Trout Songs

My most groovy dudes and dudettes , the most hip percussion ensemble from south central Kansas….
The Temporal Mechanics Union!

Hey folks.  I posted something last Sunday,- thinking ” well, I had better post something because it has been a week….” and I posted some half- constured, incomplete detritus.  You may have thought ” troutsongs has completely lost his marbles.”

Troutsongs was too tired from giving his best performances during parent-teacher conferences, and was perhaps under the influence of sleep catch-up. ( sleep ketchup? sounds like a good name for a band!)

Now, I hope to salvage this detritus into real, useful mind-compost, so you can grow your own, useful ideas, which in turn can blossom into more arcane metaphors.

I was thinking about what a musician needs to know: in the vernacular, playing ability often called “chops”.

ie.” That young bass player sure has solid chops!”

But what kind of chops?

how many kinds of chops( there are?)( are there) ?
I remember a rant by one of my heros, Rahsaan ROland Kirk.. discussing ‘hip chops”

Poem ” what kind of chops?”

pop chops.     eclectic chops… solo chops

combo chops

Mutton chops!
waltz chops.   (i  can write a waltz. maybe nothing else!) (w)riting chops .

..listening chops ….spatial chops.. silence chops.

When Brian Roessler pulls one  arco note,

from the bottom of his large wooden tree/bass,

it chops.

rhythmic chops..

What are your chops?

Desdamona Rox

has speakin’ chops!

bob Ock

fixes clocks

guitar man with Ock chops

perfect time

what are your chops?
synescalatoria ! Carei Thomas has laughing chops!

scalar chops… lyrical chops…

When Donald Washington  and Sean Egan do clarinets at once

with trombonist Steve Sandberg… it is harmony chops – living , pulsing chordal chops….

“out” or “in ” chops..

What

are your

chops?

but could it be the most important chops
are those
of
how we live?

Opening the door
to NOvember
The wind practically pulls me out
and drops me like trash along the street.
Oh, yes, the grim time is arriving. WHile the sun shines, we smile, and somehow dig in deeper to force… wait a minute… I am not going there.
What I mean to say is- I hope you check out this band, the Porkka  Playboys, from Finland. My saxophone friend Nathan Hanson was raving about them, and I looked on the You and tube, found them. ( this winter I will learn how to do the link thing).
They are a street quartet with power- (you can tell that they had music in their schools!!) I am quite taken by them. Incredible youthful energy- tackling a traditional song ” Volga”, ” bombelo”, a song by megadeath,motorhead or something, while in a sauna.  hilarious!
But what really struck me is their version of ” the boys of summer”. Like many recovered jazz fascists of my generation, I hardly payed any attention to the Eagles or Don Henley after a certain point.  I probably heard this song in the 80′s , in the background, and did not even notice it.
After watching the Porkka  Playboys pound this song ( in the street somewhere – Helsinki? in April) I got curious to hear what the original was.
I was seriously disappointed….
Very SoCaL- the instrumentation was so tame, lush synthesizers, predictable, stock, lacking
in urgency. The images were worse..” beautiful” ladies with vacant eyes,- how does one make scenes of beach look pornagraphic? yuk.  I left that site, and back to the Porkka Playboys.

It was very refreshing and encouraging to hear this song in the proper hands-giving it youthful vitality, uplifting vocal harmonies, melodica, concertina, a drummer playing polyrythms on a strong plastic box ( small cymbals)- while playing on the street.
I can’t imagine people walking by, but you see their shadows. The Porkka  Playboys
played on, with sheer exuberance, and love.
Rock on Porkka  Playboys. Keep your hearts strong, and your voices alive