A new addition to the Dr. Chadbourne series on Leo Records.
Many people have been asking for no frills, improvised solo guitar stuff; and this is Dr. Chadbourne's answer to these requests.
Nobody can play the dobro steel guitar like Dr. Eugene Chadbourne.
The dobro doctor offers three solo improvisations (over 64 minutes) set against a background of intrigue and insanity in post-Caecescu Romania.
The total time is 64'36
Piramida Ca Puesti is a series of three solos played on a dobro steel
guitar. There is no overdubbing or electronics of any kind utilized to
create these sounds.
1. It Was Impossible to Take in a Vista Without Noticing
a Pile of Garbage Somewhere in the field of Vision (35:47)
Later I would take a snapshot of a friend, and he would glance down at a
collection of trash nearby. "Ah! Authentic Romanian photograph. It has
garbage in it."
When I asked about getting rid of their garbage, I was told "is
problem...proper garbage system is price of one half total Romanian
economy."
At one station a car pulled up alongside ours, piled high with animal
bones. Skulls, rib cages, legs, thighs, gristle, all rising in a mound above
the top of the car. "Is for...past..." Gabriel said. I though he meant
these had been animals in the past, but then I realised he was saying this
car was on its way to a white paste factory.
2. My Dobro Had Been Modified to Spurt Holy Water (7:05)
Now I had Romanian money. I could do anything. I was so thirsty I thought
I'd like a soda pop. As I stood in line I felt like one bottle of Pepsi
wouldn't be enough, I decided to get two. Meanwhile a fellow with an
accordian noticed me and started shouting from a little distance away, where
he was standing with several women and an older man, suitcases stacked
around them.
"Hey, hello! Oh, Susanna! Please, some music for us! Give us your music!"
He was weaving over to me while yelling. He looked at my dual Pepsiis. "Two?
You are drinking two? And what about for us?"
I played it cool and handed him the other bottle as if that had been the
plan all along.
In hindsight I realized buying someone a Pepsi in Romania was the
equivalent of Elvis Presley handing out free cars.
3. This is Made to Frighten Children (21:57)
Gabriel used Romanian toys in order to prove his paranoid theories to me.
He held up a small blue rubber dog. "In your life, when have you seen a blue
dog?"
"Actually Huckleberry Hound is blue," I enlightened him.
"This Huckle of Hound is also a monster."
I found a set of large cardboard blocks, children's stories illustrated
on the sides. Gabriel did everything he could to nix the sale, although he
admitted the price of 50 cents was decent. "As a child, these blocks
frightened me completely and I could not sleep in the room the same as
them."
He showed me a picture of a wolf devouring several children. "What kind
of parent can allow the child to look at such a thing?"
"All fairy tales are frightening," I told him. "Besides, my children
watch monsters, Nightmare on Elm Street, The Evil Dead, Bride of
Frankenstein, The Haunted Castle of Badamino..."
"That is one thing," Gabriel argued. "These blocks are another."
