Producer-Art-Guitar-videographer  Texmex Shamans
lyrics vocals- StonerJazz

check out The vldeo     youtu.be/vYRrSahKHng
'"Disclaimer"

"Any similarity to real or imagined events ls probably not a coincidence
No TOADS were injured or molested ln any way during the making of this song--

The headwaters of this song came from Stephens rendition of that Toad ln our New Mexico song's cover art-- We were discussing that toad and lt's significance  to the riders on the bus--as the conversation became more Hilarious We resolved to write a song about that toad and that ls what we did--😎- Huge respect and gratitude to Stephen for hls Production and art skills and of course his amazing guitar Play and his Excellent Friendship--- Welcome to those of you who find your way to this tune We hope you enjoy lt!!

THE TOAD
l was flying down state 95
just ten miles East of Blyth
Hot Rod Lincoln blaring on the radio
My ole pickup truck lt overheated
l had to stop and find some shade
underneath a Palo Verde tree
a blg ole Toad There he spoke to me
He sald "Why don't you give me just a little lick Right here, Right behind my ear

Now you may think lt's a little funny, but l can guarantee
You will thank me ln the end my Friend--

Not wanting to disappoint my new found friend
l took a little tiny lick
and washed lt down with a Beer
After Frothin at the mouth for a little blt
my Consciousness lt took a hit
and headed south ln a flood of light

There are no word that can describe what happened next-
but l can say for sure without a doubt, unequivocally
My brand new Paradigm got tangled up with my Epiphany!!

Shit kickin Toad lickin with TexMex Shaman

written by Netta&Mcgill
a little song about appreciation and sticking together............thanks for listening and merry christmas


you're the blue up in my sky
the twinkle in the eye
aint no mountain seem too high
when you are by my side

you're the no and i'm the yes
you're the answer i'm the guess
everything just seems a mess
without you by my side

sometimes the days aint long enough
to do what we gotta do
and get on with what really matters
like taking care of me and you

my island in the sun
a place to hide when i'm on the run
i could easily come undone
without you by my side

cool me down like summer rain
seek me out when i'm lost again
among enemies you're my friend
who stands right by my side

like a dusty road that never ends
the long goodbye, to part as friends
just know that we'll meet again
and we'll walk side by side

Side X Side

The painting is ‘The Course of Empire’ by Thomas Cole (1801 – 1848).

Say a prayer and don’t despair about the cost of living crisis 
Cos life’s not fair and they don’t care about the rising prices 
The millionaires and billionaires wield their wicked powers
they own the shares, they don’t pay the fares, they’re not working longer hours

  They contaminate, discriminate, and revel in their sleaze 
  the permafrost is lost, but we still have the wage freeze 

the bankers are all bigots, experts in exploitation 
oil tankers and their frigates reeking eco-devastation
while we reimburse the nurses with the joy of food banks 
and the curse of empty purses and our hollow huge thanks

  You’ll find that it’s impossible to get paid any less
  can’t save no money saving lives for the NHS

The CEOs who freely chose to bolster their careers 
They’re mosquitoes in tuxedos bloodsucking profiteers 
who smoke cigars with glowing hearts, toasting market forces  
They’re Oligarchs, they’re greedy sharks, they’re feeding on the corpses

  The ambulance abandoned us, so now we need a hearse
  Yes the times they are a-changing… but they’re changing for the worse

I blame the vloggers and the bloggers, I don’t “like” and I don’t “subscribe”
All that scrolling and a trolling, through soundbites and diatribes
and we fixate on the clickbait that seems to be hell-bent 
on dictating that the content fuels our discontent 

        All the species being ghosted, wiped out like dinosaurs
        While we’re busy being offended, and fighting culture wars

Shopaholic fashionistas with their selfies and their memes 
And reams of influencers beat us senseless by extremes
it’s a trash-bag full of hashtags, rubbish flowing in our streams
algorithms causing schisms and addiction to our screens

        We’re the masters of our destiny, but it isn’t as it seems 
        Who’s pushing who’s buttons? Are we slaves to the machines?

Narcissistic mystics with their conspiracy theories
Going viral in a spiral of Netflix mini series
And woeful social media, where profiles are a deepfake
It’s a form of schizophrenia, like a hollywood remake

      We make a virtue of our vanity, embracing the absurd
      with virtual reality, to replace the real world

Cost Of Living Crisis

Recorded 1994 with a 4 Channel Mixer, Hifi Tape Deck ;-) - sorry for the bad sound quality!

Artwork M. Besinger (dad)

Demo Songs 1994

Miles to Go 1994 (remastered)

PS Perkins: Guitars, bass, lyre, vocals
Ron Thomas: Autoharps, Drums

Production notes:
---------------------------------------------
Very early on we wanted to use autoharps on this song to create a sort of swirling backdrop, reminiscent of the harps in Indian/Bollywood soundtrack songs of the seventies.

Right away there were challenges because the song is in B flat and is not wholly diatonic to begin with, utilizing a chord built on the augmented lydian scale in the choruses. So rather than transpose the song to a more amenable key (since the chromatic bits weren't going to work no matter what key we used) we instead re-tuned the autoharp. Moving through the strings one by one we tuned them either up or down a half step where applicable to bring them into key. Where the augmented chord hit in the choruses, we excluded those notes so that the autoharp was filling the diatonic parts of the chords and omitting the accidentals. It took us several tries to get it right. In the end we arrived at a chord progression that could be strummed on the autoharp and the modified chords could be played with existing dampers.

We also tuned the lyre so that the top half of the strings included the chromatic augmented notes while the lower register of the lyre was tuned using the diatonic, so the lyre could play the melody all the way through both parts of the song.

The inspiration for this song was essentially fourfold:
--------------------------------------------------------
First, H.P. Lovecraft's terrifying necromancer Joseph Curwen (from "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward") who masked his true identity in order to thwart suspicion from his fellow townsfolk. He has many secrets lurking in his underground catacombs where he performs acts of necromancy most foul, extracting the "salts" of the dead in order to raise them at will and learn the secrets of ancient eldritch deities.

Second, a poem by Rudyard Kipling titled "En-Dor" which was a warning against the rise of spiritualism and the cost of communion with the dead in the early 20th century.

Third, the biblical Saul who traveled in disguise to visit a witch at the city of Endor in order to summon Samuel from the dead and garner advice on defeating the Philistines, but who only prophesies doom for Saul. Saul dies later the next day in the battle of Gilboa.

Lastly, the story of Odysseus communing with the underworld where he enlists the help of Tiresias to have a chat with the dead and secure for himself a safe journey home.

They all seek communion with the dead for one purpose: to gain knowledge which only those who have crossed over between realms might possess. 

Lyrics:
-------------------------------------
A mask may reveal what it’s meant to conceal
From those who are standing beside us
Armor of pride, so we learn to abide
By the monsters which hide deep inside us
The monsters which lurk deep inside us
Oh, how they scratch and they bite us
The monsters which lurk deep inside us

Only to know what the professor knows

Eating black bread, wearing clothes of the dead
The soil soaked in honey around us
For fear if we failed, leave the ogre unveiled
And it’s back in the grave where they found us
Back in the grave where they found us
Freed from the ties which had bound us
Back in the grave where they found us

Only to know what the professor knows

In the catacomb vaults, we extracted the salts
From cadavers to lengthen our youth
Chanting the names at the edge of the flames
And a mirror to show us the truth
A mirror which speaks only truth
See how it seeks not to soothe
A mirror which speaks only truth

Only to know what the professor knows

In the underworld maze, in the night of no days
Concocting the plan we’re devising
Much to endure on the road to En-Dor
And to snatch from Elohim arising
To snatch from Elohim arising
Snatch from Elohim arising
Snatch from Elohim arising
Snatch from Elohim arising
Snatch from Elohim arising

BARDS:Of The Shimmering Seraphs

The Professor

Back with Pinner with some new jazz fusion - Above The Clouds.  Love what Stephan does.  Again and again.  Follow his wonderful playing here on Soundcloud:  https://soundcloud.com/pinner

And for a playlist of now 120 tunes we have recorded together!:  https://soundcloud.com/jamie-rhind/sets/smokin-with-stephan-stephan

Thanks as always for your generous time listening, for your comments and for your shares

Jamie

Above The Clouds - Stephan Lipinski / Jamie Rhind

method: three devices and voice. polyend tracker mini, ingpartner y8, zoom r12. that's it.
narration: heraclitus is one of those 
movers of mental furniture we keep referring to despite knowing next to nothing ..... in the book publication, the poem on him was paired with the one on verdandi, Listen to Verdandi by jo richter on #SoundCloud
https://on.soundcloud.com/c5qCz , see  DIE KINETISCHE KUNST DER LIEBE UNTERSUCHTEN DIE ALTEN AN KÄFERLARVEN UND DUNKLEM GETIER in : CHI
image: the tracker creates crossword grids, copyright jo richter

poem / copyright jo richter:

Galen fand die Säfte innen, Kneipp
aussen und Schauberger liess sie
wirbeln, Hahnemann schütteln: Blut und
Lymphe, Laune und Gemüt. Aus

der inneren Umwelt, der äusseren
Inwelt strömt und färbt sich das
Geschick in den Wassern: Zu deuten
aus Treibgut und gelösten Erden,


die als Schicksal verwirklicht ein
Leben sind. Das war es, was ihnen
zwischen den Fingern zerrann: Ach,
Heraklit wusste um kein Ende
des einzigen Stroms, der in jedem
Dasein mündet - und aus ihm quillt.


[An interlinear translation might be made available in the future]

heraklit

MrDjBigHouse and The DeadMen Under
Vocals by Morgan Benny

You’re all gray (ft Morgan Benny-The DeadMen Under)

[Verse 1]
I watched your ship fade through Prime’s morning light,
You said, “I’ll ping you past Ellis Nine tonight.”
But the channels are quiet, just static and breath,
And the soft glow of cities that won’t forget.

Your sweater still clings to the back of that chair,
Smells like static, like jasmine, like your hair.
The comm blinks red, but it's just a lie—
“No new messages,” just time passing by.

[Chorus]
And I’m lost in love on Terra,
While your heart’s chasing stars,
Jump points and broken charts,
And I’m stuck in these boulevard bars.
Still singing on Terra,
Still waiting for a sign,
But the echo of you
Is the only thing that’s mine.

[Verse 2]
I walk past the café near Solstice and Vine,
Where we used to talk ‘til the lights cut the sky.
Now the vendors just smile like they don’t recall,
Selling memories to ghosts in the fall.

You once said, “The void’s not cold if you care,”
But baby, it is—when you’re not there.
I write your name in the mist on the glass,
Counting the jumps since you last looked back.

[Chorus]
Yeah, I’m lost in love on Terra,
While your ship burns through night,
Drifting past constellations
I can’t hold or rewrite.
Still grounded on Terra,
Still soft in the sound,
Of a love that slipped orbit
And never touched down.

[Bridge]
Did you mean to vanish, or was it the drift?
Did the distance grow wide, or did you just shift?
Your last message came at 03:04—
I was dreaming of you…
You were closing the door.

[Chorus – Final]
So I’m lost in love on Terra,
While your signal’s gone dark,
Just a whisper in space,
Just a tear in the spark.
Still playing on Terra,
Still caught in your tune,
But this song only echoes
When I’m singing to the moon.

[Outro – spoken, soft, almost whispered]
If you hear this—wherever you are—
Just know I kept the light on by the star.

Lost in Love on Terra

Riding Rodeo

Barefoot in the Dust

03-Barefoot in the Dust

Spilled on the Floor

Demos and sketches of songs, mostly recorded in my home studio.
Part of the Netta&McGill duo.
Thanks for having a listen.

Side X Side

Jim Mcgill