Whee, I got to drive this today!
This must be the mother of all forklifts! We used it to take the diesel engine out of my lifeboat, as it is no longer needed. If anybody wants it, it’s going on eBay tomorrow for £250! (The engine that is, not the forklift.) It’s a Perkins 99 Marine 4 in good working order, 3000 miles on the clock.
Boyz and their toyz…
So, what’s going to go in the space previously occupied by this big engine?? A bank of old Moog modular synths? Ping Pong table? Cappuccino/Espresso machine?
Beech
All of the above.
No, actually the space below the wheelhouse floorboards that the engine has vacated will be used to house the electrics for my renewable energy system. I’ll be publishing a diagram of the proposed system in due course! With this project, we have to take it a step at a time, because there’s no obvious precedent.
Speaking of which, a comment I made in a recent interview in Canada was misconstrued in some quarters: I said that I couldn’t ‘record’ my new material until the lifeboat is finished….. but I didn’t mean I’m not writing and arranging every day. I have ideas for about 13 new songs I’m working on, in various states of incompletion. A couple of musicians are coming to join me at the Coast in August to work on them too. A lot of preparation goes into the composition and arrangement before I ever think about ‘recording’ my songs!
I’m guessing 3000 miles for a diesel engine is practically nothing… almost new!
Did you actually get to drive the forklift, Thomas? Mind you, it looks more like a crane… either way I’m dismayed to see no-one wearing their hardhats, day-glo vests or steel-cap boots! You could have also taped off an area of 1 square mile, just to be sure.
Other news just in:
Bass Player for sale (or free to good home)
40 years on the clock, one owner.
Eats scraps
Plays brilliantly
Also makes great tea
Available now
I’m looking forward to the details of the renewable energy system. My wife and I keep looking at our roof and all the sun the east and west side gets and saying, “We can’t handle $50/square foot solar yet.” If panels get to $10, we’d do it. Always looking for new ideas.
And now for something completely different…
Rent-A-Darren. He’s a better bassist than I am. Ok, my Huskies are better bassists than I am at the moment, but I digress…the tea bit has got to be a major attractor…
Must have cost more than £250 to hire the Forks!
I can make an excellent cup of tea and am a reasonable handicap golfer, but alas about as much musical talent as a chocolate teapot – although I do have great musical taste
Hey Thomas, how about having a trial gig with the 13 new ones at Cambridge? Only an hour away from me – can do short notice!
Re: the forklift hire… I got a great deal in return for product placement in my blog!
Smiles all round! Even the forklift/crane looks like its smiling. Very exciting to hear about the work on the new material too. I’m guessing you don’t need a keyboard player though
Have plug-ins, will travel…
Cheers,
Andrew
I bet you loved it more than you are letting on. :p
Who wouldn’t love piloting a rig like that?
Me, I’d steer it right at our ancient garage, leaving only the concrete pad intact. (Hulk smash!) The garage is sided with roofing tiles, which is the ugly bit. The frame, like our house, is apparently now-petrified oak. I truly believe oak is where electric drills go to die. The danged thing refuses to fall down no matter what Mother Nature throws at it. It has stood for 97 years. It mocks me.
Hi Thomas. Just got to hear the songs with the TED house band. Great stuff! Makes me want to sit out on the porch with a glass of lemonade and a blade of grass in my mouth watching the clouds roll by. (Of course that might be difficult now, since I live in an apartment building these days. But you understand the point, I hope.)
Any chance of a CD of some of these songs? I know I’d like to have a copy on hand.
I’m going to be telling people about the re-packaging and re-release of the Sole Inhabitant CD and DVD, as well as the earlier EMI albums. It’s a public service, really. Too many people have been subjected to auditory pollution over the years from various sources (including some fellow named K-Fed; hmm, now who could that be?) so we need to repair the damage done. I think a nice dose of “I Live in a Suitcase” or “One of Our Submarines” might do the trick.
I’d place a bid on the engine except for the fact that I don’t have any spare cash on hand. Oh, and I wouldn’t have any place to put the engine either. But I hope someone out there takes it off your hands.
I’m glad I’m not the only procrastinator. “I need to finish my album… but first I need to rent a crane so I can turn this boat into a studio.”
Very awesome!
BTW, as a captain of old sailing ships, I feel compelled to point out that the gauge on your old Perkins is likely indicating 3000 HOURS, not miles.
Still qualifies as lightly used, and will make for a more accurate Ebay listing.
–Mike
You clarified, “I said that I couldn’t ‘record’ my new material until the lifeboat is finished….. but I didn’t mean I’m not writing and arranging every day…”
Thanks for explaining a little about your creative process, Thomas, and helping us understand. Recording is one of the
*last* steps in music-creation, I guess. And after that there’s the mixing, right? All of that hard work, with marvelous results. Then, you have the CD-master created, you try to listen to it, your
Mac’s speakers crap out, you thankfully remember the CD-player
in your car, you finally hear the results of your days of meticulous
mastering, and your heaved sigh of relief can be heard around
the world. Hopefully your computer’s sound system won’t pick that worst of all possible times to blow a gasket this time, though!! My
own computer’s rear audio-jack is dead as a doornail, but I finally
figured out how to hook up the front-panel one, so the
spit-n-Scotch-tape technique is still working for me (just barely).
So the lifeboat-reno is proceeding in parallel with the creation of
your music! Is THAT how it works! Right on.
Kara, thanking you for cheering me up. Heavy equipment rules!
Re: the 3000 miles…. this actually came from the Seafarer log, which I assume records miles, not hours. Of course, I have no way of knowing if it corresponds with the actual miles on the engine.
Kara, to say that this blog, over time, ‘explains a little about the creative process’ is something of an understatement, wouldn’t you agree? And if there are still mysteries, it even provides a way for you to ask me a question and clear them up. I feel the majority of the feedback from readers/listeners is of a positive nature. People seem pleased to be involved in the process and get a glimpse of what goes on. I am as keen to move the process along and get to the finished article–ie finished new music!–as anyone else. But rest assured, the only pressure that really matters is my internal pressure. Anything else is just an annoyance. Yes, I’m happy to be independent now, and free from A+R men breathing down my neck; however even that would not make a difference to the outcome. I do not go lock myself in some ‘songwriting room’ to write songs 9 to 5 in a vacuum: They grow out of my life experience, feelings, passions, and observations of the world around me. Hence my statement ‘it’ll be done when it’s done.’ It’s up to you whether you have the patience to wait for that. I hope you don’t feel like there’s some conspiracy afoot to cheat you out of the music you’re owed.
Why am i compelled to thinking of The Wurzels and Ive got a brand new combine harvester.. .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-BRNxprK28
Aaaarggghhhh, going to need therapy after that me thinks.
As for the new materila – more than happy to wait for that, got plenty of the retro stuff to keep us going, might even work out what a few more of the lyrics meant by then… Anyone know of any websites out there which breakdown the lyrics anyway.. ?
I second markwatson on having ‘plenty of the retro stuff to keep us going, might even work out some of the lyrics by then”.
Well said, and very true!
…and I mean that in the best way possible!!
Hope all is going well in your endeavors, Thomas!