“But Noooo”

08 – Cistern Blues 7:39

”But noooo” was a sample for the Ensoniq Mirage digital sampling keyboard. There was a pro keyboard store in Rancho Bernardo run by Scott, who went on to work at Mackie. Anyhow, in those days, I would always take a box of blank floppies to music stores, as they would often have new/homemade/free samples for the Mirage or later for my Ensoniq EPS sampler/ workstation, or sounds for my other keyboards.
The Mirage was the first sampling keyboard on the market with an affordable price.

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Cistern’s But No 0:36
 
It was a 12 bit monophonic machine. I think the display screen onboard showed only two or three characters, and I had to learn to use and convert its proprietary hexadecimal system to write, read, or interpret displayed information. Samples were stored or loaded from 3 1/2″ 1.44 MB floppy discs. You could load one sound to the upper keyboard and one to the lower;  most floppies stored 3 upper and 3 lower sounds,  including the 20 or so(?) factory sounddiscs available for purchase,  I think for like $15 or $20 bucks each. These covered most basic library catagories (acoustic and electric piano, electric bass/ acoustic bass,  horn section, trumpet, orchestral brass, electric guitar, strings, organ, drums/ drum kits/ percussion, etc).  I also picked up the ultra high end Kmuse library package for an additional $1000 bucks.  It included four or five series, ten discs per series. The series were named New York, L.A., etc. They were very professional cutting edge designer sounds that maximised the quality and apparent number of sounds available on board at any given time.  MUG (Mirage Users Group) was the first support community I heard of.  It was active for many years,  maybe is still.  Members could swap samples, share tips and news, etc.

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Cistern’s Wonderlone 0:40I had the optional one-track realtime sequencer cartridge, which allowed you to realtime MIDI record a few dozen notes onboard. Wherever you stopped recording was the point those notes would loop to the beginning when played back. You could not edit or save that stuff, but it allowed for getting a continuous bed of music or sound playing, while you could play another keyboard live on top.
 
When Ensoniq released the new ESQ-1 six part multi-timbral workstation, I jumped on it. Six independent MIDI recordable/editable tracks, which could be assigned to play ESQ’s onboard sounds,  external MIDI instruments (such as my Mirage or Oberheim Matrix 6),  or combinations of both. I would also control an external drum machine (Roland TR8 or  Drumulator) as a tempo slave via MIDI clock, so the tempos and bar/beat locations of all connected MIDI devices would be in sync.  Of course the actual drum pattern sequencing and chaining took place onboard the drum machine itself.  MIDI resolution was 96 ppqn (parts per quarter note).  The ESQ1 had no onboard storage facility, but when teamed with the Mirage sampler (with onboard floppy drive), you could hook them up via MIDI and store or retrieve ESQ sequencing data on Mirage floppies.  The ESQ display screen was a great advance. Patch names could now contain up to SIX characters!
WOW!!!…Denver Clay

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Cistern’s Meeting 0:39Cistern Blues is in three parts. It begins with a Simple Band bed, But No, featuring Denver Clay on keyboards, bassist Sam Lopez and drums and percussion by Animal Johnson and Anders. This was recorded in 1990 at Channel 38 in Del Mar, CA as was the ending section, Meeting. The Middle section is from Denver’s Wonderlone. The Simple Band beds also had overdub sessions with Denver, Anders and Animal a year later and another session with Denver and Anders in 2007. Cistern Blues also features a hard rain on a patio roof, a crowd of thousands of geese in a Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge farm field, Palo Verdes shoreline, owls and cows on a Tulelake farm and sounds from a Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge marsh in the spring.

Cistern Blues is a topical title reflecting Southern California’s growing water demands. Here, the human population was able to explode in an arid region because of water imported from distant Sacramento and Colorado rivers. Before the newly constructed canals began delivering water it was common for Southern California homes to have cisterns collecting rain water. This is an concept that needs to return in any new construction. Reading Denver’s notes above brings to mind how quickly technology evolves and human nature plods on. ‘Tis the season for reality checks… Anders Tomlinson

Lava Songs:
Piano with a View
Nourish … Just surrender to the virtuosic universe, and immerse…
Pianomomento … Floating on a delicate bed of distant murmuring humans and birds…
Wishy-WashyFarmer In The Dell reinterpreted on the Yamaha baby grand…
Fantasee … This is one of Denver’s all-time favorites from his library…
Angerlee Wangsdt … Music is excerpt from song Wonderlone created in 1989…
Under-OutLava Songs’ epilogue begins with The Perfection of Simplicity…
Simplexity
Over-Into … The world we live in is filled with musical sound / soundful music…
Fangalina Riffa … Blended syncopation and layered with rhythmic percussion section contributors, man and nature…
Cistern Blues … Straight ahead mainstream chaos with a heart…
Triology … Mother Nature is one creative diva in this surrealistic sound-scape…
Davey Crocket’s Dream … The universe is always ready to play with you, you just need to be loose and playful and open to all outcomes…
Atmosonics
Floatus … You may feel swallowed up by the primeval enormity of this track…
Float-Me … The “Rumble of Youthful Enthusiasm” envelopes and sustains…
Floatees … This is an exquisite sparkling living breathing sound-scape space…
Lakecide … Beautiful and gentle, yet it sweeps us up and propels us along powerfully on this journey like a small raft floating down a mighty river on its journey to the sea…
Amournacana … Tone poem of an anonymous loner serving out life’s remaining days somewhere on the frontier of earlier Americana…

©2012 Anders Tomlinson and Denver Clay, all rights reserved.