Category: Music

Welcome to December

Hello and welcome to December 1, 2020. It is really hard to believe we are here, but we are. We are just a couple of weeks away from the first day of Winter. When the lock downs started back in March it was at the very end of Winter. All of Spring, locked down. All of Summer, locked down. Pretty soon all of Autumn, locked down. If you stop and think of it, it is pretty overwhelming. For that reason, I suggest you don’t stop and think about it. Just put your head down and keep moving forward.

I’ve done 10 album in a month projects over the last 10 months. Today marks the start of project #11. I think I want to restrict myself to just my Les Paul, a Klon Klone overdrive pedal, and my two 15 watt tube amps. I need to put new strings on the Les Paul, but I can do that tonight. I still have five songs left on the re-recording project too so those might be Les Paul. We’ll see.

November was noteworthy for this here little bloggie. It had the most page views in any month since I created the account. It also had the most unique visitors of any month since I created the account. How about that? The numbers are still teeny tiny in terms of most real bloggers’ goals but for me it was kinda cool. Thanks for dropping by, everyone. Ya’ll come back now, ya hear?

Today is my weigh in day. I was down a little. That’s nice. I hit a minor milestone. That’s nice too. I was paranoid that I was going to be up, and out of fear I did my entire 30 minute exercise first thing this morning. I doubt it had any effect on the scale, but it sort of made me feel almost better at the time. I find myself doing this on most Tuesdays now. Whatever works, right?

Car Music Complete… For November

Another day, another recording session in the car. I picked off the last three vocal parts for the re-recording thingie. I sang hard enough to give myself a headache again. Weird, my jaw is also feeling sore. I should probably learn to sing correctly no I shouldn’t. All of the vocals are done, and that’s the only project I’m still working on so all of the vocals are done forever… at least until December starts on Tuesday. I’m thinking December music will be one guitar and one pedal. Les Paul and Ryra? I think.

For the re-recording thingie, I still have to do lead guitar for seven songs, and a few songs need to have the midi tracks updated (that means bass, drums, and keyboards though only a couple of songs have keyboards and those are already done). There’s no way in hell I’ll have this batch finished by December 1st, but that’s okay because I never actually gave myself a deadline for these. It’ll be finished soon though.

The question that is spinning around my idiot head is this: Do I sign up for DistroKid, pay the one year fee of $20, and have some of this garbage posted to Spotify for a year? Probably not, but should I? No. But….

Rob Sing Bad

Yeah… car music… I had six songs needing vocals and I picked off three of them. It was rough. As in, I need to hire a singer for my crappy recordings. Six feet of social distance isn’t even close to enough when you’re screaming your lungs out. I think I’d need to be listening in Massachusetts while the singer is singing in… Cuba? Something like that.

Re-recording volume 3 is 10 songs. Three are done. Four have vocals and are ready for lead guitar. The other three still need vocals. More car music tomorrow.

I told this morning’s audience that I’d share his/her picture. He/She didn’t seem to into it. He/She just sort of stood there the whole time.

How Was Your Thanksgiving

How was everyone’s Thanksgiving? Was it socially distanced? Did you stay safe or did you ignore the pandemic and spread the disease far and wide? We stayed safe. If you didn’t, fuck you.

We moved some furniture around to prep for Christmas decorations. One of the things that got moved was the Apple HomePod. Ever since they announced the HomePod mini, I’ve been kinda jonzing for one but Jen wanted to upgrade our Sonos system. Either way is fine with me, but I just like being an Apple fanboy.

Well, after moving the HomePod last night Jen has seemed to be a little inspired. She did a lot of cool stuff with the Home app, including setting it up for our Hue lights, and the new intercom function. I had taken the HomePod Mini off of my Christmas list, but now… woah. Are we getting on the HomePod bandwagon for more than just listening to music?

Have you watched the episode of The Mandalorian that came out today? I didn’t think they could top last week’s episode, but holy crap did they ever!

I was going to do some car singing this morning but given the choice between that and sleeping a whole lot, I chose sleeping. We just got some new flannel sheets and oh the comfy.

That’s the kind of news you get when you read this bloggie… you learn about the new flannel sheets on our bed. Kick ass, dude!

Now, go and watch The Mandalorian while I do a little walking in place exercise and watch the new episode of That Pedal Show and think about all the cool reverb effects that I can’t do without spending hundreds of dollars. Also… is a Wampler Plexi Drive Mini a good alternative to the racism that an OCD pedal represents? Questions, babie. All the questions.

Happy Day After Thanksgiving/First Day of Christmas.

Still More Tunes!

National Solo Album Month is finished, so what did I do? I finished a song for the third batch of re-recordings! I’m just out of control!

When I wrote this song nine years ago it was just an exercise to show the kids how GarageBand worked. I was absolutely shocked when they were not only impressed by the process, but they actually claimed to like the song. There was even a day a week or so after the recording was finished when I caught one of them singing it to themself. Absolutely amazing!