Have you seen the Drumming Washing Machine video yet?
If not, you just have. Anywhooooo, SYNTHGEAR is hosting a remix contest for the video above. Here's my entry, It's called "Possessed Washing Machine":
You can also listen to it from the player below (where I'm hoping to see some more entries):
I don't want to brag, but I think this week's Aid or Invade is easily one of my better ones.
Two weeks ago Vienna and I spent a lovely (unless you factor in the 100+ degree heat) Saturday morning at the Punk Rock Flea Market. Despite seeing hundreds (I'm not exaggerating. In fact, I've told you people a million times that I never exaggerate) of items I wanted to buy, I only made one purchase (cheap bastard): a vintage Horhner melodica:
OK, the picture is a little fuzzy (like most of my pics) but, when you consider my fondness for wine, I think it does a pretty decent job of conveying the scope of my purchase. So, how much did I pay for this piece of musical history? $5.
Of course, the $5 price tag was due to the fact that five of the twenty-six keys were stuck in the "open" position. Then why bother to purchase it at all? Well, the good news was that the melodica made a rattling sound when shaken. Tip: If you ever purchase a cheap, second-hand melodica, make sure that it produces a rattling sound, because that means whatever parts are broken are still inside.
Sure enough, when I opened up the melodica, I found five "free-floating" tangents which happened to correspond to the five "stuck" keys.
Another blurry photo? I really need to sober up! Anywhooooo, all that was needed was to glue the tangents back into place [Tip Number Two: Airplane glue + wind instrument = instant acid jazz].
Do those look like bad teeth to you? Where was I? Oh, yeah...once the tangents were fixed and dried, that just left cleaning off the numbers.
The previous owner had decided (sometime around 1972, from the looks of things) to mark each key with a number. I guess they figured that, should a confused ivory poacher make off with one of the plastic keys, this would make reporting the theft to the police much easier. "Yes officer, it was #7! For God's sake, please hurry!"
Here's what the melodica currently looks like:
Ah, but what does it sound like? If you're really interested (and you did read this far, after all), here are a few bars of Life on Mars. And no, I don't plan on fixing the key clicks, as I actually like those.
