Another Domino falls? Derek and the Dominoes keyboard player, harmony vocalist, and more often than not co-writer Bobby Whitlock passed away at the age of 77.
Duane Allman, Carl Radle, Tom Dowd, Jim Gordon, and now Bobby Whitlock. Everyone who had anything to do with Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs except Eric Clapton is gone.
This makes me sad. Rest in peace, Bobby Whitlock. One of the most soulful voices I’ve ever had the good fortune to hear.
Ozzy Osbourne passed away this morning. Go and give your favorite Black Sabbath records a spin. I’ve already gone through Paranoid and Master of Reality. It occurred to me that the first time I ever heard Children of the Grave was while watching the live broadcast of Live Aid. The anniversary of that was just the other day. Small world.
I was going to post a clip of that song, but Sweet Leaf is just better.
This photo makes me so happy, musically speaking:
Today is July 4th. While that means something to the nation formerly known as the US it now just means that it is the first day of the 50 Songs in 90 Days Challenge. Welcome!
I would link to the 50/90 website but apparently it no longer exists. I guess 50/90 as an organized thing is over? Sure looks that way. I’ll still try it on my own though. There are 90 days between July 4th and October 1st. During that stretch of time I plan to write 50 songs… because I am an insane.
It’s after 11:00pm now. We just came home from watching fireworks up in Derry, NH. Do I have a 50/90 recap? Why yes, yes I do.
There are two songs in the pipeline. One has the full song form and the MIDI bass and drums done. The other is just three loose fitting eight-bar phrases.
That’s it. Two songs under way. Come back again tomorrow and see if I made any additional progress. One day down, 89 to go!
My music nook is about to go through some shit.
Photo a day 276 of 365.
Out running errands in the shitty weather on a Saturday morning. Let’s do it Hipstamatic style, what do you say?
Also, as a bonus… cats.
Jen gave the cats some medication today. Something to prevent… something… heart worms? I think. It was just a drop of stuff on their skin. Lily was annoyed but mostly okay with it. Robin was pissed. She was not happy. Sorry, cat.
In closing, music to run errands to…
I stayed up too late last night and now I am tired. That’s how it works for all of us, but it seems to be a bigger issue for folks who are old like me. I am going to have a birthday in a couple of weeks and I’m going to be 54. Wait… really? How is that possible? I know in the grand scheme of things that 54 isn’t that bad, I mean it’s not 80 or anything, but damn… I was 27 a few days ago. Wasn’t I?
What was I writing about?
Oh yeah, I am tired. It seems somehow worse than that though as I didn’t have time to follow any news yesterday and today I got caught up on the collapse of civilization. So RFK wants to create a autism database or some shit? Hmmm… didn’t the nazis do that with mental illnesses? Yeah, something like that. No surprise that we’re resurrecting that particular evil, but there you go. That on top of prison time without due process and willfully collapsing the economy in order to scam a couple of bucks off the rubes. Yeah. Are we great again? Maybe I’ll open up a new Signal chat and ask about it.
Ugh. Here’s a cat:
If the cat didn’t temporarily straighten out your soul, maybe a song will help:
I mentioned a band practice was on the books for this evening?
Work has been good this week. No disasters, no scary moments. I did get a call from a customer (service programmers, like me, are not supposed to get calls directly from customers) but I was able to help the guy and it actually felt pretty good. Nope, this past week was a good week at work.
It was the rest of civilization that blew chunks. My wife and I agreed when we discussed it last night that this week has been the longest six months of our lives.
I need to do something creative this weekend. I NEED TO. Photography. Let’s go out and snap some pictures! Let’s play with the new long lens I bought a few months ago. Let’s play with the 120 film camera I bought a few months ago. Let’s go to the ocean and watch the sunrise and shoot all sorts of good stuff. Of course we should check the weather first… snow and rain today and tomorrow and rain on Sunday. Well you can just bite me, mother nature.
Music it is then! Guitar! I will play guitar this weekend if it kills me! I don’t know if we’re going to have a band practice or not. I’ll post something to our messenger thread later today (when it’s not pre-8:00am so that the other three guys don’t think I am weird and obsessed or anything) and see what’s up. If not then I need to find something else to do.
I do not want this weekend to be spent doom scrolling news sites and reading stories about the collapse of american democracy that will build up inside of me until I have a stroke. No. That would be bad, even if it is more or less inevitable. I must play guitar! I! Must! Play! Guitar!
The work day is almost over. About 10 minutes from now there will be another Monday in the books. Also, I will be 50% of the way through my 40% in the office mandate for this week. That’s nice. It’s also probably confusing if you don’t know what I am talking about but I do know what I am talking about so it is not confusing to me which is why I wrote this epic run on sentence about it.
Here is a picture of a cat that I took this morning before I left for work. She was confused and upset because I made the bed and messed up her hiding/napping spot/plans. Sorry, cat.
What else can I write about before the work day ends? A Red Sox win tonight and a Yankees loss will move the Red Sox into first place in the AL East. Yes it is only the 11th game of the season, but after the last few years of baseball futility combined with the Bruins suck fest of late, I will take a first place moment with a smile on my face. The Yankees and Tigers are playing right now. In the bottom of the eighth inning in Detroit, the Tiggers are up 6-2. Thanks, Detroit.
What else… I haven’t worked on anything musical since the RPM Challenge wrapped up at the end of February. I am a failure at musical life. Just saying.
Okay, I got distracted by something at work and now the 10 minutes have passed and it’s quitting time. Wish me luck on my evening commute home. Jen picked up something nice for dinner tonight. We have dinner together whenever humanly possible and I always love it. I love her, I can’t help it. The heart wants what the heart wants and my heart wants silly little domestic time with the woman of my dreams. There’s nothing wrong with that at all. Civilization coming to a crashing, idiotic, tariffed end doesn’t change the way I feel.
Inside the Red Head's Head 