Wiardgroup

I've been going through some heavy personal changes in my life, and my
internet time is a lot lower than it was.  Over the last 15 months I
lost both parents, one of my in-laws and an old and dear friend.  All
suddenly, and my father was actually killed by a motorist.  The main
knock-on effect of this is that I had to close my bike shop three
weeks ago.  It's been pretty tough, at times almost as much as a man
can bear, actually.

I have had to take on a day-job, as an electrical safety inspector -
good, worthwhile work w/a decent rate of pay compared to what I paid
myself for selling and fixing pedal cycles, but if I could, I'd trade
back in a minute.  The hours are long and it's not a lot of fun.  The
shop was MY space, my den.

Our plan is to sell the shop property, which has been left split
between myself and my sister, sell my house and try to get into a
slightly bigger place with no mortgage.  After that, I mean to work
part-time for the rest of my life.  I don't need or want a lot of
money and fuck "killing yourself to live", as Ozzy says on "Sabbath
Bloody Sabbath", (an awesome album.)  I may wind up with a music room
with straight walls, not a little attic, like I have now.

In these terrible times, spending some time just messing around with a
modular instrument like the Wiard is good mental therapy.  If I can
shake off the negative nostalgia feelings and get into sound sculpting
or patching up an interesting self-generating sequencer setup it takes
my mind off it all for a while.  I've been thinking a bit about
busting my music setup down to just the Wiard, the Chroma and a
sampler, actually.  One of the main reasons I want to go part-time is
to spend more time goofing off with synthesizers and electric guitars.
 From fun (goofing off) comes creativity, I've always found.

Grant, please be careful w/r/t what you do here!  I used to complain
about my business, the long hours, low (sometimes no) pay, feelings of
under-appreciation from my customer base, but in the end, letting go
of it was pure pain.  I would hate for you to feel that.  In addition,
on a purely selfish note, I am looking forward to whatever new pieces
you may decide to release, seeing as how I've enjoyed playing with the
stuff I have that you've designed.

Given the interesting group of people on this list, I guess it would
be cool to see some general discussion about arts, music, culture and
whatnot.  I'd probably still be useless, seeing as my main cultural
interest these days is American silent and pre-code films, Norma
Talmadge, Pola Negri, Corinne Griffith et al, very esoteric, but
still, I'm sure ppl would come up with something interesting.

As an aside, I was trawling through the saved archive of my old Demon
internet account, and I saw that the first contact I had with Grant
and Darwin was in 1999!  Amazing how it passes.  Modular market seems
a little decadent to me ATM for various reasons, it certainly was
easier back then.

Anyway, enough from me for now. Sorry it's a bit disjointed.

On Sat, Dec 13, 2008 at 11:20 PM, amnesia <amni56@tpg.com.au> wrote:
> Hi Grant
>
> I am not sure what you mean there has been heaps of action here over the
> last few days...
>
> I have yet to buy a Wiard as I have been busy in Buchla and Serge
> territory...but a buddy of mine Matt in Tasmania has a Wiard on order
> and I was hoping it wasnt going to get me so excited I would order a
> system myself.......
>
> Dont end it we all love you
>
> Ross
>
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