Tag Archives: banjo

Usual Rubbish

Banjo doorstop.

I feel a draft. Don’t you feel a draft, Marvin (my personal robot assistant)? Oh, right. I forget you’re made of brass and polystyrene. What about you, mansized tuber? Oh, right. You’re a plant. Guess it’s just a “me” thing.

Well, we knew it would be difficult to spend nights out in the courtyard of the Cheney Hammer Mill, our erstwhile squat house. Not that that place was insulated and tight as a drum. Quite the contrary. But at least there were places deep inside the mill where you couldn’t see sunlight. Can’t say the same for this potting shed. It’s got more holes than a North Dakota oil field. And it’s twice as greasy. When the wind blows, it whistles. (Or maybe Anti-Lincoln whistles … not sure.)

Yes, we’ve had to make do in a lot of ways since moving out of the dump into this wreck of a shack, driven from our home by some drunken upstairs neighbors who hate our freedoms. (Like the freedom to live undisturbed in a hammer mill … one of our most CHERISHED freedoms.) Refrigeration is a bit of an issue, for instance. We thought about using a styrofoam cooler packed with ice, but we didn’t have any ice and …. well … we didn’t have a cooler, so we just put the perishables in the middle of the floor and waved fans at them. Turns out there’s a reason why they call them perishables. Who knew?

Hey, Abe! We found a use for that thing!

About the only customized feature on this shack is a spring-loaded door that slams closed every time you pass through it. It’s a bit problematic when it comes to carrying gear in and out, so we quickly decided to prop it open with something handy. And since the only personal belongings we’ve been able to retrieve from the mill are musical instruments, we had to decide which instrument was  expendable enough to be used as a doorstop. My vote was for the accordion, but the front-runners were banjo and bagpipes. Banjo won the final run-off, much to the chagrin of Anti-Lincoln, who has been known to pluck the gut bucket from time to time.

Just as well. If we’d used either the accordion or the bagpipes, every time we closed the door, either one would make its signature sound. Sure, you’d know when somebody enters the place … but then you know anyway, because it’s a POTTING SHED, for crying out loud.

Usual Rubbish

Strum and dang.

Let’s see …. how does the barre system go again? Oh, right. It’s freaking impossible. Forgot that part. Back to the banjo chords then. I wonder how good songwriters handle questions like this.

Yes, if you haven’t already guessed, I’m attempting to write some songs this week. Well, I should say one song, but that’s being somewhat generous. I can’t let Matt carry the entire burden of composing for Big Green. What kind of brother would that make me? I’ll tell you what kind. My kind, that’s what. Just STAY OUT OF IT. Anyway … that’s why I’m handling this guitar. Notice I didn’t say “playing”. That’s a bridge too far … and this song of mine doesn’t even have a bridge.

Frankly, I don’t see how Matt does it. He dreams up these songs, harmonizes them in about twenty minutes down in the basement of the Cheney Hammer Mill, then tracks the suckers. Me? I get some lame idea, knock it around in my head for a couple of days, and then either the lyrics come all at once or they drop from the sky in fragments, sometimes six months, sometimes a year apart. In some instances I do songwriting at a glacial pace. You can actually watch me evolve during the course of writing a single song. (When I wrote the first verse, I was an Australopithecus. Now look at me! Definitely Peking man.}

Okay, hit "record" or whatever.So, if I’m treating every songwriting project like the evolutionary ascent of man, that amounts to a lot of banjo-plucking primates. And that’s where many of my songs start out. I’ll find a chair somewhere in this big old barn of a place, throw my cheap-seat Martin D-1 across my leg and start playing the five chords I know best. If I stumble upon some progression or melody worth repeating, I can’t rely on memory alone. Fortunately, Marvin (my personal robot assistant) has an audio recording module, and if I can get him to stand still long enough, I can capture whatever the hell it is I’m working on and play it back later. If it happens in the middle of the night,  the playback sounds like …. you guessed it …. banjo-plucking primates.

Hey, we all have our process. That’s what makes us human, right? Doing dumb shit, then figuring out how to improve on a bad thing. That’s the Big Green way.

Usual Rubbish

Twang it.

Okay, so the strings have been changed. Congratulations. Only trouble is, there’s four strings, not six. What is this freaking thing, a banjo? No banjos in my house! Well …. maybe one, but that’s it!

Wow, I guess you caught me laying down the law with Marvin (my personal robot assistant), who has been standing in for my guitar technician over the last week or so. Not a role he was born to play, that’s for sure. His rudimentarily prehensile claws can barely hold on to a guitar let alone change a set of strings. I think this time around, he quit the task at four strings just because it’s so damned impossible. (I gave him Mission Impossible.)

Why would I ask Marvin to change my guitar strings? Well, he should stretch a bit beyond his comfort zone, you know? He’s got to make something of himself one day, and with all of the automation happening throughout our global economy, I’d say he’ll have plenty of opportunities. If Factory tuned to concert pitch.that sounds odd coming out of a confirmed collectivist, just bear in mind – Marvin doesn’t have any material or animal wants or needs. He runs off of a little breeder reactor in his chest cavity. I think it looks like a cake frosting pipe with some arteries painted on the outside – it bobs up and down and makes a noise that recalls to mind a beating heart. (Oh no, wait … that’s an episode of Lost in Space.)

Actually, Marvin has volunteered to serve as the self-driving part of our self-driving car. All we need to do is add the car part. I tried to explain to his tiny brain that the car part is the hard part because it involves substantial cash outlays and various other activities that are difficult to perform when you are “off the grid”, if you catch my meaning. Still, it would put us in the forefront of independent bands if we started traveling about in a van driven by an automaton. This could be our ticket to stardom … or at least start-um. (You have to start somewhere.)

Back to the guitar strings. I am trying to teach myself a few songs on guitar so that I can start busking. Or at least do some virtual busking, as a professional busker, not a hobbyist. (Like I need a hobby, right?) The guitar case will be open, hungry for unwanted coins, at a subway stop near you.