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Monday, September 29, 2008
Chord Melody Jazz Guitar
Late at night, when no one can hear, I'm practicing Jazz style Chord Melody guitar. For those who don't know, that's a style of solo playing that incorporates harmony notes simultaneously with the melody...hence the name, hah. I always thought it was a cool style and all, but listening to Joe Pass and Ted Greene when I was younger kind of made me give up...it was like looking up at a mountaintop and realizing you didn't have near enough climbing skills to get there. But now that I'm a decrepit old guy, and I have a little more technique and patience, I'm going back at it and giving it a try. I figure in 30 or 40 years I should have it down pretty well. It's not everything I want to do musically, but I do enjoy it a lot. At this point I'll usually work for a while on exercises or other people's arrangements, and when I get burnt out of bashing my head against the wall I'll go back to playing other stuff. It's fun, and I like working on new things. Maybe later in life (well, not that much later) I'll be that geezer in the fern bar playing "Shadow Of Your Smile" or something. There's worse fates!
Friday, September 26, 2008
Journal By The Window
Time screams by the world like the winds around a huge tornado, bits of life and experience flying by at amazing speed.Like Dorothy in The Wizard Of OZ I watch various friends and loved ones spin by my window, and then disappear into the swirling funnel of time. Where will they go? Where will I land?
Things happen too fast for me to track them or to try to understand. A loved relative and an old Best Friend from my past both vanished into the mystery of death this month, and two other Old Best Friends appeared out of the void to reconnect. Cyn's aging Mom visited and my Dad recovered from our alarming and difficult Family Reunion, which he unknowingly attended with a fractured spine. Several friends have plunged into depression, and I seem to have the same malady, albeit in a milder form. Cynthia blazes about, a distracting blur of energy, doing a million things at once, like Vishnu. Work, chores, attending to family and basic needs eat up all available time, leaving my studio dusty and my recent CD unpromoted. And speaking of the studio, my PC keeps self-destructing.
So slowing down enough to write a few pages in a journal is a rare and welcome thing. I look out into the blue Autumn sky and listen to the insects and birds...something like peace comes over me and an inner Self relaxes for a moment. Time changes everything, for good or ill, but a little time to myself can only help me. And in turbulent times like these, I need that.
Things happen too fast for me to track them or to try to understand. A loved relative and an old Best Friend from my past both vanished into the mystery of death this month, and two other Old Best Friends appeared out of the void to reconnect. Cyn's aging Mom visited and my Dad recovered from our alarming and difficult Family Reunion, which he unknowingly attended with a fractured spine. Several friends have plunged into depression, and I seem to have the same malady, albeit in a milder form. Cynthia blazes about, a distracting blur of energy, doing a million things at once, like Vishnu. Work, chores, attending to family and basic needs eat up all available time, leaving my studio dusty and my recent CD unpromoted. And speaking of the studio, my PC keeps self-destructing.
So slowing down enough to write a few pages in a journal is a rare and welcome thing. I look out into the blue Autumn sky and listen to the insects and birds...something like peace comes over me and an inner Self relaxes for a moment. Time changes everything, for good or ill, but a little time to myself can only help me. And in turbulent times like these, I need that.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Out Of The Dark
The other day I went out for a walk...it sounds pretty pedestrian (sorry), but it's actually the first time I've voluntarily gone outside for a few weeks. Sounds crazy, but I think I've had the depressive equivalent of walking pneumonia for a while...I'm getting to work, and getting things done, and putting out the various fires that my life's been starting, but I was doing only what I had to, and then I'd collapse on the couch with a beer and sort of shut down. It's not that there hasn't been enough stuff happening to make me sad (my aunt's death and the death of an old friend in the space of 10 days, among other things) or stressed, but my reactions have been pretty typical of the way my metabolism works when I'm having a serotonin imbalance. I've dealt with this enough to recognise the symptoms, but of course when you're INSIDE it, it can be hard to realize. Apparently it's starting to recede, thank God. I've been getting out and working on the lawn, going to the gym, doing fun stuff that I kind of forgot how to do temporarily. Depression is really irritating...it sneaks up on you and flattens you, and doesn't have any really good dramatic symptoms like having blood spurt from your eyeballs or something that would at least get you a little sympathy from your friends!! Ah well...I guess I'm just hoping that this upswing will continue, and to help that along I'm gonna get out of this office and go out into the beautiful fall day and take another walk. Sounds good right now.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Memories of Charley Tysklind
I just got the news of my good friend Charley’s passing. I hadn’t been in touch with him in the last few months, and I had no idea he’d been that sick. This is really devastating, and I don’t know what to feel or do.
I think I met Charley in the late 70’s or early 80’s (my memory for dates is awful, and if anybody knows better please correct me). My friend Doug Cameron and I were in a band with his then girlfriend and a drummer, and Doug said that he knew a sax player from Lake Orion area who was good. When he showed up for a rehearsal, he was dressed kind of biker-like, and with his rough whiskey and cigarettes voice and his look I though “Man, here’s one tough customer”. It didn’t take long to find out this was far from the truth. Charley had an inner sweetness of spirit that came through right away, and we wound up getting along immediately. We had similar and complementary senses of humor, were both passionate about music, and were out for as much fun and adventure as we could get out of life. He proved to be a great musician too…I remember being much impressed by his ability to play two saxophones at once, in harmony, something he nabbed from one of his idols Rassan Roland Kirk. It suddenly gave us a horn section, and looked really cool onstage too.
Over the next six years or so we wound up being good friends and off-and-on housemates in various places in Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor, and playing in various ensembles wherever we could. I remember living on Emmet St. in Ypsi with him and some other sordid characters, and our lives of hilarious desperation and amusement. We both had various tiny odd jobs and gigs to keep us afloat, and along with the free pizzas from a sympathetic Pizza Store girl down the street we managed to survive. There were quite a few rather ill-conceived and unsuccessful bands that we were both in…one trio that we had with a amphetamine-fueled pianist whose name escapes me wound up playing in the then very rough Cross Street Club every week for happy hour weekends. The bouncer had a ball-peen hammer that he kept on a leather cord around his wrist, to discourage any messin’ around. Charley said it was a place where they searched you for weapons at the door, and if you didn’t have any they gave you one! But we opened up for everybody in town, playing jazz tunes out of the Real Book. I think we were paid in beer and burgers and stale cigars…we were all smoking like chimneys.
At that time I was going to school at WCC, and I don’t know if Charley was registered there or not, but he was out there a good deal. The Jazz Ensemble I was in played weekly out at the Halfway Inn at East Quad in A2 and he sat in on those sessions a lot. His sax style back then was cleaner in tone than it became later, and his jazz chops were good, especially for the time. At some point we both moved from Emmet St. to Pearl St. in Ypsi, to a house we shared with Wayne Indyk, Brian Tomsic, Ray Torres and several other nefarious souls. There were many parties and good times to be had there, and we had them. We were in our 20’s and into chasing after girls, gigs, mind-altering substances and the meaning of life, usually all at the same time. Charley had a huge appetite for it all, and ebullience that made being around him a gas. He and Wayne and I started the Movie Fun Club, gathering friends and going out to the cheap matinees of cheesy Sci-Fi and Fantasy flicks, laughing and throwing popcorn around. Fantastic afternoons.
Somewhere around that time Charley hooked up with Steve Wethy and the Blue Front Persuaders, who were based in Ann Arbor and just starting to get their Retro-Swing thing together. The first gig I know of they did was out in front of Rick’s American Café during the Art Fair in A2, and Rick’s had just opened. To grab the substantial crowd outside, the owners offered the Blue Fronts a gig that night if they’d just tell the audience they were playing there, and that it was “Quarter Beer Night”. Of course they did, and the crowd swarmed down into the basement club, and the band played all night. Steve and Charley and I shared a table completely covered in full plastic beer glasses. We went through some quarters that night! The Blue Fronts caught on like wildfire in A2, fueled partly by the Blues and Jump resurgence brought on by the Blue Brothers and the like, but mostly by the fun-loving, manic personality of the band itself. On a good night they could kick some serious swingin’ ass! Again, Charley’s persona and stage presence was a key element in the band’s chemistry.
Not too long after that I was recruited to be the band’s bassist, and we started playing at a new level, both musically and professionally, than either of us had before. We had all our weekends booked, and many weekdays too (as well as sub gigs that turned up at places like Mr. Flood’s Party and others). We were doing dates throughout Michigan and Ohio, and I can think of no better band to start doing it with than that one, and no better friends to be sharing the experience with, especially Charley. Many very wild nights were had by all, and hilarious after-gig parties that I mostly remember. It’s true that we were all a pretty hard-drinking, loose-living band at that point, but given the times and our youth I think it was a pretty natural kind of thing really. Charley could always drink me under the table though, and he frequently did!
During this period we both had summer jobs being park rangers in Ypsi’s Jyro Park. It was a pretty place to be, a decent day job and had the perk of many pretty park rangerettes, who we pursued with varying degrees of success. Charley wound up hooking up with Deanna, a lovely and sweet girl who really cared deeply about him. They got closer and closer, and I was happy for them both. I remember very well the night we were playing at the Soup Kitchen in Detroit, when he told me they were going to announce their engagement later that week. He was playing beautifully that night, and sang “I’m Gonna Stay Right Here” with such feeling (and essentially directly to Deanna) that I got choked up on the stand. I was planning to drive home with them that night, but my bass wouldn’t fit in Deanna’s little car, so I rode in the van with Steve and Dennis. It was later in the morning that we found out about the horrific car crash that they were in, the result of a drunk driver in a car chase racing down the wrong way on the highway. Charley was busted up some, and Wayne (our soundman at the time) had serious internal injuries and lost his spleen, but Deanna was killed instantly. We were all devastated. I don’t think Charley ever really got over that. He was a mess for a long time…how could he not be? But even much later, you could see the change that tragedy did to him. I think the dark streak of self-destructive behavior deepened then, his drinking and related consumptions became a little more pronounced and more to cushion himself against the pain than just for fun. He recovered, kept playing, returned to the world and to mostly good humor, but it left its mark.
After I left the band, there was a while were I didn’t see Charley, but we wound up sharing space again in Ann Arbor on Michigan St., in a very large house with a crazy bomb shelter that the Blue Fronts used to record in. I think his darkest period was behind him by then, he had mellowed somewhat and was living with another girlfriend, but we still had the connection of our good friendship and shared humor. We still were able to party, and occasionally we’d stumble across the street to Arwulf’s, either to entertain him with some freeform sax duets (I should mention that I don’t really play sax at all) or just to jabber and listen to Arwulf’s amazing music collection, which we had plundered before in search of obscure Swing tunes in the earlier days of the Persuader’s career. I do remember a few instances of excess during that time…one night I was woken up by an amazing cacophony downstairs in the living room. I stumbled down there and found Charley, wearing stereo headphones, playing Wagner’s “Flight Of The Valkeries” at top volume and waving his arms wildly, conducting into the air! Only problem was he had neglected to actually plug the headphones in! I treasure moments like that though. After our house broke up, we drifted apart, and I would only see him briefly and infrequently over the years. Just last year he contacted me by email and we wrote back and forth for a bit, but one of us (probably me) dropped the ball and I hadn’t heard from him in a bit. I’d just been thinking of reconnecting again when Steve sent me this news.
There was so much I admired and liked about him…he was a master storyteller, specializing in the tall and preposterous tale that was usually based in fact; a gifted artist, who could whip out an off-the-cuff comic or portrait without thinking about it; a great musician and musicologist with a vast knowledge of Jazz and R&B; and a cat with a fantastic imagination, who could entertain himself and everyone around him with nothing but the contents of his beautifully twisted mind. And a really good friend with a huge soul and a warm and generous spirit. I’d always hoped we’d have a little more time to be together and talk, and I’ll always regret I didn’t work harder to make that happen. I feel like a large part of what made me myself has left the planet. Charley, if you’re still out there somewhere, good luck, man, we loved you. I hope you have a fantastic journey, and a sublime destination.
I think I met Charley in the late 70’s or early 80’s (my memory for dates is awful, and if anybody knows better please correct me). My friend Doug Cameron and I were in a band with his then girlfriend and a drummer, and Doug said that he knew a sax player from Lake Orion area who was good. When he showed up for a rehearsal, he was dressed kind of biker-like, and with his rough whiskey and cigarettes voice and his look I though “Man, here’s one tough customer”. It didn’t take long to find out this was far from the truth. Charley had an inner sweetness of spirit that came through right away, and we wound up getting along immediately. We had similar and complementary senses of humor, were both passionate about music, and were out for as much fun and adventure as we could get out of life. He proved to be a great musician too…I remember being much impressed by his ability to play two saxophones at once, in harmony, something he nabbed from one of his idols Rassan Roland Kirk. It suddenly gave us a horn section, and looked really cool onstage too.
Over the next six years or so we wound up being good friends and off-and-on housemates in various places in Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor, and playing in various ensembles wherever we could. I remember living on Emmet St. in Ypsi with him and some other sordid characters, and our lives of hilarious desperation and amusement. We both had various tiny odd jobs and gigs to keep us afloat, and along with the free pizzas from a sympathetic Pizza Store girl down the street we managed to survive. There were quite a few rather ill-conceived and unsuccessful bands that we were both in…one trio that we had with a amphetamine-fueled pianist whose name escapes me wound up playing in the then very rough Cross Street Club every week for happy hour weekends. The bouncer had a ball-peen hammer that he kept on a leather cord around his wrist, to discourage any messin’ around. Charley said it was a place where they searched you for weapons at the door, and if you didn’t have any they gave you one! But we opened up for everybody in town, playing jazz tunes out of the Real Book. I think we were paid in beer and burgers and stale cigars…we were all smoking like chimneys.
At that time I was going to school at WCC, and I don’t know if Charley was registered there or not, but he was out there a good deal. The Jazz Ensemble I was in played weekly out at the Halfway Inn at East Quad in A2 and he sat in on those sessions a lot. His sax style back then was cleaner in tone than it became later, and his jazz chops were good, especially for the time. At some point we both moved from Emmet St. to Pearl St. in Ypsi, to a house we shared with Wayne Indyk, Brian Tomsic, Ray Torres and several other nefarious souls. There were many parties and good times to be had there, and we had them. We were in our 20’s and into chasing after girls, gigs, mind-altering substances and the meaning of life, usually all at the same time. Charley had a huge appetite for it all, and ebullience that made being around him a gas. He and Wayne and I started the Movie Fun Club, gathering friends and going out to the cheap matinees of cheesy Sci-Fi and Fantasy flicks, laughing and throwing popcorn around. Fantastic afternoons.
Somewhere around that time Charley hooked up with Steve Wethy and the Blue Front Persuaders, who were based in Ann Arbor and just starting to get their Retro-Swing thing together. The first gig I know of they did was out in front of Rick’s American Café during the Art Fair in A2, and Rick’s had just opened. To grab the substantial crowd outside, the owners offered the Blue Fronts a gig that night if they’d just tell the audience they were playing there, and that it was “Quarter Beer Night”. Of course they did, and the crowd swarmed down into the basement club, and the band played all night. Steve and Charley and I shared a table completely covered in full plastic beer glasses. We went through some quarters that night! The Blue Fronts caught on like wildfire in A2, fueled partly by the Blues and Jump resurgence brought on by the Blue Brothers and the like, but mostly by the fun-loving, manic personality of the band itself. On a good night they could kick some serious swingin’ ass! Again, Charley’s persona and stage presence was a key element in the band’s chemistry.
Not too long after that I was recruited to be the band’s bassist, and we started playing at a new level, both musically and professionally, than either of us had before. We had all our weekends booked, and many weekdays too (as well as sub gigs that turned up at places like Mr. Flood’s Party and others). We were doing dates throughout Michigan and Ohio, and I can think of no better band to start doing it with than that one, and no better friends to be sharing the experience with, especially Charley. Many very wild nights were had by all, and hilarious after-gig parties that I mostly remember. It’s true that we were all a pretty hard-drinking, loose-living band at that point, but given the times and our youth I think it was a pretty natural kind of thing really. Charley could always drink me under the table though, and he frequently did!
During this period we both had summer jobs being park rangers in Ypsi’s Jyro Park. It was a pretty place to be, a decent day job and had the perk of many pretty park rangerettes, who we pursued with varying degrees of success. Charley wound up hooking up with Deanna, a lovely and sweet girl who really cared deeply about him. They got closer and closer, and I was happy for them both. I remember very well the night we were playing at the Soup Kitchen in Detroit, when he told me they were going to announce their engagement later that week. He was playing beautifully that night, and sang “I’m Gonna Stay Right Here” with such feeling (and essentially directly to Deanna) that I got choked up on the stand. I was planning to drive home with them that night, but my bass wouldn’t fit in Deanna’s little car, so I rode in the van with Steve and Dennis. It was later in the morning that we found out about the horrific car crash that they were in, the result of a drunk driver in a car chase racing down the wrong way on the highway. Charley was busted up some, and Wayne (our soundman at the time) had serious internal injuries and lost his spleen, but Deanna was killed instantly. We were all devastated. I don’t think Charley ever really got over that. He was a mess for a long time…how could he not be? But even much later, you could see the change that tragedy did to him. I think the dark streak of self-destructive behavior deepened then, his drinking and related consumptions became a little more pronounced and more to cushion himself against the pain than just for fun. He recovered, kept playing, returned to the world and to mostly good humor, but it left its mark.
After I left the band, there was a while were I didn’t see Charley, but we wound up sharing space again in Ann Arbor on Michigan St., in a very large house with a crazy bomb shelter that the Blue Fronts used to record in. I think his darkest period was behind him by then, he had mellowed somewhat and was living with another girlfriend, but we still had the connection of our good friendship and shared humor. We still were able to party, and occasionally we’d stumble across the street to Arwulf’s, either to entertain him with some freeform sax duets (I should mention that I don’t really play sax at all) or just to jabber and listen to Arwulf’s amazing music collection, which we had plundered before in search of obscure Swing tunes in the earlier days of the Persuader’s career. I do remember a few instances of excess during that time…one night I was woken up by an amazing cacophony downstairs in the living room. I stumbled down there and found Charley, wearing stereo headphones, playing Wagner’s “Flight Of The Valkeries” at top volume and waving his arms wildly, conducting into the air! Only problem was he had neglected to actually plug the headphones in! I treasure moments like that though. After our house broke up, we drifted apart, and I would only see him briefly and infrequently over the years. Just last year he contacted me by email and we wrote back and forth for a bit, but one of us (probably me) dropped the ball and I hadn’t heard from him in a bit. I’d just been thinking of reconnecting again when Steve sent me this news.
There was so much I admired and liked about him…he was a master storyteller, specializing in the tall and preposterous tale that was usually based in fact; a gifted artist, who could whip out an off-the-cuff comic or portrait without thinking about it; a great musician and musicologist with a vast knowledge of Jazz and R&B; and a cat with a fantastic imagination, who could entertain himself and everyone around him with nothing but the contents of his beautifully twisted mind. And a really good friend with a huge soul and a warm and generous spirit. I’d always hoped we’d have a little more time to be together and talk, and I’ll always regret I didn’t work harder to make that happen. I feel like a large part of what made me myself has left the planet. Charley, if you’re still out there somewhere, good luck, man, we loved you. I hope you have a fantastic journey, and a sublime destination.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Radio Six
I've recently been put on the playlist on Radio Six in Scotland! It's a very cool station indeed, and I reccomend anybody who likes eclectic and interesting music to go check it out...if you're not in Scotland, it's available worldwide on the web at www.radiosix.com ...and I'm not just saying that to plug my CD (although it is quite a fablulous collection of tunes, and available for your listening enjoyment and gift-giving pleasure at www.beowulfkingsley.com ). As I've said before elsewhere, I am on their playlist in the Male Vocalist catagory, something I find both amusing and disturbing. But I'll take it, thanks very much! I was actually kind of blown away by the coverage Radio Six has besides its local broadcast and its web radio presence...here's the total list...
Our broadcasts are carried by a network of transmitters around the world, on shortwave, medium wave, VHF and Satellite, via the facilities of our affiliates WBCQ, Celtic Music Radio, World FM and Radio Tatras International. Our current schedule on 1,530kHz and 88.5MHz analogue and Sky Channel 0195 and Eurobird 1 28.5 east 12.523GHz, Horizontal (Symbol rate: 27.500 MSymb; FEC: 2/3, Original Network ID: 2, Transport stream ID: 2611, Service: 55012 PID: 2322) is as follows:- (All times GMT)
23:00 to 06:00 Daily Sky channel 0195 on digital satellite covering the United Kingdom and Ireland
23:00 to 06:00 Sunday to Friday 94.2 (30kW Stereo) Poprad and 94.8MHz (15kW Stereo)Kosice, Slovakia covering most of the country and with some spill into neighbouring countries.
23:00 to 06:00 Daily on Eurobird 1 satellite at 28 degrees east on 12.523GHz Horizontal 27500 2/3 covering Europe.
00:00 to 02:00 Saturday to Sunday 88.5MHz (500mW Stereo) from Tawa to Redwood and Tawa, New Zealand
06:00 to 07:00 Daily 88.5MHz (500mW Stereo) from Tawa to Redwood and Tawa, Wellington, New Zealand
06:00 to 08:00 Saturdays 88.5MHz (500mW Stereo) from Tawa to Redwood and Tawa, Wellington, New Zealand
06:00 to 08:00 Saturdays Sky channel 0195 on digital satellite covering the United Kingdom and Ireland
06:00 to 08:00 Saturdays Eurobird satellite at 28 degrees east on 12.523GHz Horizontal 27500 2/3 covering Europe.
12:00 to 13:00 Fridays 1530kHz for Glasgow and surrounding area
18:00 to 19:00 Mondays Sky channel 0195 on digital satellite covering the United Kingdom and Ireland
18:00 to 19:00 Mondays 94.2 (30kW Stereo) Poprad and 94.8MHz (15kW Stereo)Kosice, Slovakia covering most of the country and with some spill into neighbouring countries.
18:00 to 19:00 Mondays Eurobird satellite at 28 degrees east on 12.523GHz Horizontal 27500 2/3 covering Europe.
19:00 to 20:00 Thursdays and third Saturday of every month 1530kHz for Glasgow and surrounding area
22:00 to 23:00 Monday and Tuesday 94.2 (30kW Stereo) Poprad and 94.8MHz (15kW Stereo)Kosice, Slovakia covering most of the country and with some spill into neighbouring countries.
VHF Transmissions - 88.5MHz Stereo - Tawa, Wellington, New Zealand; 94.2MHz Stereo - Poprad, Slovakis and 94.8MHz Stereo - Kosice, Slovakia.
We have regular transmissions on World FM a LPFM station in Tawa, serving Tawa & Redwood, on the edge of the city of Wellington. You can hear us daily between 7 and 8pm NZ time, and also on Saturdays and Sundays between Noon and 2pm NZ time. Our programmes are broadcast in stereo. More details on the World FM website. Our programmes between 23:00GMT and 05:00GMT are carried via Radio Tatras International on their FM transmitter network in Slovakia, and can be heard in parts of adjacent countries. This service was suspended earlier this year because of regulatory problems in Slovakia, but these have now been resolved and the FM transmissions will resume on August 27th.
Shortwave transmissions - 5.110 and 9.330MHz
Occasionally, our programmes are carried on 5.110MHz and 9.330MHz from transmitters in Monticello, Maine, USA targeted at Europe and south America. These broadcasts are sporadic and not normally announced in advance.
Our broadcasts are carried by a network of transmitters around the world, on shortwave, medium wave, VHF and Satellite, via the facilities of our affiliates WBCQ, Celtic Music Radio, World FM and Radio Tatras International. Our current schedule on 1,530kHz and 88.5MHz analogue and Sky Channel 0195 and Eurobird 1 28.5 east 12.523GHz, Horizontal (Symbol rate: 27.500 MSymb; FEC: 2/3, Original Network ID: 2, Transport stream ID: 2611, Service: 55012 PID: 2322) is as follows:- (All times GMT)
23:00 to 06:00 Daily Sky channel 0195 on digital satellite covering the United Kingdom and Ireland
23:00 to 06:00 Sunday to Friday 94.2 (30kW Stereo) Poprad and 94.8MHz (15kW Stereo)Kosice, Slovakia covering most of the country and with some spill into neighbouring countries.
23:00 to 06:00 Daily on Eurobird 1 satellite at 28 degrees east on 12.523GHz Horizontal 27500 2/3 covering Europe.
00:00 to 02:00 Saturday to Sunday 88.5MHz (500mW Stereo) from Tawa to Redwood and Tawa, New Zealand
06:00 to 07:00 Daily 88.5MHz (500mW Stereo) from Tawa to Redwood and Tawa, Wellington, New Zealand
06:00 to 08:00 Saturdays 88.5MHz (500mW Stereo) from Tawa to Redwood and Tawa, Wellington, New Zealand
06:00 to 08:00 Saturdays Sky channel 0195 on digital satellite covering the United Kingdom and Ireland
06:00 to 08:00 Saturdays Eurobird satellite at 28 degrees east on 12.523GHz Horizontal 27500 2/3 covering Europe.
12:00 to 13:00 Fridays 1530kHz for Glasgow and surrounding area
18:00 to 19:00 Mondays Sky channel 0195 on digital satellite covering the United Kingdom and Ireland
18:00 to 19:00 Mondays 94.2 (30kW Stereo) Poprad and 94.8MHz (15kW Stereo)Kosice, Slovakia covering most of the country and with some spill into neighbouring countries.
18:00 to 19:00 Mondays Eurobird satellite at 28 degrees east on 12.523GHz Horizontal 27500 2/3 covering Europe.
19:00 to 20:00 Thursdays and third Saturday of every month 1530kHz for Glasgow and surrounding area
22:00 to 23:00 Monday and Tuesday 94.2 (30kW Stereo) Poprad and 94.8MHz (15kW Stereo)Kosice, Slovakia covering most of the country and with some spill into neighbouring countries.
VHF Transmissions - 88.5MHz Stereo - Tawa, Wellington, New Zealand; 94.2MHz Stereo - Poprad, Slovakis and 94.8MHz Stereo - Kosice, Slovakia.
We have regular transmissions on World FM a LPFM station in Tawa, serving Tawa & Redwood, on the edge of the city of Wellington. You can hear us daily between 7 and 8pm NZ time, and also on Saturdays and Sundays between Noon and 2pm NZ time. Our programmes are broadcast in stereo. More details on the World FM website. Our programmes between 23:00GMT and 05:00GMT are carried via Radio Tatras International on their FM transmitter network in Slovakia, and can be heard in parts of adjacent countries. This service was suspended earlier this year because of regulatory problems in Slovakia, but these have now been resolved and the FM transmissions will resume on August 27th.
Shortwave transmissions - 5.110 and 9.330MHz
Occasionally, our programmes are carried on 5.110MHz and 9.330MHz from transmitters in Monticello, Maine, USA targeted at Europe and south America. These broadcasts are sporadic and not normally announced in advance.
Friday, September 12, 2008
A Difficult Week
I've had better weeks, I guess...
This one started with Cynthia's Mom and Brother stopping in to attend the Vietnam Veteran's annual Pig Roast. Now Ellen and Steve are delightful people and I was glad to have them about, but coupling being a house-host with an overbooked work week made things a bit hectic. The Pig Roast was a complete success, by the way...Steve volunteered to stay overnight at the VFW and help some of the other guys do the long BBQ thing. He really is an excellent guy. I managed to get my folks out to it as well, and my rather aging and infirm Dad was greeted by the crew there as a WW ll Vet should be, with honor. I think he was rather nonplussed by that. The entertainment of the event turned out to be an amazingly smarmy Elvis impersonator! Cheese city, man.
Tuesday I got the news from my Mom that my aunt Marg had passed away. We had known that her cancer had metastasized, but I'd been hoping there would be a little more time, if for nothing else than the chance for my Mom and her other sister Ethel to get to see her again. I guess she went very quickly and peacefully. When I think of what a wonderful woman she was and of all the kindnesses that she has done me in my life, I feel both grateful to have known her and sad and angry at losing her. I still don't take mortality and entropy well at all, and I don't know if I ever will. If there is justice in the Universe she should be going somewhere fantastic. As many times before, I wish I had faith of that, but one can't really just wish for faith. Maybe someday it will be given me, though.
The rest of this week has been divided between spending as much time with my folks as I can and rushing about doing lots of work with Di Medici Domestic, mostly crawling around under things and exorcising spiders. That and perhaps drinking a few too many beers at the end of the night. Now that I finally have a day off I feel like I can put things into a better perspective, relax and plot my next move...maybe even get some time in the studio! I still have to get with my parents, and I'm still trying to deal with losing my aunt, but perhaps doing some creative work will help. I'm hoping so! Plus a bit of Doing Absolutely Nothing is good therapy for anyone, and I intend to try that as well.
This one started with Cynthia's Mom and Brother stopping in to attend the Vietnam Veteran's annual Pig Roast. Now Ellen and Steve are delightful people and I was glad to have them about, but coupling being a house-host with an overbooked work week made things a bit hectic. The Pig Roast was a complete success, by the way...Steve volunteered to stay overnight at the VFW and help some of the other guys do the long BBQ thing. He really is an excellent guy. I managed to get my folks out to it as well, and my rather aging and infirm Dad was greeted by the crew there as a WW ll Vet should be, with honor. I think he was rather nonplussed by that. The entertainment of the event turned out to be an amazingly smarmy Elvis impersonator! Cheese city, man.
Tuesday I got the news from my Mom that my aunt Marg had passed away. We had known that her cancer had metastasized, but I'd been hoping there would be a little more time, if for nothing else than the chance for my Mom and her other sister Ethel to get to see her again. I guess she went very quickly and peacefully. When I think of what a wonderful woman she was and of all the kindnesses that she has done me in my life, I feel both grateful to have known her and sad and angry at losing her. I still don't take mortality and entropy well at all, and I don't know if I ever will. If there is justice in the Universe she should be going somewhere fantastic. As many times before, I wish I had faith of that, but one can't really just wish for faith. Maybe someday it will be given me, though.
The rest of this week has been divided between spending as much time with my folks as I can and rushing about doing lots of work with Di Medici Domestic, mostly crawling around under things and exorcising spiders. That and perhaps drinking a few too many beers at the end of the night. Now that I finally have a day off I feel like I can put things into a better perspective, relax and plot my next move...maybe even get some time in the studio! I still have to get with my parents, and I'm still trying to deal with losing my aunt, but perhaps doing some creative work will help. I'm hoping so! Plus a bit of Doing Absolutely Nothing is good therapy for anyone, and I intend to try that as well.
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