Fun At Crawldaddy's Place

Hmm.

Alvin came over to my place on friday for an hour or two, which, considering his homework-packed schedule, is a miracle. Apparently, the cheery on top of the cake resulting to the visit to my place is the ability for him to see (and touch, and play, and fiddle about with) my mandolin. Built in Korea, bought in the USA (kudos to Mother dearest), with the same brand as Alvin's banjo (Fender, probably the only instrument of that brand I will ever own).

So he came to my place. Along the way, we resumed (or rather exhumed) the age-old habit of boys who tend to pretend that anything smaller than the palm of our hands is suitable enough to be a mek-shift football. Alvin, being the more avid footballer amongst the two of us (I haven't touched a soccer ball actively since I was 15) started kicking some plastic drink cup cover. We proceeded to alternate the kicks between the both of us until we lost it. Another apportunity arrived when Alvin discovered a small stone. He was absolutely disappointed when he failed to hit my thrash bin when he 'fired' the stone at it.

Arriving home, I let him open the mandolin case and he said 'WOW....'. He was quite amazed. He then proceeded to improvise chords on themandolin, and we managed to turn a A-Bm-A-D chord sequence into a small gospel song which I do believe (as a result of improvisation between the both of us) went on for about six minutes and included a small solo each.

It was absolutely amazing considering we had never done any previous practise and it was Alvin's first time on a Mando. I also winged (made up) a solo which I do believe was the by-product of my endless noodling on my electric trying to figure out various blues scales. Alvin, with his already age-practised experience on the Banjo which utilises open-G tunings was able to come up with something interestign as well. We just went on never knowing when we'd end. What a beautiful moment. It was exactly the same with 'Countryboy Breakaway' (where we just recorded our 'performance' without knowing what we were doing). We also attempted a gliched 'Survivor' theme song.

He left some time after 7pm. Apparently, my folks who were out, reached home just five minutes after he left. I messaged him later that evening:

Msg: '(dramatic music) which team will have to face tribla council tonight?' 'Survivor' was on that evening.

Reply: 'I managed to dodge your parents so I've got immunity ;D'

'Msg: 'Wow, how'd you do it?'

Reply: 'I hid behind a tree'

Msg: 'Wow! I didn't realise you were so thin!'

It's true, I was surprised considering the majority of trees along the roads near my place were small green plams.

Reply: '...'

Arkarkarkark....

Cheers,

Crawldaddy