Pictures
2 Lousy Cell Phone Pictures Of The Exhibition & A Neat One Of A Dog
3 September 2010
Already September! With all the activity lately ether I haven’t had time or was simply too tired to blog. Last week’s opening went well, it’s always nice when all the galleries of a certain area open their respective shows on the same evening, gets folks out and walking. The gallerists of most cities have figured that out and Zürich is no exception, I think they’ve divided the city into four areas which have independent gallery nights. It was sunny and hot out, and a bit muggy too. I dropped my stuff off at the hotel downtown, walked to the gallery – about 15-20min away – and just started pouring sweat once indoors… for what seemed like hours, terrible. Fortunately there was a refreshingly fruity pinot blanc to sip on, it’s nice to be with gallery that still serves decent wine!…
Uh-Oh, A Rubbed Through Zinc King
23 August 2010
Uh-oh, this week I noticed that I had rubbed through a few ribs of the Zinc King 703’s! Not surprising if you use them like I do but unfortunate nevertheless… Still this isn’t the first time, and probably not the last, so to prevent it from getting worse I took it apart – easy:
- Pull out all 4 nails
- Remove the zinc rubbing surface and wash off whatever limestone sediment and gunk there is with fine steel wool soap and water
- Apply two composite epoxy glue for metal on the areas that have been rubbed through on the back side of the rubbing surface…
A steam boat ride on the Lac Léman
18 July 2010
St. Gingolph
A few picture from yesterday's boat ride around the east - upper lac - side of the Lac Léman (lake Geneva). We were...
Do It Yourself @ The MEN Part 2
21 May 2010
The museum was packed with folks when we got there at around 17h00 to finish setting up and all and by 18h30 there was a line of people waiting for the workshops to begin.
At 18h45 we were swamped in the crowd…
I had inherited the Tonatem table, being a “specialist” of this instrument since I’ve made quite a few of them helping Bill on various projects these last years. He had surprised me earlier by telling us that he thought two participants at a time was enough, I had imagined more like 4 to 6 but it’s a fact that after considering the workspace and tools at disposition it seemed that three was probably a good number of instrument builders to begin with.
How it worked out for my colleagues at the other tables is anyone’s guess, the first ten minutes were shear pandemonium, crowded by the mass of folks trying to see the different going ons, it was almost impossible to move and so the next two hours just went by step by step, drill two holes, screw this piece there, choose a piece of styrofoam, watchout! that wire can be pretty nasty…
Last Of The Snow & Going Ons
25 April 2010
Almost summer weather today so I walked north west, up and out of town, just over the crest were one can look over to France’s Franch-Compté region. I like it better than the view of the Alps that you see if you go up the opposite way. Less dramatic, an invitation to walk with your mind across the hills.
On the way up I saw a small white butterfly, probably the first Ive seen up here since spring comes a month later than down in the Plain (which is what they call the central area of Switzerland that is not the Alps or the Jura). Nice to get some air after three days of facing the dust that had accumulated in my studio over the winter.
Tuesday I practiced with Dave, the two of us will be playing locally…
Electric Washboard
20 April 2010
Piezo mic, volume pot, guitar output jack, a bit of work and presto: electric washboard!
But why? you may ask. Because… why not? For fun? A spark of the old punk spirit? Perhaps. Last fall, friend Blaise gave me a piezo mic that he had soldered via some wire to an output jack. A fun thing to have around since you can stick it on to whatever you what with a piece of tape and see what sounds you can make. And it was to put on my washboard but till now, the nagging question: then…
Sun-Bleached Ox Rib Bones!
10 April 2010
When Bone Dry Music received a whole new batch of whole sun-bleached ox rib bones a couple of weeks ago I decided to completely ignored the fact that monetary resources are low and order a few, after all a choice of good rhythm bones will get you through hard times a lot better than uh, well, many other things I’m sure…
The Moondog's Hum
31 March 2010
About a year ago Dave bought a cheap Chinese resonator guitar and decided that it needed a better cone. So he ordered one but it was a bit too big for the guitar’s hole. Having taken a look at it I told him that I could make the hole bigger and so he brought it over to my workshop and we (I) ended up adding two sound holes, since he received two with the cone, remaking the bridge and sticking in a pickup between the cone and the neck.
After all that the guitar sounded definitely better, which was nice, but unfortunately has an annoying hum when amplified.
Saturday Snow, Sunday's Stroll
8 March 2010
Just as it looked like the Spring was getting closer wouldn’t you know that the temperature would drop again, flirt with the -6° to -12° C (21° – 10°F), encouraging all the show that fell on Saturday to stay put and freeze up the town some more instead of politely melting away like I wish it would.
Sunday woke with the sun, not of the let’s melt all that snow kind but unfortunately closer to: “the sun is shinning, don’t forget your sunglasses it’s really bright out, hey it’s freezing! Where did you put my gloves?” kind. Brrrr…
Thursday Night Jammed
28 February 2010
Yesterday I took the excuse of meeting an art consultant who had recently contacted me to head down to Geneva and check out the jam at the BAG – Geneva’s Blues Association – something I had been wanting to do. As luck would have it however I hadn’t really check out who was participating and earlier this week had already learned that the few I knew wouldn’t be there. Never mind, in any case I was planning to eat with and old friend and hoped he would tag along for company.
Of course or perhaps out of habit I also visited a few galleries and as one little chat lead to another, ended up late in meeting my friend. We had a beer but he wasn’t interested in listening to a blues jam, and in fact dragged me to the ==Les Enfants Terrible, a curious furniture creation/repair and wine shop/bar that has a live act every Thursday, and could possibly be a place to play with CBB. Two acoustic guitarist where singing inaudible songs due to atrocious acoustics and a noisy crowd…
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