Taiwan trip - part 1

One of the things I spent the end of last year preparing for was a trip to Taiwan to startup my new project at work (yes this now makes me an -international- cog in the corporate machine). I've prefaced this series of posts with a picture of Sisyphus, since his fate accurately sums up every moment I've spent working on the aforementioned project. But I digress ..

The flight to Taiwan took all day, and due to the time differences, I ended up leaving Saturday morning and arriving Sunday night. I got bumped up to the 'elite' class somehow, where each person gets tons of footroom and a totally reclining seat. I must have temporarily held the gods' favor, because the hotel also bumped me up into one of the nicest rooms I've stayed in. The pictures below show the office/lounge area, bedroom, and marble bathroom in my suite.


Once I arrived, a typhoon decided to blow through the island, leaving the weather pretty wet and grey for a few days. The view out my window faced directly at Taipei 101 (currently tallest building in the world), which looked pretty slick despite the rain.


Work was pretty intense the first couple days, so didn't take many interesting pictures. Eventually the weather cleared up and I got some shots out the window and around the hotel.



Breakfast was always the hotel buffet, where we would stuff ourselves on fruit (esp. dragonfruit), waffles, donuts, eggs, and this banana-nut oatmeal stuff. We were taken out for lunch almost every day by Quanta. Despite my dread of being served jellyfish or boiling blood sauce, the places we went were all pretty safe and tasted great. Typically we would order all share a 'set' - a lot of courses with a little bit of everything. Dinners were usually KFC or Domino Pizza due to late hours and the need to keep plugging away at things. We did go out with some coworkers to a famous dim sum place, and were given gifts of bell fruit to take with us (basically tasted like a bland apple).


Finally, here are some pics of the Quanta building taken from our taxi. We would see this sight each morning for two weeks, and almost always leave each night feeling depressed.

"Ride Captain Ride"

One topic that generated a lot of traffic years ago on the Combo Organ mailing list was the identity of the synth-sounding keyboard used on "Ride Captain Ride". It comes in during the intro to play some bassy backing to the Rhodes, then reappears throughout the song playing higher sustained notes behind the vocals. Guesses ranged from Moogs to a Chamberlin to the infamous Guitar-Organ, but no conclusion was ever reached. And so the thread sat in the archives ...

This evening I realized that on the "internet", people use "email" and have "websites". So I did some googling, and there was a website for Mike Pinera - guitarist/vocalist for The Blues Image, and co-writer of this song. I sent an email asking about the identity of the instrument and got a quick response:

The instument that your asking about was a special organ, I believe was called a Gulbranson. The intro we tried to make it sound like a ship's horn and on the counter melodies we went for a flute/recorder sound.

Gulbransen made some spinets in the 50s and 60s, including the first transistorized tone generator organ (Model B). The discussion will probably turn now to figuring out exactly which model they used, and what settings/voices they used for the track. At some point I'll probably take on the irrational but inevitable quest of tracking one down for the collection.

Speaking of, "Ride Captain Ride" probably has one of the wider ranges of interpretations I've read about (everything from Scientology boat trips to the attack of the USS Pueblo). Here is an interesting anecdote that should clear that up as well:

"The producer came in and said, "Do you have any more songs, because if you don't, this is your last day in the studio,"' Pinera says. "So I said, "Oh, I have a song,' which I didn't. So I went into the bathroom, and I shut the door, and I just meditated. I calmed my mind, and I started hearing music. I went out and sat at the piano, which was a Rhodes Model No. 73, which had 73 keys. So I say, "Okay, I need a first word.' And what came into my head was 73. I liked the rhythm, and I went, "73 men sailed in, from the San Francisco Bay. ... The song sort of just wrote itself."

Cleaning the Baldwin harpsichord

Some people's Saturday night consisted of fine dining, socializing, or maybe a wild night of partying and drinking. Mine, on the other hand, consisted of vacuuming a harpsichord. The Baldwin arrived last week and was pretty filthy - dust cakes, grimy keys, German 10 pfenning coin in the strings (you know you have too much gear when this doesn't even phase you). So the first order of business was to give it an initial scrubbing.

The easiest place to start was the plexiglass. The music stand and soundboard cover are held on by a few thumbscrews. I removed these and separated the music stand rail from the backing. Everything was scrubbed with all-purpose Windex and set aside (if you look at last week's pics, the plexiglass was definitely contributing some of the filthy appearance).

Next up were the grimy keys. I again took the all-purpose Windex, plus a box of Q-tips, and went to work one key at a time. Each key looked like someone had vomited on it (and maybe this was the case - old gear has such an air of mystery). I didn't feel like removing the keybed, so I just got around all sides of the keys as best I could. The result looks practically brand new and was definitely worth the effort.


At this point I went over all the body (which is metal with some kind of textured black paint) with Windex and paper towels. I even got the Q-tips back out and cleaned the layer of dust behind the tuning pins (you'll notice the 10 pfenning piece is now removed). Finally, I went over the legs with Old English scratch cover / polish. Here is a picture of the Baldwin tonight, looking much cleaner than when it arrived:

Baldwin Combo Harpsichord arrives

Last weekend was another early Christmas in our household (there are lots of these when you're a gearhog). The Baldwin Combo Harpsichord arrived Friday afternoon and was waiting in the garage, packed on a palette along with the Baldwin Professional amp. I drove home giggling like a little girl and immediately tore into the packaging. After three of us wrestled it upstairs, we assembled it and took the pictures in this post.

I found the Baldwin by combing Craigslist nationwide, using a site like this. Alas it was in New York and was listed at $3000 (which is actually current eBay market value). I went ahead and mailed the seller the usual questions - are the plectra present, do the pickups work, etc. He responded that the plectra weren't there and that the electronics didn't work either - so I could have the entire lot (harpsichord, pedals, and amp) for free if I could pick it up. He also mentioned that he's the original owner, it's been sitting in his studio for 40 years, and he recorded an album with it in 1970 with his group 'The Open Window'.


Thus began my adventure of finding a company that would pickup, pack, and ship this thing. We finally found this in Navis Pack & Ship. They were close to the pickup location and could do everything for a few hundred bucks (better than a few grand indeed). While waiting for it to arrive, I actually found the record the seller made with the Baldwin. It is a bunch of psychedelic stuff with orchestral backing, also featuring great Wurlitzer EP, Farfisa Compact, and grand piano.


The overall condition is great (esp. considering the price): It's dusty and needs a good scrubbing; the pickups work, but the output jack doesn't; and the amp is pretty filthy. The plectra are actually all present, but almost every jack has the same issue - the mechanism to push the tongue into place is worn out. On normal harpsichords this is done with a little bristle spring; the Baldwin just uses arched pieces of plastic that push against the tongues. Anyway, I'm confident we can improvise some way to fix these.

Music room progress

Having the attention span of a fruit fly, I hadn't made a whole lot of progress on the music room until the past two weeks. During this time I was moving my desk all around the room and trying different layouts for my gear. I also got around to buying a three-tier A-frame stand (locally off Craigslist), and a bag full of String Swing wall hangers (Strait Music).

The A-frame style of stands are great when you have a lot of gear and you want to go vertically. I intended to fit all of my synths and drum machines onto this baby, so I also bought some shelves from Home Depot for $15. These help the aesthetics, while also allowing for several pieces of gear per tier. The only trick with these stands is that the whole system depends on you 1) getting all the arms locked together correctly, and 2) applying mega-torque to each connection. I didn't intend to find out, but I presume you would have a messy synthesizer landslide if you half-assed these steps.

Hanging the String Swings was pretty straightforward - each hanger mounts into a stud with the two included screws. This is only frustrating if you have two anal-retentive engineers trying to get the spacing and levelness perfect.

Here is a picture of the A-frame setup and String Swings once we were done. The synth-related gear shown is as follows (top to bottom): Moog Sonic Six, Roland CR-78 drum machine, Electro-Harmonix Mini-Synth (on top of the CR-78), Moog Minimoog D, SCI Prophet 5, Moog Taurus I pedals. Hanging on the wall is a random nylon-string guitar, Fender banjo, reissue Hofner violin bass, '76 Rickenbacker 4001 bass, and '62 reissue Fender P-bass. Amps below are Roland KC-500 and '65 Ampeg B-15N.


Here is a picture of the "organ district". Featured are Hammond M-102, Leslie 147, and Lowrey TBO-1 (back wall), Vox Continental (Italian), silver sparkle Fender Rhodes Piano Bass, Farfisa Compact Duo (effects version), Farfisa Combo Compact, and Gibson G-101.


Finally is the electromechanical section of the room. Here you'll find (starting at the back) Hohner Pianet N, Fender Rhodes Suitcase 73, Hohner Clavinet D6, and Wurlitzer 200A.


Next steps are to make room for a Baldwin Combo Harpsichord (arriving next week), get some shelving for the CDs/books/etc, and start working on a wiring design. I'll close by letting George Carlin remind you about people and their stuff:

A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it. You can see that when you're taking off in an airplane. You look down, you see everybody's got a little pile of stuff. All the little piles of stuff. And when you leave your house, you gotta lock it up. Wouldn't want somebody to come by and take some of your stuff. They always take the good stuff. They never bother with that crap you're saving. All they want is the shiny stuff.

That's what your house is, a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get...more stuff!

Lake Tawakoni spiderwebs

During a trip to Lake Fork over Labor Day weekend, we decided to make the short trip to Lake Tawakoni State Park - home of the spiderwebs that have been in the news lately. This was somewhat of an illogical move on my part, since I am terrified of the kinds of things that get caught in spiderwebs.

Anyway, there had been a lot of rain and wind at the time, so the webs were actually not as glorious as in the newscasts. But they were still covering everything in sight, and you get a slightly uneasy feeling walking into their lair (kind of like that dream where you're rolling the big donut, and there's a snake in a vest).


Park rangers were standing by with photos of the webs and info about the spiders. There was a very foul stench from all the decaying bugs caught in the webs. On a side note, this provides an excellent scapegoat in case you decide to do some 'crop dusting'.


We decided to split after walking through the web area, but managed to catch an awe-inspiring glimpse of nature on the way out. This horse was going through the throes of defecation, evidenced by his other-wordly gaze (and raised tail):


The Texas Parks & Wildlife site has some good pics of the webs at their prime - click here.

'The Ring' mirror prop

When I'm not driving cross-country to pick up obscure organs or working in the corporate machine, one side hobby I have is collecting movie props. 'The Ring' was a 2002 remake of the Japanese mystery/horror movie 'Ringu'. The gist of the story is that watching a certain video tape will cause you to expire seven days later; the video is watched in the beginning, and the rest of the movie is spent unraveling its meaning (and unfortunately some of the viewers' interest). Anyway, the tape is still the stuff of nightmares and can be found all over the internet.

One of the creepier / more memorable images in the video is the reflection of a woman (who is nowhere to be seen) brushing her hair in an oval-shaped wall mirror. This mirror is seen several times throughout the movie (incl. when the real mirror is discovered), and is sort of a main symbol for the spooky goings-on in 'The Ring'.

After the movie was released, many of the screen-used props were auctioned off on eBay. At the time I decided I would bid on the mirror, since it was creepy and I needed a mirror in the bathroom anyway. Alas, the cheapskate in me took over and I backed out of the bidding once it hit a few hundred bucks. I got a second chance when someone (presumably the guy who won it the first time) decided to auction the mirror again. This time I won it, and it hung in my bathroom for several years (much hair was brushed in that mirror with horrific results).

The picture above is the mirror as it hangs on the gameroom wall today. Below are a couple screen captures from the movie for comparison (note: since I don't have a special effects crew to edit me out, I had to take the picture from the side .. so that's why it looks slightly narrower than the screencaps):


One final note - I think there were two mirrors auctioned off originally. Not sure where each one was used (hero and backup?), but they did some work to make the mirror look old and creepy (e.g. "aging" the silver around the perimeter behind the glass). At one point I compared some of the characteristics of my mirror with the screencaps and they all seemed to match (incl. the silver patterns, which I presumed would be somewhat unique). So I believe mine is atleast the mirror in the second screencap, and possibly even in both.

Anyone out there have the second mirror and some more details?