I am a custom van enthusiast, so I also enjoy looking at motor homes. Thanks for the link! Some very interesting vehicles in there.

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Casually looking for a Clifford hyperpak intake for cheap.

Hey Mr. SS,
It was a fun time. Mid 60s to late 70s.

The concert tour circuit is a "young" person's thing.

I as born in 1939 and by 1979 I was pushing 40 years old and the grind got to be just too much for me to keep up. Backed off of it and it was kind of a relief not to have to push myself to do the amount of effort needed day after day after day for weeks on end.
I've done shows with Mountain, Mother Earth, Steve Miller Blues Band, Procol Harum, Ten Years After, Buddy Miles, Richie Havens, Seals and Crofts, Neville Brothers, JJ Cale, Lighthouse, Country Joe and the Fish, and some lesser known bands such as Wolftrap, Saroyan, Holy Smoke, and Shiva's Head Band.

Also had a Television Show in Houston back in the early 70s called "Sensatiation".

I was the Producer and Talent. Kenan Doyle Branam was the Director and TV Tech, Mary-k Ashley Wilson was the Executive Coordinator. It was broadcast on Channel 26 (Fox) in Houston, and simulcast on K101, the number one radio station in Houston.

For more information about "Sensatiation" click here:

http://www.branam.com/video/sensatiation.shtml

The picture of the two guys and the gal is Kenan on the left, Mary-k in the middle and that's me on the right when I was thirty-four years old. That was forty-one years ago. I'm now seventy-five years old.

Anyway it has been an interesting life. Had lots of ups and downs, but as I wrote in one of my songs:

When you count it up and find you're in the lead,
Tell me what more proof do you need?

Another verse says:
No repentant confession
Nor coward's cry,
Just contented progression
Toward the day that I die,
There'll come no new tomorrow,
From which to beg, steal or borrow,
for a life without faith,
In the grasp of a wraith.

Have a GREAT day, Steve.

JC

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Lorrie Van Haul - 1967 Dodge - P200 Post Office Vehicle - 225 Slant Six - Torqueflite A727 Automatic Transmission - Right Hand Drive Steering - Big Three HEI System - Frantz Oil Cleaner System - Bendix Stromberg Model W Carburetor

JC-
Ten Years After was the 1st concert I ever went to (as a child with my parents, early 70's) in Galveston,Tx...venue on the beach close to Stewarts Beach(?)

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1964 Dart GT

Hey Reed,
Some of the vehicles on that link are just exquisite! You just don't see that kind of thing very often.
You're welcome, of course. Some of those look like they might have been from Tobacco Road or the Grapes of Wrath!

BTW, called about Lorrie's Door Handles. Talked with a guy and asked if they could send a couple of them with common keys. He took my phone number and said he would go look and call me back. About a half hour later he called back and said that they were out of stock! Haven't done anything more about them.

Went out this morning and got Ms. American back on the ground. Need to air up the Right Front Tire, put gas in the gas tank, start the Engine and turn the old Gal around. Then will put her up on the Ramps, then from there jack her up a bit to put her up as high as possible on the Jack Stands and then disassemble her front Suspension.

Am going to clean and repaint everything, then reassemble it replacing parts as necessary.

But then I saw my neighbor Robert and he said that the Weather Channel says there is a 70% chance of rain today. So am going to just hold off till am sure the weather is going to be nice.

Anyway, all this comes under the heading of: "Why can't anything be easy?"

Take care.

JC

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Lorrie Van Haul - 1967 Dodge - P200 Post Office Vehicle - 225 Slant Six - Torqueflite A727 Automatic Transmission - Right Hand Drive Steering - Big Three HEI System - Frantz Oil Cleaner System - Bendix Stromberg Model W Carburetor

Hey Mr. D,
Have been to Galveston a number of times, but am not all that familiar with where things are on the island. The last time I was there was when I was at the University of Texas Medical Branch to have an appendectomy because my appendix burst on the way back home from doing a concert in Dallas. Made it home and was really sick. Went to the hospital and they transported me to UTMB. Was told by the surgeon who did the procedure that I had been about twenty minutes away from dying when he started on me.

Ten Years After was Alvin Lee's band. He was a really hot British blues guitarist. Strange little guy. Wonder what ever happened to him? May look him up on Wikipedia.

So you were a little kid in the 70s.That makes you around forty years old now, right?

I have to say that the music of the 60s, 70s, and early 80s was somewhat better than what is being made today.

"Those were the days my friend, we thought they'd never end."

Alas...

JC

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Lorrie Van Haul - 1967 Dodge - P200 Post Office Vehicle - 225 Slant Six - Torqueflite A727 Automatic Transmission - Right Hand Drive Steering - Big Three HEI System - Frantz Oil Cleaner System - Bendix Stromberg Model W Carburetor

Too true. I was born in 78 and missed most of the good music years.

I was a professional stagehand for a few years, mostly late 99 to mid 2001. The music world has changed significantly since then, and the music scene in the 60s and 70s is worlds away from what it is now. My brother is a musician in Seattle and the music scene there is absolutely horrible. No good venues, terrible crowds, no real opportunity to make a living doing music.

I used to talk to the old time stagehands and hear about what it used to be like. Fun times, for sure.

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Casually looking for a Clifford hyperpak intake for cheap.

close JC, I'll be 51 in May. The show was probably 1973 or 74( so I was 10 or 11 ) My dad influenced my life alot. Musical taste, Old Cars/Motorcycles, Odd sense of humor!

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1964 Dart GT

Hey Reed,
You know to what I attribute the decline in the quality of the music? It's not that the music is not as good. The music today is as good as it can be using the instrumentation available. But the NEW digital instrumentation hasn't been around long enough for there to be widespread virtuosity.

The OLD instruments took REAL musicianship to play well.

The NEW instrumentation's music can be "fixed" after the fact. So few musicians ever have to practice, practice, practice to get stuff right. They do what they do, and then turn it over to the technologist to "fix".

There was no way to fix the OLD music, so it had to be right or had to be done over.

That promoted maturity in the music which is what I think is lacking in today's stuff.

Compare what Paul Simon is capable of compared to Justin Beiber!
Good grief Reed, you're still a kid! Oh to be thirty-six again!
YES. The 60s and 70s were GREAT. That was the advent of the British Invasion with bands like the Beatles, MoodyBlues, RollingStones, PinkFloyd, and etc.

Also, no matter what the legal/social view of mind altering substances was, it was well known that the mind altering stuff had a beneficial effect on the musician, and by extension on the music, which I attribute to (among other things) the altering of the perceptual concept of time.

And the subject matter of the songs in the 60s, 70s, and 80s had no small amount of social relevance.

Seems like what passes for music today (Pop, HipHop, Rap and etc.) has little relevance with more thoughtful themes. But then again, I'm not, for the most part, able to figure out what is being said due to not being familiar with the current idiom or slang.

It must also be said that the people who were musically aware during the pre-Rock'n'Roll days, when Sinatra, and the Big Bands were all the rage felt the same way about the advent of the 50s Rock music of Elvis, Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis (to mention the BIG Three), along with Holley, Berry, Perkins, Orbison, and a host of others who showed up in the wake of the advent of "electric" (as opposed to acoustic) instruments.

It was THAT era that morphed into the next generation loosely called the British Invasion and that (along with mind altering stuff) produced and was followed by the San Francisco scene (Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, et al) and there were others from around the country.

Alas it all seemed to decline after that which decline led to to grunge, punk, and some of the more radical types of Rock (metal, glam, shred, and etc.)

It seems that the present music scene is just insipid compared. We seem to be in a creative limbo awaiting the NEXT phenomenon.
There did seem to be a bit of a resurgence going on up that way with Nirvana, but then the guy leading that movement blew himself away with a shotgun. I'll never understand THAT.
That seems to be the norm at this time in history, despite the fact that there are some who are becoming mega-wealthy even with the dearth of quality.
The music world is inherently a "fun" place if for no other reason than it is totally "unnecessary". One can live WITHOUT music, but life is more enjoyable WITH it.

When I started doing lightshow, I was convinced that the Video Revolution was going to be the NEXT phenomenon. I still do, but I've become too old to have the energy necessary to pursue it effectively. I've been told that I was just too far ahead of the time.

I invented the Crystalume, which is a vusic (visual music) instrument that does to the mind through the eyes with light what a music instrument does to the mind through the ears with sound. It isn't automatic. It isn't connected to the sound. It has to be played. Just because one has one doesn't mean that one knows how to make it go any more than if one has a piano or guitar that one can actually play them.

There are a number of Crystalumes in the world and while they are generally regarded quite highly, we never gained a very wide acclimation. We (the vusicians who play Crystalumes) are what I call: "Secretly Famous".

And what does this have to do with Slant Sixes? Well, Lorrie is a Slant Six and she carried the equipment, so this discussion is not TOTALLY off-topic.

Anyway, it rained here today. Ms. American is back on the ground and needs to be turned around so that in case I'm unable to reassemble her Front Suspension, she can be picked up by a tow truck and taken to Chassis Services in Livingston to be fixed. If I didn't turn her around prior to disassembling her Front Suspension, there would be no way for a tow truck to be able to get to her.

Hope this finds YOU doing well.

Hang in there.

JC

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Lorrie Van Haul - 1967 Dodge - P200 Post Office Vehicle - 225 Slant Six - Torqueflite A727 Automatic Transmission - Right Hand Drive Steering - Big Three HEI System - Frantz Oil Cleaner System - Bendix Stromberg Model W Carburetor

Hey Mr. D,
A first Rock Concert at the age of ten had to be an intense experience.
You're fortunate to have had a father like that.

I looked up Alvin Lee on Wikipedia. He died last year in Spain. He had some un-named surgical procedure and died of complications from it. He was 68. R.I.P Alvin Lee.

So Danarchy, you live in Texas? Houston maybe? I'm up in Onalaska, on Lake Livingston between Huntsville and Livingston. That's about 100 miles north of Houston.

Had hoped to do more on Ms. American today, but succeeded only in getting her down off the Jack Stands. Need to turn her around and start work on her Front Suspension. She NEEDS to be driven again instead of just sitting idle.

Anyway, take care.

JC

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Lorrie Van Haul - 1967 Dodge - P200 Post Office Vehicle - 225 Slant Six - Torqueflite A727 Automatic Transmission - Right Hand Drive Steering - Big Three HEI System - Frantz Oil Cleaner System - Bendix Stromberg Model W Carburetor

Crystalume? Sounds like a visual Theramin. I love old light show stuff. If I had the money (and the ladies of the house would let me) I would turn my living room into a quadraphonic listening space and have the ceiling and walls be huge assemblies of color organs. Unfortunately, that will never happen.

I grew up listening to classic rock and music from the 50s and 60s, and as i got older I moved into 70s and 80s rock and punk. As I got older I liked punk less and less. In my view, the lasting effect of punk rock and metal of the 80s was exactly like you said- musical talent and proficiency was no longer necessary due to (a) changing attitudes (anyone can make punk music) and (b) changing technology that masks a lack of talent. Don't even get me started on auto-tune voice pitch correction. If you can be successfully and not even have to sing in tune, how can you even call yourself a singer? I look back at the amazingly skilled musicians of the 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s and I am in awe. Those were musicians who simple lived, breathed, ate, and slept music. Skill and talent just dripped off them. We have lost the requirement that a successful musician be skilled and talented. Those same bands in the British invasion you talk about were made up in large part of classically trained musicians. I do believe that the discipline and practice necessary to be classically trained really improved the music a musician can make, no matter the genre. Now "musicians" can use digital effects and computers to mask all sorts of problems in the music they make. I always remember that the Beatles' white album was recorded on a four track. That proves that you don't need fancy equipment to make good music.

I did a web search for crystalume and didn't get anything to do with an instrument.

As far as the music scene in Seattle goes, it is mostly just the I-5 corridor right around Seattle. You get over to eastern Washington or down into Portland, OR and the scene really picks up. Heck, my brother's band played a gig in Bremerton, Washington last weekend (a navy town across the Puget Sound from Seattle) and they actually got PAID to play! That hasn't happened to them for years. Of course, the amount they got paid basically covered the cost of gas and the ferry ride to and from the city, but still, it is the thought that counts. Seattle proper is just a bunch of uptight, spoiled, apathetic people who don't appreciate music.

I think the appreciation of art and music reached its peak in this country in the 60s and 70s. People were more open minded. People were more willing to experiment and experience new things. Now people want instant gratification and music has become a disposable commodity. I blame youtube and smart phones for much of what is wrong with the music industry. Why pay to go see a band when you can watch from home on YouTube? I can't tell you how many concerts I have gone to where almost the entire audience stood there and held up their phones to film the band instead of actually immersing themselves in the experience and enjoying it live. Very depressing.

Anyway, I'll quit moaning about the demise of pop music in America.

Good luck with the front end rebuild on Ms. American Pi.

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Casually looking for a Clifford hyperpak intake for cheap.

Hey Reed,
Strange the you should mention the Theramin. I one time did a series of performances with a fellow named Clay Reeves who played a Theramin. The sounds that the Theramin made was perfect for the kind of visuals that the Crystalume makes.
I used to have a webpage called: "If Silence is Black", but it got taken down when I changed from dial-up to broadband, and then to DSL. And I just haven't put it back up because every time I have tried there was some technical glitch to prevent it from turning out the way that it should.

In lieu of that, will post here a couple of JPGs of the Crystalume sitting in my front room.





And this JPG is a Crystalume image.



Each part of the composition represents a different kind of audio. The dominant cross is the guitar. The semi-circle of dots is the drums. The diaphranous images are the bass. The small spots in the upper right quadrant are like Tambourine or small tinkling type sounds. Each part of the image is able to be individually controlled by the vusician, but you have to know how to do it. Usually only one part of the music is represented, though I am able to follow up to six different parts of the music at once, which none of my students have reached that kind of virtuosity yet. When we perform together, we are each assigned an individual instrument and that instrument is isolated and sent to the vusician via headphone, so that they only hear THEIR individual part. That makes it easy for them. I, being the leader get to hear the whole audio composition on my headphones. But let me say this, none of the visuals are in any way connected physically or electronically with the sound. The connection with the light is accomplished by the vusician hearing the sound and then manipulating the light from the Crystalume manually.

The result of watching and listening to this kind of thing is called "Synaesthesia", which is defined as: "The simultaneous perception of more than one sensory input perceived as a single stimulus". We call it "searing" (see/hearing).

It produces quite a mystical (read that "high") state of mind in those who are adept at letting it happen which is much akin to meditation or psychedelic substance ingestation which all in all, is quite a very pleasant (and legal) experience.

I have six students, for whom I have built Crystalumes and taught them to play them. We have in the past performed together as the "Texas Light Infantry". We've played places like Contemporary Arts Museums, Universities, sponsored by their Arts Departments, and various other theatrical venues for such things as Musician's Album Release events, convention openings, nightclubs and etc.

Wanted to post this for you right now and will respond to the rest of your very thoughtful post a bit later. OK?

Anyway, it has turned cold and wet here again. Damn! Was REALLY enjoying the change in the weather, but it has passed. Will Springtime ever REALLY get here?

Hope this finds YOU doing well.

JC

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Lorrie Van Haul - 1967 Dodge - P200 Post Office Vehicle - 225 Slant Six - Torqueflite A727 Automatic Transmission - Right Hand Drive Steering - Big Three HEI System - Frantz Oil Cleaner System - Bendix Stromberg Model W Carburetor

That instrument sounds like it would be quite a trip to"viear" (view/hear) and play! Very intriguing. Reminds me a bit of the reports I read from folks who tried acid in the 60s that they could see sound and hear colors. Wild.

Stay warm and dry. Living in western Washington State I know how tiresome and annoying cold and wet weather can be.

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Casually looking for a Clifford hyperpak intake for cheap.

Hey Reed,
I know what you mean. That was kind of the situation that I had back in the 60s. High Fi was just entering it's Golden Age. The epitome of the "ultimate" sound system was McIntosh Amps and Klipshorn Speakers.

I was in the PR industy in Houston as owner of Mediassociate Advertising Agency, Prelude Art Studios and The Mob Modeling group.

Was married, and my wife was one of the four models in The Mob. Here is a link to my former wife's present webpage. Her name then was Marlenel. She is now Lily G. Stephens. Here is a picture of her from back then which is on her webpage for her publishing business (I'm the husband mentioned in the text on the page).

http://www.bloomingrosepress.com/creati ... ntent.html

We had an upscale home in Houston equipped with the best of everything.

It was a GREAT time. The Houston economy was booming, the British Music Invasion was in full bloom, and everything was going along famously. But discontent set in, and I wanted to get back into the entertainment business, having been a musician, having been a concert violinist at the age of seven, working in recording studios in Hollywood, being in a number of bands, up till I made the mistake of getting married!

So in 1970, I sold the businesses and started the AllisonWonderland Concert Lightshow which resulted in Marlenel and me growing in different directions. We went our separate ways. Her into being a successful author, and me into the concert music industry. I was in partnership with the CEO of the company that built the Astrodome, the Tower of the Americas in San Antonio, as he was a long time friend and patron.

Had the Sensatiation TV show, did the Rock Concert touring scene. There gathered a whole kind of "cult-thing" around the AWCLS, with friends, fans, and crew doing a "scene" type melange.

This was the life up till 1981 when I just got too old to keep it up, and subsequently a fire destroyed all of the AllisonWonderland equipment.

I then went to work as a field engineer and model builder for my patron's construction company and then moved on to doing PR for an offshore Marine Crane manufacturer.

That came to an end in 1987 with a catastrophic murdercycle crash.

After a ten year recuperation from that, I was subsequently diagnosed with an incurable, terminal auto immune illness in 1998 and was scheduled to die in five month.

Well, I didn't die, but the the therapy that kept me from dying resulted in the destruction of my immune system and I was forced to to live a "bubble" existence which has persisted to the present.

I live alone, don't go out except when absolutely necessary, don't have any friends or visitors other than those like yourself on the Internet, and have to content myself with writing books, recording music, writing songs and poetry, making video in my studios, working on my vehicles (Lorrie and the 3.14), taking care of my cats and plants, and keeping up with all the the complications from this damned health issue.
Exactly. It is obvious to anyone who has any kind of sensitive comprehension of the artistic.
Do the terms "Justin Beiber" and "Kid Rock" have any relevance here?
There still ARE some of the present crop of performers who are in that group (Carrie Underwood, Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga (just barely)), but for the most part, the "pop" personalities are NOT musicians, but are rather recording stars.
But actually, the average listener doesn't know this. They are, sadly enough, but the victims of the "promoters". I mean, with enough money, exposure can be bought. We have a whole generation who are famous, not for making music, but famous for being famous.
Strange that you should mention this. The four track recorder is the Teac 3340S with "SimulSync". I happen to still have one of them! It was one of the few pieces of equipment that survived the January 8, 1981 fire that destroyed most of my equipment.

Since the proliferation of the computer, all that is obsolete.

I now have a twelve track recording system that is all MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface), but that is just the recording system. All the music that is done is with a Martin D35-12 Acoustic, an Ovation Preacher Twelve String Electric guitar, a Yamaha PF-15 Digital Piano/Synthesizer Controller and a Sonar 4 Producer Recording Program on the computer.
Have heard this same thing from many other sources. It seems that the condition of the music industry is ready for the next REAL phenomenon. I have been predicting that it will be "Vusic" since the early 60s, but then again, what do I know?
Doesn't it seem to you that this might just be the lull before the next "thing"? I have this feeling of something "impending", but I can't tell if it's going to be for the better or for the worse. Will just have to wait and see.
Am not sure it's REALLY the "demise". Am hoping it's just the "decline".

I will tell you this though: A number of my Crystalume students have been in touch with me recently and they all are reporting some amount of interest is being shown with regards to Vusic. AND just recently, there have even been a couple of TV recording types here in the area who have mentioned that they'd like to come do some documentary type stuff about AllisonWonderland and the Crystalume. Again, we'll just have to see.

BTW, let me mention another something that might be salient to all this:

The musical genre called "The Blues" was generated on the Mississippi River between Chicago, St. Louis, all the way down to New Orleans.

The Blues uses what is called a 12 Bar/8 beat progression.

If one speeds that up, the 12 Bar/8Beat becomes Boogie Woogie.

So in essence The Blues is the father of Boogie.

Boogie in turn is the father of the Elvis-esque (and et al) Rockabilly/Rock'n'Roll genre of music of the 50s.

And from Rock'n'Roll came the proliferation of much of today's music industry/culture.

With THAT said, if you will Google "History of Boogie Woogie", you'll find something VERY interesting...

Boogie Woogie was born in Deep East Texas where I live. And in fact, Highway 59 (which is just 13 miles to the east of where I live) between Lufkin, Texas (60 miles to the north) and Freeport (just south of Houston) is known as "The Boogie Woogie Highway".

Boogie was born in the bars and saloons that catered to the lumbermen and the turpentine mill workers here in the world's largest pine tree forest.

Boogie Woogie is a piano based genre that was popularized in the 40s with such songs as "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy from Company B" by the Andrew Sisters, and is also known a "Bop".

The strange thing about all this is that here in the Deep East Texas Pineywood Forest, the most popular music is "Country".

So it turns out that here in the area where Boogie was born, that I'm probably the only Boogie Woogie Piano player in this county!

I learned how to play Boogie when I was about twelve years old!

These TV guys previously mentioned are interested in maybe turning to Boogie Woogie + Crystalume Visuals and they want to put that up on their "channels" on YouTUBE.

Reed... THAT might just be the NEXT phenomenon! And there are six of the Texas Light Infantry just waiting in the wings!!!


Oh, thanks. I need that. I'm right on the cusp of maybe this being my LAST real fling at this kind of thing. Sometimes I feel like I can do it, but at other times my resolve and confidence wavers.

My biggest fear is that I'll get the 3.14 all torn down and then not have the health to get it all back together again.

It wouldn't be so bad if there were funds to have someone come do it if I couldn't, but there aren't.

If I don't do it, it won't get done. If I, for whatever reason am not able to pull it off, I fear for Ms. American's well being.

Will just have to wait and see.
What will be will be.
Time will tell.
Be well.
JC

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Lorrie Van Haul - 1967 Dodge - P200 Post Office Vehicle - 225 Slant Six - Torqueflite A727 Automatic Transmission - Right Hand Drive Steering - Big Three HEI System - Frantz Oil Cleaner System - Bendix Stromberg Model W Carburetor

Hey Reed,
Good word (viear)! You pick things up pretty quickly!
That actually is called, as was previously mentioned: "Synaesthesia". Synaesthesia is caused by an anomaly in the synapses. The Eyes, Ears, Nose, Mouth, and Tactile senses are connected to the synapses, where the chemicals in the synapses connects the sensor to the brain. When people take such stuff as LSD, Mescalene, Psylocybin, etc. it affects the synapses so that the signals such as from the ears can cross over to stimulating the visual receptors in the synapses.

With that said, this become relevant. I am what is called a "profound synesthete". I have since childhood had all my senses crosswired naturally. I thought everyone was like that up till I was in the 4th grade and was tested and found to be totally crosswired in my synapses. THAT is what led me to start the lightshow. I have always "seen" music. I have always "heard" light. All on a "natural".
Yeah, but you guys are used to it. Down here in the south, this is unusual. We've had it snow twice here this winter. That has not happened in all the time I've lived in Texas and I came here in the early 60s.

Nonetheless, am going to have to get out later today to do some grocery shopping or there won't be anything to eat this evening.

Hope YOU are doing well. Take care.

JC

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Lorrie Van Haul - 1967 Dodge - P200 Post Office Vehicle - 225 Slant Six - Torqueflite A727 Automatic Transmission - Right Hand Drive Steering - Big Three HEI System - Frantz Oil Cleaner System - Bendix Stromberg Model W Carburetor

Very interesting reading! Thanks for sharing a bit of your life story. "What a long strange trip it has been" indeed. I will hope for a turn around with American music, but at least there are still old record shops with good stuff on vinyl.

Be well and take it easy!

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Casually looking for a Clifford hyperpak intake for cheap.