Garage Art is the name of my underground studio, ugly, cold, dirty and open to the street, it’s also where I do my gardening prep. I can’t clean, paint or plant without music. After my battered old boom box died Uncle Raymond gave me some early Xmas cash for a new blaster. I wanted to play cassettes, CD’s, MP3 flash port and also Bluetooth. But they sounded like crap, so I built my own garage sound system.
Foraging for parts I located my vintage ‘90s Panasonic tape recorder, the one Princess Diana uses in season 5 of the Crown. I’ve had mine since the age of print journalism, used it to record my interviews with folks like Mister Rogers, Beyonce, Pat Benatar, Eric Bogosian, Stephan Malkmus, Marianne Faithfull, Howard Stern, my musician family and the hardcore, punk, thrash and metal bands I adore. I also had a stately SONY Walkman CD abandoned to storage as the technology evolved. Since then, my Android has carried on with a lighter, sweeter load.
Setting up I invoked the spirits of my engineering ancestors, Grandpa Willie and Uncle Steve. Matrilineal geek DNA and a strong natal Saturn and Moon in Virgo gave me an edge. In defiance of planned obsolesce I’m surrounded by ancient artifacts---rebuilt computers, Microsoft and Apple mice, keyboards, speakers and lots of wires. Hoarding it all because “Hey, ya never know.”
Sadly, my sturdy components preceeded Bluetooth and my crusty iHome speaker didn’t have an AUX in. I live on a Barrier Island, it gets damp down below so I opted for that Ecoxgear 20 watt waterproof speaker on sale at Costco. Scored two cute AUX cables (in purple and teal) and a new power surge protector so I can flip the electricity off at will. Cleaned the CD lens, swabbed the cassette tape heads, hardwired everything and let it rip.
First on rotation, Pyrexia’s Liturgy of Impurity with a sound quality clear enough to hear the pure wizardry of those masters of death metal played on the same tape recorder I used to interview the original band members for a series of Voice articles on the genre. Then, I hit the CD’s: Flipper, Dolls, Ramones, Mozart, and my best Palestrina and Monteverdi burns. It works if you work it.
Dance Party Dream 2023: By Spring the kids next door--ages 6 and 4--will be slamming to these sounds of liberty while painting shells and planting pumpkin seeds.
Donna Gaines, 11/2023
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