America a Prophecy

Set then there is what I do.

And the Sherlock score was written by a couple guys named Michael Price and somebody else and we  (Tyrannosaurus Mouse) should go in and out of the Game of Thrones theme with the BBC Sherlock theme because it would be awesome.
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So the big deal around my brain is that there's a William Blake poem called America A Prophecy. Why was I not informed of this?
Clearly this poem should form the lyrical base for The Imaginary Opera. And indeed, it is.

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Today I'm foisting my blog upon all the members of Tyrannosaurus Mouse. I hope they enjoy it and find it informative.
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Hey guys: I've been practicing. I'm better now. That doesn't mean "good". But I'm better. And I'm trying to lose weight. I should get points for that.

This is what you get from a blog post on Ambien. Now I'm going to write some of the BEST poetry I've ever... what's that? Ambien walrus wants me to call all my ex-girlfriends right now. I'm too busy losing my keys.
If you get this via email or an RSS reader, go ahead and click through so you can see the actual web page. It might be easier to see the videos and some of the pictures.

Shirley

An addendum to my previous post. Surely (and stop calling me "Shirley") we should mix up between the Game of Thrones theme and the new BBC Sherlock theme.
Of course we should.

We will be able to rock. And loud too. I mean actually loud, not that over-hyped first-stage squished loud, I mean wide open big transformers and a bootylicious sound.

This is not my fault. This was one of the first images to come up when looking for "flip top amp".

The Mouse Future

So.
I had this whole thing going in my little mind about what would make people go nuts at a Tyrannosaurus Mouse show.
1. Also Sprach Zarathustra
Let's face reality. This is a piece of music Tyrannosaurus Mouse can do. This is right up our alley. We can play the heck out of this. We can make this a monster. We will make it a double-stack Leslie gorilla of supersonic groovitude. There are few things in life we can feel absolutely certain about. But this is one of them.

Phish does their version of the Deodato arrangement of the piece.
Deodato:


Phish:
So, you say, we do Strauss' Also Spake Zarathustra. What else can we do? 2. A blues version of the theme to Brokeback Mountain. What? How? You say. The theme to Brokeback Mountain as though it is "A Little Help From My Friends" by Joe Cocker. No. Really. Brokeback Mountain: Joe Cocker: Lastwise we need to do one more thing to cement our place as immortals in the Rock world. 3. The Theme to Game of Thrones. If we just played these three songs we would have our visages chiseled upon Mount Olympus. You know we would. And the fact is, we can do these three things. Look, I know we're not the world's most technically proficient band (that's due to the stunningly 2nd-rate guitar player.) But these songs? We can play them. My birthday is coming up and I'm going to make us rehearse three times for my birthday. Then we're going to play at least one gig.

Two Thingies

Oh man, Watt White is awesome.

"Two Things" is a song which can only be expressed in heavy metal.

Imaginary Opera Parts

I'm making a list of characters (who are doubled in some cases) in The Imaginary Opera.

1. Plissken
2. Chorus/Rachel/Priss/Zhora
3. Gaff/Batty
4. Day Tripper/Holden
5. Leon/Bunny
6. Bryant

You'll notice there's only one part for a woman. You'll also notice that "Bryant" is the odd-man out (as it were). His character is only in one scene and yet we can't even double him up. Maybe he'll just appear on a TV screen. There's some logic to that actually. 

The part of the Chorus/Rachel/Priss/Zhora is amusingly difficult. She has to sing, dance, and act. And she's a world of quick changes. Right now I dig the idea that instead of her (as the Chorus) supporting the other characters, the other characters support her. They bring her props and they help with her changes. That might be fun.

One thing we haven't established as well as we should is the notion of the palm-flower. I realize that might be "one too many things" but as a ticking clock in the palm of your hand it pleases Us greatly. 

I also do a crap job of killing both Batty and Zhora. I have to go re-work those parts of the script.

Then there's the issue of the music. There are actually fairly few songs in the piece. I think we have most of the themes or at least the rhythm guitar parts worked out. Or at least notionalized. I'll know more in a week. 

Lastly, wiring for guitar amps.

NS at JP

Saw Nova Social at Joe's Pub.
I've never seen a show at Joe's Pub before. It's one of New York City's nicer venues. The tables are set such that almost all the seats are unobstructed, and the sound is adequate. You can never get up to real rock volumes in rooms that small (maybe with line arrays?) but they do a very nice job of keeping the reflections from dinging around.
Nova Social has a great live lineup with a string trio.

Headgear Recording is a Brooklyn-based studio with a Trident 80.
Clubhouse is a Rhinebeck-based studio with a Neve 8058.
Ooh La La Records is a Brooklyn-based record label.

I Felt Ya

Nova Social is a groovy band with a very Depeche Mode/late 80's Romantic vibe.


The Delicate Cutters have a new homepage.

I need a spacer to put between my amp heads because the handles on top make them impossible to stack. I haven't found them yet but I did find custom wooden guitar-amp knobs.
Right now I'm thinking about getting a wooden picture frame and putting felt on it.

A Guitar That Speaks to You

What is the best electric guitar?
I've been complaining to anyone who will listen to me about how hard it is to play the blues. The blues can be deceivingly simple-sounding. For instance, this B.B. King song is simple. There's nothing about the song which is technically that difficult.

But "technical" is not what this music is about. Any 2nd-year student of the guitar could learn to hit all the notes B.B. King plays — and hit them in time — but getting even close to the mastery of his feel is another matter entirely.
Listen to those pianissimo phrases he slips at the end. Those are stunningly beautiful. He gets this sound inside the notes which are just jaw-droppingly sublime.
I read this article on Eric Clapton's going from Les Pauls to Stratocasters. Now the notion, to me, that one type is guitar is "better" than another is absurd. Plenty of awesome guitar players play one or the other. But the thing that Eric Clapton talks about in the article is how the Strat feels to him. It's not even the way it sounds necessarily, but the way the guitar feels in his hands.
Which is basically the direction I've been going in. I feel like I've finally found the instruments and the amplifiers that feel right to me. It took me 30 years, but I finally figured it out.
I still can't play the blues though. I can do Celtic rock — that's something I have a feel for. But the blues just don't work for me. Sigh. OK. Celtic rock. I got that...

Trouble with a Capital "T"

As a sign of how old I am, I'm reduced to Facebooking the children of my friends just to talk to my friends.
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So I met my two closest childhood friends, Todd and Billy when we were 4 years old and our mothers decided to carpool us to nursery school together at the Presbyterian church in Metuchen.
That's just background.
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Anyway, at some point when we were c. 19 years old, Billy had a cassette tape of a band that was a progressive/Celtic/something band. And starting about 10 or 15 years ago I started asking Billy what the name of that band was.
He didn't remember.
I thought the band was called something like Horseheads or something and I started conflating the fact that Billy lived Upstate New York with maybe the band being from Upstate or maybe Billy just heard of them there or something (saw them there?)

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Well this has been haunting me for a very long time. And irritating me. And then back to haunting me. I mean, seriously, what is this band?
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While looking up versions of "Locomotive Breath" on Spotify I found a band... and I realized that the band was this band I've been trying to find all this time.
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The band is "Horslips" and the actual album (which I never knew 'cause it was on a cassette) is called "The Book of Invasions."

New Cabinet

I needed a new cabinet for a 12" speaker.
I got this exceptionally groovy new cabinet from Carl Johnson. $275 for these pretty cabinets? The price is more than reasonable. The quality of the workmanship is very sweet. They smell nice. And the head is an almost perfect fit for the Lil' Dawg Mutt amplifier. If you remove the plexiglass bottom plate the amp will slide in with just enough clearance for the tubes (the Mutt isn't as wide as the Johnson head cab but you'll see that I offset it so that the cab is balanced.)

New Carl Johnson cabinets. Yes, I've already put Tyrannosaurus Mouse amp badges on them.

Ironically the speaker inside costs more than the cabinets.

Celestion Alnico Blue -- eight ohms of pure love.

All you need are some 10-32 bolts (I used 7/8") to screw the speaker in and the 1/4" to spade lugs to connect the amp.

Another sexy thing about these cabinets is that you can make them open or closed back. I'm going to experiment with them closed back for a while.

Tyrannosaurus Thrones

So I have this idea which is unquestionably brilliant. Tyrannosaurus Mouse should play the theme from Game of Thrones.
Now, I suggested this idea to my band-mates and they haven't gotten back to me. Of course, it's been a year since we mixed our album, and two since we recorded it. So we're not really known for doing things right away.

I'm sort of wondering if the melody should be played on bass. 

So if the bass plays the melody (at least in the first half) and the guitar plays the ostinato, with drums playing on the toms, what do the keyboards do? I imagine a Hammond would kick in during the major section.