Many years have passed since your vision came to me, and I think of you only as the moon speaks to the sea. OK, perhaps it's not that dramatic. (Poetic bit c/o the first Captain Beyond album.) But it has been exactly two months and I was really trying not to let things go that long. Some gen-yoo-wine news to report, well doggies!
We hired a sitter for a day so I could make some time to do a little recording. I did 3 CDs of improvised source material to send to Hyam Sosnow. Instruments included the ever popular 6 string electric geetar, mandolin, bowed device, electric sitar, 7-string electric....I think that's it, it's written down somewhere but I'm running on memory right now and I'd best get this up while the gettin's good. When last we spoke, he'd already been working with some of it, so...cool. You can read more news here as it happens...or two months after, what the hell. More happenin' , more updatin', less gratuitous use of folksy word truncation.
Not long after this, Chrissy managed to clear some time one morning for me to go out to Lulu's play structure (a two-story job) and record some p'ipa for Mr. Eric Wallack's July release, said bit to be featured as one duets track among a bevy of heavy friends duet tracks for one o' them type CDs where people do that. First I saw of it, it was from the inimitable Don Campau, who has done many; I've been meaning to do something like that ever since. At least I'm back to participating. Other (recorded and already sent) p'ipa pieces may end up on a planned- and sort of already underway- 2nd CD from me and the also inimitable Eric Wallack. (The first being, of course, Asleep Or Somewhere Else.)
I managed to get a little instrument-building work done, and although the thing itself (a set of tubular bells) is still underway, I'm much further ahead now (six bars to the previous two). The grand-sounding bells heard on previous Phantom Airship releases come from the excellent Roland SP20. I'd thought not having the full range of percussive options (among them subtle degrees of attack, manual muting, finger playing) wouldn't be a big deal with something as usually straightforward as tubular bells. I was wrong. I'd always liked the thought of them as a lead instrument (more ballsy than vibes, marimba or glockenspiel), but wasn't sure you could do much more than whack the notes. But when I had a couple of bars to experiment with (sawed down from one piece of cheap pipe), I found that there were some really wonderful subtleties to be brought out, and that they could be very expressive. I have also decided that I will most likely lay them out horizontally rather than hanging them. It seems like a better position to take advantage of the instrument's possibilities. These don't have caps, so they're best struck towards the middle. Also: bought some supplies to start making bows, but apparently not the correct cut of wood for the job, and me without a bandsaw or table saw. Said wood (some really nice maple) will now be used for necks.
Heh. Yeah. Another lengthy stretch between updates. Those of you following The Blog Of The Phantom Airship , however, know that various thoughts have been brewing and spewing forth like volcanic ash into cyberspace, but not nearly as disruptive as, say, the real thing into airspace. Chrissy has also posted a family-oriented blog, which most folks close to the airship already know, having been emailed the link. If you have mistaken one for the other- nope! Not the same! Radically different in fact. One has many pictures of a cute child and flowers; the other has a black background, white type, and lots of writing.
Hyam Sosnow and I had a conversation a couple of weeks ago, in which we discussed the possibility of a through-the-mail blind collaboration, where I would send him a bunch of raw material and he would construct something of it, along with his drumming. Timewise, it sounds like something I might be able to pull off. This was spurred by his recent creation of a work doing just this with multiple purchased (i.e., licensed) loops. I said hey, if you'd had stuff of mine to pull from, you could have used that. So we hope to get something like that going.
Whoa, watch out for that roadie, she looks mean!
It's time for another update, 'cause I haven't had one in a while. And that's just wrong.
As you can see we have a new shot of our poster girl on the front page, and of course here.
The Blog Of The Phantom Airship has actually been added to several times since its inception, and has even drawn a few dedicated readers brave enough to declare themselves as such. It's been a lot of fun so far and I look forward to continuing my electro-verbal spewage there for some time to come.
No takers on the trade offer yet. It's not just CDs I'm interested in; think of things you might put in a garage sale, or donate to a thrift store; used books, tools, cheap instruments, electronic parts, etc. My budget for such things, and my time to search, are just not what they used to be. I'm a rummage rat, it's one of my favorite passtimes...so much good junk, so little time... I should post a want list somewhere on this site.
Not much in the way of music-oriented activity recently, but I have been studying some and even found time to practice a little guitar. I've also been dipping into my music library and pulling out some gems: various Le Orme albums, Herbie Hancock (early 70s when his stuff had major teeth), Stravinsky, If, etc. Hopefully I'll get back to something more concrete to report on here, sometime in the near future.
Announcing the arrival of a less formal forum: The Blog Of The Phantom Airship. Like Porky in Wackyland, you may wish to regard the following: "It CAN happen here."
Sometime last year, I raised my prices, in keeping with the fact that every supplier I used was raising theirs. This happened to be just before the excrement collided with cooling system, and the US economy hit the skids. I left the prices raised, for a number of reasons. One, I had been told by others for a long time that by keeping my prices low, I was devaluing myself and my work, and as such, people were less likely to buy- "It's cheap, it can't be any good". I never quite bought that, but thought it that after many years, it was worth the experiment to try. Second, my costs hadn't dropped any. Third, I'd never really included anything like the value of my time or effort in the price. Fourth, we have lots of festivals and farmer's markets here in Portland, and it wasn't unusual to see people selling homemade product for about what I was then charging. But the times got tougher for everyone. People aren't going to buy CDs when they can't make their rent or their car payment. In keeping with this- and with my gut feeling that getting the music into open ears is the most important thing- I have dropped prices, in many cases below what they were originally. If you're interested, check it out.
Also, I want to offer the possibility of trades or barter. Want a CD, or a pack of CDs? Write me and tell me what you'd like to offer. I'm happy to swap CDs with musicians, and I'm open to other types of trade as well. The email is gregsegal@gregsegal.com . Be sure to put "trade for CDs" in the subject line of your email. It's not unusual for me to have 1500-1900 junk emails when I check that address, among them many that are addressed "hello" or something like that. That stuff gets dumped without being looked at.
Nothing new or earth-shattering to report, but I thought I'd check in with a state-of-the-airship address before the end of the year.
I hope, in the coming year, to have a release or two to share. Can't say what it will be, but I'll try to get something out.
The most recent transfers have been rough-mix Paper Bag tapes from the sessions that produced "Ticket To Trauma". These were recorded between 10/85 and 2/86. Listening back to these again has been wonderful, I haven't heard this stuff since then. There's lots of material every bit as good as what's on TTT. I think it would be possible to assemble at least a couple of first-rate releases from just the first two 90-min. tapes I've heard, and there are three or four yet to listen back to. I'd also like to see some of the earlier stuff released- maybe one of the earliest material with sax/flute/oboe player Bruce Heubner, and at least one from the 2-plus year period with guitarist Ken Rosser. If I ever manage to get my hands on the original archive, I'll make sure something comes of this.
Speaking of Paper Bag, I've asked M. to look for somebody to take over the running of the site for me. I have obviously not been very "hands on" of late, and have in fact been horribly lax. The band, its legacy, and its offspring deserve better. No takers for the webmaster position just yet.
I have some ideas for collaborations in the coming year, so far undiscussed with any of the considered partners. These would be relatively quick endeavors for me, since time is at a premium; things like lyrics and the occasional sound-snippet. Just a thought.
The one creative pursuit which I've been able to be somewhat active in has been photography. I've finally rebuilt a decent backstock of images to pull from, having used a great deal of the accumulated work done prior to 2000, when the releases started flowing from GA89 and PA.
Had a long conversation with Hyam Sosnow a few nights back. He broke the news gently that he recently suffered a personal loss which spilled over into our Jugalbandi work: namely the theft of his bag, which contained not only small things like his wallet, but- horror of horrors- his book containing prospective song titles. That's close to 20 years of collected silliness and creativity, started around the time of Dog Neutral. He now has to start from scratch, but will try to remember as many as he can. Luckily I have a similar little book full of prospective titles, which we may draw from again when one day Jugalbandi reconvenes for another extended session. No idea when that will be but we're still both into it.
Hyam also told me that he is going to search for the original 8-track masters of the one and only Dog Neutral studio tape, which he will then send on to me. I need to find someplace locally that can transfer that format to multitrack digital, at which time I'll get that session and the tapes for "A Man Who Was Here" done.
I have toyed with the idea of doing a blog for ages now; what's stopped me is the obvious difficulty of keeping current content. (Just look at this site or the PB site.) But if I was just to sit down at the computer and spew text, it might work, provided I could do it, at very least, once a week. It might look something like this update, but I have lots of other ideas as well- a whole strange format. We'll see.
Higher on the priority list, as far as writing goes, is the posting of extended notes for each release. I'd love to get to it but at this point who knows. I've started editing the old notes for "Night Circus", which are just painful to read. Not something I want to post "as-is", for sure.
I wish a happy new year to everyone out there following this site. May this coming year , and this new decade, bring good things to us all.
Now posted: Notes: A Man Who Was Here. So very nice. So full of spice.
Also now posted: a Suggested Reading list.
Airplay reports:
Don Campau presents: No Pigeonholes, KKUP Edition 22 November 2009/ part 2: Dog Neutral/ Baghdaddy-O (from "In Gear Vol. 2")
11/26/09 Aural Innovations Space Rock Radio (show #229): Dog Neutral/ Ivy Mike (from "In Gear Vol. 2")
I had held off doing this update for a few days because I'd hoped to have some extended notes on the making of "A Man Who Was Here" ready to post. Reminds me of the saying, "Life is what happens when you're making other plans". Anyway, they should be up here in the very near future, followed by notes on "Night Circus".
Airplay reports:
Don Campau presents: November 2009 no pigeonholes show 2: Dog Neutral/Suddenly Irritable
10/25/09 Aural Innovations Space Rock Radio (show #227): Dog Neutral/Clear Day
Both of those tracks are from Dog Neutral/ In Gear Vol. 1. Thanks as always to Jerry Kranitz and Don Campau for service to the listening and music-making communities.
Speaking of the Dog Neutral release, keyboardist Leon Opseth recently added his full notes for each track to mine and Hyam's. This kind of in-depth coverage is a rarity, and we're very happy to be able to provide it. Huge thanks to Leon for being involved, and I'm looking forward to including his memories for any release he's on. I hope there will be many in the future, the tapes are certainly there.
This brings us to the next bit of news: other than the 8-track masters for "A Man Who Was Here", all the GS solo stuff- both multitrack and live cassette-have been transferred to a digital multitrack format. (This includes source tapes, jams, duet shows, alternate mixes, etc.) And it only took 20 DVDs to archive! Next up for archiving are what Paper Bag cassettes I am currently in possession of. It's most likely that they aren't original masters, and that if I do eventually get my hands on the main PB archive (currently in L.A. in the possession of George Radai), I will have to re-transfer everything. But as a safety measure, I feel these things need to be saved before too much time elapses. If I can upgrade later, great. If I end up changing my mind and not wanting to risk doing the work twice, then it'll be time to move on to earliest recordings with Hyam Sosnow, and from there to archiving the original Cold Sky tapes. I'll keep you posted.
No, hell hasn't frozen over. It's only the arrival of the 2-CD Dog Neutral set, "In Gear". For a history of the band, go here; for liner notes for the release, go here; for purchasing info, go here. I'm very, very pleased that the band finally has some recordings available. Nearly 3 hours of heavy prog-rock-ish highly improvisational sound deluging! Go Gene, go!
The revamping/rennovation/expansion of the Phantom Airship capability continues.
The archiving project is temporarily stalled by the death of tape deck #1. There are two more on hand, but neither has yet had speed/pitch checked. It may require two more decks to get through all the tapes, there are plenty of them. Still, I wasn't prepared for the burnout of deck #1. Thought it had more life in it. Saddle up the next work horse! Meanwhile, gotta say- there's enough usable stuff archived that I could be putting out releases for a while before needing to dig in to more tape. However, if possible I'd like to be able to choose from everything.
Writing/brainstorming on the next solo CD continues.
Chrissy's on standby tonight, and while flipping through the channels, she just found "It! The Terror From Beyond Space" playing. Looks like that's the end of this update. Later!
Gadzooks! OK, well it looks like I've beat my old (and yet recent!) record of 6 months between updates, the new record now stands at 8 months. Things have certainly not been moving slowly here, but it's more family-related than music-related. That said, there's still news, so let's catch up.
I'm sure there's been a bit of airplay since last November, but my desk's a mess and any notes I may have on that subject would require more excavation time than I'm willing to allot. (And no, that's not my work desk on the front page.) The most recent airplay, however, was on Don Campau's "No Pigeonholes" show, which ended with part 5 (the grand finale!) of "Planet Of Garbage". Thanks Don!
Hyam and I are finally close to putting out the 2-CD Dog Neutral set, "In Gear". The songs are chosen and mastered, the cover art is basically done, the notes for the site (from Hyam and I) are done. It shouldn't be long now.....
The Great Archiving project is well underway. All my multi-track recordings (except for "A Man Who Was Here") have been transferred to multi-track WAV. format; and I'm up to the early '90s for 2-track cassettes (live gigs, jams, etc.), at least those covering me and various non-band projects. Once I'm done with those, it'll be on to band projects: Cold Sky, Dog Neutral, and finally, Paper Bag. There's so much stuff already uncovered that I'm anxious to share with everyone....Please check back periodically, I will be doing my best to make this stuff available.
On the subject of Paper Bag, I will be getting the cassette portion of the band archives from George Radai, who with any luck will be making a trip up this way before summer is through. I hope to make some archival PB releases available through Phantom Airship. Regardless, I will be transferring/preserving our cassette archive to digital media.
Righty-O kids, that's all for now! See ya next time!