Flugel Drone, 26 Nov 04 Procession

Flugel Drone


Here's a fave of mine, named more or less for a very, very beat-up acoustic guitar I got in a thrift store on Mercury Blvd. in Hampton VA.

The snapping guitarish sound at pan center? Our special guest star . . .

26 Nov 04 Procession

22 May 04, View In White, Here I Go

22 May 04

Much as I like this instrumental, you might think I'd come up with a better title than the date I recorded it. Something pretty deserves a name. Or maybe it deserves as few words as possible.


View In White



If I recall, I wrote full lyrics for this song. The words weren't too bad. But I really liked the vocables better. A mood was served and therein a meaning could be read.


Here I Go

Shambelle #1, Pink Shambelle #4, Shambelle #3, BoDid's Feast

Shambelle #1


I think of these Shambelles, #1 here esp., as (mostly) non-MIDI cousins to instrumentals like Odd Slim and Opti-Suite. Rampantly off-key melodies that are by turns menacing and goofy.


Pink Shambelle #4



This might be called the "more reverb" version of Pink Shambelle and as such almost not a Shambelle at all. The creaky pitch bending on the Optigan towards the end may say otherwise.


Shambelle #3



This one sorta brings to mind Encounters With Insects . . .


BoDid's Feast

No Hold, Darlin' Day, Can I Be True?

No Hold



Darlin' Day




Can I Be True?

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 . . .

Huggy's Lament, Reggio, B Is For Balance

Huggy's Lament


I really like this piece--the sounds, the mood.


Reggio



I'm not sure if this is a "greatest hit", but my wife has always liked it (she says it sounds like ducks walking along).


B Is For Balance



I've had mixed fortune with any rock instrumentals. But this one, imperfect as it may be, has some life & guts to it.

Thinking Sinking, Skipping, Nothing Put Together, You Know It's So

Thinking Sinking


I'm kinda proud of this song. It's no ray of sunshine lyrically, but it says what it says with something I'd dare call beauty. As close as I get . . .


Skipping



A friend once called a novel of his "a hopeful book about despair". That might apply here. And whether it does, I like funny songs.


Nothing Put Together



It may seem too clever by half, but I'd just seen Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina in Jean-Luc Godard's Pierrot Le Fou at the Brattle. JPB's character blows up by the sea at the end of the movie. My song has a nominally happier ending.


You Know It's So (Go Up)



More of that "hopeful . . despair" stuff. A gently pointed rejoinder to anyone close enough to hear.

Harp Sketch, New Rub

Harp Sketch


New Rub



These are two tracks from Twilight Extended (click here to view ancient website on Internet Archive), a New Age meditation/relaxation music tape I released under yet another pseudonym, Bernard Waschman.


It's interesting that this music was created in much the same way as 12-Bit Jimson--using a sampler and recording to cassette. For the mixdown, I borrowed an Ursa Major reverb from my friend Steev. From that it was mastered by the good folks at W Bla Bla Bla.

The photo I took late one cold winter's day at my folks'.

Homage to The Wild World of Animals, Opti-Suite, Resurrect

Homage to The Wild World of Animals


I guess the name of the show was Wild, Wild World of Animals, aired in the 1970s.

The spare synth-based theme music was some very cool indeed (check out this YouTube vid courtesy love2register) .

Broadly speaking and after the fact, it was this long ago music that my piece brought to mind. Thus the title . . .

Opti-Suite



Resurrect

A Love For All The Ages

A Love For All The Ages (Also on Box.)

Circa 1993 was one of those bumper crops of good songs. There was a lot of them & I like most of them pretty well.

But this one has always been a bit of a fave. I like its sound and how it says what it says with a bit of humor.