Here’s the problem. I hit it and it goes “dang”, then “hummmmmmm….” I don’t want dang and hum. Who the hell wants dang and hum? Dumb-ass technology. I hate the internets!
Oh, sorry. I was just complaining to Big Green’s official instrument tech, the dude who lives in the basement. (Actually, I think he may be Mitch Macaphee, our mad science advisor, in a pair of borrowed coveralls.) My 20-year-old keyboard is falling apart, though why I would expect it to survive more than 20 years is beyond me. I am appealing to our tech dude to do some work on it, just in case … just in case we end up playing somewhere again, sometime soon. You never know, right? Did I ever think I would play on the planet Neptune? Hell no. And yet that happened. Shit happens, right?
What’s ailing my old Roland A-90ex? Same thing that ails all similar midi controllers with expansion modules. It’s the counterweights to the keys …. they are just poorly designed and liable to crack and sometimes break right off. Especially when you play like a ham-fisted ape (my own distinctive style). That’s when you get the “dang”, though it’s really more like a “clunk” or a “thud”. It’s actually not too different from a sound we used on our first album, 2000 Years To Christmas, only a little less resonant. So why am I complaining, right? Just crank up the resonance, there’s a good chap.
Right, so …. I realize this isn’t a technical blog. That’s not what you come here for. You come here for pithy observations and gripping tales of pointless adventures. For instance, I could tell you all about the festive autumnal arrangement in the hammer mill courtyard contrived by the mansized tuber in his spare time, but then this would seem like a gardening blog, and it’s anything but that. Or I could tell you about all the lawn signs that were dumped in our driveway following the mid-term elections, but then you’d think this was a political blog, and well …. sometimes it is, but … not just now!
So, I will conclude this gripping tale of my keyboard repair adventure and return to whatever it was I was doing before I started talking about this. I think it was … repairing my piano. Right, then.
Great. I’m working on this freaking Roland A-90 of mine – the one with the broken key(s) – and my technical advisor just wanders off. Probably getting a drink somewhere, even as I type this excoriation of him. (Trouble is, he’s even less reliable when he drinks.) Just trying to get our shit together in time for the next interstellar tour, which should begin sometime around Stardate 3425.6 … which, for those of you still on the Gregorian calendar, is approximately August 27th. Give or take. (Probably a bit more take than give.) Not sure why I chose to drop this sucker down a flight of stairs, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. (Note: On the advice of my analyst, I’ve been treating all of my accidents as intentional lately, just so that I feel more in control of my life. And damn it, it works.)
Just look at Marvin (my personal robot assistant) and you’ll see what I mean. He may be the most sophisticated piece of equipment we take on tour with us. (I of course mean technologically sophisticated, not intellectually.) And yet close inspection will reveal an automaton held together with glue and bailing wire – a rolling, talking, gesticulating patch-job of tarnished brass and repurposed circuit boards, wanting for everything from new fasteners to replaced CAT 6 cable to the proper grade of machine oil. One would think the presence of his inventor, Mitch Macaphee, would contribute to a better state of being for old Marvin, but alas, Mitch quickly loses interest in his inventions. Look at that planet killer death ray he built last year. Back then, it was the poison apple of his eye. Now it sits in the courtyard like a motherless puppy. (Maybe some nice neighborhood mad scientist will adopt it…)