Category: Music

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.

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.

DSCN3388
DSCN3389
DSCN3390

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.