Category: It Happened to Me

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Accordion, Instrument of the Gods It Happened to Me Music

A last-minute country music recording session

On Wednesday afternoon, I got this text from Tom Hood, ukulele player extraordinaire and leader of the band I sometimes play with:

I hadn’t seen Tom since November, I’m always happy to collaborate with hime, and it’s been a while since I’ve recorded in a studio that wasn’t my home office, so it was easy to say “Yes!”.

If you’re wondering how I could possibly sign on to record an accordion part for a song I’d never heard before on the following day:

  1. The song, Whisper in My Ear, is pretty straightforward (but catchy!) country waltz. It’s just three chords and heartbreak.
  2. Twenty-five years of lugging an accordion to all sorts of places, from bars to conference stages to airplanes stuck on the tarmac, will make you a great improviser.

So I made my way to South Tampa on Thursday evening and brought two accordions into the studio and rehearsal space, situated in a building behind a house of friendly guy who introduced himself to me as Wayne.

The place had a homey feel that reminded me of my friend Chris Walmsley’s basement, where Volume, the band I played with at Crazy Go Nuts University rehearsed.

After a couple of rehearsal runs, it was time to record! Dennis McCarthy, whom I’d met as the drummer with the band that played at Tom’s birthday party, was the sound engineer.

“Ready?” asked Dennis, whose voice I heard through the monitor headphones.

“Let’s do this,” I replied.

“D’you wanna record another one?” I heard Tom say over my monitor headphones.

I couldn’t resist and was soon presented with a chord chart and a listen to the song in its current state.

Once again, I did two takes, which included a little noodling to go into the solo, and we were done!

I was invited into the booth to hear some of the other songs that Tom had recorded.

After listening to a couple of songs, it was time to go home. I bade good night to Tom, Dennis, and Wayne, hoping that I might have another opportunity to record there.

I’ll post a link to the tune once it’s published!

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Geek It Happened to Me

Every time I read a web page that says I’ve read my last free article, I think…

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It Happened to Me Tampa Bay

Sunday morning coffee

It’s a lovely Sunday here in Tampa’s Seminole Heights neighborhood, and Anitra and I are enjoying it at our local café, Spaddy’s Coffee. The coffee’s great, our neighbors are here, and the local DJ’s spinning a solid mix.

(It’s also a good place to get work done. There’s often someone here with a laptop; I myself have written some code and a white paper here!)

This lovely moment is also a reminder that if you want your neighborhood to be a great place in which to live, work, and play, patronize your local establishments, especially the small ones! They’re the ones who provide the local flavor, and make the difference between a neighborhood you go to versus a neighborhood you just go through.

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Accordion, Instrument of the Gods It Happened to Me

Last night in St. Pete

Photo credit: Phil Nahajewski

Last night at the AI Salon in St. Pete, after all the presentations were done, organizer Brian Peret broke out his saxophone, and I joined him for Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds. We’ll have to do it again!

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funny It Happened to Me

The perfect T-shirt for a Nine Inch Nails concert doesn’t exis…

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It Happened to Me

“The Pouch” and its warning sticker

While waiting for our flight to Toronto, I went to the bathroom in Tampa’s airport, where I saw this attachment in the stalls:

It’s The Pouch, an acrylic bag or item holder that’s been making increasing appearances in public bathroom stalls over the past decade.

But the Pouches at Tampa airport are unlike others I’ve seen. They differ in one key way, with this sticker:

That’s right — it’s a “do not jam your baby into the Pouch for hands-free pooping” sticker!

I have this question: Was there an incident that led to the sticker, or are they anticipating that someone might try to use it as a baby-holder?

(To be fair: the “Pouch” name and logo, along with the fact that kangaroos actually carry their young in their pouches, might lead people to think that’s it’s supposed to be baby storage.)

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It Happened to Me Music

A couple of DJX “DAWless jams”

Two electronic music keyboards on Joey’s keyboard stand. The keyboard on the stand’s top rack is a grey and black Yamaha DJX II; the keyboard on the stand’s bottom rack is a blue and black Yamaha DJX.
My Yamaha DJX II (top rack) and DJX (bottom rack). Keyboards don’t get any more “nineties” than this!

Over the past few weeks, I’ve tripled the number of keyboards in my office (the electronic music kind of keyboards, not the typing kind). As a result, I’ve probably more than tripled the amount of music I’ve played as well.

Before I took up the accordion, I played the synth. I’ll continue to play the squeezebox, but it’s also nice to get back to my roots.

The DJX jam

About five weeks ago, I drove to a Steak n Shake in Valrico to meet someone to buy their Yamaha DJX, a dance music keyboard released in 1998, and a keyboard I regret not buying back then.

A day after I bought it, I did a little “DAWless jam” (that’s the term the kids use these days for “playing a physical instrument without the aid of computer software”) on the DJX. I started recording, picked a beat, and jammed for a couple of minutes.

Afterward, I gave the recording a listen and thought, “this needs to be on a 1990s cyberpunk-style video.” So I took the track, grabbed some cyberpunk clips from Canva and Pixabay, and assembled this video in Camtasia:

All told, I recorded the jam in under ten minutes, and put the video together over a couple of hours on Saturday afternoon.

The DJX II jam

The other keyboard I regret not buying back then was the Yamaha DJX II, the follow-up dance music keyboard to the DJX, released in 2000. In more than a few ways, the DJX is a better keyboard than its successor, but damn, the DJX II is a better rhythm machine than the original.

Rare as the DJX is, the DJX II is even more so. I found the DJX through good ol’ manual Googling. I found the DJX II only because I’d cobbled together a little Python script to comb through Craigslist’s “musical instruments” pages in cities all over the U.S. for a DJX II. As I wrote in an article I wrote earlier, it worked.

On Saturday, I recorded another DAWless jam, this time on the DJX II, and here’s the result. No video this time — just the audio of me pretending to be the backup band for Morcheeba or Lamb or Tricky:

What do I plan to do with all these jams?

Among other things, I make technology videos, which I post on the Global Nerdy YouTube channel. While I think I have a pretty good narrating voice (I’ve been told time and again that I should be on the radio), a video still benefits from having a good soundtrack. I already do the writing, presenting, and graphics — why not also do the music?

My videos already incorporate my music, and there’ll be more — both videos and music — soon!