June 2020 - Life in the Epidermis (demic)

It's mine. I bought that mandolin after hearing someone play it on the phone for me. It had a recognizable ping to it from both Collings (the builder) and another well-known builder, so I snapped it up. It's better than I thought. It's a terrific mandolin and I was lucky to find it.

So... Since my last post...

I've been working hard, playing as much music as possible - which turns out to be not enough - and I've moved to the great state of North Carolina. If not for a "pandemic" I'd be spending weekends picking in circles and looking for any opportunity to hop on a stage. This will all come. I just need to get around other musicians, keep an open mind and heart, and jump in. It'll happen.

The move to NC - It was time for many reasons. So many I won't list any.

The house - far from everything and yet so connected. I live in the Smokies 6 miles from the nearest town. I can see for miles and miles. Hills/Mountains for miles. I have 4 acres of land and I can only see one neighboring house right now (trees in full leaf) and he is almost a quarter mile down the road. He decided to clear-cut his lot since we moved in so we're planting evergreens on OUR side of the boundary. It was nicer to see the trees than another house.

My home came with a complete woodshop and I've been familiarizing myself with the tools. Lots of fantastic woodshop power-tools. It's awesome and intimidating. I plan to build lap steel guitars out of local maple and condenser microphones out of copper pipe and 1/2-1" diaphragms. One step at a time.

I'm also stocking a recording studio with top notch gear (not Avid/Pro-Tools), a new desk, and a pair of new microphones to join my many others that will be used to both record and play the role of models for some new copper microphones.

I'm getting older yet still feel the urge to keep playing, writing, and will someday release another album of my own noodles. I've had a lot of those in the past several years and I don't want them to escape - at least not the good ones.

There's your 2-yr update. We'll see how long the next gap is.

Love to all-
Kenneth