Category: Music

Why am I Still Up?

Jen fell asleep 90 minutes ago. I’ve been sitting here watching That Pedal Show, Supergirl, and Tacoma FD. why? Why didn’t I turn off the lights and conk out 90 minutes ago too?

I don’t know. I should be resting up to tackle tons of music tomorrow. Jen might have to work tomorrow and the Bruins don’t play until 7:00 so I’ve got some Saturday time to fill. I think I might swap out a pedal or two from the chain I’ve been using in the bedroom recording nook. Maybe replace the Bluesbreaker clone and the phaser. I’m not sure what to replace them with though. We will see.

Okay. Bedtime for reals. See you in the morning, everyone.

Making Music Makes Me Feel Better

I just finished the stupid national solo album thing. It wasn’t very good. There might be one, maybe two songs worth revisiting in the future. The rest… eh.

There is also the never ending, on-going re-recording project. I just checked my Trello notes. I haven’t touched any of that since November 13th. I was running late on the solo album thing so I focused on that.

Until this morning!

I took a song from this past summer’s batch. Redid the MIDI drums and bass tracks entirely, cut out a section that sounded overly repetitive (which is hilarious as all of my shit is uber repetitive), and cranked up the tempo.

The re-recording thingie project thingie has been officially brought back to life.

I’m sorry, music lovers. There is more crappy music on the way, and by extension there are more crappy blog posts about crappy music on the way too. WOOHOO!

Don’t Forget the Water

I was listening to a hockey podcast this morning. It was three hockey writers shootin’ the breeze. They veered off topic and started talking about the pros and cons of real vs fake christmas trees.

Shit, thought I, I forgot to water the christmas tree yesterday.

The downside of putting up a real tree right after Thanksgiving is you have to be extra careful about maintenance. If you want to have a green tree on christmas morning then you better keep it watered. Otherwise Santa will be putting presents under some dead, ugly, brown thing with needles all over the floor.

I’ve also listened to a couple of amateur musician podcasts today and the topic of discussion in each one is the Get Back documentary. They all agree with me. Despite being 800 hours long, that movie is absolutely magnificent. It’s just an utter delight. Where else do you get to see the creative process where Paul McCartney literally wills the song Get Back into existence? That song didn’t exist at all until Paul sat there, strumming on his bass, forcing it out of his head. It’s just magic. It was genius at work. Literally.

One little item that I didn’t really catch had to do with Paul. For huge swaths of the movie the band is playing like shit. There’s so much noodling and farting around, whether it be all of them together, or just one or two, or whatever. The question was posed… in all of that mountain of playing… do you ever hear Paul play a bad note? I need to watch the whole thing again, but right now I can’t recall anything. So not only was he pulling super classic music out of his ass, over and over again, he is also playing so well he seems incapable of doing anything that doesn’t sound right. Hell, he’s even playing his Rickenbacker bass at one point and one of the strings pops out of the nut and lays against another string, and he’s still playing great. How is that possible?

Okay. Back to work. I had a deadline moved up on me and the pile of stuff I thought I had two days to do suddenly has to be done today. Enough of my yakkin’, let’s boogie!

Gimmick Free

My 2021 National Solo Album Month submission is complete. It comes in at about 33 minutes. I sorted the songs into three piles. Good. Less than good. Awful. The good list didn’t quite run long enough to submit so I had to pull one song from the less than good pile. Oh well.

Here’s the last song I finished. I saved it for last because I kinda like it, even if the recording isn’t quite up to snuff.

Here’s a playlist of the whole shebang, which I post knowing that it won’t work. If you are just itching to torture yourself you can also go here.

One Day Left

There is only one day left in November. How much music do I still have left to do?

The November music project will have nine songs. Five are finished. I mixed three songs tonight and my ears are fried. I’m not sure they recovered from yesterday’s guitar tracking bonanza.

That means I have to mix four songs tomorrow. I’m sure I’ll be able to pull it off, but hopefully I’ll be able to get to one before work. Four songs in one night leads to mixes that are even worse than the very crappy norm.

After the mixes are done I need to come up with a running order and then I need to fill out the website’s submission form. I think it’s just an email.

I’ll get it all squared away with at least a few minutes to spare, you’ll see.

On the Flip Side

Okay, let’s say that hypothetically the song in the last post was the A side of a single. Would this song make a good B side? Also, what if we flipped them and made this the A side.

I am trying really hard not to nitpick my vocals, melodies, and lyrics tonight. It’s really difficult, let me tells ya.

Goofy Song Alert

And the award for goofiest song in this year’s National Solo Album Month album is…

I haven’t decided if it’s good or not. I do kinda like it, but that doesn’t mean it’s good. If this were a real album, I would put this on the first single, though I don’t know if it would be the A side or the B side. It doesn’t feel like a hit to me, but nothing I’ve ever done has ever felt like a hit. Of course that’s because nothing I’ve ever done is even worthy of a second listen. Whatever, this is fun.

Busy Monday

I watered the plants, watered the christmas tree, did some laundry, took out the trash, determined that my November music thing is definitely over 30 minutes without adding another song (it’s actually over 40 minutes!), and then I started work.

It’s been a busy day at work too. It’s becoming a trend that halfway through my lunch break things blow up. Four days in a row now. That’s fun.

Nothing else to report on today on this chilly Monday. Just hanging in there, trying to get to 5:30pm, when I’ll make dinner for my love and me and then… I don’t know what. I’ve got seven songs to mix before December 1st, so I will want to do a chunk of that before bed. Other than that? No clue. Mostly, I’m just looking forward to a little time with the love of my life. I kinda like making dinner for her. Is that nerdy? Is it romantically nerdy? You be the judge.

Tracking is Done, I think

Assuming I don’t need to add an additional song, I think I finished all of the guitars and all of the vocals for November today. Oh my goodness, my finger tips are on fire. Burning hell fire finger tips. Good heavens.

I think I can stop using the Vox MV50 amp now. I should be able to put it back into the living room with the electric piano. It’s going to be there all setup when the kids come home for Christmas break.

They came over today and decorated the tree and packed up their stuff for school and left. I’m sad for me and excited for them. As usual, right? I just love them. You know how it is.