Category: Music

Big Weekend

This has been quite the big weekend and it has very little to do with a zombie who gave up his weekend for our sins. But I digress.

Today, April 5th, is the 19th anniversary of my first date with my wife. Clearly she wasn’t my wife at the time, but it was a pretty good first date. Very successul. We celebrated by going to a matinee. We saw Projet Hail Mary again. It was my second viewing and her third. Great movie. If it is playing on an IMAX screen anywhere near us next weekend we might go see it one more time.

After the movie, Jen made a fancy easter/first-dateiversary dinner and it was wonderful. We ate at the dining room table like civilized people instead of slumming it in the living room in front of the TV like usual. It was a very nice moment.

Yesterday we had my in-laws over for a pre-easter easter dinner. Jen made lasagna. I don’t like lasagna so she made me some pasta on the side. She’s the best.

After dinner I hopped in the car and headed to Boston to see a show. Throwing Muses. It was a fantastic show. I was feeling kinda negative at first. I was feeling like I’m too old to go to shows in bars. Two songs into the Muses set though my whole universe changed. By that time I was actively trying to think of a world where I could see Throwing Muses live every day for the rest of my life. It was magic.

There was one negative though. Halfway through their set I got a nose bleed of all things. Not just any nose bleed, but a massive, gushing nose bleed. It was everywhere. I looked like I was living through a horror movie. Gore.

To summarize, it’s been a very good weekend. I’ve been nuts about my wife for 19 years now and I just keep getting nuttier and nuttier as time goes by.

Now, a few pics from the show last night.

They’re Back, Babie!

Last night was the Juno Awards ceremony. That’s the Canadian version of the Grammy’s. The show included this one ditty from this little Toronto based rock and roll combo…

They are back! For really reals, Rush is back!

Maybe an odd choice of song, but it was the first song on their first album so it was sort of fitting that the first public appearance with their two new people, Anika Nilles on drums and Loren Gold on keyboards, was that same first song… though if they were going to go with literal first songs they should have gone with their cover of Buddy Holly’s Not Fade Away, which was their first single. But I digress. Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson on stage again. We’re going to see them in New York in a couple of months and I CAN’T FUCKING WAIT!

Musical Epic Urges

I have this weird musical urge right now and I don’t think I will be able to stop myself from trying to make it happen.

I have this urge to write a song that runs for at least 20 minutes.

  • Introduction is slow and quiet. Maybe just a cleanish electric guitar soloing over an electric piano. The intro needs to be long… very long.
  • Next we have basically a 4-5 minute uptempo, noisy rock song. Preferably in an odd time signature with shouty vocals in the chorus.
  • Another instrumental break. Change key and time signature and tempo and jam for a while. Maybe have a guitar and a sax trade off.
  • Another stand alone kind of song section. Slower, quieter, less shouty.
  • Come up with a riff. Something long and drawn out. Maybe a full eight bars without repeating anything. Start quiet and slowly but steadily get louder, just repeating the same phrase. Get louder and heavier and more intense. I’m thinking something like Whaling Song by Procol Harem. Something that just builds on itself over a long stretch of time.
  • Return to the second section. Different key maybe. Not a full repeat, but bring back the same changes and phrases in a new arrangement. Sort of like a coda section.
  • Return to the introduction but not nearly as long.

What do we think, universe? Do I suddenly have a new musical project to sink my untalented musical teeth into?

Will it run for 20 minutes?

We’ll see.

2026 RPM Challenge Day 28/28

Done. Finished. Complete. Success. 15 years in a row, babie. Every year since 2012 has seen me successfully complete the RPM Challenge (and the FAWM too).

The album is called The Great American Road trip because it was mixed during the great american road trip. Duh. The official home is my alonetone page, right here. The unofficial home is on my hearthis.at page which only exists because it plays nicely with wordpress.com.

I ended up with 16 songs and dropped six of them from the final project. My overall reaction to this year’s batch of new songs is… meh. I don’t care. That’s not the point of this thing. They didn’t exist and now they do and that is a good thing, even if the songs themselves are not good things. Dig it?

2026 RPM Challenge Day 27/28

We are home from our week long epic road trip. I was expecting to get home tomorrow but we made it back a little early.

I mixed one song today. I’m not sharing it because it is terrible and I should have left it unfinished. That leaves me with one song left to mix, then I have to pick the running order and make some cover art and then I’m done.

I would do more tonight but I am utterly exhausted and I want to flake a little before I fall asleep.

I’ll wrap all of this stuff up tomorrow.

2026 RPM Challenge Day 26/28

As I sit in a hotel room somewhere between Fredericksburg, VA and Washington, DC I managed to mix one song. That’s it for today. There are still two more to go and I could probably squeeze one more in but I’m really tired and I want to watch Starfleet Academy before I conk out.

I was expecting to hate this song. I am scraping the bottom of the barrel now and I thought this would be unbearably awful. It’s better than I expected though. Let’s say it is bearably awful.

2026 RPM Challenge Day 25/28

The RPM Challenge asks for 10 songs or 35 minutes of music. FAWM asks for 14 songs.

With two songs mixed tonight while sitting in a hotel room near Knoxville, Tennessee I am up to 13 songs finished with three more still left to mix and three days left to finish. I think we’re going to have another success this year, don’t you?

2026 RPM Challenge Day 24/28

Today was the day I had scheduled for the big mixing push. My wife and I are on an epic road trip, the basis for which is her job. She had to work today and I was planning to spend the day sitting in a hotel room with my MacBook mixing songs in GarageBand.

It didn’t come out quite as planned as her meeting ended at 1:00pm and not 5:00pm and as soon as she was free we hit the road to Tennessee and Arkansas. I did, however, manage to mix six songs today. Speed mixing is not conducive to great music, but it gets the job done for me.

I was going to post all six songs but that would be silly so here’s one…

What the hell, here’s another one too…

2026 RPM Challenge Day 23/28

The epic road trip took us from Louisville, KY to Nashville, TN and back. My gastric bypass disagreed with lunch and I puked on the side of the highway, route 65 North, somewhere in Kentucky.

I had also hoped to mix three songs but I am exhausted and only managed two. I’m going to bed now even though it’s still laughably early. I’m so old it’s like a joke, man.

2026 RPM Challenge Day 22/28

I woke up this morning in Syracuse, NY and now I am about to go to sleep in Louisville, KY. After about 11 hours driving I have reduced myself to mush, mentally speaking.

I managed to mix a couple of songs though. Three down, 13 to go.