Category: Music

Play On

I just want to play my guitar. I wanted to do a ton of music in May and I barely did anything. I had 10 songs in the pipeline but only put guitar on two of them. I failed to finish anything for record every month. I am disappointed in myself.

June plans are to play as much as I can stomach, finish all 10 May songs and write and record 10 June songs. Double album, babie. It is a moral imperative.

I want to start the repairs on my two oldest guitars. I have a shop I want to bring them to. It’s an hour drive to get there, but the prices look okay and the reviews seem all right. I would prefer someone who’s been in the luthier business for longer than just the last four years or so, but I think I am okay with this.

Both guitars need their frets worked on and possibly replaced.
The 335 needs a new wiring harness.
If I have enough money left over, the Les Paul could get new pickups installed. That’s a big if though.

Mostly though, I just want to play. We were talking about getting the band together in June. I really want that to happen as well. I just want to play! If music be the food of love, play on and all that happy crappy. Shakespeare, babie!

I’m a Stinker

Yeah, I said I was done with this, but I totally lied.

Scenes from a cart corral.

DSCN3489

I drove to Market Basket and back. I took the long way around and listened to Supper’s Ready all the way through. That reminded me that Peter Gabriel is coming to Boston in September, and Steve Hackett is coming in October. Also, Steve Hackett is supposed to be playing the Foxtrot album in it’s entirety, which means he’s going to play Supper’s Ready, which means I HAVE to be there. I have to see at least one member of Genesis play that perfect piece of music, all 23 minutes of it, live at least once before I die. I have to.

Boy, Am I Sleepy

Yup, two nights of weirdness in a row leads to ol’ Robbie being one sleepy red head.

Hey, I had a couple of packs of guitar strings from amazon delivered today. Will that inspire me to do some actual guitar playing this weekend? I sure hope so.

What else is on the agenda for this weekend? A haircut. My hair hasn’t been this long since the early days of the pandemic. It’s starting to look like 1993 around here. Is that why I have listened to Nirvana more or less around the clock for the last 2+ days? I made a playlist of just the expanded editions of the three Nirvana albums this morning (Apple music has expanded editions of Bleach and In Utero, and two expanded editions of Nevermind) and I have been steam rolling through them as I work today. I’m on the last track from the first of the two Neverminds.

Hey, speaking of Nirvana and the glory days of the 1990’s, I had a pop culture worlds colliding moment this morning. I managed to sneak in this week’s episode of Yellowjackets before work (barely). After a couple of days immersed in the atomic explosion that is Nirvana, wouldn’t you know it the episode’s creepy opening was accompanied by Something in the Way playing on the soundtrack? How cool is that. It’s like they knew where my brain was right now and fed right into it.

I need a nap… and a haircut… and to do some dishes before we make dinner… and to listen to all the live tracks on the 30th anniversary edition of Nevermind.

Two hours and 36 minutes left in the work day. You can do it, Robbie.

I was incorrect. Apple Music does not have one expanded edition of In Utero, it has two. One Bleach, two Nevermind, and two In Utero (one of which includes the unofficial first Foo Fighters song, Marigold [which is next in my iTunes queue]).

Calcium Defeats Me

Those friggin’ Calcium Citrate pills. Why are they so the bane of my existence? I don’t get it? They are on the bigger side as far as my daily vitamin supplements go, but they aren’t exactly huge. Why do they so often trigger a negative response? Why do they so often lead to the dreaded foamies?

I don’t get it. It happened in a huge way yesterday before lunch, then happened again today before lunch. It’s just a little pill. Give me a break, ya creep.

What are you gonna do though, right?

On an unrelated note that won’t be interesting to anyone else on Earth but I found funny in an idiotic kinda way, At lunch time today I decided to give my usual routine of listening to podcasts while I work a break and I decided to listen to music instead. I ended up with Nirvana because I watched a huge interview with Butch Vig the other day, and then another huge interview with Krist Novoselic so my head is kind of in a Nirvana mood these days.

I listened to Nevermind, then In Utero, then I started on Bleach. Just as track #4, School, was kicking off my ear decided to start ringing a little. It was perfectly in tune with the riff. It almost sounded like a little harmonic feedback over the top of the doom that is the beginning of that song. It’s almost like my occasional snippets of tinnitus decided to declare itself a fan of that song and sing along a little. I find that thought absurdly amusing for some doofusy reason. Anyway, I finished Bleach and moved on to Incesticide which I really wish they had given a better name. Oh well. It has Sliver and Been a Son and Mexican Seafood so even though it’s just an outtakes record that was designed to buy time so they could deal with the pressure of following up the massiveness that was Nevermind (I assume, I mean it’s not like I was there talking it over with them or anything) it’s still a good record.

39 minutes until the end of the work day. I think the plan for this evening might include me going to Cambridge to run an errand for the love of my life. I don’t know if that’s actually happening or not, but it was mentioned earlier and I am more than happy to do whatever my love needs. I just need to make sure my evening Calcium pills don’t destroy me. I’m handling them okay right now. Keep your fingers crossed. Friggin’ Calcium pills.

Let’s Get This Sunday Ball Rollin’

It’s Sunday, 8:48am. My exercise for the day is done. My breakfast of protein bars has been eaten without issue. My morning vitamin pills gave me a little stress and I only managed eight ounces of water. I’ll fix that later once my breakfast is good and digested.

We have a lot to do today. We want to clean the kitchen floor, dust and clean the living room, there is a new Playstation to be setup and taken for a test drive (thanks, Jen!). First on my priority list though is to put together this huge tent/shed thing in the back yard. I need it to store a lawn mower, assuming we get a lawn mower. Larry has one he’s looking to get rid of, so I will likely buy that off of him. I need someplace to put it first though, and that’s where the tent/shed thing comes into play. I have no idea if I am going to be able to put this together on my own or not. I may need to call in some Calvary, but I am optimistic it won’t come to that. I just have to get off my blogging ass and do it.

Tomorrow is my birthday. How fucking depressing is that? Today is my last day as a 51 year old. I am listening to some Nirvana right now. Think of it as mood music. Remember the CD Single for Smells Like Teen Spirit? There were two b-sides. Even in His Youth and Aneurysm. To this day I still see that single as the best single ever released by anyone. The b-sides were better than every other band’s a-sides. I always forget how colossally brutal that band was. Just friggin’ amazing. Even after all these years, it all still holds up.

I am planning on borrowing Jen’s little Bose bluetooth speaker when I go outside but I’ll probably listen to something less sledge-hammer-to-the-skull while I’m outside. You know, something more family friendly like The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway by Genesis. You know, weird and genius rather than freight train and genius.

Okay. Stop stalling. Go change your clothes and get your ass in gear. Let’s go, Robert! Let’s get that shed/tent thing up before you turn 52!