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May 2003
Posts: 4389
Location: Capital District, NY, USA Minor Outlying Islands | As promised in my previous post on china (which by the way, took a turn I had not foreseen, and taught me a lesson to stick with comments only on ovation guitars, guitars and music in general on this board) here's the photo of the samisen player. In Hainan they tune the samisen like they do in Okinawa, do, fa, do. They are not as keen as we are to be in concert pitch, just as long as all the musicians are on the same page. This Samisen is slightly bigger than average and provided a very bassy bottom. He plays it with a guitar pick, while in Okinawa they use something that looks like a bear claw. Note the capo. And just above the capo, the cigarette holder! He drilled a hole into the neck. When he got a break, he'd take the cig out of its hole, take a couple of puffs, and then tuck it back in. What a cool dude.
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March 2002
Posts: 15678
Location: SoCal | This is as good as the Clapton Strat cig holder -- he'd just tuck it in between the bass E string and the peghead. If you look at old pictures of his Strats, Blackie and Brownie, you'll see the area burned and blackened. |
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March 2002
Posts: 1380
Location: Central Oregon | 30 years ago, before I wised up & quit the dirty, smelly, deadly habit, I used to leave the tag end of my little E string about an inch long. I smoked Viceroys & I'd stick the filter end down over the tag end of the string. I thought it looked pretty rakish wagging around out there. Never had one fall off & it didn't burn anything.
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May 2003
Posts: 69
Location: UK | Good on you Nils. Great guitars which I have turned down included a beautiful Gibson Super 400 archtop in vintage natural finish dated around 1950, with an unsightly cigarette burn on the treble bout. Gawd knows how it got there but it was lesson to me not to smoke around my guitars, ever. (I suppose I could have had the face refinished but then - hey, why destroy an original feature because someone was careless with their smoke).
Of course now I've kicked the weed (for almost 20 years) there is no longer any danger of me damaging one of my little darlings.
BL |
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May 2002
Posts: 3005
Location: Las Cruces, NM | an4340
Great picture, and it reminds me of something I used to see in Tijauna when I lived in San Diego. (Before Moody and all the Rabelians start panting, it has nothing to do with naked women, although I did see some of that too.) What I noticed was how the musicians, and there was some very good ones there, because they practically lived in the bars as that was their livelyhood, did all sorts of little things to make their life comfortable. I saw the same tendencies when I had a janitorial contract in a Federal building in Alamagordo, and each worker had turned their desk into a little home and we caught hell if we disturbed one little photo or plant when we moved their desks for wax stripping. Point is, musicians who play as a living, become as beauracratic as beauracrats, hence the cigarette holder.
I quit the habit at 60 years old, having smoked for 50 years. It was very traumatic as I was also a pipe smoker and collector, and abandoned a collection of pipes that began when I was first married. We used to drive to Cleveland where I would visit this monster pipe store and choose my Christmas present in the late 50s. Pipes, like guitars, are wood and each has a personality, and the variety of tobaccos is infinite and tempting. Can't smoke one and not the other, my pipes are a dusty forgotten mess.
Bailey |
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November 2002
Posts: 3651
Location: Pacific Northwest Inland Empire | Good for you with your nicotine recovery, Guys- tough for me, too, after 25+ years. Hey, Bailey- dust off all the pipes, construct some sort of plumbed sculpture, and turn it into a giant bubbleblower art creation!! I know, it's a fine line between insanity and eccentricity. |
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November 2002
Posts: 3651
Location: Pacific Northwest Inland Empire | Or a variant, perhaps more accurately deviant, pipe organ, complete with compressed air and piano rolls. EGAD, somebody stop me....... |
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May 2002
Posts: 3005
Location: Las Cruces, NM | Seesquare
There is no stopping a reformed smoker, rave on. those pipes are carefully broken in instruments of smokimg that would be ruined by a bubble solution. It takes years to break one in to it's ultimate perfection, an art as old and as revered as most paintings are, pipes have been around for centuries and are as much an art form as many sculptures. Building the proper cake, and maintaining it, is as difficult as keeping your guitar "vintage". Look for some literature on pipes and you will see an art form that has existed for centuries. Pipes have shown up in paintings, literature, and movies, and LIFE over the times we are aware of. A well broken in Meerschaum (they used to pay cerfs to break in one) is worth a fortune to those who know the wonderful feedback that it can give. Each time you light up a Pipe of that importance, your life and your desires flash before you like a drowning man, a well broken in pipe is the closest thing to a dialogue between men and plants.
Bailey |
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March 2002
Posts: 1380
Location: Central Oregon | Fill them with the ganja, mon!
:p
B. Marley |
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May 2002
Posts: 3005
Location: Las Cruces, NM | Dang
Sorry, I never got beyond tobacco in my pipes.
Parentheses will add a level of meaning that certainly was not intended, compare these statements (above and below) from a prosecutorial standpoint. Thank goodness that parentheses can't be seen in a spoken statement.
Sorry, I never got beyond tobacco (in my pipes).
Bailey |
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Promised photo of Samisen
