Black Cat Moan & Fat Cat Strat

Fat Cat Strat.

Black Cat Moan.

Here in the primal, volcanically  formed basement workshops of Buckingham Palace my willing elf slaves have been busy forming, storming, borrowing and mocking up guitar based ideas that we've then tirelessly rendered into real versions of their long imagined selves. It takes bloody ages I can tell you. I should also say that the industrial relations between the guitar making elves and their human master(s) are a little strained at the moment. This is on account of a) the traditional Christmas rush for product b) the large amounts of cheap red wine that are consumed on the premises c) old and inefficient manufacturing practices that we are trying tirelessly to put right and finally d) material management and inventory issues within the craft process. I'd been hoping that since they'd put the Lottery up to £2 I might have a better chance of a grant so that I could at least pay for some ice-water and seasonal cigarettes for the elves (in lieu of wages) however that plan has caved in on itself in a flurry of sweaty indifference and resentment aimed at our Japanese cousins. All I am left with is the maniacal desire to string irrelevant streams of words together to form long winded sentences before heading out and kicking another lazy elf and then throwing pairs of their tiny but well cobblered shoes onto the fire. Having said all that here are early versions (unbolted or screwed up) from this century's guitar production line of fine musical instruments. As a well meaning clone of Andy Warhol  once said, "never forget what kind of business your business is in."

Heat Fan

This is in colour. 

This is a more tasteful black and white. You choose.

The news is that the Heat Fan actually works, it fans heat...well after a while and once the precious heat has built up in the stove below. We look forward now to surviving numerous ice-ages, reverse global warming and natural disasters whilst the fan provides free vital life support systems to us. Above are the actual photographs taken by me of this fine piece of eBay entrapment and entanglement engineering in action blowing hot air across a cold room powered only by the heat of...some spare and otherwise unusable heat. She spins as smoothly and silently as Isadora Duncan on a good day out in Paris. Easily the best £56 I've spent this week. I look forward to purchasing the nuclear powered version shortly.

The Ocean That Only Begins

Headstocks half finished with unfinished designs but showing what might be described as good and/or  peculiar amounts of industrial potential.

My slow adoption of the marvels of technology knows an alarming amount of bounds it seems. Despite reading quite  few books via the peculiar powers of the Kindle I'm still a bit baffled by it and the separate life it leads in it's own way (by hiding and revealing things about itself and it's numerous hidden treasures in some flickering and magical trickery). Today I found all the mp3 music that Amazon has converted from historical plastic purchases and with a little prodding added them to the bowels of the Kindle's inner workings. I have some new assets squirrelled in there it seems and they are almost pleasantly listenable; particularly so when plugged into a big boomer of a rattling speaker. Whilst on the subject of Kindle usage - please buy my friend Norman Lamont's highly useful book on the ISB. Just the thing for children of the 50s, 60s and so on. A bargain @ £2.49 or thereabouts.

Two acrobats riding on a motorbike

What you see is what you just might get: Today is the birthday of the fellow who came up with the much maligned and no doubt unreliable ink blot tests that were used to trial washing powders in the nineteen twenties in Vienna...or something like that. The fellow was Hermann Rorschach. He died tragically young but his work lives on.

Earlier I had milk and cookies so I feel a bit... meanwhile in a parallel universe I'm waiting on the cat to wake up in order that I may use the newly repaired tumble drier without disturbing her kitty slumber. Soon it will be time to unpack the money saving (14% at least) heat fan, stir the smouldering curry and uncrinkle a few shirts so that they can be worn safely. It must be the weekend anytime soon and I completely forgot to celebrate Joni Mitchell's birthday yesterday, as an indirect result I now carry a new burden of guilt. Here's a cute picture to finish with, the kind of thing you can find on the internet here and there most days.

Simple things

These are the malevolent or even magnificent seven, what your body craves and perhaps really needs when the protein counter is low and the heartbeat is slow and the eyes don't really glow so you know you need a big tasty fish based tea. Note the use of left-centric artificial milk-bomb used to create a sense of space and to provide deep and  inexplicable feelings of well being into the remote viewer's experience.

Octopus

The word for today is of course "octopus" - my grand daughter is learning in along with it's first letter, an O. All quite important. Outside the wind blew and the sea, well the estuary, boiled and spat at us while that fat old sun, predictably shone down and formed long, distorted winter shadows that I find amusing. All was well in the world for this bleak November  afternoon it seemed. My "media, politics and self driven unreasonable boomer type anger at eternal life, time and complacency" subsiding for a moment so I celebrated with fish and chips, peas and salad and wistful imaginary postings that I cannot repeat.

Before the deluge

Out and about bright, cold and early this morning scouting farm shops, dodging postmen, potholes and buying wine, oranges and three kinds of bread rolls. It's amazing how much you can fit into the basket of a bike. Then the rains came and we stayed out of them but travelled through them with the kids, all cosy in our big Jeep jacket. That's what cars are for; green supporters and people who favour all weather cycling don't forget that and don't judge us for it. As it happened - there was so much rainfall today I was able to take some photos of passing fish...

Death & Legend

The steady decline and collapse of the old people as the Reaper's purposes become clear and the pale horizon closes in: I read today in the Independent that some time next week (Thursday) Joni Mitchell turns 70. That's three score and ten, all the life you are biblically entitled to, after that time is borrowed like some exorbitant pay day loan that can be cruelly cashed in at any time; apparently. So all my once bright and incandescent heroes and heroines are reaching the end - though there are some who some hardy made it to a reasonable age at all. Now they are all bundled like antiques and celebrated and referenced by other fresh artists, poets and celebrities, most of whom I've never heard of, the dreaded younger generation that grows all too quickly. So we are left to walk alone in a shadowy world of crusty memory, grey zombie hippies and dried cadaver punks, junk-shop rockers and arthritic artists chasing down squinting directors and producers. Chewing the last few dollars from some decrepit career carcass or other and for the most part still looking cool if tired, the truth hidden by dark glasses. So it's got to be tough for the younger generation, tough to make a unique mark and show some originality to the angry new audiences with all that soft parade of old and raw material still teetering towards death and legend. That's what you get in the end, death and legend.

Two candles etc.

Two candles and a milk bomb flying in close formation.

The ceiling of the King's Theatre Edinburgh by John Byrne.

Hear my train a comin'

I watched the Jimi Hendrix documentary this evening (Hear my train etc.), it failed in a number of key areas but it's here on iPlayer at least until next Tuesday or whenever.  Hendrix bad is, as John Peel said, always better than most people good. It's funny how so many rock documentaries still fall flat in their retelling of the tale after all these years. Tired out survivors recount familiar stories in a repetitive cut and paste jumble that only just captures the bare story, so you quickly realise a whole lot of depth in everything else is missing and the fact that everybody involved is pretty much dead means this pale version of history is as good as it ever gets.

The cardinal sin for me are the live clips with the wrong soundtrack added in, time and time again we see musicians playing along to a badly cut and edited erroneous sound clip. Jimi's guitar is screaming like a banshee but his fingers are on the second fret, FFS! The only saving grace was a short segment where Eddy Kramer wound up the mixing desk to reveal Hendrix's many layered guitar parts; I'd happily watch 12 hours of that as track pieces are deconstructed and explained by a man who was there at the time. The three brilliant and contrasting rhythm guitar parts in "Little Wing" set out from the mix brought tears to my eyes, this is magnificent material... but it was gone in a few moments...there's a seam of gold in there somewhere but nobody at the BBC has the brains or courage to just dig it out.

Gravity Hammers

Apropos nothing. Today I learned that Jerry Lewis was due to play Holden Caulfield in a big screen version of The Catcher in the Rye. It never happened for many good reasons and thankfully never will.  "Gravity Hammers" - again to do with nothing at all, would be a good band/blog/paperback novel name.

Dobbies Daily Photo

Walking into Dobbies is always a slightly disconcerting experience and a vivid assault on the senses. Today at lunchtime it appeared that Christmas had collided with Halloween in some Tim Burton type of nightmare where great whiffs of mulled wine and pine cones filled the artificial air as cane basketwork Bambis dined on mistletoe from shiny witch's cauldrons. Fake plastic trees, Santa in all his divine forms, pumpkins and the Baby Jesus also inhabit this tacky lifestyle themed world, sound tracked by Band-Aid, some out of time shopping muzak and the clink of nervous teaspoons. Of course despite all that I like Dobbies because I'm usually the youngest person there and (apart from my daughter) today was no exception. I quite enjoyed my sandwich and tasty soup whist surrounded by a great grey mass of creeping, sipping and staring old people grazing like slow motion wildebeests. The shape of things to come for me you may well say.

Two things stuck out for me in this car crash of a shop; the cat on the mag that looks like our cat Mr Clint (never mind the bizarre magazine itself) and a wholly distasteful aquarium model - a downed and drowned Huey helicopter. I can't imagine anybody who works off shore in the North Sea having that one in their lounge along with their silver guppies and 62" flat screen. Maybe it's just for armchair fish loving fans of LOST or Apocalypse Now. There's also a nice human skull you can let your goldfish play in, perhaps it's better than having a real one in the back of the fridge.

Abdabs Daily Photo

A blustery but very pleasant day spent in the windswept but picturesque village of Aberdour somewhere on the ever changing and variable Fife coastline. Here is my part-formed/sub-surreal photo diary. Sadly I forgot to get a shot of the coffee, the cake and the inner sanctum of the Witch Emporium.

Back to guitar stuff

JP's rig in July 1977 (just one black Tele in there).

The legendary Page Dragon Tele blank body (a copy of course). 

Latest headstock idea.

After bungling around in the world of burning wood and fiery timber products for a while, I think I may have the beginnings of a headstock design/logo that I can develop. For the neck of the Smaug Guitar I've done a small dragon tail motif that sits nicely (in my humble view) with the patented Fender round head end. The question is can it be repeated and reused consistently across a range of different guitars using my own wobbly and finger burning pyrography?

The James Page "Dragon" Tele remains a mysterious and untouchable rock curio. Not really a very good piece of design or execution but for all that it seems to have achieved unwarranted mythological status as a Holy Grail type of guitar. It might therefore be worth trying to capitalise on this with some pyrographically challenged custom version of this pretty but odd looking guitar. Who in there right mind would build such a thing and who would by it? I don't know but  I just happen to have a blank Tele body hanging up all towel slapped, teak oiled and lubricated in the garage.

What difference does it make?

"Today Dunfermline has sent a message to Bute House and Alex Salmond: it's time for you to focus on the real priorities of Scots, not your constitutional obsession." Cara Hilton. 

"There is no victory for anybody over Grangemouth other than the big boys and the corporations. The unions and the politicians can only roll over and allow their tummies to be tickled - it's a humiliation for them as a puzzled workforce and the rest of the UK look on. The SNP, Unite and the UK government should hang there heads in shame right now." (In a more confrontational and self-honest parallel universe somewhere they'd all be hanging from lamp posts.)

Russell Brand doesn't have the answers or the proper vocabulary but he does have the right questions and speaks up (in his own eccentric way) for many people.

Smaug guitar

OK I know it's a bit hippy drippy but it's also...traditional in a Middle Earth kind of rock n' roll way. What's so wrong with a Smaug design on a Stratocaster? All I need to do now is screw all the bits together (about six times at least until I actually get it right).

Secret Worlds

Here on top of a well worn Fife based rubbish collection vehicle a whole new eco system is growing and evolving. A bit like the top most parts of the Rain Forest, bathed in light and soaked with the freshest of rain, new life not only prevails here, it thrives. The simple key components of life are all here; plastic food trays, cups, rotting vegetables, cables, tissues and wipes, beer cans and various fast food leftovers. Then there's the tin foil, the newspapers, the soiled training shoes and the sanitary products and detergents. All basking in the slowly baking heat of a benign October sun they rest and soak in their own garbage juices, primal soup and goodness.  Then they await the divine sparks of electricity, verbal abuse and indifference and prepare to be reborn and turn themselves into...

Recycled Materials that look like Keith Richards.

Saving this for later

E            B         A      F#m     G#m           C#m
She had that Camarillo Brillo flamin' out along her head.
E          B        A    F#m           G#m              C#m
I mean her Mendcino Bino by where some bugs had made it red
E             B                  A      F#m       G#m        C#m
She ruled the toads of the short forest and every newt in Idaho
E         B               A        F#m    G#m          C#m
And every cricket who had chorused by the bush in Buffalo
E            B           A    F#m           G#m            C#m
She said she was a magic mama and she could throw a mean Tarot
E           B            A     F#m          G#m              C#m
And carried on without a comma that she was someone I should know

D                     A          G  D
She had a snake for a pet and an amulet
D                      A              G           D
And she was breeding a dwarf, but she wasn't done yet
        E          B       F#m         C#m
She had gray-green skin, a doll with a pin
           B                      A
I told her she was alright, but I couldn't come in


And so she wandered through the doorway just like a shadow from a tomb
She said her stereo was four-way and I'd just love it in her room
Well, I was born to have adventure, so I just followed up the steps
Right past her fuming incense stencher to where she hung her castinettes
She stripped away her rancid poncho and laid out naked by the door
We did it 'til we were unconcho and it was useless anymore.

thanks Frank...

Feet don't fail me now

The relentless march of relentless marching.

I am bloody well angry at everyone today; INEOS, Unite, The Scottish Government, The UK Government, China and various big anonymous multinationals. These bastards either don't care who they screw, trample or exploit or (mainly the governments) are just plain stupid or inept and once again the breath of industrial death is blowing across the fragile economy of Central Scotland. The markets are the fickle kings and we cant even run a farmer's market never mind compete in a blood sucking global energy market. We are a speck on a dot on a pimple. Grangemouth no more, Linwood etc. etc. People prattle on about green and sustainable energy, give support to ugly and ineffective wind farms built in Spain and Korea, deny the value of coal and run scared of the big bad spectre of atomic power. But one day all the lights are going to go out, the cold, dull blue dawn will come upon us and the scientists, the technical experts and the skilled craftsmen will be dead and gone or flipping horse meat burgers in Paris. We get the government and leadership we deserve and unfortunately we currently have something almost worse than nothing. A sustainable Scotland without a properly engineered power strategy is a bad joke. Pointless windmills will flap and refuse to spark and tidal barriers will corrode and rust in the frozen sea. Cobwebs will grow on the power stations, stressed concrete walls and steel boilers they abandoned in favour or forty shades of sickly green - this is the start of the end, my beautiful friend. Who the feck then  is really worth voting for in the Dunfermline bi election tomorrow? Answers on a postcard please...

The Daily Fungus

Nature in the raw: Out and about in the wild, wet world today I happened on this tree stump complete with fungus, that's about it. Maybe not the most memorable event of the dripping damp but unseasonably warm day but the only one I photographed. Elsewhere I'm now getting annoyed with the big bully boys across the water at INEOS and the daft statements and claims being made by puny governments, near and far. It's all out of control somewhere and irritating and damaging to the ordinary people now caught up; Scotland's just not the player it thinks it is here. Time for wine, toast and salad and the Champions League.