This is from a Rocket Scientist tour this year (2009). Very nice show, "Loud 'n Proud" as I like to put it. Sometimes it takes a while for my ears to stop ringing... 'so loudly'. I like to think of the 'constant quieter' ringing I have as friendly crickets in my head. That makes it actually nice and calm to have. If your gonna have 'ringing' in your ears you might as well like the noise.
I also hear music pretty much all the time too. My wife says, "Why do you always turn the radio off when we're in the car!" I try to explain that in my head there is always music going on either consciously or subconsciously, to have the radio going on is like having 'two' different stations on at the sametime." I think midway in that explanation she mentally turns my volume down as she then turns the radio back up!
I've been working on this jazz album project and it's coming together extremely well. I'm learning a lot. Different styles of music make you stretch in different areas. I used to play in a band with a great tenor player named "James Moody". He used to tell me, practice without any amplifier and learn the scales up and down the instrument.... Well with the Stick instruments that's an awful lot of "scalin' about 5 octaves (5 plus 3 semi tones to be exact) and in two separate tunings. Great advice though and after all these years, I'm still workin' on it.
I'm ramblin' here (I just figured that out) perhaps you noticed it earlier. It must be the 'crickets' in my head. When I was younger I could hear 'frogs croaking"... oh, wait they are still there. Very busy in my head. I grew up on a lake in the summer. That was the sound I heard "ALL" summer and loved it. I guess it stuck!
Here's yet another unrelated story! When I lived in Las Vegas I had this dog Pete... Here I'll get a picture:
Cutest little fella. I took him everywhere. He was quite a charactor. We were at the park on day and I saw this cicada bug (like a stubby fat Locust). Pete saw it, chased it and started to eat it... I wrestled it out of his mouth because I felt bad for it and wanted to save its little bug life. Pete let go and it wasn't hurt... just wet. I was happy and released it as it flew high into the air "FREEEEEE!" When outta of nowhere a bird swooped down and ate it right outta the sky! Ya know, "There's a lesson there somewhere."Ya know, sign of the times for us musicians looking at that pedal board. There are some "classic' pedals there, very vintage. Boss Chorus, Electric Mistress flanger, Small Stone phaser, Mxr distortion, Memory Man delay... yikes, super cool pedals. Now days they exist as 'plug ins' in your computer! They look cute as colorful little icons that you now click on and get 'that' sound. Pete would be proud, I think he actually peed on that pedal board now that I think about it. Like I said, quite a character that little fella was.
I once peed on an electric fence! And I was an adult too! (Physically perhaps not mentally) Here's my advice "DON'T PEE ON AN ELECTRIC FENCE!" Wow, I felt that all the way to the CORE!" My nuts too a week to drop back town to safety!
Okay with that, it's late, I'll leave you to a nice quiet evening, or in my case - "Croaking frogs and crickets sounds in my head".
Don
