Category: Music

May/June Music

Music was made this morning. I started a song idea (#2 for June) on my iPad late last night and put guitars on it this morning. That’s probably going to be the plan going forward. I did not use my Deluxe Reverb as my amplifier, even though it’s in the pictures, I used my Vox MV50’s direct output and speaker simulation into my USB interface. No speakers involved at all. That makes me sad, but it also let Jen sleep so that’s a huge win in my book. I suspect the only chances I am going to have to put a dent in music projects this month, or even this summer, will be to do it before work and that means we’re going direct.

Now I just need to write 10 songs within the month of June, and finish all 10 that I started in May. Yeah. Right.

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Genesis on The Midnight Special

I read a story about this earlier this morning. The old 70’s TV show The Midnight Special has a YouTube channel and they released a video of Genesis playing The Musical Box in 1973. The article mentioned that the show originally included them playing Watcher of the Skies as well but that hadn’t been released on the YouTubes. I went looking for The Musical Box at lunch today and Watcher of the Skies actually came out this morning as well.

Enjoy watching Peter Gabriel play dress up!

Figures that the camera panned up off of Steve Hackett’s hands just before he played one of Earth’s first examples of two hand tapping. Oh well.

Play On

I just want to play my guitar. I wanted to do a ton of music in May and I barely did anything. I had 10 songs in the pipeline but only put guitar on two of them. I failed to finish anything for record every month. I am disappointed in myself.

June plans are to play as much as I can stomach, finish all 10 May songs and write and record 10 June songs. Double album, babie. It is a moral imperative.

I want to start the repairs on my two oldest guitars. I have a shop I want to bring them to. It’s an hour drive to get there, but the prices look okay and the reviews seem all right. I would prefer someone who’s been in the luthier business for longer than just the last four years or so, but I think I am okay with this.

Both guitars need their frets worked on and possibly replaced.
The 335 needs a new wiring harness.
If I have enough money left over, the Les Paul could get new pickups installed. That’s a big if though.

Mostly though, I just want to play. We were talking about getting the band together in June. I really want that to happen as well. I just want to play! If music be the food of love, play on and all that happy crappy. Shakespeare, babie!

Insta

Okay, so I was bored and I also really want to start playing with the band again. Those two things combined to form a new Lizardfish instagram account.

Didn’t I already make a Lizardfish instagram account? I might have, but I honestly can’t remember.

I’m a Stinker

Yeah, I said I was done with this, but I totally lied.

Scenes from a cart corral.

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I drove to Market Basket and back. I took the long way around and listened to Supper’s Ready all the way through. That reminded me that Peter Gabriel is coming to Boston in September, and Steve Hackett is coming in October. Also, Steve Hackett is supposed to be playing the Foxtrot album in it’s entirety, which means he’s going to play Supper’s Ready, which means I HAVE to be there. I have to see at least one member of Genesis play that perfect piece of music, all 23 minutes of it, live at least once before I die. I have to.

Finally

It feels like it’s been 100 years, but I finally played some guitar today. I also finally played through my King of Tone overdrive pedal and it was sweet as candy.

I worked on two new songs. I was hoping to do more, but my hands are giving up the fight. Maybe some more tomorrow?

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Boy, Am I Sleepy

Yup, two nights of weirdness in a row leads to ol’ Robbie being one sleepy red head.

Hey, I had a couple of packs of guitar strings from amazon delivered today. Will that inspire me to do some actual guitar playing this weekend? I sure hope so.

What else is on the agenda for this weekend? A haircut. My hair hasn’t been this long since the early days of the pandemic. It’s starting to look like 1993 around here. Is that why I have listened to Nirvana more or less around the clock for the last 2+ days? I made a playlist of just the expanded editions of the three Nirvana albums this morning (Apple music has expanded editions of Bleach and In Utero, and two expanded editions of Nevermind) and I have been steam rolling through them as I work today. I’m on the last track from the first of the two Neverminds.

Hey, speaking of Nirvana and the glory days of the 1990’s, I had a pop culture worlds colliding moment this morning. I managed to sneak in this week’s episode of Yellowjackets before work (barely). After a couple of days immersed in the atomic explosion that is Nirvana, wouldn’t you know it the episode’s creepy opening was accompanied by Something in the Way playing on the soundtrack? How cool is that. It’s like they knew where my brain was right now and fed right into it.

I need a nap… and a haircut… and to do some dishes before we make dinner… and to listen to all the live tracks on the 30th anniversary edition of Nevermind.

Two hours and 36 minutes left in the work day. You can do it, Robbie.

I was incorrect. Apple Music does not have one expanded edition of In Utero, it has two. One Bleach, two Nevermind, and two In Utero (one of which includes the unofficial first Foo Fighters song, Marigold [which is next in my iTunes queue]).

Calcium Defeats Me

Those friggin’ Calcium Citrate pills. Why are they so the bane of my existence? I don’t get it? They are on the bigger side as far as my daily vitamin supplements go, but they aren’t exactly huge. Why do they so often trigger a negative response? Why do they so often lead to the dreaded foamies?

I don’t get it. It happened in a huge way yesterday before lunch, then happened again today before lunch. It’s just a little pill. Give me a break, ya creep.

What are you gonna do though, right?

On an unrelated note that won’t be interesting to anyone else on Earth but I found funny in an idiotic kinda way, At lunch time today I decided to give my usual routine of listening to podcasts while I work a break and I decided to listen to music instead. I ended up with Nirvana because I watched a huge interview with Butch Vig the other day, and then another huge interview with Krist Novoselic so my head is kind of in a Nirvana mood these days.

I listened to Nevermind, then In Utero, then I started on Bleach. Just as track #4, School, was kicking off my ear decided to start ringing a little. It was perfectly in tune with the riff. It almost sounded like a little harmonic feedback over the top of the doom that is the beginning of that song. It’s almost like my occasional snippets of tinnitus decided to declare itself a fan of that song and sing along a little. I find that thought absurdly amusing for some doofusy reason. Anyway, I finished Bleach and moved on to Incesticide which I really wish they had given a better name. Oh well. It has Sliver and Been a Son and Mexican Seafood so even though it’s just an outtakes record that was designed to buy time so they could deal with the pressure of following up the massiveness that was Nevermind (I assume, I mean it’s not like I was there talking it over with them or anything) it’s still a good record.

39 minutes until the end of the work day. I think the plan for this evening might include me going to Cambridge to run an errand for the love of my life. I don’t know if that’s actually happening or not, but it was mentioned earlier and I am more than happy to do whatever my love needs. I just need to make sure my evening Calcium pills don’t destroy me. I’m handling them okay right now. Keep your fingers crossed. Friggin’ Calcium pills.