Category: Guitar

A Couple of Pointless Musical Musings

I think I may have just broken the My Music page attached to this blog. Oops. I have a bandcamp.com page that I don’t promote. I just stick album-in-a-month type projects there. I haven’t updated it since finishing the bonus RPM Challenge thing from April 2020. Earlier today I set all of the projects there to private… forgetting that I had playlists embedded on the My Music page. Again, oops.

The reason I did it was that I am planning to put all of the re-recordings from the last year and a half or so up there and have those be the only thing visitors can see. That seems like a good move, assuming my attempt at having the new recordings be at least slightly better than the old ones. Better sound, better performances, and fewer crappy songs. I think it’s a good idea. I just have to do it.

The album-in-a-month internet challenge with the undisputed worst name of them all, NAtional SOlo ALbum MOnth (NASOALMO) is going to kick off on Monday. I’ll take it for another spin. I’m thinking of a gear swap. I’ve been using my Fender Bassbreaker 15 as my amp for the last four months or so. For November I am thinking of using my little Vox MV50 and it’s NuTube technology which is totally not a gimmick (wink, wink). I remember using it on an album-in-a-month once at some point, but it was paired with the Bassbreaker 15 and they were both using their direct out/speaker sims. I don’t think I’ve ever recorded anything with the MV50 through an actual speaker into a microphone. November seems like a good time to finally use it for reals.

Finally, Klon is going to start shipping the new KTR pedals in about three weeks. I absolutely do not need one. Still… let the Gear Acquisition Syndrome commence!

Granted, all of this depends on whether or not our furnace is working. They are still downstairs working on it. I have said it before (well, typed it) and I will say (type) it again… Heat my house!

I Even Remembered to Submit

The RPM Challenge’s Record Every Month challenge to record one song each month for the entire year started in March. For the first couple of months I remembered to submit a song so that it would be included in the listening party. Most months… well… I just forgot to submit… like a dope.

I didn’t forget this time! Here’s one crappy song, written and recorded this month! Oh, so crappy!

Clawing Back to Life

Just another one of those days where the brain doesn’t want to function and something that feels like what the rumors say is the blues tries to take over. I have three things that are helping me claw my way back to life.

First, Jen. As always. As far as my mental state goes, I really don’t know what I would do without her.

Second, nowhere near as important as item number one, the Bruins are kicking the shit out of the Sharks right now. It’s 4-1 about halfway through the third period. Thanks, Bruins. I appreciate it.

Third, probably more important than number two, but still nowhere near as important as number one, I spent the last hour+ playing guitar. I put leads on the three songs that got vocals this morning, and then put rhythm guitars onto two more from the current batch of songs to re-record for the 2015 re-recording yadda yadda blah. My playing wasn’t great, but it was okay.

Now I have to get some exercise in. Ugh.

Obligatory guitar pics:

Late Sleeper

I went to bed last night a little before midnight. I woke up once around 6:00 but went right back to sleep. Next thing I know it’s 9:00. Eight hours and 45 minutes of sleep, six hours and 30 minutes of restful sleep, and a sleeping heart rate dip of 30%. That might be the best night’s sleep I’ve had since I started paying attention.

We have a scheduled FaceTime with Harry this afternoon and we’re planning a Great British Bake Off watch party too. Other than that… we’re plans free. So some TV, some World of Warcraft? Maybe some more guitar. How about definitely some more guitar.

I started watching two shows that have pretty completely hooked me. Midnight Mass and Y the Last Man. Midnight Mass took a couple of episodes to grab me, but Y the Last Man was more or less instant. There is one more episode of Titans to go and I don’t know how many more episodes of What We Do in the Shadows. Walking Dead World Beyond is on tonight. That’s okay. Fear the Walking Dead comes back tonight too and I don’t know what to think about it. Season five is still the worst season of television I have ever made myself watch. Season six started out better but spiraled right down the toilet and may have ended up worse than season five. Why am I bothering with season seven? It can’t be worse, can it? At the same time, it can’t be good either, can it?

The Red Sox are not playing today. It’s a travel day. The Bruins finally opened their season last night and they don’t play again until Wednesday. No Boston sports for me tonight. Suddenly that feels weird.

I’m having a bad time with the intermittent fasting this weekend. I thought I was going to be driving to Vermont yesterday so I stopped the fast and had breakfast. Today I slept late and did it again. Two sub 16 hour fasts in a row. I think that was the first time I’ve done that in 13 months.

So what am I getting at with all of this?

It’s going to be a lazy Sunday and I like it. Go play your guitars, kids.

What Was I Going to Say?

I was planning on writing something here this morning and I completely forget what it was. Getting old sucks, kids. Stay young as long as you can, said the 50 year old asshole who still plays in a cover band.

What was it that I was going to mention? I honestly can’t remember.

I did something this morning that I haven’t been doing but should probably do more. I did part of my daily exercise first thing in the morning. I have 15 minutes of my 30 minute goal done. I’ll probably do the final 15 minutes at lunch. I also did something else related that I don’t want to do if I can avoid it. I took some Advil. My back is killing me. I don’t want to get into the habit of doing that, but I also want my back to not be a problem during the work day.

This morning when I put my t-shirt on my left ring finger caught on something. Weird. I was pretty sure I knew what it was, but I stopped to investigate. Yup. It was a little piece of what is left of the callus on that finger, the finger responsible for most of my guitar string bending. It’s been so long since I’ve practiced that I have lost the calluses on my finger tips. When I do work up the energy to play again I’m going to have to start from scratch, and it’s going to hurt. Sigh.

Okay, time for the work day. Maybe I’ll remember whatever it was I was planning to write about.

Long Day

It wasn’t really a long day, but it felt like it. Do I sound like a broken record? I haven’t slept well for the last few nights and I’m just tired. Really tired.

Last night when I had time to play some guitar and didn’t I was pissed off at myself. Similar circumstances tonight, but I feel different about it. I’m just too tired. Nothing I do tonight would be worthwhile, it would just be sleepy nonsense. So once again, instead of guitar we have fun with zombies. I’m up to The Walking Dead season three episode two now. The rewatch continues while the current season goes into hiatus. We’re two episodes into the last season of World Beyond and sadly the seventh season of Fear the Walking Dead kicks off on Sunday. It can’t be worse than the last two seasons, can it? Can it*?

Here’s hoping we get me a good night sleep tonight. I don’t have any meetings scheduled at work tomorrow. Here’s hoping tomorrow becomes a productive day. Who knows, I might even play some guitar tomorrow. Fingers crossed, right?

*Yes, yes it can. Unfortunately, yes it can. May the gods of the TV have mercy on us, yes it can get worse. I don’t know how, but I fear it is possible.

Missed a Chance

I feel like I missed a chance tonight. I didn’t play guitar even though I had plenty of time to. I just popped an episode of The Walking Dead on Netflix and flaked. I shouldn’t have done that. I should have been productive. I still haven’t even finished my exercise for the day. I am at 17 minutes. 13 minutes to go. Why am I sitting here talking to all of you when I should be walking?

It’s gonna be a late night, but at least I get to watch the scene where Dale argues to save Randal’s life*.

*The Walking Dead, season two episode 11 Judge Jury and Executioner. Season two isn’t the best season**, but Jeffrey DeMunn kicked this episode’s ass.

**Get back in the damn house, Carl!

Sunday Thoughts

Let’s be clear, this post is procrastination.

It’s Sunday, I have some chores I want to get done. Instead I am sitting at my computer. The Red Sox game is less than four hours away. They are on the MLB network today. I’m trying to find a way to stream the game to my computer so I can watch it while I clean stuff in my room. No dice. I do not think our cable package includes the network so that kills pretty much all of the legit streaming options that I know of. I wonder if youtube is doing anything. Hmmm… Nope. It doesn’t look like it. Unless MLB is going to add something closer to the start of the game.

I try not to talk about blog stats too often as that feels like cork sniffing and maybe pandering for hits or some shit and that’s not what it’s about. I just like stats. Baseball stats, hockey stats, covid stats (though “like” is the wrong word there), and blog stats. I was curious how close last month came to matching the highest month on my old wordpress.com account. I looked that up a few months ago and thought I remembered the ball park figure. I didn’t. The number I remembered was quite a bit higher than the reality. Turns out last month destroyed the old account’s record, and so did the month before. Okay, I guess I never have to go look at the old account again. That’s good.

Speaking of blogging… is it coming up on time for a new theme yet? It could be. We’ll see.

I still haven’t played the guitar. I am 3/4 (approximate) through a four day weekend and I haven’t taken it out of the case. I keep looking at it. I keep saying I’m going to do it. Sigh… soon.

Okay. I need to get my shit together today. Let’s go, fat boy. Let’s get some stuff done, then listen to the game on the radio, then play the guitar, then watch The Walking Dead and World Beyond, then go to sleep. You can do it, fat ass. You can do it.