Altered State & 73

 There's two parts to this blog.

First up, our new audio project Altered State had our first recording session this past Saturday afternoon. Here's some behind the scenes pics.

Our cat Twink supervised the sessions and she really had issues with my Zoom recorder placement! I had wanted to put one on the stairs (its a great spot of capturing the sound of the basement and I have used that spot on prior recordings) but she kept batting at the Zoom so I moved it to another spot and she didn't like that either. Finally I put it in the laundry room and she seemed ok with that spot. She had no issues with any of the other Zoom spots.

The mighty Tim Mungenast is part of the band. There's his Gibson guitar and banjo/uke. Both sounded fab. Thanks Tim!

I used the Sonic Springboard on the first jam and some jams later on. I ran it through the Ghost Rain pedal. The Ghost Rain pedal is very inexpensive and very awesome!

Later I used the electric kazoo run through the Two Timer pedal.

Mesa Boogie!!!!!!!! Tim's heavy amp sounded heavy and groovy which is how Tim's guitaring always sounds!

My rig as things got crazier. I had a couple of tape recorders running through fx pedals.

Some of the pedals for our mysterious bass player!

DNA Girl's set up! Electric mandolin, drums, pedals, and more!

The bass belonging to our talented and awesome bass player!

So the band line up is:

Tim Mungenast, DNA Girl, Count Robot, and our mystery bass player. 

We recorded for about 4 hours. All guided improv. All bliss.

Our wonderful and creative bassist is going to mix the album. 

We're already discussing our next session!

I am happy and humbled to be playing with such great musicians!

Ok so what is the 73 all about in the title of the blog?

Well, I am on 73 albums/EPs!!! I recently did the math on it. Realistically I'm on even more but I'm going to have the count as 73 for now. My personal goal is to get to at least 100 before I drop. I think it can happen.

It's good to have goals.

Yours in new music creation,

Count Robot.

Spaceslug

Spaceslug

On a recent Bandcamp Friday, I discovered a band called Spaceslug.

I am so impressed by the awesome rock value of that band name.

It’s one of the best band names ever!

Lemanis is the name of the album.

It’s full of fun space/psych/stoner rock jams.

The riffs this band generates are enough to launch them through hyperspace. 

Dig these tunes!

Yours in riffage,

Count Robot

Amplissima Fields Converge

 

Amplissima Fields Converge

This is the third Amplissima album and so far the only one to have a human guest.

That guest is the amazing Vanessa LeFevre. She plays the Diddley Bow which is an amazing homemade instrument.

This album was really unplanned.

Early that week we got an invite to go jam on a Saturday at a haunted house that E was house sitting.

No one really mentioned recording the jams but I brought some gear anyhow and was so glad I did.

That room really has a great sound.

That space was fantastic. We eventually recorded another Amplissima album in the room called Iron Bird which I already blogged about.

Special Guest - Vanessa LeFevre : Diddley Bow, field recordings

Amplissima is:

Dobra Jené Ashentree: Voice, octave mandolin, melodica (sonnet 55), FX

Tim Mungenast: Guitar (sixties Egmond Typhoon through sixties Regal amp and a zillion pedals). overtone singing, samples

Eric Dahlman: Electronic trumpet, overtone singing, bells, samples

Draggun Moorlocke (my alias on this album): Voice, stylophone, synth, guiro, chopstick, FX

Recorded in Norton MA 5/7/22

All material performed, recorded, produced, mixed, and mastered by Amplissima & Vanessa LeFevre

Copyright 2024 Amplissima & LeFevre

Having Vanessa with us and no recording plan mapped out took away any pressure there might have been. We just jammed and kept what we liked.

1. Ed Wood’s Death Ray 5:26 - Dobra recites some classic Shakespearen poetry amidst some silly strange sounds.

The synth sound was a real cheap keyboard run through FX pedals. Like the fading end. I think Tim might have named this one.

2. Frog Friends 6:42 - This one has some recordings of frogs. I think Eric provided them. They filled in some gaps in the track well and added a lot of charector.

Vanessa gave this one a nice booming ring sound with her gear. There's also some field recordings that she had in here too.

It really just helped fill out the sound. Some of the textures towards the end of the track are wild.

3. Fridgey Stevey Edie 7:56 - This one features sounds of a refrigerator that Tim recorded. It was his brother's fridge and man does it sound weird.

Dobra uses the melodica to good effect. Eric makes some nice subtle use of the trumpet on this one. Tim plays around him nicely. I like it when a band gives each other space to build on.

4. The Flight of the Turtle Doves 9:02 - Eric's trumpet really brings me into this one. Tasty soundscape guitar by Tim.

5. Fields Converge 10:30 - My favorite track on the album. Vanessa kindly gave us access to a glorious treasure trove of field recordings. I set this track up so it sounds as though more and more music and sounds are getting on at the stop of the subway train and going berserk until they all get off at the end. Tim leans into his Miku pedal here and does a grand job of it. Dobra is ranting about Mothra on this track. You might hear that in the background. This track really sends me and I'm proud of it. Get on the subway to weird. Best to listen to this on your headphones.

6. Liturgy of the Lilacs  14:56 - Good bells on here by Eric. I gave the synth I used on this album to Tim. Dobra and Tim bounce sounds off each other well on this one.

I think Vanessa named this track. This one feels like experimental ambient at points. Around 7:50 Vanessa gets some really great sounds with her instrument.

Nice ending.

Yours in experimental sounds,

Count Robot

Video Interview with DNA Girl

 

Here's an interview with DNA Girl my amazing partner in Astro Al.

The interview was conducted by the amazing Mark from Phog Masheen!

Yours in video watching,

Count Robot

Love

Is love just watching TV while holding hands?

Or is it more than just drinking fluids from each other’s glands?

Is it just liking the same band?

Or is it just rolling around naked in the sand?

Maybe love is just remembering to keep toilet paper stocked and the bathroom door locked

Yours in dumb poetry,

Count Robot

Dining Zone Episode 3

 

Episode 3 of my podcast the Dining Zone is up!

The Dining Zone is a podcast where I rant about food related stuff.

Yours in eating,

Count Robot

Things that I've Written Part 1

So here's an occasional series I will do on this here blog.

This series will be about other writings that I've done as I have existed on this rock that we all share.

Let's start with my first self-published work.

The first thing I self-published was The Season of Passage. It is a poetry chapbook. Did this back in the 90s.

The Season of Passage is an epic poem. It was written in an older style and was meant to feel like a timeless sort of Poe piece.

The story concerns a couple with very troubled pasts who meet and fall in love. They get married and have a child who dies. The couple's lives disintegrate. It's a very gothic maudlin long form poem. 

Some of it was written in graveyards and some of the characters' names came from headstones. Other parts were written by candlelight or lantern.

It was all handwritten then compiled and edited on a computer.

The photography for the book was by the late amazing TG Yearwood. TG had a fantastic eye for photography. We went to a graveyard in Revere (where I wrote some of the book), and spent an afternoon shooting some of the intricate tombs, sculptures, and headstones. TG my friend, I miss you all the time and your work was fantastic. Thank you.

TG also did a few calligraphy pieces with text from the book which I then washed in stale coffee and dried. It gave the paper an amazing weathered look. We put them up for sale at Gargoyles Grotesque and Chimeras on Newbury St. in Boston. A store that is sadly long gone.

A series of readings to promote the book were staged in a few spaces.

At the Bookcellar Cafe (an excellent bookstore/performance space that is sadly long gone) in Cambridge Bob Ross (from the legendary jazz group Debris) and Rob Migliaccio played an improv set while I read a short chunk of the book. Thanks Rob and Bob!

Bob also played with me at Tower Records in Cambridge. He played acoustic guitar and he was really fun and amazing. At one point I couldn't stop laughing when he repeated everything, I said into the sound hole of the guitar. Bob you rock!

Al Finn also played guitar along with me at the Tower Records in Burlington. Al did a fabulous job playing improvised guitar parts. Thanks Al!

One other promotional thing that I tried was handing out flyers for the book before Nine Inch Nails infamous show at the old Boston Garden (that show deserves its only blog entry). It actually helped as sales at the various places I was selling the book picked up a bit after the show.

The funny part of this story is... anyone going to concerts in and around Boston from the later 80s through the 90s will probably remember the "Repent You're Going to Hell" guy who used to stand around outside shows with his sandwich board trying to get everyone to repent. Because the flyer I had featured a picture of a stone angel from the graveyard, he somehow thought I was there to help him. I politely corrected him and he wandered off. 

The talented actor/singer Doug Thoms read some of the book at a poetry reading one night. Sadly, I didn't make it to the event. If you're reading this Doug, sorry I didn't make it. I'm sure you made whatever you read out of the book more amazing than it was on the page. One time I saw Doug play Judas in a production of Jesus Christ Superstar in a performance space in Boston. Doug's performance was astounding. His singing voice cut through the hall so powerfully that I was almost knocked out of my seat.

A friend gave a copy to Robert Smith from the Cure and I gave a couple of copies to Metallica. No, I never heard what any of them thought of it. They probably went into the trash. Who knows.

It should also be mentioned that there was an electronic version done of the book, on floppy disc! It basically was the text moving on the screen with the photos. Nothing too fancy now but back then it was cutting edge. Might even be the first e-book but who knows.

You might ask, where can I get a copy of the Season of Passage?

Honestly, I only have 1-2 copies left myself so, the answer is I don't know.

I don't have any plans to re-print it. Just thought it would be fun to blog about the memories around it which are probably far better than the book itself.

Yours in chapbooks,

Count Robot