Category: Guitar

Plugin’ In

I have owned my Fender Stratocaster for about six months now. The nature of my goofy little music projects is such that I do everything with headphones. I have yet to plug my Fender into my Marshall amp. Today at band practice will be the first time. I’m looking forward to finding out how it feeds back. I’m also ready to be shocked by how much noise the single coil pickups make. Oh and there’s the whammy bar to consider too. Feedback plus dive bombs equals glorious noise.

Band Practice

I played with a band tonight. I asked if I was good enough to come back next week and was told I was in the band.

So I am in a band again.

Heading to my first band practice in more than two years.

I have a clear memory of riding my bicycle to a band practice back in the 80’s. I had my little Peavy amp hanging off one handle bar, and my old Les Paul Deluxe hanging off the other. The distance was probably a little more than two miles.

Now when I look at the mountain of stuff I truck back and forth to rehearsals, it’s hard to believe the bicycle days ever existed.

50/90 is now 33/50

Song #17 is complete.

I wrote the lyrics and melody and recorded the vocals before work this morning, and mixed the track after work tonight. The music was written and recorded on Sunday during a pretty productive weekend.

The lyrics are about depression and the inspiration was Robin Williams. I will never condone suicide, but maybe if we all take the time to learn a little bit about what he was going through, and how to treat people in the same boat… then maybe we can find something worthwhile in the loss.

A Song at Bedtime

I mixed a song tonight. A little gift to the universe (gift?) before hitting the sack for the night.

I was listening to the two Jack Bruce/Robin Trower records from 1981. I was sort of digging the whole aging-white-guys-making-a-show-of-being-funky vibe and decided to steal it. The result is this cheese ball of a 12-bar.

In GarageBand terms, I have been trying to keep the different projects kind of similar in that each month is using the same bass sound and drum sound (mostly, as March is using the Drummer function on 9 of the 10 songs). As I was mixing this one though I suddenly felt really, really bored with the sounds I’d picked for April. I switched the muted bass to an upright bass (which I used across the board back in November) and went for a little more of a smaller, more vintage drum sound. The results, again, aren’t that great. I don’t care.

The lyrics are another @floridaman story. This time the drunken fool made death threats to the arresting officers before sobering up a little and changing his tune to bribery in terms of offers to pressure wash their houses. Really. Check out @floridaman. You cannot make this shit up.

Two Songs Mixed

I mixed two songs tonight. Both include the sound of the new Fender guitar.

The first is from March. It’s called “The Universe Next Door” because I can never sound pretentious enough. The title came from a news story I read back in March. I wrote the name down, but not the link to the story. Sorry. I don’t know what any of the lyrics are actually about. Paranoia? How rock and roll!

http://alonetone.com/robertjames1971/tracks/the-universe-next-door.mp3%20

The second song is from the April list, but it is actually ancient. It was written in my bedroom back in 1993. Maybe 1992. I guess it might have been 1994. Who the hell knows! It’s old! It was played by all of the short lived bands that came after Tempest Fero but before Prime Meridian. Maria the drummer didn’t like it (I think… it’s been a really freakin’ long time) so Mike and I agreed to drop it. Almost immediately we wrote another yipppeee dance song to replace it. That one might be included in the next album in a month batch.

http://alonetone.com/robertjames1971/tracks/falling-star-1.mp3%20

Mother’s Day Music

I put rhythm guitars onto the one song left that needed them, and I added leads to two additional songs. I now have five that are ready to mix.

I used the new Strat for everything today. I haven’t changed the strings yet, and those that are on now are heavier than I’m used to.

Ouch.