Category: Blog

This blog contains music, cats, and things of less importance.

Charlotte in the Garden of the New Futility

Hey! Wow! New single. Dropped this morning. From a tree. Next to a marmot. And Charlotte.

Waving at the neighbors “Hi!” as the waves crash in,
They look at me and don’t know why, like “Hi, whatever,”
No one talks anymore, no one walks in this town,
Hardly notice myself when I take a look ’round,
Chasing my lost angels through the smog and glory,
Elvis and The Runaways gaze from the HOLLYWOOD sign

And on the gridlock freeway,
Tuning in to float away

Never never never never never sleep, never, never never slow down,
Got a bridge back home to sell ya, and the moon as well
No one talks anymore, no one walks in this town,
Hardly notice my shoes when I look at the ground,
All of these lost angels are gone forever,
Never lookin’ back again, no never never,

And on the zombie freeway,
Casting directors casting doubt,
I’ll never be in your spillway,
I’m not in your secret club,

As I walk in the mall, with my eyes lookin’ down,
Staring at the glowing, gleaming showing,
Now I know the way, following what it say,
Never need to wonder, everything’s easy,
These machines will preen and vent spleen for me,
Waving at my hologram now, the neighbors smile,

And on the scarlet carpet,
Margot Robbie strides away,
And in the garden, Charlotte
Watches a charming marmot play,
And in the garden, Charlotte,
Margot Robbie strides away

——

Guitarscape, Fender P-Bass, Vocals – Eric Din
1965 Ludwig Drums – Michael Urbano
Recorded by Michael Rosen at East Bay Recorders
2nd Engineer – Austin James Hicks
Produced and mixed by Eric Din for Berkeley Cat Records
Mastered by Michael Romanowski at Coast Mastering
Artwork by Shannon Wheeler

© 2023 Eric Roy Dinwiddie
King Roy Music, BMI

Swaps, Uptones, and Various Ugly Things?! Why yes, Petunia

In which we share Down Home Music’s newsletter! Here it be:

Swaps, Uptones, and Various Ugly Things
——————————–

The Down Home Music Parking Lot record swap meet. Sunday, July 30th, from 8am to 12pm. 10341 San Pablo Avenue, El Cerrito. For further info contact JC at 510.525.2129. mail@downhomemusic.com. No entry fee. No sellers fee. Weather pending. All things audio: vintage LP’s, 45’s, 78’s, stereo gear, amps, instruments, and more…
PS. Not to be confused with our 2nd Sunday 45/78 swap.

Eric Din from the Uptones will play his
first show in eons, at Down Home Music
on Saturday, August 12 at 2 P.M.
—————–

We Now Carry Both Retro Garage UGLY THINGS & Futuristic Art HI-FRUCTOSE Magazines

TOMORROW’S ART TODAY
————————-

We Are Beginning to Feature Rare Vinyl LPs from Mr.Chris’s Personal Collection in Our Store

Visit Our Online Store:

downhomemusic.com

Barbercontenheimerglobbus

Resharing this from my Substack..

In which..

Ba Ba Ba, Ba Barbarella, Ba Ba Ba, Ba Barbenheimer, Ba Ba Ba, Be Bop a Thing..

Hello! It’s Caturday and there are things to be done. Cats to be played with, guitars to strum. Rivers to jump in, if it can be arranged.

What of the movies? Barbenheimer, or as I prefer, Oppenbarbie. Will I set foot in a movie theater for the first time in lo these many years? I might. I hope it’s not too loud. My last movie theater experience was bad. Too loud, and, lots of commercials! Yes, commercials. You pay the cover, you pay for parking, you buy the popcorn, you’ve paid, right? Captive audience, commercials. No mute button. This plus internets has made me stay home for my movies. But.. Barbarellaheimerbarbenopalypse.. I think it’s on. I may need to experience this moment of popular culture in its undiluted form. The Barbie preview – I pulled it up on Apple TV yesterday, and wow. I think I like. As for Oppenbabyheimerdude, I have read quite a bit about him, and his brothers, and his colleagues and friends and lovers, over the years. A fascinating and complex man to be sure. Epic moral dilemmas, giant world-changing science with huge secret team in the desert, why not? What we need is both films, side-by-side or even overlapping, to save time and maximize popcorn value. I’d sit through commercials for that.

OK, CONTENT! All of this is content. The writers and actors strike brings up so many fascinating issues. AI does its inevitable advance and hoomans try to understand it. An amusing feature to all this is the ads I see on FB and elsewhere – telling me to use AI to write blog posts or songs. I find it darkly funny that people would spend money to buy ads and target me with that message. I can spell out the reason, that will never appeal to me in any way at all: THE MEANING OF LIFE!

The meaning of life. I enjoy writing, creating, recording, and all of these things. I do them because they are fun. I learn things about myself, by doing them. I might entertain some people, or even inspire them, sometimes, by creating and sharing things that start in my imagination. So, no, thank you, dear AI company, I think I’ll not have you doing the fun bits instead of me.

Hey, my second solo album comes out August 1! This is the title track, sort of, and it may address some of these hot topics. Be well, stay cool and hydrated, <3 E

Down Home Shindig

About a year ago I visited Down Home Music for a wee panel-ish discussion with author Bill Kopp, on his fab 415 Records – Disturbing The Peace book tour. After the event, the good folks at Down Home asked me if I’d like to come in and do a solo set sometime, and sure enough, that’s what I’ll be doing this August 12 right around 2PM.  We’ll have a flier for this soon I think, and I’ll share it up on the accursed socialnets then, and for now, here it is on a wee down home bloggy post. Pop on in, say hi, it’s free! On a Catursunday, no less.

7-22, Updating with flier 🙂

Misinformed single is now available and we are tickled

Log rolls downstairs, alone or in blogs..

Hey! I haven’t written here in a while, and I’m excited to pop in and share a few items this morning.

I just released a new song called Misinformed. It’s on Bandcamp now and will hit the streaming contraptions in about a week.

This is the first track on my CONTENT album, which has an official release date of August 1, a CaturTuesday. Why a few months out? So we can release some singles in advance of it and have some fun putting some light on a few individual songs before publishing the whole kaboodle. So here’s an ask – (“ask” is a noun, now, I’m dealing with it..) – my ask is that you give ‘er a listen and if you dig it, buy or share it or both. Elaborate, no? This is our marketing strategy. YOU are our marketing strategy. And regardless of any of it we send you big kittycat love on this auspicious Caturday.

On August 12, also a Caturday, I’m singing a few songs from both my STREET PARTY and CONTENT albums, at Down Home Music in El Cerrito, around 2PM. I’ll be doing this solo, with an acoustic guitar, perhaps telling a yarn or two about my creative journeys and whatever comes to mind, we shall see, and y’all are invited to pop in and join me. The good folks at Down Home will have copies of both albums on CD available for sale, for any CD-inclined cats among ye. We’ll call it my book tour, even though, it’s not a book. It is content, however, I can confidently say.

Terry Hall steps on

The first time I saw Terry Hall perform, it was on a movie screen at the UC Theater in Berkeley. Dance Craze was the movie, and I’m confident it changed the lives of most or all of the attendees.  The Specials became one of my most favorite bands, the ones I can count on one hand, in the space of a few bars. Instant, total, lifelong fandom and a deep and genuine affection.

On the news that Terry Hall has passed, all this comes flooding back to me.

I had this great mythology, or narrative, about The Specials, when I was 15, based on vinyl records of their first two albums, and their Ghost Town EP.  Their names. Their look, their presence, their message. It was so one thousand percent right, for me.  I absolute love them. I missed their original run by a year, and when I finally got to see them live with most of their original lineup, at the Fox Oakland just a few years ago, they lived up to every bit of my imagined brilliance of them, about 40 years later. What a ridiculously great band. I still think their message is one of the most vital.

My thought for Terry Hall is gratitude. I am so grateful for you, and your bands, and the music you made. It will live forever.

And love. I don’t know if you know, how much you are loved, Terry Hall.
You’re a one-off.  May your beautiful soul rest in peace. Condolences and love to your band and family.  You live on in so many.  Goodnight

Twaaap

Yesterday I ranted, that I did not want any more social networks. It was a lie. I would be delighted if a better platform emerged, that was not driven by advertising and raw capitalism, but rather by our human desire to connect, and stay in touch.  I’ve joined a few attempts at this, and honestly, I can’t even remember the names of them.  Because nothing happened there.  My posts were ignored, much as they were on Twitter.  I don’t pretend to have anything particularly brilliant to say, but at least in FB, I experience some quality interaction.  Many of my real friends are there, amongst my FB friends.  Some I don’t really know well, but all I find interesting.  I’ve curated my friends list fairly carefully, since 2007.  I pass on friend requests that seem dubious, and block the occasional trumpy.  I have no time for them.  If there were some way to export my friends list from here and import them into a new platform that is less ruthless and more wise, I would do it.  Maybe someone can write an app for that ?
Doesn’t seem likely.
Anyway, I’m still here.  All of this is temporary.  But of all the social networks I have tried, FB is the most significant, for me.  Because so many of my peers are there. As Twitter collapses, and the world turns, I wonder where we will gather in the digital space, in another 10 years.

Tweeep

I don’t miss Twitter.  I quit on the day whatshisbutt took over.  I now have one less site to update when I publish a song, or a podcats episode, or mewsletter.  I find I like less, more, these days.  The other day someone sent me an invite to another webby socially networky thing, and the only emotion I felt was anxiety.  Based on that, I didn’t click through to learn more about how this was the better revolutionary democratizing responsible fun platform of the future because I don’t believe it and I don’t care.  Bah.  I’ve gone full get off my lawn about this.  There’s no sense in denying it.  Humbug and bosh. 

Now then, I feel better.  TODAY The Cow Song went live in boodles of streaming noodles, AND is famous in a subway car somewhere, apparently. 

 

 

Nay, I lie, it’s a pic from Distrokiddy’s nifty raft of promotional widgetys, of which I am a user.  User, isn’t that a word for our times?  Are you a user?  I am a power-user.  I was an early adapter (adopter?).  I don my pondering cap and cop: I AM DISENAMORED OF TEH INTERWHUTS!!

Language, spelling, these things are gone.  In the Before Time there were Copy Editors – I, myself, am still at times, a copy editor!  Professionally or with friends, I enjoy it.  And yet I also enjoy inventing words or spellings.  The meaning can be enhanced or altered, satirized or twizzled, anyporp is mossible.  Take for example, DISENAMORED.  I mean it’s plain, what it means. 

Liberties we take.  Do dictionaries stand a chance, anymore?  Official words in the Oxford Officialdom?  How can they keep up now?  How long did it take for Tweet to become a noun, a verb, and nothing to do with birds, enabling the end of civility, and Dystopian Crushing Darkness And Despair (DCDAD)?  We study, we wonder.   I DON’T MISS IT!  I didn’t like it.  The fact that it’s imploding while “Meta” also creaks and lurches precariously is interesting.  The era is shifting. What next, I wonder.

I double-space my sentence breaks and fall easily in love with English professors.  I LOVE language and the little rules of it, the ever-changingness of it, I’m fascinated that recording artists exist with names you can’t read phonetically.  I form whole sentences with emojies sometimes.  It’s like hieroglyphics – getting back to the foundations of written language.  Here’s a picture of a bird.  Here’s a smiley.  Here’s a heart.  I understand.  

CaturRanterSunday, it must be.  I don’t want any new user accounts in anything.  I’m going to try and trim it back further, so I have less to deal with.  My fascination with social networks has waned, and FB is the only one I’m still on, for now.  Oh and I grudgingly try to use Instagram but I find their interface utterly incomprehensible.  They want you to do it on their app, of course.  Everyone wants you to have an app, for their things.  I prefer my laptop, I prefer not having apps, I would prefer standardization of navigation methods and metaphors, and, I would like a pony.   Double-space..   thank you,

Good afternoon