Hey, remember the old days when I used to post music all the time?
Neither do I.
This is from volume four of the re-recordings project. I recorded it in January (mostly) and mixed it today. Is it good? Eh. It’s not the worst thing I’ve ever worked on. That’s about the best praise I can give it.
I haven’t done any music this month. Well, I put new strings on my SG but that’s it. I still plan to contribute to the Record Every Month thing the RPM Challenge folks are doing. I just haven’t done anything for it yet. Have I been too busy? Am I burned out? Am I kind of in a rut? The answers are probably yes, yes, and yes. I don’t know.
I have a bunch of things that are ready to mix. Two from the last round of re-recordings, and a few leftover from last month. I could do those this weekend, but I’m at my parent’s house keeping an eye on my mother and I get nervous when I put the noise canceling headphones on. Is she going to call for me for something and I won’t hear it?
I’d like to get the ball rolling again this weekend, but it’s more likely I will just doom scroll twitter all day. You know, like you do.
I put strings on the SG today. As part of my jonzing for a Les Paul Junior I was thinking about top wrapping. That’s where you put the string through the tail piece backward and then wrap the string over the top of it. For Les Paul Juniors (and standards from 1953-1955, I think) the tail piece is also the bridge so top wrapping is required.
For guitars that have a separate bridge, like all three of my Gibsons, it’s not necessary but I thought what the hell. I did it for one string and then stopped. I would have needed to lower the tail piece for it to work and I didn’t want to do that today. I keep the tail low on the other two Gibsons. Maybe I’ll try it on one of those.
Also, is there anything more useless than these locking tuners? They really don’t do anything at all.
I’m not sure why I find myself diving back into Syd Barrett’s music again. It’s something I’m drawn toward every now and then and it’s alway’s painful. His music from mid-1967 on is just so tragic.
You have two singles and an album from Pink Floyd that are magic and then a few singles and unreleased (then) songs before they kicked him out. Then the two solo albums, an outtake collection and a smattering of previously unreleased things that are simply tragic in their lack of focus. Some of the post-acid-or-whatever-happened-to-him songs are still brilliant (Vegetable Man, Jugband Blues, Octopus, and Dominoes) but most of it is pitiable in an imagine-what-could-have-been sense.
We all knew there was an attempt at a third album in 1974 that died after a single session. After that we know he showed up to a Floyd session in ‘75 and no one recognized him, but that was it. Now thanks to the wonders of bootlegging and YouTube we can hear that ‘74 session and it is just as lost as we’d been lead to believe.
For starters, let’s just assume that this is what it claims to be. Who know if it is, right? Let’s just go with it.
This is the sound of someone who didn’t have a clue what to do with himself, noodling out ideas that were mostly just 12-bar blues riffs. It’s heartbreaking to listen to but at the same time it’s light years better than I expected it to be. Knowing this was out there, I always wondered why they didn’t include any of it on the Opel compilation. Now I know why. There is nothing useable here.
Lately I’ve been hearing about rumors of additional lost recordings. There’s a documentary where Joe Boyd says he had, and lost, a tape of Syd playing songs that likely ended up on his solo records. This was before the mental breakdown. Syd told him he had a pile of songs Floyd didn’t use and Boyd asked for a tape thinking he could give some songs to another band he was producing.
Also, David Gilmour’s ex-wife is said to have remembered Syd coming to their house and using David’s home studio. She recalled the timing being well after Syd’s final album and his very short lived band, Stars, but well before the final session in ‘74. The mind boggles at the thought of what he might have had in his head at that time.
Anyway, listening to this recording makes me sad for what could have been, but also happy for what was. Go give Astronomy Domine or See Emily Play a spin and bask in his very fleeting musical glory.
We just watched the Tina Turner documentary on HBO. I was never a fan, but even at the wise old age of 13 in 1984 I could recognize a legendary bad ass when I saw one. You should watch the movie.
There was guitar playing tonight. Bad, bad guitar playing, and not in the ironic use of the word bad. Bad in the literal sense.
The good folks at the RPM Challenge came up with a new thing for us to mess with. Record Every Month. One song per month for the rest of the year. I was hoping to have 10 but here we are on the 31st and I’ve got one. Count me as a winner for the first month at least.
Eric Clapton celebrated his 76th birthday today and I’m guessing he didn’t wear a mask.
I can overlook a lot of shit from my musical heroes, I’m looking at you drunken racist immigration rants back in the… whenever that was, but the anti mask shit you pulled recently… just fuck you, bro.
I still want to hear him play live again. Just one more time. That’s despite the anti mask shit. I mean really… fuck you, bro.
So instead of birthday wishes here’s a pic from 1966 with the legendary Marshall combo amp behind him, and the even more legendary, dare I say almost mythical, 1960 Les Paul Standard in front of him.
Assuming the Instagram link works, of course…
(The guy next to him is John McVie who about two years later became the Mac in Fleetwood Mac)
Inside the Red Head's Head 