Tales From The Looper

 

I bought this loop pedal in Manny's Guitars in New York about 15 years ago. It cost me $100 and I've not regretted the purchase. Sadly it seems it's days of looping and layering are done as it's not really working and does produce some odd and unplanned "Echos" era Pink Floyd noises from time to time. It screams at me mainly and I find that disturbing. It's been used successfully on a number of recordings and I've tried it in live situations but ... obviously I'm no K T Tunstall so that never went too well. For practice though a looper is a great tool and this one has been useful. Now a life in other pastures beckon via the services of Mr eBay. Some erstwhile screwdriver jockey just might know a fix. Clearly I don't. 

Cat Nativity

Despite the fact that it's May or thereabouts the cats still went ahead with their project to create a Christmas Nativity scene from some used boxes and their favourite small toys. Overall I think they're quite pleased with the end result. Not sure it'll last until the real Christmas bun fight starts but it's a good effort, hearts in the right place etc. Above features the construction team, below is the end result.

Dragonfly

Rare seeing a dragonfly in the garden. Ali captured a shot of this one today (that well might be yesterday by the time ...). I was momentarily reminded of the Jimi Hendrix lyric; Spanish Castle Magic.

"It's very far away

It takes about a half a day to get there

If we travel by my dragonfly
No it's not in Spain
But all the same you know, it's a groovy name
And the wind's just right."

The Sourdough Diaries

 

My daughter in law kindly provided us with an enormous sourdough loaf. Here it is before consumption began. We're now on day three of sourdough living and it's going very well. Of course it's winding down a bit after three days but it still makes wonderful and robust toast. Peanut butter, jam, banana, beans, cheese have alighted on it's fluffy deck but no Nutella, chips or bacon so far. The actual creation of this foodstuff and the management of the holy dough is beyond me but I'm happy to partake of any good baked up examples out there.

The other day we discovered that we'd been married for at least fourteen years. We've been together even longer but that's another story. Time passes very quickly when you're happy in a relationship and you've still got most of your marbles. We had an indoor lunch and a slurp of grape fermented juice complete with a familiar and iconic outdoor view. 

As a gentle reminder, there are two Red Fox Labrador puppies still for sale. If you've the time and space you will not regret letting at least one of these animals into your life.

Album Cover Wisdom

Duane Eddy died recently. "He was an American rock and roll guitarist. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, he had a string of hit records produced by Lee Hazlewood which were noted for their characteristically "twangy" guitar sound, including "Rebel-'Rouser", "Peter Gunn", and "Because They're Young". He had sold 12 million records by 1963. His guitar style influenced the Shadows, the Beatles and Bruce Springsteen."  This is from Wikipedia of course. 

Anyway I was listening to a Word Podcast and they were talking about Eddy, his career, influence and the ludicrous overuse of the word "Twang" in his album titles, then they mentioned the one above. No twang but just an odd composition of things that's simply strange and very much of the time. I had to look it up and so here it is. I particularly like that the floor is strewn with books all titled "Wisdom" while two female models appear to be contemplating who knows what. Perhaps Dylan's lyrics; despite the album being all guitar instrumentals. A classic album cover from which I've never heard a single tune at all and probably never will.

Fox Red Lab Pups

Fox Red Labrador Pups are available: Out of a litter of seven very healthy Fox Red Labrador pups two are still looking for homes. A boy and a girl. They are the cutest puppies and they grow up into elegant, clever and intelligent working dogs and great companions. Mum is pictured below and has all of the expected high standard breeding credentials within her family history. If you think you might like one and could provide a suitable and safe home please contact me via the comments for more details. FYI these classy pups are in Aberdeen.

At Last The Stick Sprouts

After about three months in the ground the apple stick has decided to turn into an early version of an apple tree. Much to my relief it's clearly alive and dare I say thriving. I can't really take any credit for this small miracle. Nature is full of seasonal surprises as forgotten or ignored plants and shrubs start to reclaim their spaces in the garden by simply growing back up and alive after the cold dead winter. Not that the last winter was all that bad really, but it's late spring and his might well be my favourite time of year.

Randomness Abounds

Lightweight guitar porn.

Zippy the "fun" cat sports a green skid mark on his head after getting stuck in our garden hedge. Apart from that he's doing fine, we're still a bit nervous though. Cats will be cats.

Artist's impression of the South Queensferry String Quartet tuning up prior to an imaginary performance. We're a very cultured little town you know, but like to keep things low key. 

South Queenferry Daily Photo

George the cat climbs somewhat awkwardly around in a tree in our garden in a desperate attempt to catch a sparrow that's about twenty feet above his head on a telephone wire. He made it back down unscathed as is normal even for daft cats.

A curious feature seen in the High Street. A closed portal, a redundant fireplace, a little nook for plants? We'll never know the truth. We popped by the new cafe and bakery, Dune, around about 12:30. They were closed, they'd sold out of everything. Wow! This seems to happen in certain small businesses, I've noticed that Tantrum Donuts are often sold out. Perhaps a sign of the economic hard times were nobody wants to over stock so they play safe. Can hardly blame them. After 14 years of austerity people just have to keep putting the brakes on. I hate what this poxy government has done to the hopes and aspirations of British people. 

The Cellardyke Cannons

The old bathing pool in Cellardyke, Fife (my actual home town of sorts) contains some hidden treasure, also of sorts. 19th century ships' cannons that didn't really come from any local shipwrecks but are historically significant nonetheless, being old. They were dumped in the old pool about twenty years ago having been salvaged from Aberdeen harbour and Burntisland's shoreline. They remain in the salt water in order to avoid deteriorating in the, toxic to them, Fife atmosphere. If exposed to the air they'd be gone very quickly, so I'm told. 

They remain in the not so murky depths (pretty shallow) of the tidal pool as part of a long term study / project being undertaken by St Andrews University boffins. I don't think they could be casually removed should any petty criminal be after easy scrap metal money or a fast buck garden ornamentation sale. Those wild and crazy East Fife Dippers take a certain pride in these historic cannons lurking in one of the spots they regularly swim in, which is fine. Photos from the Cellardyke Tidal Pool group.

Obscured by Pub Rock

This isn't any kind of rate my rig post so don't be tempted. We played at a splendid wedding venue at the weekend and this was my equipment featuring No.1 (Gibson Les Dawson) and No.2 (Washburn 335). Also there for posterity are a Roland Cube, Carlsbro 100w head and my clunky, sometimes noisy, DIY pedal board. The whole band is streamed through a Bose 1000w PA. I have no clear idea what it all sounds like when we are playing but I do know people liked dancing to it and seemed to have a lot of wholesome wedding party fun. Overall set up plus uncut wedding cake featured below.  

Final lighting display all done up by John W.

Photo above courtesy of CBQ. 

Cat of the Day

When you live with three cats all of whom are just about to turn one year old choosing the cat of the day isn't easy. Generally each one has numerous cute or crazy moments in every 24 hours. Anyway, after no real struggle at all I'm calling this cat, Zippy, as cat of the day. I'm not really sure what day I took this photo but it was fairly recent. End of message.

Tiny Donuts etc.

 

Large photo of a tiny donut.

There once was some kind of overblown, meandering, largely meaningless political rant here but I deleted it. Seems pointless and I think I made a previous commitment (to myself) to avoid doing that kind of thing here. The supreme donut, in all his sugary wisdom, encouraged me to share this small piece of insightful insignificant insight.

Anyhow I've now moved onto a double baked (?) pistachio croissant. 

Afloat on a Sewage Sea

For some reason problems with household sewage systems have followed us from house to house regardless of the location. Remote homes we've had  would often have septic tanks and soak-aways and require regular maintenance. Often things would go wrong with unpleasant and unhealthy but sometimes humerous results. So despite moving back into a more urban area we are still prone to foul water problems it seems. The thrill is of course very much in the hunt. Trying to solve the problem by running taps, forcing unblocker chemicals into the drains, using a plunger and fiddling with rodding points and pipes. Then the downwards bump as you understand the futility of such ham-fisted efforts.

Now the desperate realisation dawns that professional help is needed and the search for that becomes far more important than just tinkering in the margins of the problem. The primarily male based illusion that complex problems can be fixed with some homemade tweak is attractive but it seldom works. You need somebody who "knows what they are doing and has the correct equipment".  Any delay in getting them involved is usually costly. So now we are adrift and frustrated. Facilities are diminished somewhat compared to normal. We await rescue, drifting slowly over the horizon on our makeshift vessel, afloat (only just) on this stagnant syrupy sea of effluent. Ho hum.

Last Logs

Last leg for the logs: Not the last logs ever, we've still a stack laid out in the weather like sleeping Chinese warriors. This is probably the last log fire of the season (not that seasons are very distinctive around here) until the next semi-pseudo ice age dawns, heralded with the distant splintering of some gleaming, silver blue icicles on the frozen timbers of the fossilized true cross buried in perma snow close to Glenrothes. In the distance wolves howl and the moon slowly sinks in a pale sky. All very badly imagined of course.

The reality is sooty dust and black fingernails as I clean out the slowly cooling iron beast and then arrange the summer fairy lights into it's metal belly for the purpose of it's ritual humiliation. I understand that logs are a problem for various wild and accurate reasons; health, safety and the end of the world etc. but here in the remote north west arse end of Edinburghshire we claim the use of any economical warmth we can summon up including cheap alcohol and oven chips. That sacred right is protected somewhere within the small print of the Declaration of Arbroath I do believe. However I could be completely wrong.

Curry Police II

I'm unsure how it is* that on a daily basis my phone and various accounts inform me of the whereabouts of Police Scotland vehicles in and around Fife. I don't even live there. Stranger than that is that I find it interesting and think; "well if I ever need to go via blah blah I'll be on the lookout for the police hanging about at location X, a regular parking spot for them". The other thing is that I'm not really guilty of any road traffic crime. I just bimble along like any old bloke in a reasonably modern car might do. Anyhow, the other day this polis BMW was in the alley by the Rosyth Co-op gearing up no doubt for a curry lunch run. We are all watching but we are all still being watched (George Orwell didn't say this either).

*I'm following these fecking accounts by choice - that's why.