Music Before the Money

Brian Jones’ Diary By Kim Kinrade will be released as an Ebook in October (We’re aiming for the 15th). Once the book is online we will post the link.

Just before my wife and I were married she went on a course with her friends at work called Context Training (see my blog on Randy Revell). When she came back she was like a superball in an empty room.All day I heard about how she had come to grips with her father and how she was . . . Well, it just went on and I tried to block it out. Then she had her “Pusuitee” friends, as I called them, come over one night and they spoke in a foreign tongue that scared me. Phrases like “unworkable positions” and “you are in your right and proper place” might have been uttered by Martians. Because I had no idea what they meant and I was scared that my intended was turning into a “Moonie.” As I stated in an earlier blog about Contect Training (which I did take) I did catch up to their thinking after taking the course.

However, here is something that is mentioned about pilgrims from Tibet to Sammarkand or from Context Training and est: They are changed. Even if the altered state is very minor there is no way a person can undergo the rigors of a pilgrimage without both picking up new ways and shedding the old. And that “old way” may have traits that once made them attractive or loving.

And the pilgrim must understand that the ones left behind are in suspended animation. They have not have “progressed” or “traveled to new lands.” Therefore, everything old is definitely not “new again” for them - it might be distasteful. Prisoners of war kept for many years often undergo a dramatic re-entry into their families and some don’t make it - or the families don’t.

So, enlightened ones: take a time out and let everyone readjust to your new thinking. They will, you know, but you have to give them time and be understanding.

I was flipping through my old tapes and ran across one from 1976! As I listened to the raw bar tracks I picked out the trebley piano and I immediately grinned so wide my mouth (already big enough) almost split. The piano was a Lesage “Bug” made by Lesage Pianos Ltd out of Quebec.Willis & Company bought out the original company in 1907 and the Lesage family started a new company called Lesage Pianos Ltd., which went on to produce pianos until 1987. They were highly regarded pianos but, like most instrument makes in North America, went out of business because of cheaper inports.I bought my “Bug” at Keen Kraft Music in Calgary in October 1975. It was the very first “stage piano” that sounded like a real one. I had Rhodes and Wurlitzers, and they sounded great, but not acoustic. When I heard the “Bug” I paid my $1500 and loaded it in my van for the long drive home.

Unlike my Yamaha-CP-70, which I purchased years later, I had a pro tune the piano because I had a house gig and it was easily done right there. There was a metal frame but no real soundboard. Instead it had long pickups on the backing board. Even so, I still think it sounded better than my later CP-70, which relied on Peizo-electric pickups and had the trademark “Yamaha” sound.

And just like the Yamaha CP-70 the Lesage had hammers and a dampering system. It even had a soft pedal!

As with all my gear I sold it when I moved on and someone in Calgary still has it in their front room. But I have the tapes!