ford Volkswagens, Honda, Triumph, were never bored International, AMC, Renault, and a Datsun Dodge, Kia, and best of all is always Mazda
Eldorado, Americans, a Classic, and a Bus Travelalls, beetles, and a Triumph GT6 Plus A Sun Bug, Pickups, Hornet, and a Le Car Taurus, Rio Cinco, N600, and a Corvair Granada, Dart, ZX, Five, RX, and a Thing 323, Speed 3, my Miata is really mean
55, 58, 60, 64 65, 66, 68, and there’s more 69, 70, 73 and 74 75, 78, 79 a decade scored 1980, 82 and 85 1986 then we skip to 95 02, 4, 6, 8 I’m in the jive 09, 17 A lot of years to drive
[Guitar Solo]
[Chorus] Thirty-three cars have graced my life Over two score and 8 years From green to pink to yellow to blue Red sports cars are the last two
’79 Renault Le Car was one of my All-time favorite cars Smooth ride, canvas-covered sunroof That got Swiss-cheesed in a hailstorm I drove the wheels off that car
The RX-8 was as exotic as I got A Wankel whining under the hood Demanded high revs lots of speed Suicide door, it seated four
My MX-5 is beautiful to drive Small, responsive, quick, and sassy A hot profile and racing stripe It’s total fun and fantasy
I ordered an Ibanez multi-scale 5 string bass in the middle of August. I just got it last week. I was thinking the fanned frets on the fingerboard would help my poor arthritic fingers. Why not get a fretless bass, you might ask? I did consider that, but I like having frets. I’ve been practicing with it and I finally got time to record two new songs this weekend. The one I recorded today I’m calling “The Bass” and I put it together with video of Jake chasing a stick and rolling in the dirt. It’s a jazzy piece. The other song I named “Black Widow” is very hard and dark. I don’t have a video for it unless I do a visualization. I’ll post it at another time after I figure out if I’ll at video or go with the audio.
The multi-scale fingerboard is a lot easier for me to play and my fingers and hands are not hurting or swollen beyond normal after hours of playing and recording. I played the Ibanez multi-scale 7-string guitar on the recording.
Spunk relaxing in on the deck rail this afternoon.
Two-Stepping To Nowhere
Music: Ron Blood & Joel Lewis. Arrangement: Joel Lewis. Rhythm Guitar: Joel Lewis. 2nd Guitar: Timothy Price. Bass: Timothy Price. Drums: Mark Simma.
Spunk: “NOOooooo! Not that stupid country song!!!”
Two-Stepping To Nowhere is a collaboration between Ron Blood, Joel Lewis, Mark Simma, and I. Ron sent Joel tracks with a bass line and Mark Simma’s drum track. Joel wanted to make a country song, so he slowed it down, which messed up the bass line, so he took out the bass. He recorded the rhythm tracks with the drum tracks playing a semi-hollow body Tele, if I remember correctly, and sent the song to Ron and me. I listened to the song, lyrics popped into my head, I wrote them down, went into the studio, added a vocal track, and sent the song with vocals back to Joel and Ron a couple of hours after Joel had sent the rhythm guitar and drum tracks. Later I added the twangy 2nd guitar playing my Black Tele, and a new bass line. It’s a really silly song, as you can see by Spunk’s reaction above. But it’s fun and funny. The lyrics are at the bottom of the post if you want to follow along.
Spunk taking over my lunch back before I got it packed this morning.
Spunk: “And YOU thing cat herding is really tough!”
Spunk: “Oh Gwedolyn! Did you really need to break wind?”
Silver planning his attack for after I turn out the lights.
A little before sunset tonight.
Two-Stepping To Nowhere Music: Ron Blood & Joel Lewis Arrangement: Joel Lewis Rhythm Guitar: Joel Lewis 2nd Guitar: Timothy Price Bass: Timothy Price Drums: Mark Simma
I barfed on my cat today He was pissed. It’s always the other way I dragged myself out of bed Stepped on cats trying to get them all fed The life of a cat herder is really tough No one ever seems to get enough
Chorus It’s like trying to glide Across the dance floor When all you do is a slide Two-Steppin’ to nowhere
I got myself made up and dandy Going to go dancing and find some candy A lovely chica got me out on the floor She looked real nice she knew the score But it was just my dumb luck I drove my car, I had left my viagra in the pickup truck
Chorus It’s like trying to glide Across the dance floor When all you do is a slide Two-Steppin’ to nowhere
Out in the truck to do some shoppin’ The County station was down, I had to listen to a dude named Chopin It’s hard on a fella and his imaging When the country chicas could hear The wussy music he was listening to
Chorus It’s like trying to glide Across the dance floor When all you do is a slide Two-Steppin’ to nowhere
I barfed on my cat today He was pissed. It’s always the other way I dragged myself out of bed Stepped on cats trying to get them all fed The life of a cat herder is really tough No one ever seems No one ever seems No one ever seems to get enough
You might recall the PRS (Paul Reed Smith) style guitar that I have been building for over a month? It was featured with Marble in Gata Y Blanca with a primer coat, and then again with Marble in She’s Blue with the first blue coat. Now you see the finished guitar is a Super Chief PRS. It was an experiment to see if I could get the skin of the Super Chief locomotive I used on my Train Teles, to fit on the arched and sculpted PRS style body. It worked out pretty well. The arched top really pops the Super Chief Locomotive. I used different style Zia symbols in the design and added a Zia on the headstock as well.
The music I played on it in the above video is a kind of wild but seemed fitting for as much work as the guitar was to build. It plays pretty well but is not nearly as nice as Resa’s One-Eye Guitars (The Kittens, Spunk & the Kittens Tail), Tiffany’s Tumultuous (Tumultuous Kittens), Marble’s Tele (Marble Guitar), or the Train Teles (Whats on the Tele? I have two Train Teles. One is like Marble’s Tele).
Marble in the catio helping with the new PRS style guitar I’m working on. While it looks like a ghost guitar at the moment, I have a white primer coat on it.
Glenda and Gwendolyn are 16 weeks old now. They had a ride to the vet this morning to get the booster shots. They are pretty good passengers knowing what cool cats they are riding in a Mazda MX-5.
The latest video of the kittens is accompanied by me playing the guitar I finally finished with a painting named Tumultuous by Tiffany Arp-Daleo on the body and headstock. I’ve been working on this guitar for about three months.
I used a Strat-style body with two colorful Humbucker pickups instead of the three single-coil pickups common to Strat-style guitars. I wired the pickups with a five-way switch. The top, first position on the switch in the neck pickup (both coils). The second position is a single-coil of the two coils in the neck pickup. The middle (third) position is both pickups together with all four coils. The fourth position is a single coil of the bridge pickup, and the bottom (fifth) position is both coils of the bridge pickup.
I got some nice, interesting sounds out of the guitar in the audio recording below. I used the same bass and drum tracks with different effects than I used for the recording in the video. The photos below show the guitar, the body, and a closeup of Tiffany’s signature.
The video starts out with Silver and Spunk. Silver expressed his opinion of the kittens. The guitar I played for the music is Resa’s One-Eye RGX style guitar I built using a beautiful one-eyed drawing by Resa.
We also decided Morgana, the name given by the kitten’s foster mom, really didn’t fit her, so we changed Morgana’s name to Gwendolyn. Now we have Glenda and Gwendolyn. Gwendolyn is still a good medieval name and seems to be a more fitting name.
Off Center & Not Even 