Category: Music

Directionless

It is weird, you know? Now that I’ve run out of daily writing prompts and have kicked the habit (so to speak) I feel like I’ve lost my blogging mojo somewhat. Like… now what do I do? You know what I mean, jelly bean?

Today is the 4th of July. That is meaningless now that the united states supreme court has declared that the president is above the law. We the people, except for the president, right? Fuck it, I don’t care. My country is dead. Nothing to do now except vote for the guy who won’t abuse his new dictatorial powers. Whatever.

The holiday no longer has any meaning except that it’s now 50 songs in 90 days challenge season. From today through October 1st I am going to try to write a shite load of shitty songs. Be warned, I am going to write about that a lot. It’s only 8:18am and I already have one riff written. There will be tons more to come, I think. Unless I wuss out and lose motivation and stop working… like last year… and almost every year that I’ve tried this dumb thing.

The holiday is meaningless now but it’s still a day off during the summer. The plan is to have a cookout. Burgers on the grill for lunch. Chicken on the grill for dinner. Of course climate change has turned New England into New Seattle and it rains here almost every day. The forecast calls for thunderstorms right around dinner time. Hoo-fucking-ray, am I right?

What else… binge TV watching. What are we checking out these days? The Acolyte is excellent. It was good through three episodes, then ramped up big time starting with episode four. There are six episodes out and two left to go. Really looking forward to seeing how it ends. The Boys has a new episode out today. I haven’t watched it yet. House of the Dragon is just as spectacular as you hoped it would be. Over on Netflix I am trying to get back into The Witcher. I watched each of the first two seasons when they came out. They were okay. I started the third season when it first came out but lost track of it. I’ve watched a couple more episodes this week and am having a hard time remembering who everyone is and what they are trying to do. I’ll power through. I started watching Dark. I think I am three episodes into the first season. It’s okay. It’s a little tough to follow given that multiple actors are playing each character. Also, it’s a German show and I’m having a hard time taking some of the hairstyles seriously. I mean… wow. Not that that sort of thing catches my eye at all, but really… wow. There is also Torchwood on Max. It’s good. It’s not great. I’ll power through it, for completeness sake.

I’m sitting at my desk in the cellar right now. I just saw a spider. That’s not unusual. Our cellar is kind of the Spider Kingdom. I am not one who is afraid of spiders or weirded out by spiders or anything like that. I usually just ignore them and let them eat the other bugs. This guy though… it was big. Like… it’s going to haunt my nightmares big. I tried to terminate it with extreme prejudice using a fly swatter but I missed. I can’t find it now. I fear that it is going to come hunting for me to get revenge. I mean… it was big enough that if we still have mice hiding out down here then they might be in trouble. It was that big.

Yeah… see what I mean about me being directionless, bloggily speaking?

Cold… Again… As Usual

It is 81 degrees out here in Westwood, MA.

I am sitting at my desk, shivering with cold.

Effing air conditioned nightmare*

Here’s a cat to make us all feel better about how cold it is in the office.

*That’s a Steve Hackett reference.

Band Practice

Overall, tonight’s band practice went well. Well… as well as could be expected. My fingers hurt a lot and my arms got really tired, really quickly. My playing was pretty piss poor, but on the whole it went well. We probably won’t practice next week, but we should be back the week after that. There was serious talk of looking for a gig around Halloween.

I’m loving the Les Paul Standard into the AC15. Last time I had some pedal issues, but I cleared it all up tonight. The Ryra Klon clone into the Mr Vermin Rat clone was -chef’s kiss-. The Tri Pi ’70 Big Muff clone into the Ryra though… -chef’s kiss times 10-.

Today

It’s Sunday. What’s going on?

Recently I gave up on my idea of learning how to make sugar free ice cream at home. Somehow, my beloved bride Jennifer responded to me getting off the homemade ice cream wagon by jumping on the homemade ice cream wagon, which has pulled me back into the fray.

Earlier today we went to a grocery store to do some research. How much does stuff cost and how long does it last before it goes bad. We also found a few different brands of sugar free ice cream to try. You know, for ideas and stuff. We don’t have an ice cream maker at the moment, but we’re watching the web for sales. Come on, amazon (you effin’ psychos), let’s put that ice cream maker with the built in compressor on sale!

A few minutes from now I am going to head to my father’s place. He has an issue that requires frequently changing a bandage. My brother and sister and I are taking turns. It’s my turn today. He has stuff to do this afternoon so I am planning on popping in, changing the bandage, and popping out. I am taking a camera with me. There’s a spot near his place that I might stop at for a minute or two if I have the time. Fingers crossed.

After that I will come home and have dinner with the love of my life. After that? Band practice. After that? Come home and hang out with my Jen and then sleep. After that? Work in the office. Oh shit. Today’s Sunday. Crap.

Practice Prep

There will be a band practice tonight. Oh, happy day!

Homework for this week was to learn a song. It is arguably the worst song every written. “I Was Made for Loving You” by Kiss.

Oh my, what pandora’s box of hellness are we opening?

Finally!

1,591 days

The search for a new singer for the band is over. The new singer is our old singer. He’s back and it’s fantastic! It probably means we won’t be changing the name now, but I can get over that.

It was like riding a bike tonight, especially given that my guitar playing sucked. Well, I was doing fine for about 25 minutes and then my fingers decided they were toast and they stopped doing what I wanted them to do. I expect that my sloppy playing on Stevie Wonder’s Superstition will cause the ghosts of Jeff Beck and Stevie Ray Vaughn to haunt me tonight.

That’s okay, We’ll get back into shape soon enough. I seriously want us to book a gig for October or November, just to push us back into form. We had one practice tonight and now we’ll be off for the next two weeks. We need to spark some serious motivation, you know? Let’s book a gig!

As for gear notes, I played my Les Paul Standard through my Vox AC15. I have a sneaking suspicion that is going to be my primary rig for the near future. I put my clone of a ProCo Rat pedal onto the board and completely forgot that it, like the Vox amp, has it’s tone control backward (it cuts rather than boosts) so when I was trying to make the tone less trebly I was actually making it more trebly. I’ll fix that next time… if I remember that I did things backwards. We’ll see.

Pop Genesis

I don’t remember this, but the Instagram and Threads account for the band Genesis posted this today.

On this day in 1986 Genesis and four of it’s five “classic period” members were all in the US Billboard top 40 at the same time.

Genesis was at 37 with Invisible Touch. Not the worst piece of shit in their 80’s pop period, but definitely on the short list.

Steve Hackett’s band GTR, which also included Yes guitarist Steve Howe, was at 35 with When the Heart Rules the Mind.

Peter Gabriel was at 32 with Sledgehammer.

Phil Collins was at 26 with Take Me Home which is a song I completely forgot existed but I guess was a thing.

Mike Rutherford’s mostly awful pop side project Mike and the Mechanics was at number five with pretty awful All I Need is a Miracle.

Five Genesis and Genesis adjacent songs on the top 40 at the same time. It’s not like that week where The Beatles had something like six songs on the top 10 at the same time, but it’s pretty cool.

If only the five songs were… you know… better songs. Why couldn’t the Genesis song been Tonight Tonight Tonight, and the GTR song been Imagining, and the Peter Gabriel song been In Your Eyes (or This is the Picture, or Don’t Give Up, or Red Rain, or Mercy Street), and the Mike and the Mechanics song been… ummm… that one song that I didn’t hate… Silent Running, or something like that… and the Phil Collins song been something that wasn’t awful and completely forgettable which I am not sure was possible in 1986. When did I Don’t Care No More come out? That was long before ’86, wasn’t it?

Get Well Soon

We have a cat named Robin. She was not named after English guitar hero Robin Trower*.

Robin Trower had a US tour booked for this fall and he has a 50th anniversary expanded edition of his biggest record, Bridge of Sighs, due to hit the stores tomorrow. I did not buy tickets to his show in my neck of the woods, on October 5th (which is also my sister’s birthday), but I was thinking about it. Strongly. I saw him live once in 1988 (I think) and would love to see him one more time before he packs it in.

Unfortunately, just the other day he had to cancel the tour. He has a health issue that requires surgery and has the possibility of a long recovery period. It seems I may have missed my chance to see him one more time. Crud.

Get well soon, Mr Trower. Come back and see us soon, and maybe bring a Les Paul with you. I mean you used to play Gibsons back in your Procol Harem days. I know you’ve been pretty much 100% Strat since then, but maybe it might be fun to be nostalgic for the old days, eh?

*Robin the cat was not named after Robin Trower. She was named after Robin Sparkles.

Is the Search Over?

I think my band’s search for a new singer might be over. I am hoping we’ll know for sure this coming Sunday.

Who might our new singer be?

Our new singer might be our old singer.

He told us he moved back to the (Merrimack) Valley from Maine and he has the itch to play in a band again. Is that itch to come back to the band permanently or is it to just jam around for fun?

I just asked our group chat if anyone was up for some Rock and Roll at an absurd volume on Sunday evening. So far I have one positive response. If we get two more… then Sunday will be the day we find out what’s what.

It would be really cool if we could put the singer search away and just get back to playing regularly again. I haven’t played a gig since February 1, 2020. I really, really want to play a gig again. I want to play my new Les Paul through my new Vox amp in a public place in front of a crowd of happy (re: drunk) people. I want to know what it feels like to be up on stage for four hours without being 200+ pounds overweight. Will I have the strength and the stamina? Who knows. Let’s find out.

Cautious optimism, folks. Cautious optimism.

New Mix

I mixed a song a couple of nights ago but didn’t get around to posting it to my alonetone or hearthis.at accounts so it just sat there on my laptop. Now it is out there for the whole wide world to ignore.

I think it kinda sounds like crap, but the song itself is okay, I think. You can probably hear the edits in the chorus because I wrote a melody without leaving any space for that pesky little breathing thing. Oops.

The lead guitar was through a nearly cranked amp. That was fun. Noisy as hell, but fun.