Mellotronists

MGM must have had a Massachusetts connection I guess--Beacon Street 
Union...then Ultimate Spinach and Every Mothers Son along with all 
the Animals LPs...I have an Orpheus on Bell...besides Rumplestiltskin 
and Hardin & York, Bell sure cranked out a lotta crap (Dawn, 
Partridge Family, Edison Lighthouse). 

Hey, check out this intersting article on Brion from the Chicago 
Tribune yesterday...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/chi-
0302120057feb12,0,5707300.story?coll=chi-leasuretempo-hed

Interesting a guy who collects old keyboards who didn't really go 
nuts with them on his recorded works like maybe you and I would if we 
had them all...

Brion sounds a bit like Milwaukee's Sigmund Snopek III (occ member of the 
Violent Femmes), whose regular club gigs I used to catch regularly. Sig 
would also use old brass trumpets, a toy piano, those swooshing sticks (I 
don't know what they're called) and various other "toy" or "junk" 
instruments, along with a batch of Roland SH-101s each with its own 
sequence, and a bunch of other vintage keys. In the 80s he used a Commodore 
64 to sequence his backing parts, and legend has it he bought a couple 
dozen of them when they were about to disappear so he could just keep using 
them as long as he could. Eventually he graduated to an old Mac.

He's a pretty good composer/arranger/performer, though he can be an 
acquired taste.

Snopek is a Mellotron owner. His tron was rented to Anglagard in their one 
gig here in Milwaukee in the late 90s.

Anyway, the piece on Brion reminded me of Sig -- they sound as though they 
could be alter egos! Cool story, thanks!

Bill


>Hey, check out this intersting article on Brion from the Chicago
>Tribune yesterday...
>
>http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/chi-
>0302120057feb12,0,5707300.story?coll=chi-leasuretempo-hed

________________
William D. Gagliani
http://www.authorsden.com/williamdgagliani
http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/members/WilliamGagliani
  Author of WOLF'S TRAP, a novel coming in 2003 from Yard Dog Press!
  And SHADOWPLAYS (available from http://www.ebooksonthe.net).