contact me
Improvised Waves
Electronic Music
by
Ken Leonard
Jimmy Moore
with
Brad Schuman
is available
here |
News '08:
| MASSACHUSETTS VOTERS:
END THE
INCOME TAX!
In 2002 the "End the Massachusetts
State Income Tax" initiative got over 45% of the vote when the media
and the usual crew of politicians told you it would fail completely.
Carla Howell and Michael Cloud have worked hard to get this initiative
for small, responsible government on the ballot again in 2008.
Passing
the initiative would force the removal of $11B from the Massachusetts
budget. Oh dear, that would be terrible, wouldn't it? NO.
It simply rolls the budget back to 1995 levels. The spending by
the legislature in Massachusetts has DOUBLED since 1995. Why?
The population hasn't doubled! With the continued free flow of
YOUR money, will state spending triple
in the next decade?
Now is YOUR chance to tell
the state legislature to do its job and do better with the BILLIONS it
already collects through taxes on everything from cigarettes to your
car.
Click
here to read
about the end to this budgetary nonsense, and in November cast your
vote for small, responsible government. |
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June:
November 2007 MONEYPIT Report!
It's a dual reveal of "The Good" M400 and "The Ugly" M400, now owned by
Mellotronist Charlie Hemlock. Includes a video of what may be THE
WORST playing Mellotron keyboard of all time, a brief demonstration of the
Mellotron Mark I, and a video of the dual reveal.
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May: Coming soon: The long
awaited November 2007 MONEYPIT---dual M400 reveal! Although the November 2007 MONEYPIT isn't ready yet, click
here and scroll down for a brief demonstration of the rhythms and
fills from the incredibly rare Mellotron Mark I.
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April:
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Goodbye, old friend...
After
13 1/2 years and 255,000 miles, it was time for my 1995
Acura Integra to go into retirement.
This
car saw me through two startup companies and heard the first few mixes
of Improvised Waves.
It got to experience my enormous weight gain first hand (ahem) and
hopefully appreciated it when I lost all of it. :-) We'd
been to Toronto (at least twice), Pennsylvania several times, to
Acadia, to Vermont, to northern Maine in the dead of winter, Cape
Cod---all over New England. We hauled everything from Mellotrons
to camping gear.
The car
started every day (even when a faulty battery was almost flat) and ran
like a watch. It got a decent 30mpg or more most of the time. |
The
"whale-butt" plates are on something else now. It's cute, it's
nice, but it's not the same...but it does seem to get reasonable gas
mileage:
(click to see the
fuel/mileage log) |
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March: "Synthfool" Kevin Lightner--although
still a busy guy!!--is again taking some synthesizer repair work.
Click here to get in touch
with Kevin. Kevin also has some NOS ARP 2600 slider hardware and new
ARP 2600 speaker replacements. For those looking for Moog parts,
Kevin has Fred McNiff's remaining Moog parts stock.
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January: Mellotronist
Rick Blechta announces A
Case of You, Rick's sixth novel, due out in March. Click
here for
more details. |
News for 2007:
MONEYPIT'S 10TH ANNIVERSARY
...and more
For news from past years, click
here.
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December:
NOW READY --> The report for MONEYPIT
AUGUST 2007 with special guest Tom Doncourt, keyboard player from
Cathedral.
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November
photo: Jerry Korb |
MELLOTRONISTS
LIST IMPLODES! The
long-standing MELLOTRONISTS YahooGroup fell into disarray when the
group got into a heated discussion about Jon Anderson lyrics.
The group's moderator felt a bit of a sting,
accusations began to fly, and one of the group's favorite contributors
was thrown off the list. And that was that.
A new YahooGroup has since splintered off. |
A MONEYPIT dual release - two
M400s refurbished for Mellotronist Charles Hemlock--including one that was
amazingly hideous...but isn't anymore. MONEYPIT report to come...
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October: New Mellotron sound
(Baritone Sax) from the
Streetly library, new
M4000 article...
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September: David Etheridge's
review of the M4000 hits October's issue of Performing Musician Magazine.
There's also a huge M4000 review in
the October 2007 issue of Sound
On Sound magazine.
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August: Spotted - David Etheridge
reviews the Mellotron M4000.
MONEYPIT has a visit from
Tom Doncourt of
Cathedral.
Mellotron M400 #390 has been refurbed at the Mellotron Ranch, and Tom came
by to pick up his un-Sound machine.
Trip report to come...
Check out Cathedral's latest album "The
Bridge"!
Norm Leete, one of the
designers behind Streetly's M4000, has posted a few pictures and some
info. Click here
for more...
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June: A former owner of
Mellotron M400 #1037 sheds some light on the
provenance of that instrument...and, yes, you may have heard it!
Info to come...
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May: AIRPLAY!!
Memorial Day Weekend 2007 on
WVUD-FM
at the University of Delaware
they spun up "Leaving for the Black Sand" from "Another Day in Paradise",
the CD by Mellotronist Lee Richards. "Leaving for the Black Sand"
was created by Lee Richards and Ken Leonard and was recorded during the
February 2006 MONEYPIT.
You can hear an interview with Lee Richards on the
WBHM-FM
Birmingham, Alabama site.
M4000 IS HERE!
Streetly
announces the availability of the M4000--the first cycling tape replay
instrument in decades--and the M5000, a dual-manual version.
Click here for
additional details about the M4000/M5000.
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April:
Streetly announces to the
Mellotronists group that we'll know "every sordid detail" about the M4000
mid-May.
This
post to the Mellotronists group implies that the M4000 will be a
cycling Mellotron.
Remembering James Lee, Sr. - Morris Canal Historian
Mellotronist and canal historian Jerry Korb took Your Webmaster on a
tour of the Morris Canal in New Jersey, USA, as part of the
April
2004 MONEYPIT. Along the
tour we learned that James Lee, Sr. was the authority on the
Morris Canal and even owned the land and buildings at Plane 9 West.
Several years ago Alzehimer's began to claim Mr. Lee, and he passed
away on the 23rd of April at the age of 89. We are fortunate
that Mr. Lee sought to preserve the Morris Canal site, artifacts, and
historical documents for us today. We are even more fortunate
that Mr. Lee's son James Jr. continues his father's work to preserve a
piece of history.
Jerry met Mr. Lee twice a few years ago.
"We'll miss him, he was a kindly gentle person." |
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March: The report from
MONEYPIT September
2006 is ready!!
Check out Mellotronist Doug Berg's #703 undergoing restoration.
Very nice...Click
here for more photos. (photo by Doug Berg)
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| February: In
this post Martin Smith of
Streetly Electronics informs
us that the new Mellotron M4000 is due to be revealed and to start
shipping this month or thereabouts.
This Mellotronist hopes that John Bradley's recovery continues to go
well from his fall in December!
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| January: Have I run across Moog/Realistic
Concertmate MG-1 user and service manuals for all of those folks who
have been asking? Check
here.
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