Category: Music

Someone Else Named Robert’s Birthday

I am not the only Robert who was born on May 8th. I’m not even the first.

Robert Johnson was born on May 8, 1911. He would have been 110 years old today.

There’s been a thing over the last few years where people have been trying to speed correct his records. It wasn’t unusual for recordings made in the 20’s and 30’s to be pressed a little too fast or two slow. Many people feel Johnson’s music runs too fast. It’s hard to deny that he’s a smidge chipmunky at times. Lots of people have been releasing “corrected” versions of his songs. I’ve never listened to them before. It’s always felt a little blasphemous.

I was looking for something to add to this post and a handful of speed corrections came up in the YouTube search. I figured what the hell, right? I’m 50 now who cares what I think.

It sounds all right to me. Maybe a little more natural. One of the comments on the post says that this version is exactly in the key of E which means that it’s probably correct, though Johnson cut these in a hotel room and who knows if his guitar was tuned to A=440 or what. It’s likely it was not. Oh well.

Happy Birthday, Robert Johnson.

May the Fourth

It’s May the Fourth. The day that people celebrate Star Wars because of a coincidence of pronunciation.

Disney+ released the first episode of a new animated show today. I was going to watch it before work but it’s 75 minutes long. A 75 minute Star Wars cartoon episode after the first few episodes of WandaVision didn’t even run for half an hour? I’ll get to it but not today.

After work tonight I have a Nana Sitting night. Tomorrow I have an appointment to visit my father in the hospital. Yes, you read that correctly. An appointment. Thanks, Covid-19.

I haven’t done any music since Sunday. It’s only two days, but I wanted to be more up on it than this. I’ll get it done this time.

Unless I am mistaken, 3/4 of the members of The Lizardfish have had their second vaccination shot. With all the other shit going on, do I have time to play with the band if they are ready to start playing again? Just another thing to be miserable about, I guess.

May the Fourth Be With You.

Almost Bed Time

The Red Sox lost, I did a load of laundry, my mother sat up for about an hour before going back to bed, I watched an episode of That Pedal Show that is making me want to go into cellar storage and find my cheap uni-vibe pedal, I wrote the music for another song that could possibly make good use of a cheap uni-vibe pedal, and the first episode of season four of The Handmaids Tale has some seriously dark shit in it.

I’ll be turning in soon. Here’s hoping my mother sleeps through the night. She was asleep when I got here. She woke up a couple of hours later thinking it was morning. I asked her if she wanted dinner as she was fishing out a package of instant oatmeal for breakfast. Hashtag, le sigh.

Prep for a Binge Watch

I’m Nana sitting at my parents’ house tonight. I just gave her dinner and her evening pills and we had a quick phone call with my dad. Dad seems okay tonight but Mom is having a rough day. I left my house at a couple of minutes past 6:00 tonight and I will be here until around dinner time tomorrow night. I’m trying to think of what I am going to do with my time while I’m here. The Red Sox are on right now and they just coughed up a lead to the Rangers in the third inning.

I’m thinking about some May music ideas. I’m doing the RPM Challenge record one song each month thing. In March I started five or six songs and then waited until the last minute to finish anything and as a result I only finished one. I have four more ready to mix but I haven’t gotten around to them. In April I started one song early in the month and then waited until the last week to do anything. I started a second song and that’s the only one of the two I finished. In May I am thinking of getting back onto the album-in-a-month bandwagon and seeing if I can crank out 10. No promises, but here we are on May 1st and I’ve already got one underway.

I could work on music while I’m here, but let’s be realistic. I’m probably going to watch TV on my iPad. I have one episode of The Flash to watch but I’ll wait on that one and watch it with Harry, if he wants. There are a couple of Supergirls to watch but I’m kinda not feeling it. (note: The Red Sox just tied the game at three in the top of the fourth inning) The fourth season of The Handmaid’s Tale just started on Hulu and they released a few episodes on the first day, I need to watch those. I’m into the third season of a rewatch of Community so I could try some of those. There’s one other idea that popped into my head earlier today.

Harry was humming the theme from the second episode of WandaVision. Hmm… If I’m going to be here all day tomorrow, and the chances of me sleeping much tonight are somewhere between slim and none… might I be able to watch the entire season of WandaVision in one extended sitting? Nine episodes, roughly 30 minutes each… I might do it. If for no other reason then to hear the Agatha All Along song in context one more time.

It might happen.

The Music Day is Complete

Vocals this morning, lead guitars this evening, and a mix down tonight. Cool!

The RPM Challenge folks are running a secondary challenge to record at least one song each month for the year. It started in March. I now officially have a submission for March and April. Bring on May!

As a challenge within the challenge within the challenge, I made myself write the vocal melody first. I don’t know if I’ve ever done that before. I’m not too upset with the results. It doesn’t suck as bad as most of the garbage I write.

I used the Rat clone I bought last month for most of the leads. I’m liking it. I also used the Ryra Klon Klone pedal after the main dirt source. That’s the opposite of how I normally set things up, but Mick from That Pedal Show keeps suggesting we try the Klon as a boost at the end of the chain and now that I’ve done it… I might have to rethink everything. I like it.

Car Music Change of Plans

Earlier today I wrote something about doing car music tomorrow. That’s off the table now. It’s also off the table for Wednesday. That means I have Thursday and Friday to record vocals and leads and mix.

Nothing like cutting it close, fat ass.

Guitar… Finally

I played some guitar today. It was the first time in over three weeks. The first time this month. My left hand was killing me. Cramps up the wazoo.

I played the SG into the AC15. We are going that route for a while. When the band starts playing again I might go with this.

When I first bought the Bluesbreaker clone I put it after the Ryra Klone. It didn’t do much for me. Today I swapped them with the gain set low on each. Huh. That was some groovy, crunchy goodness. The Mister Vermin, Rat clone, into the Ryra was pretty sweet too.