Monday Morning, Again

The bad news is, it’s Monday again. The good news is, thanks to Independence Day it’s only a four day work week. Bliss.

I did some car singing today. June Music is done, 50/90 doesn’t start until Saturday. What did I do? The Great Re-Recording Project. Actually, in my mind I still think of it as The Great 2015 Re-Recording Project because that’s what I originally called it. The old name doesn’t quite work anymore.

Anyway, I worked on vocals for two songs. I spent a little more than an hour. When I do album in a month or demo projects like I’ve been doing I don’t mind copying and pasting vocal tracks. If a song has two choruses I sing it once and paste it everywhere else. I don’t want to do that on The Great Re-Recording Project so it takes a lot more time to finish a song. I want each note played by a human to be unique. I did copy and paste the MIDI instruments. Drums I can’t really help because it’s the GarageBand Session drummer. I might do a unique tweak to each section. Bass… I’m really thinking about redoing all of the bass parts so that I don’t copy or paste anything. We’ll see.

Anyway, I did two songs. They both sound a smidge better than the scratch tracks I already had, so it was worth it. It was, however, definitely stressful. There were a lot of people around. No one actually close, but I was most certainly not alone. I pulled into a spot at around 7:30 and there was a “work” crew two sections away. I put work in quotes because they weren’t actually working. They were just hanging out and they were pretty clearly watching me. Could they hear me? Doubtful, but I was belting as loud as my meager voice can get. Maybe? Doubtful. I think they were on the 8:00 shift with the grounds crew and were just early. There were a lot of additional people on the crew wandering around and there were cars and trucks (and a crane?) driving in and out.

A second work crew showed up at 8:00. Three cars, four or five people. They were in the same lot I was in, but on the opposite end. They were much closer than the not-working peanut gallery, but they only stayed outside for a few minutes before moving into the movie theater. Still too close for comfort though. There was probably enough time, battery, and bladder capacity for me to start working on a third song, but I bailed. There were just too many people. When I pulled out of my spot I saw a third cheering section. Two cats in an SUV only two rows behind me. Way too close for singing comfort. They were okay by social distance standards but what the hell guys, there’s a whole string of parking lots. Pick one of your own.

I’m thinking I need a new parking lot for morning singing. Either that or I have to leave the house 60-90 minutes earlier. On the way home I went to another spot to check it out. I drove up to the Tenney Castle grounds. It was mostly quiet (one jogger in the middle of the driveway with headphones on who couldn’t hear my nearly silent Hybrid car until I beeped. It was pretty funny), but I had actually forgotten that there isn’t a parking lot there. The driveway ends in a rotary. Bummer. Maybe early mornings at the library? They have a pretty remote overflow parking lot there. Maybe.

Anything else going on today? UPS? My amp is back in Out for Delivery Status with a date/time of today by 9:00pm. Should I hold my breath? Look at me. I’m totally holding my breath. Wow, I might actually turn blue from all of this holding my breath.

We did some minor furniture rearranging in some of the bed rooms last week. Over the weekend we spent some time planning for future changes as well. Nothing to report yet, but discussions are being had. Maybe the quarantinie life might lead to a slightly rearranged house. Maybe not. We’ll see. We did add a bunch of new smart light bulbs to a lot of the rooms. Most of the house already had some. Now we have more. The Internet of Things and all that. Groovy. Just don’t hack my lights, dude. M’kay?

Welp, it’s 9:00am on a Monday morning. Enough of my yappin’, let’s boogie… and by boogie I mean start the work day.

Talk to you all later.

June Music Project: Complete

11 songs, a shade over 40 minutes. Consider it done.

Back in April I could post a playlist from hearthis.at and it worked. In May it posted all right but only played the first track. Does it work in June?

ADDENDUM: Nope, it only played the first song. If you’re desperate to punish yourself, go here.

Also Ran

I think this one might be good. I think. I’m not sure. I’m really close to it, but I am more excited about this than any song I’ve worked on since RPM in 2019.

Is it good? No… don’t tell me. Let me be excited for a while. Don’t burst my idiot bubble.

Neil is Still Gone

Last night after work Jen and I went for a drive to nowhere. She put on some music. I didn’t ask for anything, I just planned to listen to whatever she wanted.

She picked some Rush. Clearly she’s brilliant with impeccable taste. Hold Your Fire mostly, but also a little Power Windows.

The song “Grand Designs” includes the line:

Some world-views are spacious

And some are merely spaced

That pretty much sums up our idiot world, doesn’t it?

The world sucks without Neil Peart in it.

June Tracking: Complete

All of the tracking for the 11 June project songs is complete. Today I recorded the last two vocals, the last four lead guitars, and finished one mix.

The Klon KTR into the overdrive side of the Keeley D&M drive really clicked for me for the first time today. Also, the Bonamassa signature Crybaby is really great. The more I use it, the more I like it, and I’ve been using it a lot.

I’ve got five songs to mix and then we start looking forward to the kick off of 50/90 on July 4th. Yikes!

Relating to Sheldon Cooper

Ever watch The Big Bang Theory? You know the character Sheldon Cooper? I found myself relating to him this morning, intensely.

You see this truck?

See it? Parked there in the parking lot like it’s no big thing?

Its in my spot.

I repeat, its in my spot.

Its totally sitting there right on the spot that I go to when I do my morning parking lot vocal recording sessions. Just sitting there like some smug son of a bitch, taking up my god damned spot!

I had to move to the other side of the lot to get the required privacy.

It threw everything out of whack (no it didn’t). It caused me to screw up 10 times more often than usual (no it didn’t, I just sucked a tiny bit more than usual and I’m blaming it on the parking spot). It caused me to even have to change one of the melodies I’d written out ahead of time because the parking lot made my vocal range a couple of steps smaller (no it didn’t, again, I just suck).

I had an audience though, the poor suckers (there were two of them even though you can only see one).

The good news is, I am done with vocals for June music. I only had two more to do and I struggled with both of them, but they are done. I thought about maybe doing a song or two from the re-recording project while I was out on the town, but I decided not too. The mojo was not with me today.

I took a roundabout route home instead so that I could take a picture of the ugly clock.

299/365

For June Music I have five songs already mixed, two more are ready to mix, and four still need lead guitars. I might have this thing finished by the 29th again. That would be cool.

Happy Birthday to Jeff Beck

Today is Jeff Beck’s 76th birthday. Happy Birthday to the only person left on my I-Need-To-See-Him-Before-I-Die musicians list. One of the Big Three Yardbirds lead guitarists. One of, if not THE, best guitar players ever to breath oxygen. Well… the best ever in the recorded era at least.

Whatever your taste in popular music, he’s been there and done that and been better than everyone else. Blues, R&B, rock, soul, funk, metal (in the 1970’s sense at least), Jazz, pop, electronic, industrial, he’s even dabbled in classical a couple of times.

He’s brilliant, and unlike all of his contemporaries he never lost a step. He’s as good, if not better, than he was in his youth.

The most important thing about Jeff Beck’s birthday? It’s also my brother and sister in law’s wedding anniversary. Happy 14th, John and Mary. And Many More!