I added another song yesterday. MIDI bass and drums are done. That’s all I had in me yesterday. I don’t expect much different today. I had a covid shot two days ago and it kicked my ass yesterday. I still feel less than wonderful today.
Category: Music
2024 NaSoAlMo Day 2/30
I did not play any guitar yesterday. I did try to fix a problem with some buzzing on my ES-335 and I think it worked. Once I actually plug in we’ll see if my optimism is warranted. In 38 years of guitar playing I had never adjusted a truss rod myself. Now I have, and I don’t think I broke anything.
Back on the main topic though, I did not record any real human being instruments, but I did add two more songs to the queue. Both have (midi) bass and drums and one has a (midi) guitar guide track. That brings me to three songs and strangely, they are all about four minutes long. Is that a trend this year?
We will see.
2024 NaSoAlMo Day 1/30
National Solo Album Month is underway. Write and record an album and do it all without any help. Fly solo on the whole thing.
I’ve had some vague ideas of a prog-like super long song or two but I think I am just going to write the usual batch of the usual length rock songs in 7/8 time (mostly) strung together in a big medley. I’ve done that before on one of these projects. Who knows.
I started one song. Bass and drums (midi) are done and there is a (midi) guide track for the guitar.
We are underway.
New Music Project Coming Soon
Today is Tuesday October 29th. This coming Friday is November 1st.
A new annual, internet based music project begins on Friday. National Solo Album Month, NaSoAlMo. Write and record an album’s worth of music all within the month of November, and do it all yourself. No collaborations. Just you.
I had a thought about trying to write two songs of approximately 20 minutes in length, like a good Prog Rock nerd. I said two 20 minute songs, not four. What do you think I am, Yes? Sheesh.
Something tells me that once I start rolling on this (assuming I actually start rolling on this) I will just do my usual 10, 2-3 minute rockers and call it a day. We will see how (if) it goes. I’m sure I’ll post about it 20-30 times a day, or some crap like that.
Random Sunday Night Thoughts
This week’s episode of The Penguin doesn’t launch for another 40 minutes so I am going to write a blog post to kill some of that time.
You ready?
Iron Maiden guitarist Adrian Smith posted a picture on instagram today (at least I think it was today) that was taken backstage at a Maiden show in Toronto. In the photograph is one Mr Alex Lifeson who apparently is an Iron Maiden fan? Larry and Mike and I are going to see Maiden in less than two weeks. Do you think there’s a chance that Alex Lifeson will be at that show too? I hope so! I think it would be the best thing ever to watch Big Al air guitar to The Trooper. That would freakin’ rule.
Tomorrow is Monday. Back to work for everyone. Sad, painful, depressing. All that stuff. I have a small mountain of paperwork to do this week. I need to find a way to not be distracted by other work responsibilities so that I can get it all done as soon as humanly possible. I have the day off on Thursday because I wanted to be home and off the clock in time to run our house’s Trick or Treating.
I have one very important non-work responsibility that I have to take care of tomorrow. Well, two actually. I need to pick something up at the drug store for Jen tomorrow before work. That’s not what I am writing about, though it is important. The thing that I am writing about will also hopefully happen before work. I need to buy five tickets to an NCAA hockey game. UMass Lowell (my and my wife’s old school) at University of Vermont (my step daughter’s old and my step son’s current school). Harry and I went to a game last year. This year Jen and Bellana and Harry’s girlfriend are going to go too. I need to get the tickets in advance because I am crazy and don’t want to wait.
Hockey… as a family… how cool is that?
While on our day trip to Burlington, Vermont today, I took a camera with me. A film camera. Dad’s Pentax K1000 with a roll of Kentmere 400 (black and white) film. I shot about two thirds of the roll. I know for sure that I completely and utterly mangled a few of the photos, but one or two might come out okay. If the weather is okay on Thursday (Halloween) I might use the morning portion of my day off as a photo morning. I keep talking about Boston…. maybe I could go to Boston for a little while?
Okay, we’re now 25 minutes away form a new episode of The Penguin. I think I am going to post this literary masterpiece now and listen to some music until the show is released on the MAX app.
Happy Sunday, everyone. Have a good night.
Phil Lesh
The world of 80’s metal lost Paul Di’Anno a couple of days ago, and now the world of 60’s San Francisco psychedelic rock has lost Phil Lesh.
Again, making it all about me (friggin’ narcisist), I was a Jefferson Airplane fanatic (still am) through high school and beyond. Some of my friends were full blown Dead Heads. I struggled with The Grateful Dead. I liked literally everything I heard, but I couldn’t help but compare it to the Airplane and it always came up short.
A few years ago I decided to finally decide if I liked the band or not. Streaming services were a thing so I took the deep dive. What did I learn?
I learned that I really liked the band. I knew I was going to enjoy the guitar playing. I did not expect to be so impressed with the bass playing. Phil Lesh was fantastic. I mean, he was no Jack Cassady. He was no Jack Bruce. He was great though. Good enough that I wished I had gone down that musical road much earlier than I did.
Rest in peace, Phil Lesh.
Paul Di’Anno
We got some sad news from the land of British Heavy Metal from the 1980’s. Paul Di’Anno passed away.
Paul Di’Anno was the original singer in Iron Maiden. Well… original? Not sure, but he’s the singer on their first two records and their original demo and all that good stuff. He was either fired or quit or maybe a little bit of both in about 1982 or so, I think. He was replaced by Bruce Dickinson who quickly became a legend and the band exploded in a huge way after he was gone. I’ve heard the story from a bunch of different vantage points and they all are different enough that I don’t really know what happened. All I know is they were pretty big before he left and huge after.
Di’Anno was in a slew of bands after leaving Maiden. None of them were anywhere near as big, but he seems to have pretty much always been working. I think there was some jail time in his past somewhere too, and in recent years he had a bunch of health issues. He seemed to reconnect with some of his old band mates in recent years and everyone seemed happy to be in touch with him again.
At this point I will do what I always do when a public figure dies. I will make it all about me. Sorry for the narcissism.
I first heard Iron Maiden when I was in Junior High School. In seventh grade our bus driver, at the request of one of the eighth graders, would play The Number of the Beast album during our bus rides. He only ever played side two and we only ever heard the title song and Run to the Hills, but he played the cassette almost every day. It wasn’t for me. Ironically, it was Bruce Dickinson’s voice that really turned me off. I eventually came around, but at that time I was not digging the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. Sorry.
Fast forward to my senior year in high school. All of my friends… all of them (I think)… were Maiden fans. I was the odd man out. Once in a while someone would force me to listen to something, and it was the then-current release, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, that almost brought me into the fold. It’s basically a prog-rock record disguised as metal. It wasn’t bad. I didn’t hate it, but as with Number of the Beast, it just wasn’t for me. Close, but not quite.
Not long after that, my soon to be college roommate Larry took one more shot. He told me that the very first Iron Maiden record had a different singer and the sound was much more raw. He put the album on and that was it. It was less grand and (dare I say it) operatic and more… punk? I think the band used to get pissed when people said they were punk-ish, but that’s what I was hearing… and that’s what I was liking. What sold me on that album was two things, really. The lack of production value (ironic since I was about to go to college to study audio engineering) and the singer. Paul Di’Anno. Bruce Dickinson is better in literally every measurable way, but I will go to the end of my days preferring Paul Di’Anno. It’s not you, Bruce, it’s me.
I devoured that first album. Then I checked out the second album, Killers. The production values went way up and the energy changed. I really liked it, but not in the same way as the first album. I found a copy of the Maiden Japan live ep and that was better. The rawness was back. I ate those three records alive for a while and eventually I started opening my tiny little brain up to some of the post-Paul Di’Anno stuff and by then I was ready to give in to it and Maiden became one of my favorite bands.
Their run of releases up to 1990 was unbeatable. I saw them for the first time in 1990, which was unfortunately when the wheels were sort of falling off the bus a little. I saw them again in 2000 when they were very much finding themselves again. I saw them a third time in 2019, a few months before the pandemic arrived, and while they are senior citizens now, they still have it. Whatever IT is, they still have it. I am going to see them for a fourth time next month. I’m looking forward to it.
And it is all thanks to Paul Di’Anno’s performance on that first album. That’s what opened the door for me. That’s what opened my brain.
Paul Di’Anno has passed away at the age of 66. Rest in Peace. Thanks for the music. Thanks for the energy. Thanks for the grrrrrrrrrrr. Most appreciated.
CD
The CD player on Dad’s stereo thing that I’ve been using to listen to all of my Rush records on vinyl works.
I started listening to everything in order yesterday. Presto, from 1989, is the first Rush studio album that I don’t have on vinyl (did it ever come out on vinyl? I don’t think so) and when I got to that point in the catalog… I just had to listen to it. I don’t have another album on vinyl until Vapor Trails, from 2002. So I guess it’s CDs for the next four releases.
Am I a nerd? Why yes, yes I am.
Records
Yesterday I started listening to every Rush record I own on vinyl, in release order. I have everything up to 1987, after which they stopped releasing their music on vinyl (in large quantities at least). I have a couple of 21st century releases from when vinyl became a thing again. I’m in the office today so I won’t be playing that game again until tomorrow. I did take some Hipstamatic Shake to Shuffle style pics while I was packing up my laptop. Just because.
I’m not one of those people who thinks that vinyl is some magical thing. I just like the vibe. I also like having my father’s record player in my work from home space. It’s nice. I’ll start the Rush thing over again tomorrow at the start of the work day. It’s like having a big playlist from a streaming service except that I have to keep flipping the records.
2024 50/90 Challenge Day 90/90
This year’s challenge is now officially over. 90 days in the books. Thanks for coming along on my journey through silliness.
The next internet based musical songwriting/recording challenge kicks off on November 1st. National Solo Album Month. I’m not sure if I am going to play along this year. 50/90 took a lot out of me. We’ll see.
Inside the Red Head's Head 