Right. So after i get a new battery put in the van last week and all seems well, off I go driving down the street this morning and what happens? the battery light comes on. And stay on. Great. fortunatly i’m driving right by Jordan ford. One quick look an ‘lo: it’s the alternator! Like I said. only it was OK when they checked it last week. so now I apparently have to pay more money. Shit.

Fortunately, I am recording two songs on drums for Alan Fisher today so that’ll get me enough to cover this. But I really don’t think I should. I think they missed it. Yes, it’s probaly coincidence, but dammit!

The lady from Jordan ford called last eve and said that at the least, the battery was bad on the van. i replaced the battery less than two years ago right after I bought it. I’m pretty certain that batteries are supposed to last at least two years. Sadly, I’m pretty sure the receipt for this is no longer viable as all the retail companies (Pep Boys, e.g.) are using heat-activated paper so you can’t see the items on the reciept if they’ve, say, sat in a car for a while.

Alas.

So I await further communication form the repair shop. Hopefully (sadly), there is something wrong with the car or I’ll have to pay for everything and that will cost me more than the $75 copay. My car has better health insurance than me. Isn’t that sad?

All this plus another large rack, three suitcases of cords, two fold-up chairs, and a keyboard fir into my minivan. It was what we engineers call “full” probably could have fit a 6-pack in there if necessary (you always have room for a beer)

Buffalo Soldiers. I felt for these guys all in wool in June in San Antonio, Texas.

Blues, man! He wasn’t too happy about the monitor sound (it was peeling his face off, it was so loud, apparently), but he didn’t say anything until I went to the stage to fix a glitch: you gotta tell someone there’s a problem if you want to get it fixed. Which we did. Alas, he kept moving away from the mic when he sang softer and got closer to the mic when he got louder, so we had to ride the fader and gain the entire time.  The keyboardist was excellent. The bassist and drummer were very good, too.

These guys i felt bad for, as they were doing a lot of head, hand, and foot spins on a splinter-laden stage. I think they may have needed medical care after.

My camera couldn’t take a good picture of the Ron Wilkins Quartet, but they were fantastic!

Curse the luck: my Sexy Momless Mom Mobile doesn’t start. Click click whirr chunk. Not good stuff. Yay for extended warranty that covers this. I think if it’s the alternator again, I’m trading it in. What good is a vehicle who’s alternator craps out every year? Not even a year! It went out last August. Yep.

So a day or so without a 4-wheeled chariot may not be so bad….

As i was talking to Bobby from “Don’s Towing” who happened to be at Jordan Ford we had a crossed connection.

“Where are your keys” says he.

“Right here in my pocket” says I

“Well I’m in front” says he

“OK…., that was fast”

“No I’m just here in front come give me your keys”

“Yes, but my van is at my house”

“Right, come give me your keys and we’ll go get your van”

“But I’m at my house, too: car won’t start”

“Oh”

So the tow guy shows up looking like Sam Elliot on a bad day.

thank goodness for gravity, though: i have a downhill from my garage, which leads to an uphill on the street that Bobby used to good effect to get the van onto his rig (I’d diagram it, but that would be silly) . Physics in action! Yay science!

Steve Bratland and I ran sound for the Juneteenth celebration downtown. it was quite the experience and a lot of fun. Very very hot, however. I think I sweated half my body weight. It started out “can you run sound?” and morphed into “can you provide a backline as well?” Backline means drum set, bass rig, guitar rig, and maybe a keyboard.

“Sure” says we.

And it was done. Initially we thought we would get away with Steve’s CB700 set that he Drumagogs in his studio, but his hardware isn’t very good so we opted to use my gig hardware. Then we (actually: I) decided that we might as well give a good showing and bring my gig kit. Which we (I) did. Plus speakers, mixer, cords, and etc.

Oof.

That’s 3/4 of the Sexy Momless Mom Mobile filled. Then we filled the rest of the Now-Extremely-Sexy Sexy Momless Mom Mobile with the PA, more cords, more speakers, stands, stands, a keyboard, and two drum stools (I’d call them thrones but they weren’t going to be used by drummers).

And so we mixed. And sweated. And cursed an intermittent speaker fart that eventually turned out to be a combination of a jitzy line out from the bass rig and bad vocal technique from singers.

I’ll post pics when i can access my camera which is buried in the van at the moment.

Balsaracers.com now has content: two songs (Silver and One Day). It also has information about G.O.Recording Studio.

One Day

This was recorded originally back in 2001 or 2002 before I did anything on computer. It’s basically untouched except for many vocal retakes and some new effects. Which…um…makes it changed, really.

Silver

Written for a friend who doesn’t know I wrote it. And that’s just as well.