Mellotronists

I have been told by many that this email didn't arrive so here goes again  
and apologies to those who already received it...............
 
Hello,
 
We have been asked on several occasions why our frames are more expensive  
than some.  After all, it's just a frame that houses tapes for a  mellotron.  
Well, it's the way we build them sadly.  They are  engineered to death and are 
as strong as an ox.  We could engineer out some  features and make them cheaper 
but having John B around prevents this!  So  what makes us that litle bit 
more pricey?  Here are some pics.....
 
  
 
The turnbuckles are precision aluminium and they will soon undergo a  further 
upgrade.
 


 
High tensile bolts are used throughout as are very sturdy brass pins  and 
support brackets.
 
 

The frame is jig assembled for absolute accuracy by our Mr Soukal ( who  also 
makes them)
 
 

 
These frames are virtually indestructable, fully assembled and anyone who  
has tried one comes back for another.
 
All this means that they are refreshingly that bit dearer!**  No  apologies.
 
Best,
 
M + JB
ps - **so are our tapes but we hunted down EMI and the results speak for  
themselves
Streetly Electronics - All Things  Mellotronic
_www.mellotronics.co.uk_ (http://www.mellotronics.co.uk/) 
_www.mellotronics.com_ (http://www.mellotronics.com/) 
US Sales  East: Jimmy Moore _JMoore6397@..._ (http://JMoore6397@.../) 
US Sales West:  Paul Cox _pjc56@..._ (http://pjc56@.../)

I can attest to the fact that the turnbuckles are indeed made of metal. And  
the frames are very fine indeed.
 
Frank



************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.

Hi folks,
impetuous fool that I am, I'm going to come to the defence of JA, cos 
I'm an unreconstructed Yes fan and I DON'T CARE!

(Springsteen? overblown, distorted rubbish for me)

Any fule kno that JZA writes in a stream of consciousness style. This 
is not pretention for the sake of it. Any classical music fan who's 
ever listened to William Walton's Facade (with lyrics by Osbert 
Sitwell) will see a similarity in the approach.
And 'Mountains come out of the sky and they stand there' isn't 
cobblers -JA explains in Chris Welch's peerless biog of the band that 
the line came from seeing the scottish mountains while on tour. 
Swathed in mist around the edges, to him it looked as though they 
weren't attached to the ground. Anyone who has ever seen a misty 
morning in the mountains will have seen this phenomenon.
So it's not cobblers -just a natty one liner based on personal experience.

I'm not saying that all JA's lyrics are immediately accessible, and 
JA himself has admitted that some lyrics are assembled because he 
likes the sound of the words in phonetic effect rather than meaning, 
just as you might put 'wrong' notes or chords in a piece of music.
When Frank Zappa first heard Varese's 'Ionisation' he didn't know 
words like atonal or polytonality -what he DID think was 'I like 
these chords, THESE CHORDS ARE MEAN!'

So occasionally JA falls on his arse creatively -welcome to humanity. 
We all do it, and at his worst he's no worse than any other 'rock 
hero' And it's better than 'ooh baby, get on down, lick my *** and 
*** my ***, I'm a hard lovin man all night long' or 'Paaaaarty!" or 
'Yo, bitch, I'm da mean, I got da rap fo you (until someone shoots me 
that is)'

And I positive LURVE the lyrics on 'Magnification'. Yes Symphonic is 
my all time fave DVD. Now there's musical profundity for you!

And you can now get your ammo out and start shooting me to bits.


Dave.

>
>    FWIW, my two penn'orth is that JA sometimes wrote lyrics that 
>sounded wonderful while having no real meaning (although South Side 
>Of The Sky is apparently about the loss of a polar expedition), but 
>more often wrote lyrics that, while also having no meaning, were 
>thoroughly banal. He then shifted across to drippy love songs, also 
>banal. Stick with the holy trinity of The Yes Album/Fragile/Close To 
>The Edge.  :-)
>
>    Andy T.
>