Percussion Deconstruction™

Regular readers will have certainly noticed that my 3 blogs, Percussion Deconstruction , The Way Of The Gong ™, and Art As A Spiritual Practice have been pretty much idle for the past 2 years. Part of this is the continued lockdown/Covid situation. At first I thought that having all my gigs canceled would give me more time to write these blogs. But while I had the time, my focus took a sharp turn into new territory: I started studying various things that I always wanted to study. I've read more books in the past 2 years than I have in a while, and I'm a rather consistent reader.  I started writing various books (one which should drop this spring of 2022). These are books that have been bouncing around in my brain for quite a while, but I never had the unencumbered length of time to really organize them into proper books.  I also had a lot of music inside that needed to get out. So I upgraded my recording studio and got busy learning all of that. I'm working on a possible P

You might be asking yourself (or maybe not), “We're in this quarantine and Michael isn't gigging, so why haven't there been any blog posts? He's got plenty of time to write something.”  That's a legitimate question. All 3 of my blogs have been sitting quietly for a bit, while so many other people have jumped into producing blogs, podcasts, and general video mayhem. The internet's bandwidth is choked with everyone going online, because they can't do anything live. So what have I been doing? Well, I did make 1 YouTube video, more as an experiment than anything. I've slowly been rebuilding my home studio after having gear sitting in boxes for months because I was always gone off somewhere gigging. I'm planning on doing more videos and some teaching online soon. Right, here's my latest video. I was improvising  with new instruments and some electronics. Another aspect of this is that by letting everyone else jump into producing things fo

Afterimage (from the RUSH album Grace Under Pressure, 1984) lyrics by Neil Peart Suddenly — You were gone From all the lives You left your mark upon I remember — How we talked and drank Into the misty dawn — I hear the voices We ran by the water On the wet summer lawn — I see the foot prints I remember — — I feel the way you would — I feel the way you would Tried to believe But you know it’s no good This is something That just can’t be understood I remember — The shouts of joy Skiing fast through the woods — I hear the echoes I learned your love for life I feel the way that you would — I feel your presence I remember — I feel the way you would This just can’t be understood… ******** These lyrics are fitting, as Neil wrote them in remembrance of Robbie Whelan, a friend who died in a car crash at the age of 31. Robblie was an engineer at Le Studio in Quebec and worked on several of Rush's albums, most notably Moving Pictures and Signals .