Bengal Burlap now at Bandcamp

I'll be honest.  I've no clue. 

But stuff like "Grunt Grunt Pig" and "Encounters With Insects" is now downloadable via Bandcamp.



Price varies according to my whim.  And yours.  Sometimes the album minimum price is 5 bucks US.  Sometimes it's zilch.   (Sorry,  I'm going through a crazy time right now . . . )  But from that minimum on the rest is up to you--name your price.   In any case, the album of 11 tunes is the value package.

Meanwhile, still considering reupping the soon to be dead streaming links.

ye olde J-card

pinned down again

This is a pin I homebrewed circa 1982 to commemorate a fave post-punk band, Orange Juice.

The fine construction/New World craftsmanship is easily seen . . .


Their "Breakfast Time" (b-side to "Simply Thrilled Honey"), their work in general and that of other bands on Postcard Records was some influence on my own more rusticated inventions:

Instrumental for Plug


Something in the mood of another Orange Juice song, "In A Nutshell", might be heard in these:

Be Here Soon


A Love For All The Ages

the author of Grunt Grunt Pig

I couldn't fully claim that distinction without crossposting here.

a legacy

My middle brother passed away late last month.

And for better or worse, for anyone in earshot, he had made some contributions to my music. Direct or indirect.

His old sax that he used to play fell into my untutored hands to be used in numerous tunes:

the ever popular Grunt Grunt Pig


the skronky Bobo


the comparatively refined Music and Candlelight


And tho' I'm leery of words like "inspiration", my brother was somewhere in mind when I wrote these:

Cascade


Who in the Heck Are You?


as well as . . .

sounds like?

Ehh, maybe the Bengal Burlap. Or something noisy & recent.

3:13 AM, Instrumental Frenzy, I'm Off, Afterdinner Outerlude

3:13 AM

(UPDATE: 3:13AM and the rest are on Bengal Burlap, available at Bandcamp.)

I was always kinda happy with this instrumental. I had a bass, that Synsonics drum machine and a flanger. I played something that resembled a melody (not something I'm entirely adverse to doing) without concerning myself with having a real guitar.


Instrumental Frenzy



When I did get a real guitar, this was about the first thing I did. Urgent Zebra may've been the second.


I'm Off



Before said real guitar, my friend Dom or someone loaned me one of those electric fan powered gadgets, a Magnus Chord Organ. My friend Bob, who could actually play, played the organ. Flanging everything in sight, I did the rest. All in view of the Corner rooftops of C'ville and the HoJo MoLo sign.


Afterdinner Outerlude

Bobo, Gamelan Cakewalk, Whine-oleum

Bobo


(UPDATE: Bobo and Gamelan Cakewalk are out on Bengal Burlap, available at Bandcamp.)

I marveled at the remote on/off switch on the garden-variety mic that came with a cassette recorder. At some point I clued in on how that on/off switch could be used during playback when the mic was plugged in.
















Thus the coming & going of that voice and squealing saxophone in the left channel: it's a tape recording that keeps cutting in and out as the remote switch is turned on and off.


Gamelan Cakewalk



The bargain basement tape effect in this instrumental was the cue/fast forward button on the tape deck. I liked this piece but found it a bit long. This was a cassette recording and I lacked the savvy or the nerve to splice tape.

So I just hit the cue button during playback to move things along. I thought of it like some Dada editing method. And I liked that chattering, chirping "screeeeeee!" sound.


Whine-oleum



Years, decades later, I was reading of the Melloman, a Mellotron-ish gizmo fashioned from Walkmans loaded with cassette recordings of instruments.

Too klutzy & impatient to build such things, I went cheap & dirty and tape recorded continuously playing chords on two cassettes. Then with the same remote on/off mic switch control used in Bobo, I'd alternate playback between the two tapes/chords.

Those whining faraway chords in the left channel, the ones that ramp up to pitch when starting and down from pitch when ending?

Yep, those . . .

Happy Halloween

Here are a few holiday appropriate entries . . .

I am responsible for me: 12 Bit Jimson's spooky machine

Zsa-Zsa's Bra by any other name . . .

Encounters With Insects, Hey Little Darlin'

long beginning: wayohh

Wayohh is not spooky per se, but might go that way in a haunted house.

And tonight only, 7-10 PM Eastern time, Thick Wisps broadcast a live Halloween show.

Encounters With Insects, Hey Little Darlin'

More of the Bengal Burlap collection, created during that same summer as "Grunt Grunt Pig".

Encounters With Insects

(UPDATE: Encounters . . and Hey Little . . are out on Bengal Burlap, available at Bandcamp.)

Everything of this vintage was created in layers. First I'd record something on one tape recorder, then I'd play the tape on another recorder in the background while adding something new and recording the old & new together on a second tape.

Hey Little Darlin'



Along with any other instrument or gizmo I could lay hands on, I had an MXR flanger I got second hand from my friend/musical mentor/never-to-be bandmate, Mark. I ran practically any sound I could through that flanger, including my voice.

they call me Mau-rice . . .

Okay, no one calls me Maurice. And this, um, song bears little relation to the Steve Miller Band. Press the play button below (or click here) and we'll continue . . .

Grunt Grunt Pig


(UPDATE: Grunt Grunt Pig is out on Bengal Burlap, available at Bandcamp.)

One old friend, Dom, suggested I make a t-shirt for myself that reads "I am the author of Grunt Grunt Pig".

Sometime back circa 1982 after:

--an even older friend had convinced me to take up the electric bass to play in a band he & I never actually started

--I had heard the records of Fred Frith, Laurie Anderson, Wm. Burroughs, Brother Dave Gardner, the Go-Betweens and heaven knows who else

--I got a Panasonic cassette boombox at Best Products to go with my trusty all-in-one record/cassette/AM-FM stereo

I thought I was some artsy hipster type ready to record some music.

This I believed even though I was actually a twenty year old college student who was spending the summer where I'd grown up--on my parents' hog farm in rural southeastern Virginia. Rows of peanuts, soybeans and corn stretched out to dusty lots where the sounds of metal hog feeder lids clanging shut echoed in the trees beyond.

I was a hick from the sticks. Armed with some obscure records (mostly those of my friend & never-to-be bandmate), aforementioned consumer electronics, some stray musical instruments, and sheer delusions of grandeur.

Many of my friends from around this time who heard the resulting din still think Grunt Grunt Pig is one of best things I ever did. Well, it's certainly one of the first things I ever did. And yes, I like it.

All these years later, no matter how near or far any new bit of music may be to this first thing, I am still the author of Grunt Grunt Pig.

And no one calls me Maurice.