...and by "frequently", I mean "at least once"...
Table of Contents
- If you're such a hotshot programmer, why is your website so primitive?
- If you're such a hotshot musician, why do your songs suck?
- Why don't you pick a style and stick with it?
- What the heck is an "O'Hagan" guitar?
- Is the glass half-empty or half-full?
- In Verse 2 of "Paint", the lyrics page says "elucidate" but you sing "eliminate". Why?
- You mention playing keys, guitar, bass and sax. Who plays the banjo in "Black Rain"?
- Who the heck is E. C. Tubb?
- What's with the maniacal giggling toward the end of "Ad Vice"?
- In Phantasm's "You Beset Me (I Curse Thee), what's up with the pronunciation of "Beset"?
Backstory
The Traveler
Phantasm / From The Attic
If you're such a hotshot programmer, why is your website so primitive?
Three reasons:
First, compatibility. This bad boy will display correctly in IBM Web Explorer 1.0 for OS/2 or any other
obscure browser the kind of person who would enjoy this site might be using. No annoying "You must have
javascript enabled" or "You must have IE 5.0 or higher" or "your browser doesn't support frames" messages here.
Second, performance. Few graphics, fewer animations and direct links to the MP3 files equals fast downloads for
people still living with twentieth - century technology like dial - up connections and slower computers.
Third, therapy. No FrontPage or web - based authoring tools are used here,
'cause nothing soothes my nerves like pounding out some HTML in Notepad.
(Yes, I really do it that way, and yes, I know how weird that is).
Top
If you're such a hotshot musician, why do your songs suck?
To paraphrase Frank-N-Furter's response to Janet's assessment of Rocky
("I don't like a man with too many muscles") in "The Rocky Horror Picture Show":
I didn't make them for you!
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Why don't you pick a style and stick with it?
Three reasons:
First, I'm my own biggest fan. Unlike many musicians, I listen to my own work all the time, and I like variety.
Second, my influences. Many of my all - time favorite bands performed an eclectic mix of styles while maintaining
a unique sound. The Beatles come to mind, and Queen is the master of that trick. With Queen, you can find a metal song,
a blues song, a ballad, an art rock song and a techno song on one side of an LP, and it all sounds like Queen. (R.I.P. Freddie).
Third, blame the muse. I write whatever pops into my head, and I don't bother hammering a punk peg into a metal hole, or vice versa.
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What the heck is an "O'Hagan" guitar?
The "Flying V" pictured on the home page is my primary axe: an O'Hagan Model 22. It's a mostly hand - made American
guitar with a neck-through design, DiMarzio twin-coil humbucking pickups and a BadAss tailpiece. To paraphrase the character
Nigel from the movie "Spinal Tap", "just listen to the sustain! No, you can't touch it, just listen... mmmmmmmmmmm"!
For the history of the O'Hagan company, see Vintage Guitar Magazine's article.
For some glowing user reviews of the O'Hagan 22, see Harmony Central's user reviews.
Top
Is the glass half-empty or half-full?
The occupied volume of the glass is equal to half its total capacity.
Top
In Verse 2 of "Paint", the lyrics page says "elucidate" but you sing "eliminate". Why?
I screwed up and sang the lyrics from Verse 1. By the time anybody noticed it, the label didn't want to pay
for the studio time for me to go back and fix it. Oh, wait, I own the label and the studio. Er, just lazy, I guess.
Top
You mention playing keys, guitar, bass and sax. Who plays the banjo in "Black Rain"?
Shhh! You're not supposed to ask. But I do, sort of. First, I had to learn to tune and play a banjo, but there was
no way I was going to be able to play the breakdown the way I wanted it to sound. So, knowing what notes could realistically
be played by a good banjo player, I plugged a banjo sample into the computer and played the part on my Yamaha DX - 11.
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Who the heck is E. C. Tubb?
E. C. Tubb was an author so prolific as to make the output of Isaac Asimov and Stephen King seem sporadic.
He published hundreds of books under each of his numerous pseudonyms (or so it seems - I might be exaggerating
just a bit). Primarily writing in the "pulp SF/fantasy" genre, he is perhaps best known for "The Dumarest Saga",
upon which the song The Traveler is based, although his novelizations of sci-fi TV series were apparently fairly
popular as well. The Dumarest Saga, in my opinion, can stand toe to toe with works by other SF authors who received far more critical acclaim, and is definitely too good to be labelled "pulp". (R.I.P. Ted).
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What's with the maniacal giggling toward the end of Ad Vice?
While I was arranging the seemingly contradictory aphorisms that make up the bulk of the
lyrics into something that would seem like a cohesive dialog, I realized I had used the line
"Kill or be killed" in the song The Traveler and blurted out one of the "call and response"
lines from the relevant part of that song: "...The universal rule". The purely accidental
integration of that kind of Pink Floydian recurring theme across two tracks amused
me greatly and I actually laughed out loud. So, I decided to go for the
self-referential gusto and incorporate my own reaction into the song.
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In Phantasm's "You Beset Me (I Curse Thee)", what's with the pronunciation of "Beset"?
Dave had an antique dictionary that listed it as an alternate pronunciation, and he felt it added to the
nineteenth - century atmosphere of the song (despite my theory that it was just a misprint).
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