The Astral Plane of Musicians
Help Me From the Sea to the Beach to the Land
Mark Rushton’s Abundant Spare Time is a weekly email on Substack where I talk about my ongoing work as a recording artist and visual artist. This is my 161st weekly email.
This week’s topics:
Jon Called Just for a Minute
Berdo & Jones
The Bureaucrat
Beta Band - “Assessment”
Jon Called Just for a Minute
Jon called Tuesday night. Just for a minute. 100 minutes later, we said goodbye.
We talked about my Omniessence vinyl and the electric tashiokoto, which recently arrived. I tuned the new instrument while he was on the phone.
Jon’s interested in a Guqin (goo-cheen), a 7 stringed zither, but we couldn’t find any with line-outs.
It wasn’t exactly like the sweet exchange between Geddy and Alex on Monday. We’re not going back on tour. But it was on the same astral plane.
A lot of people Jon has played with have died. What do you want to do with the rest of your life? Better steer your boat for a reason.
Berdo and Jones
Last Sunday, I saw a former 90s work colleague, Shane, at the 2025 Blues Challenge in Des Moines. His duo, Berdo & Jones, was the first act, got 2nd place, and had, as Shane said, “almost no rehearsal” on the four original songs he recently wrote. They were quite good and I recorded it.
Shane got me back into music on the night of Y2k by showing me some music creation apps on Windows he downloaded from the internet - back when corporations allowed that sort of thing. We had to work all night on December 31, 1999. Of course, nothing crashed, but a method of making music in a new way formed in my head.
The Bureaucrat
I don’t know what it is about musical composers. Why do we continue to do this? Same with any other artistic things: painting, writing, etc. It’s not about earning money. If you go into the artistic world with dreams of monetary riches, you might as well forget about it.
There’s so many hurdles. I suppose I could talk about all the rotten things I’ve encountered over the years. But what’s the point? I just want to make things and hang out. And I get to do that, to an extent.
Beta Band - “Assessment”
I only recently learned that the Beta Band got back together after breaking up about 20 years ago. Their tour started in late September. They’ll be in North America for some dates, but the shows are too far away.
The Beta Band originally arrived at the worst time, the very late 90s to early 2000s. Some good songs, but not really any hits.
“Assessment” is a great song. The video is clever.