Month: February 2020

Song #3

First, a picture from last night that has nothing to do with anything you will hear on the audio file…
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Right, now that that’s out of the way…

 

Now to the song.  Allow me to quote the description I used on alonetone, though I’ve written about all of this before…

Long story…
or, What the hell is a cajon anyway?

I listen to a podcast about cover bands. One of the hosts is a drummer and he plays in an acoustic group. He said he played his cajon at the acoustic gigs. I thought, what the hell is a cajon?

Google informed me that it’s this box thing that you sit on and smack with your hands. There is a hole in it somewhere and even some snares and depending on where you whack it you get a bass drum-ish sound or a snare drum-ish sound. It’s kinda neat.

Fast forward a few months and I’m sitting alone in Epcot center, just outside of Soarin’ (true story) and I was tapping away on GarageBand on my iPhone trying to come up with something different from my usual power trio arrangements. Turns out one of the percussion settings in the drummer function had a cajon. I started thinking like a hippie in a coffee house and thought, cajon, acoustic guitar, and cello. Well, GarageBand’s string sounds are crap and the cello was scratched in it’s place I thought maybe I could dust off my alto sax and use that as the soloist. I hadn’t played my sax since 2013 (I think) and it was time.

Nothing ever became of that Epcot Center song idea, but when RPM 2020 came around I came back to that idea. I decided to make half of my album the usual rock band stuff, and the other half this goofy coffee shoppe thing. If time permits I am going to do a rock band mix of the coffee shoppe songs too, but we’ll see.

This song is about how the US Senate gave the fascist in the white house legal permission to rig elections.

Isn’t that a great story?  I’ve still never seen a cajon in the flesh.

Two Songs, Three Mixes

First there’s this… A 12-bar blues in the verse and a chunk of a 12-bar blues in the chorus.  This is the only electric song that I didn’t double track the rhythm guitars, but I got to spread out the stereo thanks to running through two amps which is about as awesome as it gets.

Now the screwball part of the post.  This is the first song from the acoustic half of the project.  It’s the only one of the seven that I didn’t put any percussion on (what the hell is a cajon, anyway?) so it’s just two tracks of guitar, two (actually three) tracks of vocals, and one track of sax….

Now here’s the same song with the sax replaced by an electric guitar and bass and drums added.  I call the first mix the Coffee Shoppe Mix, and the second mix the Bar Band Mix although I don’t think I wrote that onto the file name….

….and with that, I have two songs complete.  I just have to decide which version of the acoustic song goes on the final album.

Happy Valentine’s Day

Allow me to take a minute here to internet-ily wish a Happy Valentine’s Day to the love of my life, Jen.  My bride, my beloved, my sweet, my angel, my dream come true.  This is our 13th Valentine’s Day together.  Last night  I asked her if she would be my Valentine.  She said yes.  I am so happy.  I am so in love.  I am so in love with her.

Happy Valentine’s Day, my love.

Bad Sleep

I’d say I’ve been having lots of bad sleep lately, but that implies I’ve had lots of sleep.

I’ve been staying up too late and getting up too early and I’m feeling it.  I am tired.  So very tired.  I’m still using the CPAP machine every night, and still wearing my Apple Watch so I can have some numbers to analyze each morning.  The numbers aren’t very good.  Not enough restful sleep, too high a heart rate, too screwy a sleep schedule, too many interruptions.  The usual.

There is one additional sticking point right now.  My nose.  More specifically, the huge pimple at the very top of my nose, right between my eyes.  It doesn’t bother me at all when I wear my glasses, but when I put the CPAP mask on it hurts.  It also makes the mask seal feel a little weak and I seem to be leaking air more often than usual.  Mostly it just hurts and it either makes it harder to fall asleep or it wakes me up.  Stupid zit.

I have a bunch of non-music things to do this weekend that will likely throw off my February routine.  I am kinda hoping I can embrace that disruption a little bit and allow myself more sleep.  It probably won’t happen, but I’ll try.  It’s also a long weekend so it’s a safe bet I’ll be driving to some semi-secluded location to record some vocals while sitting in the car.  I was able to pick one off this morning before work but it took a long time.  Much longer than it usually takes me to vomit up a vocal idea.  Whatever the difficulties, the song I worked on today is on the short list to become track one once everything is finished.  I also may have put together potential album covers this morning.

Here’s to a good night sleep and getting the vocals right in one take.

Facebook Memories

This picture popped up in my Facebook Memories today. Me and Kevin In the proto-Lizardfish days of 2012.

Look at how few pedals I had. Isn’t that cute? Wah, volume, a tuner, and the amp’s channel switch. It was so widdle.

Mother Nature Hates Me

I just don’t get it.  Why does Mother Nature hate me so much?

I only telecommute one day each week, and I need the time between Jen and Harry leaving for work and school and me needing to punch into work to work on vocal tracks for RPM.  I seriously bank on that time to get through a lot of what I need to get done.  It’s really important.

Last week was the first Thursday in February and it snowed.  Harry had a snow day.  No singing on mic for me.  Today is the second Thursday in February and guess what… it snowed again.  We didn’t get a whole lot but it was enough for him to get a two hour delay.

What the actual….

It’s Mother Nature screwing with me, isn’t it.  This is all about me.  Two Thursdays, two snow storms.  I hate snow!  I really need my Thursday mornings, damn it.  Knock it off!

At least today I was able to get a little recording in during lunch.  Two more songs done, both of which had been started earlier in the week.  I’ve got that going for me at least.

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Sax Continued

Okay so tonight’s recording-in-my-bedroom session has answered two important questions.

  1. Can I still play the saxophone?
    The answer to this question is yes.  I can still play the saxophone.
  2. Can I still play the saxophone well?
    The answer to this question is an emphatic, hilarious, no.  I cannot still play the saxophone well.

I can still improvise on a blues scale in C though.  It’s like riding a bike.  Totally second nature.  It took a little more time to get acclimated to improvising on a blues scale in F, but I blundered my way through that one as well.

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I think I may have answered another question too. I mentioned in a previous post today that my computer fell off my desk this morning. I had no idea how that could have happened. Then when I came back to the office after my little recording-in-my-bedroom session tonight I saw this:

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Ms Patches sitting pretty, shamelessly right in the middle of the laptop stand. I think Scotland Yard has itself a chief suspect in this case. Elementary, my dear Patches.