Category: Music

Almost Starting Time #RPM2021

One hour and 13 minutes from now it will be 12:00AM on February 1, 2021. In other words, just over an hour until the start of the RPM Challenge.

I’ve never felt less like playing the RPM game than I do right now, but it will be good for me, I think. Who knows. Musical therapy has been a theme for the last year. Maybe now I will make the best use of it. Who knows.

I have a new overdrive pedal to use in my new music nook. I haven’t plugged it in, let alone play through it. I haven’t setup the microphones on the new vertical two amp setup. I meant to finish off the last two songs for the re-recording project as a test drive for RPM but never got around to it. Life got in the way. What did John Lennon say? Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans?

I have no plans besides limiting myself to a wah pedal, a fuzz pedal, and a couple of overdrive pedals. I am going to use the ES-335 for no reason other than it feels the best at low volume. Two amps, the Vox AC15 and the Fender Bassbreakers. No wet dry or stereo silliness, just one signal split into two amps. Simple.

I don’t have the fascist in the white house to write about anymore, but I have plenty of nazis and nazi collaborators and (worse) nazi wannabees in the congress to complain about. Just because cheeto is gone doesn’t mean we’re in the clear. I’m guessing there might be some medical songs too. Who knows. Maybe I’ll force myself to write 10-20 songs about insects just to change things up.

I mean, it could happen.

To paraphrase the Iron Maiden song, 64 minutes to midnight.

Dream or Nightmare

I had a dream that we went on vacation to some unnamed beach hotel. The cast of the show The Flash was there. I was trying to impress them by telling them I was in a cover band and we played a Genesis song. They were polite, but they were also not impressed.

Was it a dream or was it a nightmare?

You decide.

RPM Challenge Prep

I’m redesigning my music recording nook in our bedroom with the intention of having it all setup and ready to go by the time the RPM Challenge starts on February 1st.

I’m still going to use two amps, but I ordered a stand that should allow me to stack the two little 15 watters on top of each other. I can’t just put one on the other as the feet are too small and the handles too tall. Also, all of the knobs are on top. So a stand that I can sit both of them on sounds great. The Amazon description said it should be able to handle two 1×12 combos, but we won’t know for sure until I actually have it in my hands. Amazon tells me it should be delivered today.

I’m building the teeny tiniest new pedal board. I put the big sucker away to save some room in the redesigned bedroom. The new one is going to be very small. I have a new crybaby coming, the Gary Clark, Jr signature model that I wanted to get when I bought the last wah pedal, That should also be coming today. Fingers crossed. That will likely sit on the floor next to the new tiny board. I will use the Ryra Klone pedal I bought myself for my birthday back in May for cleanish and low gain stuff. I have the Malaise Forever Black Lives Matter pegged for high gain at the moment, but I also ordered a Wampler Plexi Drive Mini which will either replace it outright or share the highish gain stuff. Not sure yet. I also want to put a fuzz pedal on the board. It depends on how much room I have on the teeny tiny little pedal train thing I bought. If I can fit the Wren and Cuff Super Russian I’ll use that, otherwise I’ll see about the Wren and Cuff Tall Font Russian or the Way Huge Russian Pickle. All modulation and delay will be outboard stuff added in the mix. I have spoken. This is the way.

The January album in the month has been scrapped. I still have two songs from round four of re-recordings that need lead guitar parts. Hopefully I’ll have the new setup (everything except the Plexi Drive which won’t be here for another week) put together tonight or tomorrow so that I can use those two songs as a test drive for February.

I’m a little sad about the state of the RPM Challenge website. The blogs and the forum seem to have been replaced by a Discord chat, but I have never been able to log onto it. It just hangs and never connects. I am going to miss all of the extra curricular RPM stuff. I’m almost nervous that I will miss it enough to take the fun out of everything. Time will tell.

RPM Design

Jen and I have a redecorating bug and it’s crazy. We’ve had our bedroom setup like this a couple of years and it’s time to start fiddling with it. That means my little music nook is going to move and be redecorated. I’m looking for an amp stand that can stack two combos. I think I found one. I’m also going to put my humongeous pedal board into storage, which means I need to put together a smaller one. I already have one, but it’s at Mike the Bass Players house and it isn’t coming home until Covid is over… so an overdrive to pair with the Ryra Klon Klone and a wah wah. That plus the two amps will be my RPM Challenge setup……

…….I think.

Monday Morning Music

Are you enjoying your Dr Martin Luther King, Jr day? I am. I mixed a song. Wanna hear it? No? I’m going to post it anyway.

Worst song title I’ve ever come up with. The sound effect was on my original demo from April 2014. Why? More important, why did I keep it? I don’t know, stop pestering me!

Phil Spector

Phil Spector died.

I’m not sure how to react to this one. On the one hand, he revolutionized record production in the 60’s. All of those girl groups, Sonny and Cher, so many hits, he was behind them all. On the other hand he was a scumbag and a murderer. I don’t mean that figuratively, he was actually a murderer.

I guess from a professional stand point the thing that sticks out to me the most was how he was brought in to salvage The Beatles Let it Be album and film soundtrack. He’s the guy who put all those awful string and choir arrangements onto the title song and Long and Winding Road and turned them into schmaltz of the highest degree. Then decades later The Beatles reissued the album with all of his changes stripped out which infinitely improved the album. Yup, that’s Phil Spector to me.

Rest in peace, I guess.