Category: Music

Let’s Get This Sunday Ball Rollin’

It’s Sunday, 8:48am. My exercise for the day is done. My breakfast of protein bars has been eaten without issue. My morning vitamin pills gave me a little stress and I only managed eight ounces of water. I’ll fix that later once my breakfast is good and digested.

We have a lot to do today. We want to clean the kitchen floor, dust and clean the living room, there is a new Playstation to be setup and taken for a test drive (thanks, Jen!). First on my priority list though is to put together this huge tent/shed thing in the back yard. I need it to store a lawn mower, assuming we get a lawn mower. Larry has one he’s looking to get rid of, so I will likely buy that off of him. I need someplace to put it first though, and that’s where the tent/shed thing comes into play. I have no idea if I am going to be able to put this together on my own or not. I may need to call in some Calvary, but I am optimistic it won’t come to that. I just have to get off my blogging ass and do it.

Tomorrow is my birthday. How fucking depressing is that? Today is my last day as a 51 year old. I am listening to some Nirvana right now. Think of it as mood music. Remember the CD Single for Smells Like Teen Spirit? There were two b-sides. Even in His Youth and Aneurysm. To this day I still see that single as the best single ever released by anyone. The b-sides were better than every other band’s a-sides. I always forget how colossally brutal that band was. Just friggin’ amazing. Even after all these years, it all still holds up.

I am planning on borrowing Jen’s little Bose bluetooth speaker when I go outside but I’ll probably listen to something less sledge-hammer-to-the-skull while I’m outside. You know, something more family friendly like The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway by Genesis. You know, weird and genius rather than freight train and genius.

Okay. Stop stalling. Go change your clothes and get your ass in gear. Let’s go, Robert! Let’s get that shed/tent thing up before you turn 52!

Visit

Tonight I got to visit two old friends. Mike the bass player is my oldest friend. We haven’t seen too much of each other since COVID hit and the band went on hiatus. It was great to see him though. Jeff the drummer moved to the west coast before COVID. We were trying to figure out when the last time we saw each other was. I want to say 2008. I know he met Jen at least once so it was post-2007.

Jeff recently became a grandfather and he came back to New England to visit the baby. He asked if we could get together and we made it happen. He’s doing really well out there, living the pro musician dream. It was so great to see him and catch up after all these years.

Hopefully we won’t let another decade go by before we do it again. Next time we’ll have to figure out a way to play some music together. I don’t think the three of us have played together since maybe 1990? There was a forth guy in that band way back then. He was working tonight, also living the professional musician dream. Next time we’ll have to find a way to have him join us too.

May Music

I’m super tired tonight but I hit all of my food and exercise goals without any stomach issues and I managed to find a little time to start working on a song idea. The May music goal is 10 songs. Think of it as a music project to honor my birthday, my surgery anniversary, my and Jen’s wedding anniversary, our first Mother’s Day without my mother, and Bellana’s graduation.

There’s a lot to celebrate this month. There is a ton to be thankful for. There’s one thing to be sad about, but I can also be thankful for that day too if I look at it as celebrating my step kids’ mother instead of focusing the loss of my mother.

It’s all worth some new music. I just wish I had talent so I could come up with something worthy of it all.

ADDENDUM: I knew I was forgetting an event. May is also my step daughter, Bellana’s birthday month! Add her turning 22 to the list of things to celebrate this month.

Record Every Month for April: Complete

I have finished two songs for the Record Every Month Challenge for April. My mini-challenge of recording a single each month is still on track. My mini challenge of recording an EP in April crashed and burned. That’s okay.

The A Side is okay. The B Side is garbage. I used my SG and my Vox MV50 on all of the guitar tracks, and recorded everything direct into my iPad. I also mixed on the iPad, which might explain why the mixes are worse than the usual crap.

Here’s the A Side:

Here’s the uber crappy B Side:

Next month will use my Les Paul and my Deluxe Reverb, and my new King of Tone overdrive pedal which I waited over five years to get and still haven’t even plugged in. That changes starting tomorrow. Until then, enjoy this crap.

April Tracking is Done

I finished putting lead guitars on the two songs I still have going for April’s entry in the Record Every Month challenge. One song is terrible. The other is just weak.

Here is my “studio” for today. Note there are no Fender Stratocasters in sight.

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How about a selfie or two? How lame am I?

Car Music

The April entry for the Record Every Month Challenge lives! I hopped in the car this morning, drove to an empty parking lot, and recorded vocals for two songs. One song is abysmal. The other is okay, I guess.

I was able to stick to this month’s gimmick of doing all of the work on my iPad. I tested out my little mic interface before I left the house, just to make sure it would work. It did.

Instead of the usual pictures, I decided to test to see if iMovie still was a thing and I took a bunch of fake super 8 clips and then stitched them all together into a nearly five minute long snore fest. Don’t worry, the downtown clock is there, it’s just at the very end.

Recording Studio

What do you think of my recording studio?

Gibson SG standard into Ibanez Tube Screamer Mini into Vox MV50 Clean into IK Multimedia iRig split into iPad Air running GarageBand and an old pair of Bose headphones.

The only downside is the crew working on the bay window in the living room unplugged our router so my iPhone is now my only source of internet. Oh well.

Last Day Before Windows

The window replacement team is coming tomorrow. Today is the last day to get the house ready for them. Can I get it all done?

You bet your sweet ass I can.

The kitchen, dining room, and living room are all set. The entire exterior of the house is all set too. Today I’ll handle the bathroom, the bedroom, and Jen’s office. Beyond that, all I need to do is go to the pet store and pick up a huge bag of cat food, and maybe go somewhere to replace Jen’s coffee maker. Before I do anything I’ll need to finish breakfast (one serving of Brown and Serve frozen sausages. Yummy. Also, I need to finish watching the final episode of Star Wars Rebels. 19 minutes to go. I am a little embarrassed by how quickly I burned through this four season rewatch. Like… it’s alarming how nerdy I am.

One small change to the music project plan that I hope to work on over the next couple of days. I was going to use my Keeley Super Phat Mod overdrive pedal (which is a clone of a modified Boss Blues Driver) but I was just looking at the little pile of gear next to my desk and I saw my Ibanez Tube Screamer Mini pedal sitting there and I decided to use that puppy instead. I think I am going to use the Gibson SG for all of this too. SG->Tube Screamer->Vox MV50. That’s a signal chain that’s made up of all things that aren’t usual go to’s. Next month will be Les Paul->King of Tone->Deluxe Reverb and that signal chain could be worthy of gigs. We’ll see.

Right. The Rebels finale has reached the Deus Ex Machina moment. I know I’ve watched this before but I have zero memory of it. Weird. It’s almost time to get to work. The bedroom and the office are going to suck, but I’ll get it done.

Windows tomorrow. I’m really looking forward to all of this being finished.