I had a bunch of stuff, mainly recorded and mixed on my computer, that I thought would sound good on a cassette.

It does sound good. I was right.

Very nearly 60 minutes worth of analog entertainment, edition of 42, hand-painted covers.

Get yours here

thanks,
5

I hadn’t heard SUN SHIP (specifically the title track, tho the whole album is pleasing as I recall) since borrowing the CD from genius guitar player Aaron when we were in the band called BRUCE together, about ten years ago (gasp). Then I found the album for sale, a vinyl copy, new, price was right, so I picked it up and had a listen.

I used to listen to “Sun Ship” and think Coltrane must have had robins outside his house, the way I did, and woke up to their chirruping triplets every morning, the way I did. I knew he took his inspiration from, well, everywhere! and I knew that Eric Dolphy, for example, a good friend of Coltrane’s, had been specifically influenced by birds. And when do robins most notably sing? At sunrise! So “Sun Ship” didn’t (and doesn’t) seem like that unlikely a title for a piece based on singing robins.

On more recent listen, my ears somewhat more precise in their ability to measure increments of pitch and rhythm than they were ten years ago, I’m finding that they are not so much triplets that JC is playing as quadruplets for the most part … but the feel remains. I still can’t rule out the influence.

Tho the sound is in some ways muted relative to the CD issue I once had (which could also I guess be partly the stereo, or deterioration in my hearing at the treble end), I’m finding that the individual tunes speak out much more clearly to me now (either due to the medium or due to something that has evolved in my brain) and that playing even just one side at a time is too much … I am having to take it song by song, something I rarely do with CDs (which I tend to take as a whole) and perhaps rarer still with records (which I tend to take side by side).

As far as “side by side” goes, the other night I listened to “Reward” by The Teardrop Explodes on a 45rpm, then followed it up with side one of EARTH 2 by Seattle’s power-drone then-duo, Earth. Side one contains only the winding, meandering, detuned riff known as “Seven Angels”. It’s quite nice. It took me several minutes to realize I hadn’t set the record player back to 33&1/3. While I do prefer this record at the proper speed, it is not unpleasant when played too fast. Certainly not frantic or hurried. Just higher-pitched and thus physiologically different in its effect.

Tonight we listened to side four, “Like Gold And Faceted (part 2),” which consists of a reasonably consistent drone (it stutters a bit but never breaks or halts; it even fades in and out for continuity) and some distant bashing about on (what I assume is) cymbals.

It occurred to me that in the utterly un-sine-like droning of EARTH 2, side 4, most likely were contained or implied all the freaky free harmonic sounds of SUN SHIP. As if the one could reveal the other if rotated properly under certain kinds of light or behind a series of prisms.

Hey hey,

http://5-track.com/mp3/FloatingOther/1stFloatingOther.mp3

here’s a little piece (60 minutes worth) from my creative music / improv unit, “Floating Other“. The name has to do with the geometric alliances of players within a given personnel and also with the inclusion of elements outside the ostensible set of performing musicians.

in this first recording, the role of the “other” is handed around between myself, bassist Jef Hogan Buffa, percussionist Jennifer Ng, and an acknowledgment of the mischievous presence (a floating other?) with which Jef shares his home.

Floating Other will be performing on Wednesday June 30th at the Echo Curio,
1519 Sunset Blvd, Echo Park, CA 90026,
9pm,
with additional performances by Jack’l, Stefan Scott Nelson, and Art Terry.

I had always assumed that canaries sang, like, one whistled note or so. Presumably something very pretty and poignant. “Tweet!” or “Chirpy chirp!” at the most …

Now, I’m into birds that sing. Robins used to wake me up most mornings in Vermont sounding like John Coltrane’s “Sun Ship” (or vice versa … presumably Trane woke up to robins as well at some point in his life?) and I used to look forward to that every day. Here in Los Angeles it is mockingbirds that sing, well, all the time. No complaint. I love it. They improvise and their tri-faceted songs are always different, always the same. Catbirds, Vermont’s equivalent to the mockingbird, are similar but more overtly chaotic in their arrangements.

But canaries, being the housebound songbird of choice in the common knowledge, I assumed had a pretty, sweet, fairly unremarkable song.

OK, so now I’m housesitting for some people with 17 finches and an orange canary. The finches go “meh! meh! meh! meh!” nasally and constantly from dawn until they pass out in the early evening (unless something we do wakes them up again … we are night owls and not especially quiet ones at that) which is not unpleasant, especially given the wonderful acoustics of this particular house, lots of open spaces and wooden floors. And the canary makes noises that put psychedelic synthesizm to shame.

Really. I will never need a synth player in my life. If I want to outdo Hawkwind, Jefertiti’s Nile, Acid Mothers Temple etc, I’ll just mic up a canary (or record one prior, I suppose). The thing burbles and twitters and whoops and warbles for minutes at a time! and LOUD!!

I am not sure I understand why it is desirable to own one, as sustained thought can be difficult with such a thing around. But it is certainly a remarkable creature, the canary.

In the last 3 weeks we have enjoyed a potpourri of climatic variation. We had a little bit of rain, but not too much. We had one or two blazingly hot days, but not too many. We’ve had a few days that merited an extra shirt – cool, breezy, bordering on chilly if you’re from here or just done got too used to it – but only a few… Though the evenings have been a little on the “cold” side as standing-around-outside-a-venue temperatures go. In the main it has been pleasantly warm, not too hot, not too cold, and a little more motion in the air than I expect to find here, which is especially nice cos it keeps the breathing a little easier.

Yesterday there was a raven on the next street up (Marathon?) making that sound like an African gourd xylophone that I never heard them make until a few weeks ago … And in a few weeks into the future we are moving into a house which will allow more cool in, keep more hot out, and be surrounded by more in the way of vegetation which means birds, squirrels, and lots of the color green.

EDIT: The mockingbird is DEFINITELY back. I was playing along with him on the guitar yesterday.

featuring Woody (acoustic guitar) and 5-Track (acoustic guitar)

1A

3

1B

It rained again, less dramatically, for a couple-few days. No tornadoes, little in the way of mudslides, the mania all wrought out in the first go rounds.

It was a spring rain. It was a subtle difference. It had less of a density to it, not so much in the way of sodden snowpants and slightly more along the line of still-wearing-those-wet-clothes-are-you?

Then it got clear, like it does. Best air here is right after a rain. I go outside just to breathe.

It got hot. I had heard it was going to, and then it happened, in the middle of the night. I could tell cos I woke up sweaty and had to take some clothes off. Sure sign of a heat wave.

And the next two days of February in southern California were as hot as Vermont ever gets in July (maybe a couple of hotter days in August). The heat was nice – got my first light sunburn of the year, it passed quickly when I applied Aloe, or Arnica, or Something – but also a reminder that it ONLY GETS HOTTER FROM HERE, HA HAAAAA!!!

Then two days that could be described as relatively cool (even bordering on chilly on at least one evening) and now it is raining again.

A return to the One.

Yesterday was a hair on the chilly side, tho not unpleasant… like Seattle in the spring. Like there’s a mild, debatably damp bite in the air. But not overtly damp. And not a nip. No teeth to it. Just a chill. And besides, it was sunny. I was outside mainly in the late afternoon, just before sunset, attempting to contend with what turns out to be a double-filament bulb in our 1999 Nissan Altima’s tail/brake-lights. Hassle upon hassle - but pleasant enough to deal with until you get a fix-it ticket. Which we haven’t got, so rite on it is.

Was also out briefly driving to Greg’s for Rough Church rehearsal. It was nice enough up his way, but not spectacularly so (measured by that I didn’t notice, and I usually do). I mean, it was clear and the air and temperature were pleasant. I just didn’t get any sense of the cosmic ambience. Which could in itself be telling.

Previous afternoon I was rehearsing on Simon’s Drum Satellite with Cricket & The 2:19. I brought an extra shirt thinking I’d need one. Didn’t really, though it wasn’t too much either. Also pleasant and cool, but a little drier in the air. Like, micro-clicks drier. Notably unnotable, also, except in relations to the days surrounding.

Micro-clicks of individuation are, I suspect, what I am after.

Today it is raining again. I haven’t been out yet. I will soon be on my way back to Greg’s, but I don’t see much to sample today in the way of meteorological micro-clicks. It is wet, and probably a bit chilly. I don’t mind.

Sodden palm fronds line the pavement like drowned monkeys, figments of last week’s rain, and I believe yesterday was the 1st day of spring.

Which is a radical thing to say about January 30th. But this is Los Angeles, and I can feel it. There is said to be more rain yet to come. But I’m putting it on the line right here and now that it is going to be a spring rain.