The Well part LVII...Crusty Philtrum

[crusty philtrum]

Re: The Well part LVII...Crusty Philtrum

Dig the Hamer, sold one in the States not too long ago which looked similar, and had a similar pup set up, except mine was a 92.

The GF came from England also, when she was 15 (she's 47 now). Dad moved the family after retiring from the RN. She said it was awful the first few yrs, and finally found her feet when she went off to Uni.

Myself, just got off the phone w/the Immigration folks. They are very helpful, but it is stilll stressful. Visa stuff. It's an education!

Do you play the bouzouki?

Yeah, the Hamer is a great guitar, I was going to get a new Les Paul but from reading a lot of stuff i started to think it was too chancey trying to find a good one....which is ridiculous at the prices we have to pay.... they should ALL be great. As you can imagine, down here in Australia, Hamers are rare and not widely known, and their re-sale value would be low. I must admit that even to this day that 'name on the headstock' thing sometimes lurks in my mind, but i only had one shot to get it right. I am not a wealthy person, but i simply wanted a Gibson-style guitar that i knew for sure would be built properly with good wood and attention to detail. I bought it from the USA, based only on some pictures and a description, and with the import duties, there was quite a learning curve, a lot of money, and a lot of faith. I'm happy to be able to report that every good thing i've heard about Hamer USA is true.

Your g/f came here at 15? Same age as me when i came here....a difficult age to move to another country, as so much is happening and changing at that age. It was quite a shock to me, too, learning and re-adjusting to subtle but relevant social aspects and life in general.

No, i don't play the bouzouki, or at least i have never had my hands on one so far. I used to play quite a bit of mandolin, and i have a Tiple (10 strings, 4 courses) which i play in bursts from time to time or as needed. Is there any particular reason why you ask? Do i look like i should play bouzouki maybe...?....heheheheee......

 

[Laughing Kookaburra]

Re: The Well part LVII...Crusty Philtrum

Re the bouzouki, just wondering. I guess they have the same tuning as the mandolin (which I've played a bit), although I've also heard it was different. I dig its use in Celtic music, although, despite the Irish input in Oz (transports), there seems to be little in the way of Celtic tunage here. I Saw a bouzouki at Muso's Corner in Newcastle, and it's giving me GAS.



The Hamers tend to blow away the Gibsons, IMHO, but yes, even in the States, they are valued less. I really miss mine...have a pic on my desktop...

 

[Laughing Kookaburra]

Re: The Well part LVII...Crusty Philtrum

Now that I think about it, what were you doing w/the mandolin?

 

[crusty philtrum]

Re: The Well part LVII...Crusty Philtrum

Re the bouzouki, just wondering. I guess they have the same tuning as the mandolin (which I've played a bit), although I've also heard it was different. I dig its use in Celtic music, although, despite the Irish input in Oz (transports), there seems to be little in the way of Celtic tunage here. I Saw a bouzouki at Muso's Corner in Newcastle, and it's giving me GAS.



The Hamers tend to blow away the Gibsons, IMHO, but yes, even in the States, they are valued less. I really miss mine...have a pic on my desktop...

When i was in my teenage years around the industrial city of Wollongong, NSW, there was a high percentage of Europeans who had migrated to that area for work in the 50's and 60's and there were many clubs and venues (and weddings, too) where they would perform their more traditional music styles, and accordian and bouzouki were almost everywhere, so i tend to associate the bouzouki with those styles, particularly Greek music i guess. Back in the early 70's there seemed to be quite a big market for accordian amplifiers and i remember seeing bouzoukis in the music shops that came fitted with pickups and controls, to cater for the fact that many of them were being used at gigs. They always fascinated me, although i never actually played or owned one.

Why not go to that music store and try it out?, when you get an itch, it's always good to scratch it, even a little bit, hehe.....


The good thing about the Hamers is that, should you ever want to get another one, it wouldn't be too horribly expensive, so i suppose the lower resale value compared to Gibson can work both ways.....Last time i looked, Jackson's rare guitars in Sydney was starting to import new ones from the USA, but his prices are.....well.....let's just say that he probably has a very nice house or six......

 

[crusty philtrum]

Re: The Well part LVII...Crusty Philtrum

Now that I think about it, what were you doing w/the mandolin?

In my twenties i got right into Ry Cooder as well as the usual rock stuff, and spent a lot of time playing acoustic guitar and mandolin....i remember playing one of his old songs called 'Billy The Kid' and a famous Rory Gallagher song he would play live, called 'Going To My Hometown', a real footstomper. I actually played that song in a band, with a pickup into the PA. Great fun as an interlude in an otherwise electric rock set. Later, through Ry Cooder interviews, i got a Tiple, which i still own, though at first i managed to mis-understand the tuning and had it backwards from low to high, hehe. Now i use a hybrid tuning i came up with, part tiple and part mandolin tuning. Because of having good theory, i was usually able to pick up any string instrument in any tuning and quickly work out enough basic chord shapes to get me started, so it was always a lot of fun. My violin attempts were somewhat less successful as the bowing techniques were obviously going to take more time to come to grips with, hehe. (Now i use a midi guitar and good sound module if i want the sound of bowed instruments, and try to find some king of picking technique that gets close to the desired sound).

 

[Laughing Kookaburra]

Re: The Well part LVII...Crusty Philtrum

"Going to My Hometown"...used to have that on vinyl...*sigh*

 

[crusty philtrum]

Re: The Well part LVII...Crusty Philtrum

"Going to My Hometown"...used to have that on vinyl...*sigh*

Yeah, I just about wore out my copy of 'Rory Gallagher Live In Europe' on vinyl, which i think is the only place that song ever showed up, but hey, that album is easy enough to find on CD nowdays, and despite it's age, and i think it still stands as one of his great albums, it really nails what he was all about....the raw Strat sound and wild playing is awesome, 'Laundromat' still fills me with unabashed joy.....he was a one-of-a-kind, no doubt about it.....

 

[Laughing Kookaburra]

Re: The Well part LVII...Crusty Philtrum

Was "Too Much Alcohol" on that? It's been a while.

"I told the man to put in some water, but he wouldn't put in a drop at all..."

Unfortunately, that led to his demise, but, yes, he was one of a kind!

 

[crusty philtrum]

Re: The Well part LVII...Crusty Philtrum

Was "Too Much Alcohol" on that? It's been a while.

"I told the man to put in some water, but he wouldn't put in a drop at all..."

Unfortunately, that led to his demise, but, yes, he was one of a kind!

I had to think about that....'Too Much Alcohol' was on 'Irish Tour 74', the double album originally in the silver cover with the title in red letters across the front....another great live album. All his live albums were great, from 'Live Taste' all the way onwards. He was indeed at his best live, and now there are DVD's of many live shows, all thanks to his brother Donal, who seems to work tirelessly to keep the legacy alive. The 'Live At Montreaux' DVD has about 5 different performances spanning most of his career, and is great value.

T'was indeed sad about his demise, but he was a man of the people rather than a 'star', and i think his fans will never forget him and he will always hold a special place in their (our) hearts.

 

[crusty philtrum]

Re: The Well part LVII...Crusty Philtrum

Just on a side-note, it seems that the coming Friday could be shaping up as being just as deadly for bush fires here in Victoria as we experienced very recently (some fires are still burning). Let's pray that the weather, the gods or whatever conspire to change the weather patterns before then, we've lost way too many people and too much property and bushland already.

 

[crusty philtrum]

Re: The Well part LVII...Crusty Philtrum

Some Crusty facts:

George Harrison was in the audience at a gig in North Queensland (Australia) one night, back around 1983/4, and stayed until the end. It was a cover band, and we played 2 Beatles songs. I saw the guy but didn't realise it was him until later. The band went to a local music shop the next day, and the young drummer excitedly told the story to the guys who worked in the shop. One of them replied "Oh yeah, we see him round here all the time". When i later moved back to Sydney, no-one believed me until a singer friend went to Queensland and walked past him on a beach.



I have played at 2 murders, or, looking at it another way, 2 people have been murdered at gigs where i played. Was it my playing? My tone? The song selection? I guess I'll never know. The band i mentioned in the previous factoid was trailed around for a while by the CIB, as the guitarist who I'd replaced had been jailed for murdering his father (he didn't do it though).



The young Crusty was crushed when a huge pile of timber collapsed onto him way back around 1967. The wood fell at 90 degrees to my spine, and only my head was clear of the timber. The marks on my back showed up 5 years after the event, and are still there to this day.



I was travelling interstate on a train long ago, it was late at night out in a remote country part of the journey. Most of the passengers had managed to settle and get to sleep. The train stopped at an obscure station seemingly in the middle of nowhere. I heard a disturbance as it seemed someone had gotten on and had entered the far end of the carriage i was in. The new passenger seemed to be disruptive, sitting down, waking people and talking and generally disturbing them. He seemed to work his way along the carriage doing the same thing each time he took a seat. I could hear the groaning of people who were being woken up. Eventually he sat down opposite me.

I was trying to pretend to be asleep, but it wasn't working. When he noticed me taking a brief look at him, this old fellow says to me..."I like chickens. Do you like chickens?" The question took me by surprise, so i had to ask him to repeat it, and he did. I responded...."What?...Do you mean 'chicks'?...like...girls...?" He replied...." No !...CHICKENS !!"

Fortunately we were pulling into another obscure station in the middle of nowhere, and 2 Police Officers came onboard and escorted this strange old guy from the train, and then came back to ask whether i'd give my name and address in case i should be required as a witness. I did, although i never heard any more about the chicken-loving man.

 

[crusty philtrum]

Re: The Well part LVII...Crusty Philtrum

Ok, I'm handing 'The Well' over to GanzosRevenge now, it's been fun and i hope he has as much or even more of a good time with it.


So...I'm just packing up my stuff and cleaning up in the well here, and waiting to be taken to The Vault (unless they have other plans for me, hehe). I'm wondering whether it's gonna be dark in there, should i take a flashlight? I'm wondering how the food is down there, the coffee etc., what the parking situation is and whether i'll be allowed visitors. I guess i'm about to find out......at least i know i'll be in illustrious company, unless they put me in solitary. So Pharewell from the Philtrum, I'll stand on the back of the train and wave ma little handkerchief as the train pulls outta the station...... :beerchug::wave:

 

[Laughing Kookaburra]

Re: The Well part LVII...Crusty Philtrum

I know that north Queensland is one of those vacation destinations, but who'd a thunk George Harrison would be there? Even more so, in an audience!

Stay safe this week.

 

[Will S-T]

Re: The Well part LVII...Crusty Philtrum

Where are ya!
Got one rolled waiting for you!!