Mario’s Stuff

Shadows & Light

My new solo album Shadows & Light is going well, some of the songs are now very close to completion and soundclips will be added to the main website nearer to the release date. The track listing will be announced on the main site’s News & Events page soon.

Fishman’s Aura Imaging

My main nylon string guitar (made of Koa wood) was sent off to Fishman’s Headquarters in Massachussetts last week, they’re installing their amazing Infinity Matrix undersaddle pickup into it, and also creating brand new custom Aura images from the guitar itself in their studio, they’re then installing the radical Fishman Aura Imaging Pre-Amp into the guitar with the custom auras programmed into it. The Aura technology is simply superb, and I can’t wait for the guitar to get back to MidnightCafe Studios so I can play around with it! I’ll be using this guitar for my upcoming acoustic guitar instrumental album, Distant Dreams.

Fishman’s Chris De Maria is going to photograph the guitar in it’s various stages of completion, so check back soon as I’ll show the pics here in the blog!

New Old Haircut

I was looking back at some photos of me from a few weeks ago and I decided that I didn’t like my long hair anymore, I thought it looked dated on me. I had very long hair during the 80’s and early 90’s when long hair was ‘in’ within the rock/metal scene, and couldn’t wait to cut it as I never really liked it as it was a pain to maintain, so I had it cut back to the way I’ve had it for the last few years, shorter and kind of spiky on the top.

Me, June 9th 2009 with one of my guitars and new old hairstyle!

Route 66

We drove into Nipton, CA last week via Route 66, the weather was warm and Skye enjoyed walking around the Hotel Nipton. Our walk was cut a little short as there were quite a few tarantula hawk wasps and yellow jacket wasps in the hotel’s cactus garden.

Me & Skye at the Hotel Nipton, CA.

The road surface at Route 66 near Nipton was badly affected by flash floods a couple of years ago, the tarmac became badly cracked and was recently filled in. I think they’ll resurface the entire road soon, it’s a shame as the old road looked very cool and had a vintage vibe about it. There are some photos of Route 66 from a few years ago in the main gallery.

After visiting Nipton, we did our usual drive down the Joshua Tree Highway in the Mojave National Reserve to Cottonwood Cove, NV and Lake Mohave. We stopped by my favourite joshua trees for a photo with Skye, but the sound of a large adult rattlesnake’s warning was a little too close for comfort so we quickly moved on!

Me & Skye at Cottonwood Cove, NV.

Palm at Cottonwood Cove, NV.

Lake Mead National Recreation Area

We drove out to Echo Bay a couple of days ago, the sky was stormy and brooding across the Lake Mead National Recreation Area. Shawna and I took a few photos en-route of the lake area, Lake Mead is one of our favourite places and very close to where we live.

Stormy sky over Lake Mead National Recreation Area, NV.

Dark shadows by Redstone, Lake Mead.

Rocks at Redstone lit by the sun through the dark clouds.

Rock formation, Lake Mead.

More shadows and light over the desert.

Virga in the sky as the rain evaporates in the desert heat before it hits the ground.

Cell phone photo of palm trees at Echo Bay at twilight.

Another cell phone pic as we drove away from Echo Bay and into the night…

FedEx Nigeria!

Shawna had another funny spam email from Nigeria, this time the Nigerians were claiming to be from ‘FedEx Nigeria’ (!?) and claimed they had a package waiting for us in Nigeria that contained a bank draft to the value of $800,000.00! :-D They wanted $305 as a ‘holding fee’ then they’d send the bogus package…

The email’s subject line read:  Subject: YOU HAVE A PACKAGE WITH FEDEX COURIER NIGERIA !!! We immediately started laughing… :-D Not quite as funny as the email we had from ‘Dr. Fred Mike’ in Nigeria (see the earlier blog entry), but still pretty ludicrous and amusing :-)

These people are complete fuckwits aren’t they? They didn’t even try to hide the fact that they’re notorious Nigerian conmen - FedEx Nigeria???!!!!! Hilarious! I really hope people out there don’t fall for this nonsense. It beggars belief really, but always gives us a good laugh when a particularly funny email gets through :-)