If AIM gives me one more "update" pop-up this coming week, I'm getting rid of AIM.

Great show!

Great show, and a great guy as well.....someone I can, and indeed did, actually talk to.

And damn if it doesn't feel good to buy a couple of CDs and physically put the payment right in the artist's hand.

One of my favorites from him is called Psychedelic Relic. I wanted to share it with my psychedelic friends and cyber-acquaintances.....Roy doesn't seem that keen on the idea, but he's not opposed to me doing a "cover" of the song for you folks.

Not a bad idea......(I hope)...if I can find the time to learn how to play it, and then record it.

God bless America......It just might work..........

You know that Roy Zimmerman thing I posted a few days ago? I'm going to see him in concert tonight! Wish I could record it for you folks....

Dislike, did you, dislike, hear about the, dislike, grouchy teenager who, dislike, talked like this?

Wow!

I was just on Roy Zimmerman's website, and I found my way to this video of one of his relatively recent songs. This is really great!

Thanks For the Support



I'm not a YouTube freak, but this was too cool to pass up!

Now posted on the forums (or is it "fora"?)

Cromagnon - Orgasm (a full album of freak-out-ery)

and

Ananda Shankar - Ananda Shankar (Indian classical meets the (then) modern West. Highly recommended!)

at

It's PSYCH

or

The Gathering of the Tribe (check out Garden of Delights for details)

Edit, four days later: and now also at Groovy Fab.

Happy Easter! (The holiday where we celebrate a bunch of guys getting stoned and thinking they see a dead man rise. I can't think of a better explanation. :-)

Basketball is such a silly game. If they'd just put bottoms on the baskets, then the ball wouldn't keep falling through.

Sorry, Aridol....

I thought it over. The use of only one color, in my own mind at least, signifies a mind that is rigid and unchanging. (Is that redundant? I can't tell.) My mind isn't like that. I gotta be able to move around.....let my mind float through space in whatever direction it may. The colors reflect this.

I also think one color is just plain ol' boring.

Anyone else think I should just post in one color?

Anyone else read this thing at all? I haven't seen any comments yet.

Gaah...

I announce well beforehand that I want to get together with people this week, and what do you think happens? "Nothing," you say? You're right.

I don't know if either of my Chicago-native cyberfriends read this blog, but I'll next be able to roll into town somewhere beyond May 12, I think. I hope you're still here by then, Norm!

Time flies when you're having fun at...

Vintage Vinyl in Evanston. I innocently get there at four, thinking I have plenty of time to just "be" there.......next thing I know, it's closing time (seven)! How is this possible?!? I don't get it!

It's a really great store with really great music. Check them out. They're online at www.vvmo.com . And, if you can, see it in person as well. The scent of vinyl in there is wonderful; it's almost incense. (*sniff* *dreamy smile*)

Anyone want to adopt a 21-year-old child?

I'm housebroken, I don't bite, and neither my parents nor I can live a harmonious life as long as we live with each other.

Ha!

I just did a Google search for "White Room" "Thoughts of Yesterday".....First result! Right here!

No one is more humble than I!!!!

I have an idea for a play/movie/television show called "Who Wants to Hear the Answer to This Question" where a guy comes out, says "You" and walks off.

Loki the Mad Scientist

When I saw a certain item in the background, I thought "Yeah....I have to post this." (click to enlarge)

TGISB!

SB = Spring Break

Man.......

I'm feeling some kind of nauseous today......I don't know why.......it's like something's going wrong somewhere, and I don't yet know what it is. I hope everything's all right..........

Do cola and candy companies get m***y from dentists for sending them so many patients?

White Room - Thoughts of Yesterday (just one song)

This song hit rather close to home for me.......

(Edit: Feel free to request a re-up if you happen to be intrigued enough......)

Seems like such a hell
Why's there such a price to pay?

Help!

My folks are American Idol fans! Save me!!

Ecch.....

I have a politician throat today......



(I'm sure you can guess the punchline.)

How I recorded my "It's PSYCH" song

Someone asked for this to be posted here, so here it is, copied and pasted from its original location on It's PSYCH (with a few minor edits):

Whew! Here we go......

First step: Jam a bit on the guitar. Eventually, I hear something that sounds like a song.



It often helps a bit if I play with the settings on this crazy little device:



It's capable of creating a great many different sounds. The "Vox Phaser" setting shown in the photograph is the one I used for the main backbone of this song.

The RP300 also has a few different drum beats built in. I use one of those in the recording. The "percussion" is the first thing I lay down in the song. It usually requires a lot of tedious editing. Yecch. It also sounds a tad 80s-ish, but it was nicely muted in the final song, I think. I'm not that big on mainstream 80s percussion. I'd get a drum kit, but (a) I don't know if I could hook one up to the computer...I doubt it, and (b) the people with whom I live would have none of it.

Next stop: the amplifier. Sometimes, I will hook up the guitar directly to the amp and bypass the RP300. That's how I got the slightly fuzzy "lead" guitar sound.



I hook the amp up to the computer via a standard-to-mini adapter from the amp's "headphone" output to the computer's Line-in jack.

For the love of whomever you revere, make sure the volume on the amp isn't too high; this is a powerful amp I have; you don't want to blow out the speakers on the computer! I put the volume level on the amp at just over one (max is ten).

Separately, I also have a depressingly cheap microphone plugged into the "mic in" jack on the computer. My voice isn't very strong; I'd like a higher quality mike, but, you know, Bush economy, man; you do what you can.



Lucy, I'm trying to talk to people here. I'll give you fresh water in a bit.


From this point, the magic basically takes place in Audacity, a completely free, cross-platform audio editor available at audacity.sourceforge.net .





Here is where I record everything (separately, of course) to the computer. It's also where I can change things from stereo to mono or vice-versa. I went with mono on this one. I also increase the bass, add echo effects to my voice (they seemed to fit the song), adjust volume levels as necessary, do various bits of cutting and pasting, and, of course, do insane amounts of overdubbing.


There are a great number of tricks you can pull off with this piece of software. I thought about putting in a backwards guitar somewhere, but I decided it didn't really sound right with the song. The straight fuzztone lead was enough. I did a few takes on the guitar solo before finally leaving it as it is. I'm not exactly Leo Kottke or Jimmy Page........


How I come up with the lyrics....well....I wish I knew. There are some things I just know I want to include in the lyrics, like the "White Bike" reference in the first verse, and the "Babelfish clouds" in the third verse. Outside of that...I just work at it until it sounds right. I will admit that writing lyrics helps me explore the language a little bit. The Reverse Dictionary sounds like a great idea...I frequently have a concept in mind and would like to know a word that fits it...but I've used it a few times, and I don't think it works very well. It is a "beta version," though...at least according to the front page.


****

That's all I got for now. Questions? Comments? Random ramblings? Coherent conversation? Something in between? Etc.

Peace............


All right, Lucy, I'm coming.

About the whole Daylight Savings thing.......

For so long, we've been switching back and forth from standard to Daylight Savings time and back again. Twice a year, portions of the populace are thrown into confusion when they arrive somewhere and find an empty space, people they don't recognize, and all kinds of things.

I say, one of these times, we make a switch to one or the other, or maybe compromise and just jump forward or back a half-hour......and never switch again. This is just silly.

Wow....

I actually managed to get up this morning. Weird, man.

I want to give this blog a nice, psychedelic background.

How do I do that?

Why weekends at my place stink

I was clever enough to get accepted into a university that's right across town from where I've lived. So, in order to save m***y on housing, I still live here.....with my folks.

My dad's tolerable, I suppose.......

My mother...well........

Long story short, my mother is the main inspiration for the title of this post.

What's with these font sizes?

These are more inconsistent than your boss.

Damn this short weekend!

Just when I think I can settle into a groove and get stuff done, I suddenly find that a full hour has magically disappeared. The usual 24-hour days on this planet are bad enough, but this is just ridiculous. I'm thinking of going back to Ursa Minor Beta.

A sign from above, perhaps?

My name isn't Geoff, but I thought I'd link to this Onion Radio News clip that I played just before I created this blog.

Hello World! (Pardon my muddy shoes; college is a bitch)

Greetings. My name.....for all intents and purposes.......is Cheshire Adams. Remember that; you'll be quizzed about it next period.

This, quite simply, is my brand new (as of this typing) outlet for whatever may be swirling through and around my brain. Ponderings.......complaints.......music......and just good ol' fashioned non-sequiturs.

Aw, you're going off to click that little X in the corner already? Well, okay.....it's your choice, I suppose. I just wish you'd give me a little more time, though.........I'll post stuff. Much stuff. Unless something really weird happens to me between now and when I'm ready to post stuff. I doubt it, though....I've gone twenty-one and a half years, and I've yet to have an ounce of luck with women.

Seriously, though......feel free to raise your voice and sing if you are so driven. You can leave comments here, send a message over AIM to Farshimmelt, or send me or me an e-mail.

Right. That's done now. Catch you on the B-side!