audiot

Image by audiot.eu via Flickr

ok, before the big move takes place, i need to get rid of some things…

so here are the links to some ebay-auctions:

1. Sonor Phonic Plus lugs
2. even more Sonor Phonic Plus lugs
3. Epiphone 12string acoustic guitar

the descriptions are in german, but if there’s anything you want to know, drop me a line right here.

there will be more stuff on ebay in the future – i’ll let you know…

…well i did. actually i even own such a thing since i was about 16. saw an ad in the paper and a day later i had bagpipes, yay. the thing is, they are so ridiculously hard to play, it’s unbelievable. you need to have lungs as huge as a whale’s. the bag has to be filled up with air all the time. if there’s not enough pressure in there, the pipes just fall all over you. and imagine, there’s a bag with four holes in it and you need to keep it packed with air at any moment. i never figured that one out, probably never will. the blowing-air-into-the-bag is kind of independent from the sounds because you press the air out of the bag (through the pipes and the flute) with your arm. now when i tried this – no matter how much pressure i had in the bag – as soon as i pressed with my arm, the bag was empty within a few seconds, even with me hyperventilating. and the biggest challenge is to not laugh while this instrument of hell makes it’s startup-moaning-sounds…

i remembered this episode of my teenhood because of a youtube-video i found by accident. nothing special, it’s a scene from ‘Friends’ where Ross plays the bagpipes – and if I may say so: he’s doing really well. and i’m dead serious…

so here goes:

and if you ever, ever get the chance, you have to try it. you haven’t lived until you did, guaranteed!

Image by _ES via Flickr

i’m serious. we have all sorts of things that are supposed to define us, show off or create some kind of aura for us. we have a certain look (wanted or not), made out of clothes, hairdo, fragrance – combined with accessories like business cards, stylish eyeglasses, design-cellphones, briefcases or handbags and so forth… there is even such a thing as image-designers, no kidding – i once knew one. some people actually practice their handshake, overall motions and/or the way they talk to materialize their desired style.

so it’s mostly about seeing.

where do people get the idea to have a certain look or image? my guess would be movies and tv-shows because that’s what usually influences us the most. an example: when the seatbelt was invented, nobody used it. even when every car had them, still no one strapped him/herself in. then politicians (first in the US, then other countries followed) achieved, that in movies and on tv everyone used the seatbelt and – drumroll, please – within a rather short period of time, almost everybody followed this example. we usually don’t notice things like that and make up other reasons to justify, but we are strongly influenced by our surroundings – like it or not. another one: almost every time there’s problems in movies, you see someone pour him/herself a drink. so what do people at home do when things get tough? exactly. and without any real reason by the way. but i’m drifting off once again :-)

so what puzzles me is, why don’t we have themes? it would be the perfect completion to our designed style and, to connect the dots, it’s a common thing for a movie or tv-role to have a theme. but even the most obsessed stylefreaks don’t have one, right?

but why? maybe a reason is that it’s kind of hard to realize. imagine people walking around you or sitting next to you in the bus constantly emitting their theme through their cellphone or mp3-player. one huge mire of sound, what a terrible thou…..wait a minute, that’s exactly where we are today. only it’s not everybody’s specific theme, but even more random stuff. when i was younger (sheesh…) i had a walkman and used it all the time WITH my headphones on. today i see teenagers listening (not really) to music WITHOUT headphones, but through their crappy few-millimeters-almost-exclusively-midrange-cellphone-take-that-neighborhood-speaker, how lame is that? anyway, today an own theme would be easy to realize. lots of people have the possibility to do a simple tune themselves, even my 10 year old cellphone (back then a true masterpiece in design ;-) ) has a function for that and there could be websites to do that. and for the well-heeled people, appropriate services could be offered. new cars should have their own theme that plays when you put the key in. i want the ‘streets of san francisco’-theme in my next car. and garage doors could play something like the 20th-century-fox-fanfare when you open them (imagine how your neighbor would get crazy jealous) and even better, the doors in appartments could be equipped with sensors that recognize the inhabitants and play the tune of each one when she/he enters the room – should be something short though…. sounds ridiculous? think about it, the possibilities are there already – and we are not that far away at all. cellphones allow us to assign specific ringtones to certain persons (imperial march for the boss, jaws-theme for the girlfriend…), ain’t that kind of a theme-thing already? but way too random for my taste.

i say go get your personal theme and include it in your look – it’s about time…

as you already know, i was away for three weeks to prepare the new apartment and to record guitars for the garden album. now i posted a bunch of pictures to my flickr-site, where you can see the amps, cabinet, mic and guitars used. nothing fancy, though. two guitar amps (Laney and Sovtek), one Laney cabinet, one Shure SM57 mic and two guitars (Gibson and Heritage).

there’s some pics of my new drum setup and of the two guitars that are for sale (Sandberg and Epiphone). if you’re interested, drop me line through the contact form right here…

Image via Wikipedia

i’ve been saying this for years…16 years to be precise. i was in my final school years back then with a focus on economics. then on a trip to my local music store to buy some cds, as i did about once a week, i was shocked when i saw that cd prices had doubled from one week to the next. until that moment i always found records that were around 10 bucks (deutschmarks that is). this was a fair deal to me so i bought – sometimes just because i liked the cover. and i was a good customer, i kind of spent my whole pocket money on cds and piled more than 800 records before the possibility of cd-burning even existed. then one day i came into the shop and everything was around 20 bucks. it took me quite some time to get over this but i still bought, only now it was maybe 1-2 cds a month instead of 2-3 each week – because i felt betrayed. i pledged never to buy a cd for more than 20 deutschmarks. that was also the moment when i first thought that those record guys did something wrong.

fighting your own customers is not only stupid business policy, it’s also a fight you cannot win.

although cd prices went up even further, last time i checked they were around 36 deutschmarks (meaning 17,99 euros today), i always kept my promise and never bought a record for more than 20 marks (or 10 euros) – well, there were some exceptions, records from bands with no label or something similar, where i needed to order them directly from the band plus shipping costs for instance. but that’s fine because that money ends up where it belongs. as for all the regular cds, i simply switched to ebay and bought them used, usually around 5 bucks including shipping. that way i could legally buy original records with booklets and everything and i never was disappointed with those deals. so now it’s been years since i saw a record store from the inside because i’m the customer and i do whatever the hell i want. you wanna fight me? bring it on!

nowadays i read articles about decisions the music-industry-guys make and i just shake my head in silence. they still don’t get it, maybe they never will. they’re making money selling ringtones to 11 year old schoolgirls alright, but that’s even more ridiculous than being an electric-blanket-salesman on some old people bustrip to lourdes. in a way they admitted their defeat: “it seems we can’t fool the adults anymore….so let’s fool the kids, that’s easy enough.” instead of making a step towards your customers you fight their offsprings. who are your next victims? semen? i pity you.

i’ve been saying this for years and i say it again: fighting your own customers is a fight that can’t be won.