Category: Music

More Hurricane Fun

We could be getting hit with an actual hurricane on Sunday. We got hit with the dying remains of one yesterday, and now here comes Henri. Read about it here.

So we had rain almost every day in July. August has been better, but still ridiculously rainy. Our cellar has had water in it for over a month now, and here comes an honest to goodness hurricane.

How’s about a big giant fuck you to mother nature, huh? I think she’s earned it. Asshole.

In honor of this meteorological kick in the balls, here is a song inspired by a hurricane…

…and here is another song inspired by a different hurricane…

Finally Some Progress

I did some singing in the car today and while I am still a terrible singer and still don’t particularly enjoy singing, I feel a lot better than I did yesterday.

I had three songs ready for vocals and four (I said three in my post last night but it was actually four) that had lyrics but no guitars. I finished the three that were ready and one of the ones that wasn’t quite ready. It didn’t go well, but it is good progress and I haven’t made any real progress in a full week. Sigh of relief.

I go to my parents house tonight and I will be there all day tomorrow so no guitar until Sunday. I need to make some serious time for it on Sunday. It’s important. Yesterday was the half way point of the 50/90 project and while I am doing well (38 in the pipeline, 21 of which are finished), I was hoping I would be further along. I am afraid I am losing steam.

I did not, however, take a picture on the way home so… I guess this car music post is finished.

Planning for Tomorrow

I did some 50/90 work tonight. I wrote lyrics to a couple of songs and generally tried to set myself up for some car singing tomorrow. I have three songs that are ready for vocals, meaning they have rhythm guitars tracked and melodies and lyrics written. There are three other songs that don’t have rhythm guitars but do have melodies and lyrics. I added some awful sounding midi guitar tracks to use as guides so I can add vocals out of order.

Now I just have to wake up early tomorrow morning and do it… and it’s 11:33 right now so with each passing moment the chances of getting up early tomorrow get slimmer and slimmer.

So why am I typing this?

Nothing Constructive

I didn’t play guitar tonight. I did play about an hour and 10 minutes of World of Warcraft and with the exception of the last five minutes or so when I died repeatedly I had a nice stretch of slaughtering bad guys and monsters so I guess it was okay. I know we said we weren’t going to play World of Warcraft anymore, but it’s still my wife’s all time favorite, and it is also the only game I have on my PC and my subscription hasn’t run out yet so… yeah.

Star Wars: Old Republic is downloading, so there’s that.

There’s a Pixies song in the soundtrack to The Suicide Squad. Hey, off of Doolittle. Yeah… that set off the old Boston rock fan zaniness in a big way. I had already started listening to a lot of Throwing Muses prior to watching the movie but now we’re just up to our eyeballs in the music of the city of Boston from the late 80’s through the late 90’s. Pixies have been the soundtrack to tonight’s video game violence. I’ve blown through Come on Pilgrim and Surfer Rosa and I’m about 3/4 of the way through Doolittle. For my money, Pixies Doolittle, Throwing Muses House Tornado (or the first record), and Mission of Burma’s Vs are enough to justify the entire god awful decade of the 1980’s. Throw in a handful of Rush records and just dump the rest of the decade down the crapper and you’re good to go.

Did I mention that Betwixt is getting back together for a few shows soon? There’s your 1990’s justification right there.

You know, I wish I had something constructive* to add to the electronic conversation tonight but I just don’t. Go give Doolittle a spin and you’ll feel better. Try Betwixt’s Moustache album too. Also, if you can find Smackmelon’s Space Shot play that too. Trust me.

*Twice through the course of this post, once in the title and once in the body, I have misspelled constructive as constructed. I blame society for my spelling short comings. The Pixies playlist just moved on from Doolittle to Bossanova. We should be Digging for Fire shortly.

Addendum: When I logged out of World of Warcraft, the Steam app said I had 10 seconds to wait before I could play Star Wars: Old Republic. Groovy, thought me. Then when I hovered my mouse over the Start button it changed to 8 seconds, and then to 4 hours and 50 minutes. It’s currently reading two hours and 56 minutes. Okay. I guess we won’t play tonight. It’s all right. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to be a Jedi or a Sith to start with anyway.

Addendum #2: We watched an episode of The Big Bang Theory tonight while we ate dinner. In it, Sheldon played a Theremin. Did anyone else completely forget that there is a Theremin in the Pixies song Velouria? The world is a small place, and music makes time travel possible.

20 Songs Down, 30 to Go

20 songs down. 40% of the project is complete.

I told you I was going to mix a song tonight.

Here it is:

I still have five minutes of “exercise” to do, and then maybe I’ll try to sleep. It’s 11:06 and all is quiet on the parental front. Fingers crossed.

Muddy

I’ve been listening to a lot of Elmore James lately. Tonight I switched it up and went with B.B. King but the playlist I found was skewed heavy on the cheesy pseudo-soul shit and I had to switch to something else.

I went with some Muddy Waters. For some reason I always neglect Muddy Waters.

After tonight, I need to promise myself I’ll listen to more Muddy. Tonight was like rediscovering something magical. I don’t think his chops are in the same league as B.B. or Elmore, but the attitude… the passion… the fire… the sheer nerve…

Holy shit his music is good.

Song Number 17

Today’s 50/90 progress was impressive (to no one on Earth but me). Four vocals, one rhythm guitar, five lead guitars, and one mix…

Today was the listening party for the RPM Challenge’s Record Every Month thing. I forgot to submit a song back in June, and I forgot again for July. Sorry. This song here was written and recorded entirely in August so that means I am still up to date on R.E.M. even though I haven’t submitted a couple of times. I have written and recorded at least one song each month since the challenge started in March.

As for 50/90, 17 songs down and 33 to go.

Ninety

I spent a solid 90 minutes tracking guitars today and I feel a tiny bit better about the state of the world right now. Granted a tiny bit better than OH MY GOD WE’RE TOTALLY DOOMED AND NOTHING WILL EVER BE RIGHT AGAIN is… well… relative, dig?

I put rhythm guitars onto one song as a bit of a warm up and then went nuts doing leads. Five songs. The four that got vocals this morning and one more that was left over from last time I did leads.

My finger tips are killing me right now. I really need the band to get back together so I can get my fingers into regular shape again.

Four

I managed a little car music this morning. I put a load of laundry into the washing machine, jumped in the car, recorded vocals for four songs, and got back into the house one minute before the wash cycle ended. I kinda felt like a genius.

Obligatory drive home ugly clock picture:

The pipeline now contains five songs ready for lead guitar, five songs ready for rhythm guitar, and three that are just little noodles and still need everything. That’s all on top of the 16 songs that are already finished.