Gobble Gobble
Thanksgiving week, 2020. Burning through use-or-lose leave, nowhere to go. Decided to spend the week recording myself improvising drum parts, and seeing where they led me. Over the next few months I'd build an album around seven of them.
I set some goals before jumping into it. First—it needed to be a solo, serious album. Material created for the purpose of the album, instead of musical orphans.
Two—I wanted to feature all my new toys: a bass, an acoustic, and a couple electric guitars.
Three—my Teisco baritone deserved another shot at immortality. Having played it in a song destined for M'Orphans (hardly something to write home about), and in Huzzah! (an absolute garbage solo), I saw a new album as a chance for the instrument's third time "charm" (or last strike).
And four—no keys. No synths. No piano. Nothing of the sort. I even used an anagram of "bass drums guitar" in naming the album.
Thanksgiving week, 2020. Burning through use-or-lose leave, nowhere to go. Decided to spend the week recording myself improvising drum parts, and seeing where they led me. Over the next few months I'd build an album around seven of them.
I set some goals before jumping into it. First—it needed to be a solo, serious album. Material created for the purpose of the album, instead of musical orphans.
Two—I wanted to feature all my new toys: a bass, an acoustic, and a couple electric guitars.
Three—my Teisco baritone deserved another shot at immortality. Having played it in a song destined for M'Orphans (hardly something to write home about), and in Huzzah! (an absolute garbage solo), I saw a new album as a chance for the instrument's third time "charm" (or last strike).
And four—no keys. No synths. No piano. Nothing of the sort. I even used an anagram of "bass drums guitar" in naming the album.
Suzi Q
Absurd Sugar Mist (2021)
© 2021 Philip Thompson. All rights reserved.
By and large I managed to stick to my goals, allowing some wriggle room in one tune for a dulcimer; the same Appalachian Dulcimer my stepdad made me in the 1990s, and I recorded in The Blue Kentucky Moon. Played a couple parts with it in the last track.
For the finishing touches I added a few voices to the album. None exactly singing, but all interesting in their own right.
The first are the vocalizations of our favorite doggos, Paulie Walnuts and Suzi Q—our miniature Schnauzers. At the time I'd been enjoying a collection of Philip K. Dick short stories, and thought it'd be cool to memorialize my fondness for the story Roog (and our furry pals). I couldn't get decent growls from either, so those are from an old Sound Effects CD. But the barking is pure Suzi and Paulie.
(The only guitar in Roog! is the Teisco, so I think the third time was the charm.)
In the second voiced tune are comments by an old friend, Steve Miller. Steve is no longer with us, and I didn't know much of him in his last years. But in his namesake song I placed some of his cleverer responses over the years to my forever-corny answering machine outgoing messages. All from the early to mid 1990s.
The final song on the album, and third to include voices, is Valiant Alligators (always up for a good anagram). This one features a close friend, Dusty, and myself from 1986. Wannabe comedians. He and I'd occasionally partake of a certain then-illicit flower and then record ourselves goofing around. All the voices in VA are the two of us clowning around.
For the finishing touches I added a few voices to the album. None exactly singing, but all interesting in their own right.
The first are the vocalizations of our favorite doggos, Paulie Walnuts and Suzi Q—our miniature Schnauzers. At the time I'd been enjoying a collection of Philip K. Dick short stories, and thought it'd be cool to memorialize my fondness for the story Roog (and our furry pals). I couldn't get decent growls from either, so those are from an old Sound Effects CD. But the barking is pure Suzi and Paulie.
(The only guitar in Roog! is the Teisco, so I think the third time was the charm.)
In the second voiced tune are comments by an old friend, Steve Miller. Steve is no longer with us, and I didn't know much of him in his last years. But in his namesake song I placed some of his cleverer responses over the years to my forever-corny answering machine outgoing messages. All from the early to mid 1990s.
The final song on the album, and third to include voices, is Valiant Alligators (always up for a good anagram). This one features a close friend, Dusty, and myself from 1986. Wannabe comedians. He and I'd occasionally partake of a certain then-illicit flower and then record ourselves goofing around. All the voices in VA are the two of us clowning around.
Paulie Walnuts
