some1inmydictionary

why did you decide to have the waiters take orders on ipads, when audience members get kicked out for texting? i have been consistently frustrated with how distracting the ipad lights are.

Beefheart is one of those massively influential musicians whose fanbase consists almost exclusively of other musicians. He started in the sixties, playing very weird blues. "Safe as Milk," his first album, is on the bizarre edge of blues. Then he went down stranger roads. "Trout Mask Replica" is widely agreed upon to be his masterpiece (and is one of the great masterpieces of western music, according to many people, myself included), but it is outrageously dense and difficult. To enjoy it on first listen, you have to have pretty out-there taste. John Peel (an extremely important music critic and DJ for the BBC) said about "Trout Mask Replica" that "If there has been anything in the history of popular music which could be described as a work of art in a way that people who are involved in other areas of art would understand, then Trout Mask Replica is probably that work." [1] What I think he meant is that it is not, at first blush, pretty: it is concerned with being thoughtful and brilliant, not being pleasing. Patience and dedication are required to unlock it, but it rewards that patience and dedication in spades. Lyrically and sonically, there's nothing like it. And though it seems dark, there's this wild-eyed psychedelic optimism shot all through it: the opening lines of the album are "my smile is stuck / i cannot go back to your frownland / my spirit is made up of the ocean / and the sky and the sun and the moon /and all my eye can see." [2] And he's always giving insane instructions to his fictional bandmates, who have cartoonish voices: "A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous. Got me?" [3]

Beefheart's catalogue is too skronky and strange to be good background or mood music (unless, again, you and your friends already enjoy the musical avant garde). Of course, you should do as this man says: Lick My Decals Off is fucking brilliant. If it's too strange for you, get Safe as Milk, and once you really dig it, come back to Lick My Decals Off. Once you're really into that, you're ready for Trout Mask Replica. Listen to all of it intently, on the best playback equipment you have. Try to consciously listen to one instrument at a time, before trying to take in everything that's playing at a given time. Often, the instruments are each on their own path (whether with regard to melody, key, rhythm, or more than one of these factors), and the paths compliment and intersect with each other, but they are intentionally not "together" in the way that one usually expects a band to be together.

Ice Cream for Crow, the album that Mr. Martinez played on, is fantastic as well, and well worth many listens. :)

Here are some songs to check out:

Sure 'Nuff 'N Yes I Do (early blues stuff) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UOweeSdI2k

Pachuco Cadaver (one of the poppiest songs on Trout Mask Replica) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgpSepkHwbY

[1] http://www.furious.com/Perfect/beefheart/troutmaskreplica3.html

[2] lyrics to Frownland, from Trout Mask Replica

[3] band instruction given at the beginning of Pachuco Cadaver, presumably to explain his earlier instruction to "play it fast and bulbous! tight also." the desired sound is also described as "bulbous also tapered," and "also, a tin teardrop."

this helped me a lot too! thanks.

and more of the Captain's words -- the lyrics to Pachuco Cadaver:

When she wears her bolero then she begin t’ dance

All the pachucos start withold’n hands

When she drives her Chevy, sissies don’t dare t’ glance

Yellow jackets ‘n red debbles buzzin’ round ‘er hair hive ho

She wears her past like uh present

Take her fancy in the past

Her sedan skims along the floorboard

Her two pipes hummin’ carbon cum

Got her wheel out of uh B-29 Bomber brodey knob amber

Spanish fringe ‘n talcum tazzles FOREVER AMBER

She looks like an old squaw indian

she’s 99 she won’t go down

Avocado green ‘n alfalfa yellow adorn her t’ the ground

Tatooes ‘n tarnished utenzles uh snow white bag full o’ tunes

Drives uh cartune around

Broma’ seltzer blue umbrella keeps her up off the ground

Round red sombreros wrap ‘er high tap horsey shoes

When she unfolds her umbrella pachucos got the blues

Her lovin’ makes me so happy

If I smile I crack mah chin

Her eyes are so peaceful thinks it’s heaven she been

Her skin is as smooth as the daisies

In the center where the sun shines in

Smiles as sweet as honey

Her teeth as clean as the combs where the bees go in

When she walks flowers surround her

Let their nectar come in to the air around her

She loves her love sticks out like stars

Her lovin’ sticks out like stars

What are the limitations on what can be sold on your site? I work for a company called Delptronics, and I'm wondering whether we could sell our fully-assembled stomp boxes and eurorack modules on Tindie, or just the kits (since most of the things i'm seeing while browsing seem kit-style).

EDIT: Our modules and stomp boxes are substantially hand built (many of them built by me, actually). Sometimes the resistors and such are put on the boards in a factory, but the electromechanical parts and final assembly are always by hand. I don't know if that's relevant or not, but I mention it because of Etsy's rules.