Love, The Music Weirdos

We’ve been called out…by a fifth grader. It happened back at either Christmas or Thanksgiving before everyone was about to dig into the mountains of food that my sister-in-law prepared. Her son had something he wanted to read that he had worked very hard on the day before. I’m still not sure if it was a school assignment or if he just got a wild hair being away from school but he stood up and started reading his 2 page document. I can’t remember the point of it all or if he even had one, because I was laughing so hard, but he wrote about everyone in the family – maybe it was why he was thankful for them – I dunno, but when he got to us we were lovingly referred to as the music weirdos. The child knows us well!

What other house could he go to and find cymbals in the living room chairs, guitar cases everywhere, drum parts on the coffee table,  and boxes of records piled in the floor from the boys latest conquest? (the records are what I came home to yesterday- and they were nice enough to warn me at least! And there was actually a really cool Edison Diamond Disc record in there from the 1920’s so for now the boy can stay!)

 

If you’ve never seen one of these up close, they’re really very cool. They’re about 1/4″ thick but it’s not vinyl like we know it today. The early material inside was actually a wood “flour” core with an asphalt binder and later changed to add more china clay and less wood flour. Each side was then coated with a condensite varnish and the whole thing was laminated together. Produced from 1912 until the demise of the company in 1929, they were the third best-selling brand behind Victor and Decca but they were more expensive and only meant to be played on Edison Phonographs which used a diamond stylus that ran in the grooves and produced the sound. Any other kind of player with steel needles would damage the record and then they were only good for hot plates. Unfortunately the records were also expensive for the times and coupled with the fact that the music selection wasn’t as diverse as some of the other labels people lost interest and the technology didn’t last long. Kinda like a Beta tape versus a VHS. Please tell me you remember BETA tapes so I don’t feel so old.

Of course in order to get the really cool Edison record there were also about a hundred other records ranging from opera to Elvis to classical to the Statler Brothers and a whole pile of Sinatra 33’s. And we don’t even own a record player. So what’s a girl to do with all this vinyl?? Decorate with it? Play it? Make stuff out of it? Sell it? I’m leaning towards decorate and sell (don’t tell the menfolk!) How cool would a whole wall of records look? Kind like this but with more records….

Did I mention we already had another stack of records stashed before the current ones came in? We better do something quick before they multiply again!

P.S. In other sorta related news: When something new comes into the house, something old should go out so to try to play by those rules, there’s a new “Shop” heading up at the top of the blog for you to check out what we’re clearing out. Sometimes the need arises to sell stuff in order to acquire other cool stuff like drums….or cymbals …..or food…..! Extra parts, cool cymbals, unique drums and other gear related items some from our own personal well-loved collection.  And there may even be some records on there soon….! So click on over and check back often. You never know what us music weirdos might be looking to sell to a loving home.

Strings vs. Snares

There’s a battle shaping up out here Casa de drum. The snares came out strong in the first and second round and were holding their own at 5 but recently the guitars added to their numbers and now weigh in at 6! (and as many as 8 if you count the guitar hero guitars…) Check out what the boy came home with the other week {for FREE! Good work son! & please excuse his blurry cell phone pics}

It’s a 12 string guitar that was in need of a little love. {which probably explains why it was FREE…!} When he got it was really only an 11 string guitar…and soon after a tuning session we were down to 10. The saddle was a little chewed up and cracked and the whole thing needed a little cleaning. He’s already declared it his new favorite instrument. (I think it made his dad a little nervous to see him favor a guitar over the drums! haha! I just may successfully pull him over to the dark side after all! ha!)

After I had a go-around with trying to buy strings and a saddle at that center that sells guitars and that somethin’ or other ash place… (sidenote: we REALLY need to open a music store by the way….anybody got any retail space they wanna donate to us??) I finally came out with a pack of Martins for a 12 string (not 6 as the sales dude at that first store tried to hand me even after I said 12 twice….) and no saddle.

Since the boy was leaving for music camp soon, as in the morning after the night we were trying to do all this, and he really wanted to take his new stringed friend along with his snare (so he could be his own one man band?) we stole borrowed the saddle out of my Epiphone to try to resuscitate this thing. (I figured I’d still have the Yamaha in working order to play while he’s away with my saddle….and my capo…note to self: buy another capo) But back to the matter at hand.

 

When the carpel tunnel subsided {did I mention there were 12 strings on this thing to wind? by hand? ’cause the little winding tool thingy I have for the tuning heads would fit on these?} we had a newly stringed instrument with a saddle that still wasn’t quite right… this is what drummers and drafters get for trying to be guitar techs! But we soldiered on. 

After one more trip to the music store for a saddle and some sanding, we were finally lucky enough to come out with something we could work with saddle wise. Then after some tuning…. and a little more fine tuning… {did I mentions there were 12 strings to tune??} we finally had something in playable order. I really intended to take a picture of it all polished and pretty and restrung, but instead I took a nap!

{Just pretend there’s a purdy picture here!}

So that’s how we spent our night before the big camp send off. Well that and doing laundry and packing a weeks worth of stuff for a teenager to go to camp. Now we’re counting the days until he comes home with a weeks worth of dirty laundry and hopefully with my capo…!

And in case you’re a drummer who also likes guitars and needs some info on 12 stringed versions like we did, here’s a site that was helpful and if you like watching versus reading here’s a video.

And did I mention that my handsome husband also scored some free guitar gear last week? A double guitar stand- which is a good thing considering we were losing the battle with where to put the guitars! Anybody else being crowded out by their drums or guitars like us? We’d love to hear about it!