Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Music on location.

Continuing with the packing for a road trip theme, here is my music machine. I keep this in my backpack. This little player holds an iPod that is loaded with many hours of music. It runs on AA batteries and every night I charge the iPod from my computer and update it from the web if I want to add music.

My wife burst into the studio with it one day excitedly explaining what a good deal she had gotten from Sam Walton on it because it was a hideous pink color, "you don't mind do you?". I taped off the speakers and dashboard panel assembly with duct tape and shot the device out in the backyard, with black auto enamel

Above I have opened and spread its little sternum to reveal "the ghost in the machine" If you don't have a little MP3 player, I suggest that it is a great invention. They are so common now they are no longer new technology and are simple to use and amazingly portable. They will work when spotted with oil paint also.
Some of the things on my Ipod are;

  • Jeff Beck, Live at Ronnie Scotts
  • Live Grateful Dead concerts.
  • Debussy
  • Albeniz, Iberia, played by Alicia De Larrocha
  • Pat Metheny, The Way Up
  • Townes Van Zandt
  • Savoy Brown
  • Muddy Waters
  • Steve Winwood, Nine Lives
  • Johhny A, Get Inside
  • Moe, Live concert
  • Mark Knopfler, Kill to get Crimson
  • Mansour, Cheshman Siah
  • Dick Powell, I only have eyes for you

22 comments:

armandcabrera said...

Stapleton,

I never could bring my self to give up sound quality of CD's. What's your opinion on that? Do you notice a big difference? Also I like owning things, like books and cd's... I don't just want digital file of them. For some reason I don't care about photo's that way.

bobm said...

Wow I am a dinosaur,I still listen to vinyl and have just a few cd.I still have cassettes and listen to them all the time. Something about listening to Lester Young on a portable thing a wig seems weird to me. I will listen to the sounds of nature and then put the vinyl on at home.As an aside I heard on the Radio there is a New Hendrix release for the 40th Ann.of his passing. For all yo non Jazz fans out there. I like the idea of spray paint though.

DennyHollandStudio said...

The Way Up is a phenomenal album. I like the way you hacked and customized your "boomer box"!

billspaintingmn said...

Stape, I 'tuned out' for years on a
lot of music.
Today I 'tune in' to the sound of quiet!(not silence..quiet)
Sometimes I think I'm hard of hearing because I don't want to hear it!(ha)
You know I love to rock-n-roll, it's the voice inside that's trying to sing.

Tim said...

Yea, music whilst painting is great, if not for more practical reasons. If you paint in cities and villages, curious onlookers will collect in droves around you. Earbuds are a great way to not hear them whilst they pladder on and on about how "one of their cousins paints too, but not like that" or "when Monet painted his dandelions..."

Totally ineffective against mobs of kids though.

Philip Koch said...

I was disappointed you didn't stay with the edgy bright pink.

I had the painter Wolf Kahn come down as a visiting artist at my school. He walks, in conservatively dressed and all. But as he sits down at the table up front to speak, his pants cuffs pull up revealing shocking pink and orange socks. Most impressive.

Tim Fitzgerald said...

Stape,
Your music machine looks like something from the movie Road Warrior or perhaps Thunder Dome,
I'm not sure what it would resemble if it was in it's original Pink state

Tim

Mary Byrom said...

Stapleton, I like the way you use this unit in hunting season. Many times in autumn in a totally awesome place its me and dozens of hunters...they are like... what are you doing out here? I'm too quiet. Loud rock music on a boom box is a good idea.
Tim, me too - when I first saw it I immediately thought "Road Warrior". I thought it was a high tech industrial design thing .
Phillip, I would have kept the pink color - easier to find in the back of the station wagon studio.
Stapleton, you don't seem to mind your bright pink camera...

Mary Bullock said...

Am I the only one that still has an 8 track player? I brought it to work one time and everyone asked "What's That!" Made me feel old.

Stapleton Kearns said...

Armand:
I like the convenience of my Ipod. The sound quality coming out of that box is about the same as a black 1968 Mustang with a gold C stripe and the 289 PRNDL's radio. Fine for my purposes.
...............Stape

Stapleton Kearns said...

bob;
Vinyl is great , I love vinyl. But it doesn't travel very well.
.................Stape

Stapleton Kearns said...

Denny:
Metheny is so cool. I have seen him several times. Though not recently.
....................Stape

Stapleton Kearns said...

Bill:
I like music playing when I am out painting. I find it inspiring.
....................Stape

Stapleton Kearns said...

Tim:
I enjoy talking to those people. I want to hear them talk. I am real sociable. I did 15 years in my own gallery and probably talked to half a million of them.
..................Stape

Stapleton Kearns said...

Philip:
Wolf Kahn wears loud socks.Was he a good speaker? I bet he was.
...................Stape

Stapleton Kearns said...

Tim:
I look like something from road warrior.
.................Stape

Stapleton Kearns said...

Mary;
I would paint the camera but I am afraid I will screw it up, the box was easy to do.
..............Stape

Stapleton Kearns said...

Mary:
No I think you will be just fine. It is harder to get more recent tunes (post 1973) though, on 8 track.
...............Stape

willek said...

Listening to that stuff you all are listening to means you are missing out of a awful lot of NPR and talk radio which is what I am into when I paint. You can make yourself very unrounded if you just do "arts" all the time to the exclusion to current opinion and events.

Stapleton Kearns said...

Willek;
unrounded? What the hell are you talking about? I looked that up, no such word.Did you hear that on the welfare station?
..............Stape

Tim said...

Hah Stape I enjoy one or two, maybe even three but if I spoke to all the people that wanted to talk, Id get zero painting done. And the painting id get done, would look very.... confused, to state it mildly.

Stapleton Kearns said...

Tim;
I can paint and talk to Bozos all at once, no problem. I had an easel in my gallery in Rockport and did it routinely. By the way, I thought that the Lead the field tapes would be useful to you in your endeavor with the state run cash register.
..........Stape