Category: Music

What’s Up for Sunday?

Jen has to get up early for work tomorrow so I should get up early too and do some car music. What do you think? Then when I get home I should put leads on anything I manage to finish during the car music. Sound good? We have something going on in the afternoon that’s going to pull me away from things for an hour or so. That’s cool with you, isn’t it?

After that… Halloween. Covid-19 Halloween. Covid-19 Halloween The Second Coming. Shit. Last year the city canceled it all. This year it’s going off as usual. We won’t be playing along. We’ll be hiding in the back of the house. I’ll probably be mixing something. I think you’ll be okay with it. I hope you will, at least.

So should I install Parallels on my MacBook Pro so that I can play Windows games? I had been playing Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic a little. I can’t play that on my Mac. If I get Parallels I should be able to play it. I wonder how much the software costs. Would you think less of me if I got it?

The Bruins are playing The Panthers tonight. They kicked our ass the other night but it was overshadowed by something to do with the sexual abuse scandal that came out of Chicago recently. I don’t know the details, I just know that a lot of people got the sack. I really need to learn the details of this story but I am still really furious over the fact that the catholic church overlooked the sexual abuse of children for decades and any time I come across a similar story I just want to fucking vomit all over the people responsible and I do not want to vomit today. You know what I mean, don’t you?

Now I am pissed off. I didn’t want to be pissed off.

To make matters worse, it’s pouring rain out. Shit. I am so sick of rain.

Bandcamp Volume 4

Volume four out of four (for now).

My bandcamp page now only contains songs I am embarrassed by, instead of both songs I was embarrassed by and songs I was outright ashamed of. We’re moving up in the world!

Quarantine Tunes Volumes one through four are all there. Volume five is underway but ages away from completion. It’s going to be all songs from this year’s 50/90. How exciting (meaning not exciting at all).

Two Amp Curse

I haven’t watched this week’s That Pedal Show but I know it’s going to mess with my head.

I literally just decided that November’s music is going to be recorded using one specific amp. I mean, I literally just said that! Now I go to youtubie and see that this week’s show topic is running a two amp set up.

It’s like they knew what I was thinking and released the exact video that can fudge up my head.

I’m still going to watch though. I’ll consider it a challenge to stick to my guns… and then go back to two amps again next month.

Right on.

A Couple of Pointless Musical Musings

I think I may have just broken the My Music page attached to this blog. Oops. I have a bandcamp.com page that I don’t promote. I just stick album-in-a-month type projects there. I haven’t updated it since finishing the bonus RPM Challenge thing from April 2020. Earlier today I set all of the projects there to private… forgetting that I had playlists embedded on the My Music page. Again, oops.

The reason I did it was that I am planning to put all of the re-recordings from the last year and a half or so up there and have those be the only thing visitors can see. That seems like a good move, assuming my attempt at having the new recordings be at least slightly better than the old ones. Better sound, better performances, and fewer crappy songs. I think it’s a good idea. I just have to do it.

The album-in-a-month internet challenge with the undisputed worst name of them all, NAtional SOlo ALbum MOnth (NASOALMO) is going to kick off on Monday. I’ll take it for another spin. I’m thinking of a gear swap. I’ve been using my Fender Bassbreaker 15 as my amp for the last four months or so. For November I am thinking of using my little Vox MV50 and it’s NuTube technology which is totally not a gimmick (wink, wink). I remember using it on an album-in-a-month once at some point, but it was paired with the Bassbreaker 15 and they were both using their direct out/speaker sims. I don’t think I’ve ever recorded anything with the MV50 through an actual speaker into a microphone. November seems like a good time to finally use it for reals.

Finally, Klon is going to start shipping the new KTR pedals in about three weeks. I absolutely do not need one. Still… let the Gear Acquisition Syndrome commence!

Granted, all of this depends on whether or not our furnace is working. They are still downstairs working on it. I have said it before (well, typed it) and I will say (type) it again… Heat my house!

I Even Remembered to Submit

The RPM Challenge’s Record Every Month challenge to record one song each month for the entire year started in March. For the first couple of months I remembered to submit a song so that it would be included in the listening party. Most months… well… I just forgot to submit… like a dope.

I didn’t forget this time! Here’s one crappy song, written and recorded this month! Oh, so crappy!

Clawing Back to Life

Just another one of those days where the brain doesn’t want to function and something that feels like what the rumors say is the blues tries to take over. I have three things that are helping me claw my way back to life.

First, Jen. As always. As far as my mental state goes, I really don’t know what I would do without her.

Second, nowhere near as important as item number one, the Bruins are kicking the shit out of the Sharks right now. It’s 4-1 about halfway through the third period. Thanks, Bruins. I appreciate it.

Third, probably more important than number two, but still nowhere near as important as number one, I spent the last hour+ playing guitar. I put leads on the three songs that got vocals this morning, and then put rhythm guitars onto two more from the current batch of songs to re-record for the 2015 re-recording yadda yadda blah. My playing wasn’t great, but it was okay.

Now I have to get some exercise in. Ugh.

Obligatory guitar pics:

First Car Music in a Month

Finally, right? I made it out for some car music today. I had three songs ready to go. One was a new one for Record Every Month and the other two were re-recordings for the great 2015 rerecording project which will likely never ever end. The re-recording things are meant to be a little… I don’t know… they are hopefully to be of a slightly higher quality than everything else. Performance wise if not sound wise. Something like that. The rules of the stupid game require me to be pickier about which takes I keep and put in the final mix. It’s also supposed to be more… live… live-ish? Not live, but also no copy and paste. Every sound you hear should be more or less unique. If a song has a chorus that plays twice then even though the two takes are similar enough that you don’t notice a difference, they are in fact different. For the record every month thing, or in fact for just about all of the demoes I make, copy and paste is fine. Record the chorus once, then paste it everywhere else there is a chorus. I do that for bass and vocals but not for guitars. It’s no fun to not play the guitars all the way through.

So what does it mean? It means I started with the record every month song so I could use it as a warm up before I got to the more involved shit. I opened up the computer plugged in the mic, setup the first verse and nailed it in one take. Well, that was weird. I suck as a singer so getting anything in one take is weird. I then setup each other section of the song and nailed them in at most two takes. What the fuck is going on? I suck, I can’t be getting things right this easily, especially when I haven’t done anything like this in a month.

When I was done, I picked the easier of the two re-recordings and that’s when everything went back to normal. Oh my word, did I suck. I sucked out loud. I sucked as much as anyone who has every sucked at singing has ever sucked at signing before. I. Sucked.

An hour and a half later I was working on the last section of the last song and my MacBook Pro popped up a warning that my battery was about to die. I guess I sucked exactly as much as my battery would allow.

I just suck.