Deadsplinter Up! All Night: Mothers

10/5/20 Elliecoo 32

Happy Mother’s Day, to each of you. Mothers can help you to soar through life, or send you plummeting into years of therapy. So today, feel free to post songs about mothers, by mothers, or lean toward the motherfu*ker end of the spectrum. Here’s a little Nick Mulvey in honor of Mother’s everywhere:

“Softly, in the evening dusk, a woman is singing to me;
She takes me back down the vista of my years, until I see
I see a child underneath the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
Pressing the poised feet of his mother who smiles at him as she sings.”

Followed by the Mothers of Invention:

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About Elliecoo 582 Articles
Four dogs, one partner. The dogs win.

32 Comments

    • Oooh, Meg, your Merle & “Mama Tried” reminded me of Waylon & Willie😉;

      And Happy Mother’s Day, to all of y’all who are Mommas!😉😁💖

  15. Unrelated to the topic question,buuuuut since I just adopted a guitar off of a trash heap,** and I know a bunch of y’all play guitar,
    Aside from getting a case for it, and attempting to learn to play it, what needs to be done, to properly care for an older acoustic guitar?

    It seems to be in pretty decent shape, aside from the lack of a case–thesound is GOOD; there are no visible cracks; nothing feels loose; there are only a few, small, seemingly cosmetic, chips/dents/dings.

    Is there anything I should/shouldn’t use to clean the dust off of it (the fingerboard, frets, and the front of the headstock? She’s pretty dusty, and I don’t want to mess anything up (already gave it a quick swipe with an off-brand clorox wipe,because Corona😉, but I didn’t want to do too much, ‘cuz I didn’t want to hurt anything)

    She’s a nice little guitar, and is REALLY comfortable to hold, I know nothing about stringed instruments, but going off the mother-of-pearl “Stetson” in the headstock, and the pretty little details in the metalwork on the back of it, I’d be pretty shocked if it was less than 25-30 years old (‘cuz I don’t remember pretty little details like that on lower-end guitars back when I was in HS/college the first time around😉)

    Link to pics, if anyone wants to see what she looks like (or the remaining dust! Please pardon the dog fur😉):

    https://photos.app.goo.gl/u2GPmtXXDYaqawWD8

    **it was literally leaning next to a large pile of junked furniture outside a nearby apartment building! Saw it while I was walking Lily, and took it home (there WAS someone outside the building, he confirmed that the pile was junk & said “Go ahead!” When I asked about the guitar), since the sound was good, it looks like it’s gonna rain here, *and* it was without a case–so the rain would wreck what’s a pretty looking & sounding little old-ish guitar…

    • I can absolutely relate. A little over a year ago, I was taking the garbage out, about 9:30pm, and when I opened the dumpster I could see the headstock of a Martin guitar sticking out. I couldn’t see much, but I grabbed it and took it inside. It was a Martin DC15me and had a big old crack along the side. I’d always wanted a Martin, so my wife and I looked up YouTube videos on how to repair this type of crack. I found a local retired luthier who lent us a tool, a jig and a couple of clamps and we bought some glue and off we went. The repair was cosmetically a disaster, but the guitar sounds heavenly and it practically plays itself. I have a little arthritis in my left hand, so I started learning open tuning slack key on it. I’m so glad I was able to rescue this lovely instrument from ending up in a landfill. Here’s a photo.

      https://photos.app.goo.gl/fEQkDPN6dW7akhjL6

        • Hannibal, I like to think some young woman in the neighborhood threw out her cheating boyfriend, burned all his clothes, knocked him on the head with the guitar (causing the crack) and then threw it in the garbage. Her painful memory and bad taste in men is my great fortune. Someday, I’ll post a video of me playing Li Loa’s Mele or Molehu or some other slack key tune on that guitar. We actually did ask a luthier about it and he said he wouldn’t fix it because it would never look right and he’d have to charge me too much, but he gave me some repair advice and said I could make a great daily-player from it if I took the time and showed it some love.

    • If you want you could go to the guitar store and buy some spray cleaner for it, but to be honest I probably wouldn’t hesitate to use something like the vinegar version of Windex. I wouldn’t spray it directly on the guitar, just spray the cloth and wipe, even it it takes several tries to get the grime off. Looks like the neck is pretty straight. If the strings seem too high off the fretboard you can take it in and ask for a “setup.” Tell them the action is too high and they’ll grind the bridge down. It will include a new set of strings. Should cost you around $50. If it plays okay, just throw a new set of strings on it.

      • Thanks, Lemmy!
        Since everything’s still closed around here, I’ll probably just use your windexy-stuff tip😉

        As for the strings, they seem about the right height for now, and thanks lots for the info!😁💖

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