[1] Kihei Maui
About “Summer of ’77 Keepables” –
“Summer of ’77 Keepables” is a collection of home recordings of some of my original songs, plus one of my favorite Pink Floyd songs. At that time, I transferred the original reel-to-reel recordings onto a cassette tape. Only just a few years ago did I then I make a digital copy from those old cassette tape recordings. In other words, this collection I am now sharing is a collection of poor recordings of some less-than-stellar songs. (But I like them just the same.) Let’s face it, I’m sharing these songs for the sake of posterity.
Well before 1977, at least as early as 1972, I had already begun to amass a collection of my original songs. No, they weren’t very good, but they were my own originals, and that’s all I cared about.
I’ve always had 4 things going against me: (1) as a guitarist, I’ve never been good enough to even play many of my own songs, (2) I’ve never been able to sing even if somebody held a gun to my head, (3) my melodies stink, and (4) my lyrics positively suck. Other than that, I like my songs just fine.
From 1975-1976 I lived in Kihei on the island of Maui. It was there that several of my songs began to take shape, such as “The Pyramid,” and I had big dreams of someday recording an album (remember, “records” in those days were still being made on vinyl, and there was no such thing as digital recording or the internet). So, for years, my sole reason for having a “day job” was so I could afford to pay for whatever recording expenses there were.
It was while I was on Maui that I bought a reel-to-reel tape recorder. I thought it was great. The brand was called Docorder, and it had 2 cool features: you could record what it called “sound-on-sound” (something like multi-track, but not exactly) and you could add echo.
In 1976 I returned to southern California. The Docorder had enable me to create multiple parts for my songs – rhythm guitars, leads, harmonies and bass.
So by the summer of 1977, I finally had constructed some of my songs to the point that I felt would get the idea across whenever I got the chance to have them professionally recorded. In other words, the recordings, though not very good, were at least “keepable.”
About Kihei, Maui -
1. Kihei, Maui – I later remade this song and put it on my YouTube playlist called “Captured: The Performance for Posterity.” This version was made much earlier and is more rudimentary. I suppose it serves to show how I keep doing my songs the same way now as I did when I first made them up.
It was probable that I had made up the guitar chords for this song while I was on Maui, though I might have done that even earlier. Like most of my songs, I didn’t have a title or anything in particular in mind when I made it up. But it had a carefree kind of sound about it – much like Maui does – so I decide to dedicate the song to Kihei, Maui.
Raw Food Diet Documentary - part 1 of 2
Raw For Life: The Ultimate Encyclopedia of the Raw Food Lifestyle
Director: Kathy Close
Writers: Kathy Close, Chris Toussaint (co-writer)
Topics Include:
Starting out of a raw food diet
Weight reduction
Detox and cleansing
Nutrition
Rejuvenation and longevity
Recipes
Health and wellness
Wisdom of eating raw
Optimal athletic performance
Spiritual aspects
Beating diabetes
Celebrity & Expert Interview Include: