Musically, they have their preferences.  I have no idea what their hearing range is, but they do seem to enjoy bass heavy music.  I suppose that's a virtual petting, when the fur is being moved.  And they seem enjoy prog or I suppose they enjoy evem Mouth and MacNeil if they are sitting on the lap and that's what's playing.  Lulu is enjoying Bloody Well Right even now.  Max prefers Formentera Lady.

 

They are more or less lovable idiots:  Max, Fritz, Lulu, Shadow aka The Shadman.  No I'm not an old lady who collects cats, but my wife is getting there, and she ain't around tonight and I have the music cranking

 

 

 

 

 

Then, I don't aloud any other living creature to play with my instruments... so, no pet interactions with my stuff...

BTW, my cousin's 17 year old cat or something pissed on his amp with that carpet cover, the smell just won't leave even after using thousands of chemichal stuff.

 

This is Brother Blackie at The Iron Butterfly Ballroom & Worship Center.

 

 

The design is based on, or coppied from, the power core of a deep space vessel called the Event Horrizon.

The name of a sci-fi horror movie.

 

I had to put our old pal Max down in January, after 19 years.  I suppose he's in a better place now, though the Earth treated him pretty well.  He was a good cat, albeit with an annoying tendency to puke frequently (birds will do that to the GI tract).  Whatever, we tend to put up with rude behavior in this house, clean it up, and move on.

 

Max was also the most intelligent animal I've ever known (and we've had many), just wicked smart.  He was being annoying one day.  I sez, "Max, leave me alone and go find a mouse" and tossed him outside.  Five minutes later he's at the door, with a mouse.  This happened frequently.

 

Many a bird (like one a day) met its end with Max.  He got a taste of the other side of that a couple of years ago, when he was in the jaws of a coyote until my wife got involved and said coyote decided to just go ahead and leave, minus Max.  That was probably his ninth life, what with the punture wounds.  I oughtta post a photo; he was quite professorial in his demeanor and was a good and dear friend, until the very end.  My son and I took him to the vet that last day, about a month ago.  She (the vet) knew him well, and asked if the gloves and towels and sedatives would be necessary, it being Max.  I said, no, I don't think he's got any fight left in him, and he did not.  We sent him on his way.

 

Some of our cats, at the end, I have whispered to them.  "You are going to a place where you will catch birds every day and when you are done you will bask in the sun."  (I don't know what bird owners say, probably the opposite.)  With Max, I could not offer much in terms of the afterlife, as he had it all here, for 19 years.  Maybe we should all take a lesson from this.

 

 

Awesome. Absolutely frigging awesome :) Thank you Slartibartfast for that, you made my day :)

(not one of ours - a stock photo from the webs, but remarkably similar if memory serves me right) - needless to say these four birds were christened Mick, Keith, Bill and Charlie (such was my old man's warped sense of humour). Anyway, one of them use to go absolutely bloody mental whenever I played side one of Tubular Bells (it went quite quiet during side two for some unknown reason, then who doesn't) - Dad would swear blind that it could recognise the album cover so whenever I went to play it and would start ruffling its feathers before even the first note was played, then sing its little heart out for the next 25 minutes. We tried it on other instrumental album like Clearlight Symphony, Hergest Ridge and Mathematicians Air Display and it wasn't interested.

 

But as for our cats - nothing - they don't care for music - one tom cat sprayed my LP collection once - luckily Tom Petty took the major brunt of the attack - he¹ lost his nuts for that (he spray I spay).

 

 

 

 

/edit: ¹ ...the cat lost its nuts, not Tom Petty... just thought I'd clear that up incase there's any confusion.

 

The funniest thing he did though was when I was doodling around with a synth.  I had some funny beeping sound going on and he ran in from inside and proceeded to howl like a wolf.  I've only heard him howl about 3 times in his life - he's 8.  It cracked me up that's for sure!!