Boardwalk Bar part 17

 Taking my car to the shop again yesterday got the warning light off.  There may be a problem down the road, but that's a problem for another day.  Meanwhile, it runs just fine, it didn't cost me anything, and the warning light is off.  So that meant put a little gas in it and get up to the Studio this morning.

My memories of bar taps weren't too far away from reality, at least when I looked online for some images.  I sketched what I found of the taps themselves on scrap paper, and figured I'd make up the rest when I got there.  And that's what I did.  I erased everything I had drawn the last time I was up there, and redrew in my new bar tap station, partly from my internet sketches, and partly just made up out of my head.  I then cut it out, using my small gouge.  That seemed fine, so I cut out everything else that remained in that part of the scene- the space behind the bar (including bottles) and one last head and figure.  And that was pretty much all I had left.  Results of this area can be seen in the detail shown below:

I then went back over the whole thing.  I found a few more details to cut, but not many.  I spent some time looking at the whole thing.  In general I like what I see.  Seems a good mix of black and white, an effective composition that way (both as individual panels and the whole diptych), so it should work even better when I add the color.  Next time I will ink it up, and if I like how it looks, pull a proof.  If I like that proof, pull another one.  Current state of the fully cut block can be seen below:

For music today I had planned two more discs from my storage box, but I couldn't get the first one to play.  After the first song it tended to have problems, and eventually stopped completely.  Then I remembered that sometimes this particular disc player has a hard time with home burned discs, but seems to work again on those after playing an official label produced disc. So today I did that, popping in one of Molly's discs, the original version of 1977's My Aim is True from Elvis Costello, which I wrote about back on September of 2024 if you want to know more about it.  After that I put in the home burned disc that wouldn't play before and it was fine and played all the way through.  Coincidence?  No idea, but it worked.  The second disc I played was the 2001 album Summer Of A Thousand Years by the Grip Weeds.   I don't know much about them, except that they came from here in New Jersey, and I have occasionally heard songs by them on the local radio station.  As far as this album goes, my initial reaction was that it reminded me a lot of the Shazam, which is not surprising, as both bands have a lot of the same influences.  (so does Elvis Costello for that matter)  Since I am also a fan of the Shazam, it's not surprising that I enjoyed the album, though only a few songs had the kind of hooks that make me want to listen to it a lot.  It's acceptable background music, but I won't be in a hurry to grab it again.  Never got to play the other disc I had brought with me.  Maybe next time.