Waiting for ZOOM!!!

I'm waiting on pins and needles for my new toy.

I sent through cyberspace some hundreds of cyber-dollars for it.

It said on the web-site that it would be delivered within 3-4 working days.

Then they wrote me there would go two weeks because the thingie was out of stock...

[Sigh] nothing to do but wait for my Zoom H4 to arrive!

My new toy is a digital recorder that records, not to a tape or hard disk, but to a memory chip -- if you've ever had to go through taped recordings, you know how cool this is. The thingum has built-in condensator microphones in an X-Y pattern which I'm told give a nice ambiance. Also, it can do honest 4-track recording, that is stereo on stereo. It comes bundled with Cubase software for later editing on my computer. I'm really looking forward to this.

It has always cost me blood and tears to make the few recordings I am even halfway satisfied with. As professional, commercial recording has always been out of the question, I've always had to push all the buttons myself and this has always made it most difficult to capture the immediacy of that "live" feeling essential to my material.

It's not that my songs aren't "good" enough to be commercial, it's just that, when people really listen to these sad songs, they either cry or fall asleep -- that's not where the money is.

Many years ago, I lent our apartment for a week to a friend of mine while we were away. He went through my material such as it was at that time and recorded a little song for me which goes:

The Copenhagen Music Man is no "jolly Dane",
maybe he's crazy and maybe he's quite insane,
but I reckon he's suffered for his art...

Ah, Elliot, where are you now, you fuggin son of a Canadian dentist?

Elliot Rowan was one cool dude and one of the people I regret most having lost contact with.