Category: Guitar

Take a Holiday

Yesterday was the 4th of July. Independence Day in the USofA. Today is the 5th of July which, thanks to the 4th falling on a Sunday, is the day we celebrate the holiday and have a day off from work. Amen to that, brothers and sisters in the American workforce.

I haven’t really done anything. I unclogged a drain in the bathroom sink. I finished watching Black Summer. I put guitars onto a couple of new song ideas. I’m up to six songs now.

I haven’t spent much time with heavier “rawk!” sounds with the new guitar. That changed today. I had some crunchy goodness going on. The bridge pickup on the new guitar is kind of in love with the Bassbreaker 15. The neck pickup is jealous of that love and therefore kinda bitchy. They aren’t playing all that nicely together. I’ll work it out. If not there will be a new pickup. Something swanky and boutique. Probably not until the kids are done with college though. Money? What’s that?

How about a little love for leather guitar straps. I’ve never owned one before but when the new guitar came (I still can’t believe Jen bought me a Les Paul for my birthday. Best birthday gift ever) I needed a new strap and I found a reasonably priced one on amazon.

One thing I learned, the cloth straps I’ve been using since day one back in 1987 play nicely with clothing. Meaning that when I need to adjust the strap’s position relative to my shoulder, it will slide around easily and not try to bunch up my shirt. Not so with the leather strap. The leather strap grabs hold of my shirt and drags it along with it everywhere it goes. I never thought of that before. No one was more surprised than me.

Anyway, are you having a happy long weekend? I am having a happy long weekend.

On a sadder note, Mary Weinrib passed away at the age of 95. Who is Mary Weinrib? Well pop culturally speaking, she’s Geddy Lee’s mother. Now giving birth and raising the greatest bass player in history and the frontman for the greatest rock band in history is a legendary accomplishment. That’s great. It’s also not the most amazing thing she’d ever done. Mrs Weirib, as a young woman, survived the Holocaust. She survived Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, among others. Rest in peace Mary Weinrib. Your kid done good.

I should also mention that I did not mention when Neil Peart’s father passed away a couple of weeks ago. Sorry about that.

2021 50/90 Day 1/90

Game on!

Today was a big opening day for this year’s 50/90 idiocy. At midnight I kicked off the first song idea. Hooray! I don’t know if I’ve ever stayed up until midnight for one of these before but now I have.

As bed time on day one approaches a quick look at the Trello board shows me five songs underway. All have drums and bass and the full song form. Two have rhythm guitars. Crazy! That’s a lot to get done on the first day. It totally helps when day one is a Sunday and you are trapped at your parents’ house and can’t leave and can’t do pretty much anything else.

Day two tomorrow will hopefully give us the rhythm guitar parts for the other three songs and maybe a new song idea or two. And maybe if time allows… a lyric or two? That’s just crazy talk.

50 songs in 90 days.

Game on!

The Summer Rig

Okay, I’ve got the guitar rig for the summer in place. Welcome back to my sweet little 15 watt Fender Bassbreaker.

Dusting faux tweed is hard.

Just add a shiny new Les Paul and we are on our way.

Addendum: My iPhone autocorrected “on our” to “In-N-Out”. WTF, I ask you. W. T. F?

All Signed Up

I signed up for this year’s 50/90 today. We’ll see how long it takes before I burn out on it. Initial plans are to swap out the Vox amp for one of the Fenders and to keep using the same 3-4 pedals I’ve been using over the last few months. I will start the first day (Sunday the 4th) at my parents’ house. I won’t have much to do outside of Nana Sitting duties so maybe I can get a good jump on things. I have a Trello board setup, but we only get five freebies now so I will probably delete it when I’m done. Whatever. I used to have a Tumblr account that I used for daily check ins on recording projects. I might do that again too. Anything to manufacture some phony BS motivation.

I am up to date on Loki now. Episode four was totally worth the wait. I will be up to date on The Bad Batch in about six minutes when the episode I am watching right now ends. Disney+, I am keeping up with your mad pace.

What else is going on? Right now? Not much. It’s Friday and this weekend is a three day weekend. Glorious. Quitting time is in about nine hours. I can make it that far. Just hold on, fat boy. You can make it that far.

What Should We Talk About?

My lunch break is ending and I haven’t thought of anything to talk about.

It’s hot. There’s that. It’s not as hot as it is out Oregon way and the Pacific Northwest, but it’s hot. It’s 94 degrees here in Tewksbury, MA right now. We might get another degree or so, but it’s about as hot as it’s going to get today. The heat index, whatever that is, says it could feel about 10 degrees hotter than it is. The forecast for Portland, OR calls for afternoon temps around 113. It’s still June. Summer isn’t even 10 days old and already Portland is looking at 113 degrees. Nothing to see here. Please disburse. Nothing to see here.

I just took out the trash and the recycling. We have security alarms on the doors because my mother went wandering at the crack of dawn recently and snuck out silently enough that she didn’t wake anyone. So now the doors make noise when we open them. At night they make tremendous noise a la a rock band in a stadium volume level noise. I took four trips to bring everything out and didn’t want to keep setting off the quieter, daytime noise so I just left the door open… and now there’s a fly in here with me. Sonofabitch.

Hold it a second, I have to give mother her 2:00 pills. Be right back………

Okay, I am back. It’s 2:00 so I have to get back to work. I was trying to think of what to write about and didn’t come up with much. Here were the rejected topics, all of which might come up again later. Should I call Mike the Bass Player and ask if he’s going to be around this weekend so that I can pick up my amp and my little pedal board, both of which have been in his cellar waiting for a band practice since the first day of February 2020? Should I finally shut up about it and bring that guitar and that amp over to Guitar Center in Nashua and trade them in? On Saturday, maybe? Should I try again to make an eye doctor’s appointment for this weekend? We tried last weekend and their online appointment scheduler was down. Ugh.

Okay. Back to work, you. You have code to patch!

The Last June Song (Probably)

50/90 starts next weekend so I probably shouldn’t be using up new song ideas now. Oh well.

Written on Saturday, recorded on Saturday and Sunday, and mixed before work on Monday. Not a bad little weekend tune.

Sort of a New Song, Kind Of

I think I already wrote a bit about this. The first song I worked on this month was based on a guitar riff I came up with back in May. On the day I recorded the vocals I started work on another song and, accidentally and totally without realizing it, used almost exactly the same guitar riff. It was slower by quite a bit, but for the most part it was the same thing.

Oops.

Now the question is, which song is better? Here’s Part One:

Now here is Part Two:

I am leaning toward part two, but that might just be because I’ve been listening to it all day.

Its a Music Kinda Day

I did vocals for two songs first thing this morning, and now I put leads on those songs too. Tracking is done for both. I’m trying to make myself love the Blues Breaker clone pedal. I used it as a boost yesterday and as a light drive pushing a huge Klon Klone boost today. I like it. It’s just not… I don’t know. It’s not love. It makes me sad, though why? It’s just a friggin’ guitar pedal, right? Stupid red head.

Patience is a Virtue or Something

The 50/90 challenge starts in about a week. It’s probably not the best idea to try and force out a song this close to the starting point. A song that had it waited a week would have been one of the (hopefully) 50 but now cannot be. You know.

Maybe a little patience is warranted on the musical front right now?

Screw that, I need this.

I took out my new guitar again and told myself that the first thing I play is going to be worked into a song. Welp, here we are a little while later and there aren’t any lyrics and there isn’t a melody, but the song structure is there and the rhythm guitars, bass, and drum parts are all down.

Good boy.

I need to come up with lyrics for this one and the one from the other day so that I can do some car music in the morning. Tomorrow is my last chance this month… I think. Schedules are screwy, you know?

Want some unrelated good news?

Harry’s paying us a visit tonight. WOOHOO! Harry time!

New Song for June

I think I had a little too much caffeine this afternoon. It’s late but I’m not really tired at all. The Vegas Knights and Montreal Canadiens are going to overtime in game six. Vegas has to win. Vegas. Must. Win.

So in my non-sleepiness I mixed a song. The Record Every Month Challenge thingie will have an entry from me for June.

No Change for Me (Part 1)

Note how the link to the song is a link and not a little embedded audio player. Why is that? Well, kids, I found out the hard way that hearthis.at has an upload limit for free accounts and I’ve reached it. I’ll make a second free account and somehow link them together, but not tonight. Tonight I am not up for that challenge. Tonight we’ll just settle for a link to alonetone.