Car music this morning. I put vocals on the four songs I wrote lyrics for last night, and one extra that was left over from last month. At least I parked in a different spot today. You know, just trying to keep things fresh.
Here’s hoping I get a chance to record some lead guitars today. Maybe add another song idea or two and put rhythm guitars on them. We also need to start mixing some of this crap too. Time to start finishing these puppies off.
On the way home I took some point and shoot pictures, mostly stop light theater because I got stopped at almost every light in the city. Happy Sunday!
What’s my favorite recipe? Do I have a favorite recipe? I suppose I used to, but since having gastric bypass my ability to eat has been drastically reduced. These days my favorite recipe is probably a frozen chicken patty and a handful of frozen french fries cooked in an air fryer and chased by a protein bar, followed at least 60 minutes later by a water bottle full of sugar free lemonade mix.
Basically anything in an air fryer gets it done for me today. Chicken, fish, anything on the lighter side. I find myself in the second year post-op getting in touch with my Irish heritage by craving potatoes all the time. Mashed, baked, fried, whatever. I just like potatoes a lot now. It’s kind of weird.
On the more adventurous side, Jen cooked a veggie egg dish a couple of weeks ago that was really good. She also makes a quinoa dish with taco seasoning that is amazing. So amazing I tend to eat too much of it too quickly which makes me a little sick. I need to be more careful when she cooks it. I went grocery shopping yesterday and she put taco seasoning on the list. Was that a hint? We’ll see.
So do I have a favorite recipe? Not really. I have things that work for my bypassed digestive system and I expect I will be eating them regularly for the rest of my life. That is 100% a-okay with me.
Now I am going to publish this and have a protein bar for breakfast and then go and do some car music. Happy Sunday, everyone.
I’ve already written about most of this, but in the interest of completeness and transparency (why?) here’s an official write up of today’s 50/90 challenge activities.
I put vocals on five songs.
I wrote a new song including MIDI bass and drums, the full song form, all of the rhythm guitar tracks, the melody and the lyrics.
I put rhythm guitars onto an additional three songs, one of which was played on my step son’s guitar.
I put lead guitars onto five songs including a couple of the songs that got vocal tracks this morning.
I wrote lyrics and melodies to three additional songs on top of the one I already mentioned.
Looks like another car music is in store for tomorrow morning. Excellent.
This one is gastric bypass related. It’s not stupid but it is annoying and an accurate view of my situation at this moment in time. It’s like a snapshot of my life.
I did not eat much yet my stomach feels all blocked. Yo, what the hell, bro?
I spent two hours recording guitars today. I got through so much that I can’t even remember it all.
I started by adding song idea #37. I threw it together on-mic, as it goes. I recorded it as I was writing the guitar parts. It’s super simple but it exists now when it didn’t before. Cool.
I then put rhythm guitars onto three more songs. There is a twist on one of them, I’ll share it in a bit.
I put lead guitars on a bunch of songs… I actually forget how many. Let me check my trello notes… five songs. I put leads onto five songs.
Add the five songs that got vocals this morning and it’s been a pretty cool day, music-wise.
How about some gratuitous guitar pics?
So what about that twist that I mentioned? Years ago my step son was taking guitar lessons. For his birthday I bought him a very inexpensive beginner/student guitar. Given that it was me doing the shopping, I of course bought him a Les Paul. Not a Gibson, but an Epiphone package deal that came with a tiny little solid state amp.
When he moved out we cleaned out his room and I saw the guitar sitting in his closet. He doesn’t play anymore. He’s a piano guy and a percussion guy. Guitar fell off of his musical map. I told him I wanted to play his guitar on my recording project thingie and he didn’t say no so…
One of the songs that got rhythm guitars was played on Harry’s Epiphone Les Paul Special II. Gratuitous photos, of course.
What’s left to do tonight? Hopefully more lyrics and melodies. Maybe a mix or two? We’ll see.
My love wanted an apple pie from an apple orchard so I took care of that for her. I am guessing as apple pies go, the one I picked up is going to be legen-wait for it!
Back in the 80’s, the English hairband Whitesnake broke through in the US in a huge way. I was pretty uninterested. Hair bands did nothing for me, even those who have lead singers who used to be in one of my favorite bands.
Whitesnake’s frontman was David Coverdale who from 1973-1975 or so was the frontman and co-lead vocalist in Deep Purple. He made three records with them. The first is an all time classic, Burn. The second is crap, mostly, other than the title song, Stormbringer, which was also the name of one of the bands I played in back in high school. The third record, Come Taste the Band is nowhere near as good as Burn, but it’s still pretty fantastic.
I don’t know the timeline following that very well, but I think David Coverdale made a couple of solo records, one of which was called White Snake… gee… what was he thinking of when he came up with that name? From there his solo career morphed into the band Whitesnake. Other ex-Purple members, John Lord and Ian Paice, played in that band. I guess they were sort of similar to Deep Purple in a bluesy rock kinda way. At some point Coverdale started firing band members (that’s how I heard it at least) and replaced them with people who were more in tune with 80’s corporate rock and eventually that lead to the self titled album that had a ton of hits on it and that was that.
Bernie Marsden was one of the guitar players in Whitesnake before the corporate shuffle happened. I knew him by reputation but I never gave the band a chance. Well, never until the pandemic when one day I found myself on Apple Music listening to Burn and saw Whitesnake as a suggested listen and I gave an old live record a spin. It sounded Purple-esque. It wasn’t bad. I didn’t take to it the way I once took to Deep Purple, but I had to give it credit. It was a good record.
There was one song in particular that I really liked. I didn’t realize it was a cover song until later, but it’s a good song so what can you do?
There were two guitar players in this band so I don’t know for sure which parts were Bernie Marsden, but they both sound pretty good to me. The thing that I really knew Marsden from was actually not his music, or his playing, but it was his guitar collection. Specifically his 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard, which has the unfortunate name “The Beast”. That guitar is one of those legendary Les Pauls, like Peter Green’s ’59 or Clapton’s ’60. The guitar’s reputation almost supersedes the guitarist’s, if you can believe it.
Bernie Marsden passed away. By all accounts he was a quality guy, a great guitar player, and the proud owner of a classic instrument. He also wrote a couple of those big Whitesnake hits. David Coverdale had a thing for taking songs from the pre-hairband period and re-recording them and releasing them as singles. Marsden co-wrote “Fool for Your Lovin'” which was a good song even to my ears in the 80’s. He also co-wrote “Here I Go Again” which was a mega-hit the second time around. Fortunately the hit version swapped out the word hobo from the chorus, though Coverdale replaced it with drifter which along with gypsy and rock and roll were words that he used over and over and over and over again, constantly.
Rest in peace, Bernie Marsden. I’ll give some of those old Whitesnake records a spin in your honor today.
I had another banger car music morning. I wrote lyrics and melodies for five songs last night and I cranked the vocals for all of them out this morning.
The studio view:
I want to play a ton of guitar today too. I think I can pull it off. Fingers crossed. I want to write more lyrics tonight as well so I can have a third straight car music morning tomorrow.
The last thing I was excited about, well that’s simple. Harry came home for a week. He had an appointment at an auto body place in Salem so he came home and stayed with us while his car was being worked on. Having him come home for an unexpected visit was the last thing I was really excited about. He’s back home in Vermont now but his car is still in the shop. We’ll get to see him sometime next week when he comes back to swap the rental car for his actual car. That won’t be much of a visit, but I am pretty excited about that too.
How about a few honorable mentions, just to make the writing exercise last a smidge longer?
I was excited about going to Bar Harbor a couple of weekends ago. Both because it was a long weekend get away with the love of my life, but also because my step daughter Bellana went with us. I was super excited about that plan as I am always excited about travel plans. Also, that last sentence is what we call a transition sentence and I guess it’s also technically foreshadowing as well.
Speaking of travel plans (see what I did there?), the next thing to get excited about is another long weekend get away. This time it’s Disney World. A few weeks from now Jen and I are going to fly down to Orlando on Wednesday night and come back after a few days. Two nights ago while on a very lovely dinner date at a Greek restaurant, Jen looked at me and said, out of nowhere, “I am really excited about Florida.”* I agreed wholeheartedly. I still do.
*That may not be an exact quote, even though I wrote it as if it were. You get the gist at least.
I already wrote about car music this morning. I put vocals on three songs. What have I done since then?
Well, first I added another song idea. That’s idea number 35. It’s just bass riffs for now. Later, after dinner tonight, I started writing melodies and lyrics. I got through five songs. Count ’em, five songs. They are all crap, but that gives me more than enough for another round of car music tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll follow the morning car music with a pile of guitar tracks. I am hoping to use my step son’s Epiphone beginner model Les Paul copy on at least a song or two, and hopefully that will happen tomorrow.
Plans are in place, I just have to follow through. Progress!
Inside the Red Head's Head 