Category: Music

Sunday

Motivation is tough to come by right now. I woke up at 5:40am, did my 30 minutes of exercise, ate some breakfast, watched an episode of Pennyworth and a bunch of film photography youtube videos, and that’s it. It’s almost 8:00am now and motivation is sort of escaping me.

The whole getting up early to get my exercise in before anyone wakes up thing is kicking my ass. Both in the exercising sense and in the not sleeping enough sense. I kinda feel zombiesque this morning. The background music on this particular grainydays episode isn’t helping.

It’s not like I have a lot on the agenda at the moment. The kids aren’t coming until late morning so all I really have to do is take a shower and clean off the exercise sweat. I could maybe put up some more outdoor christmas lights too, but other than that and prepping some lasagna for dinner there isn’t much on the docket this morning. Really all I need to do is stand up, walk upstairs, and take a friggin’ shower. I just don’t wanna.

Oh, and yesterday I said I needed to do car music this morning or NaSoAlMo was going to die a slow, painful death. Re-read the above three paragraphs and take note of how I did not mention car music at all. Rest in Peace 2022 NaSoAlMo… we hardly new ye.

Okay… wake up, asshole. Go get some shit done.

Ah, the Weekend

Saturday… at last. Actually, I was convinced that Thursday was Saturday, and then further convinced that Friday was Monday. Man, Thanksgiving is the best but it messes up my internal calendar like crazy.

We need to buy a christmas tree today. The kids will be here tomorrow to do some decorating before they go back to school. I want to have a tree up in the living room before they get here, and I want to give it a little time to shake itself out too. Ideally I would have put it up a few days ago but say no to pre-Thanksgiving christmas stuff.

I also need to go out and buy myself a warm jacket that actually fits me, unlike the warm jacket I own now. Our Saturday in New York plan is still on for now. We haven’t chickened out yet. Jen actually booked a hotel room yesterday. It’s outside of the city but near a commuter train station. It’s going to be cold out there in the big city and I need to stay warm. You see, one unexpected side effect of losing a shit load of weight is that I am cold all the time. All of that built in insulation I used to have is gone and now I find that the world is a very cold place. Jen was teasing me about it yesterday. I was teasing myself too. Brrr, babie.

I’m down to five days left in November, including today. How’s the album in a month project going? Well, it’s going to fail, but other than that it’s going well. Eight songs, about 33 minutes. The goal for this project is 29:09. None of the songs have vocals yet and only two have melody and lyrics. See? I’m going to fail. I want to do car music tomorrow morning and get some singin’ in. I’m not sure what the forecast looks like so I don’t know if I’ll be singin’ in the rain or not (hardy har har). That means I have to crank out melodies and lyrics today. Once the lyrics are done (which will likely take two or three car music attempts) I will have to do leads. That should be terrible. First, I am grossly out of of practice and brutally drowning in rusty. Also, I have no calluses on my finger tips so the playing will also be painful. It’s sort of a lose lose, right? I might not get it done by December 1st, but I’ll finish these eight songs (and maybe add a couple of minutes of instrumental noodling to get myself over 35 minutes).

Okay, folks. It’s 7:08am. My exercise is done for the day. I’ve watched an episode of Pennyworth and a couple of youtube videos on photography. Now it’s time to get my shite together and start my day. Happy Saturday, everyone.

Busy Holiday Morning

It’s been a busy morning so far. Since my last post I showered and shaved and had a Covid scare and visited both of my parents and played a little guitar to relieve the stress from the Covid scare and from my mother being in a less than wonderful state. Ugh.

No more amp sims for NaSoAlMo. All eight songs have rhythm guitars played through a mic’d up amp. Good.

85/365
85/365
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Amp Fun

The guitar was played tonight. It was played through an amplifier, not through a digital amplifier simulation. It was glorious, as always.

I redid the rhythm guitar parts for three of the five NaSoAlMo songs that I did with sims over the weekend. In all honesty, the sims probably sound better than what I can get with my meager skills, but the real thing feels better when I am playing and that’s what really matters for me.

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Busy Morning

Sunday has been eventful so far and it’s not even 10:00am yet.

I got out of bed around 5:30, went to the cellar and took care of my exercise ring while watching the second to last episode of The Midnight Club. I still haven’t decided whether or not I like that show, but it looks like I am going to finish it. I then ate breakfast. Just a protein bar. When that was done the clock told me it was 6:30 and the Google told me the sunrise was at 6:42 so I put on a coat (it was 26 degrees out, yikes!), grabbed Dad’s camera and out the door I went. I took a few pics at the Walnut Grove Cemetery and the camera didn’t have any issues. Curse broken? I then went to Greycourt Park and took a few pics of the castle ruins. I was thinking of getting a couple of downtown pics too but it was so cold out I decided not to. I went to Market Basket instead. I walked in the door at 7:20 and it was mobbed. What? 20 minutes after opening on a Sunday morning and it’s mobbed? I guess everyone is doing Thanksgiving today? Crazy. After the shopping was home and put away I washed some dishes in preparation for our faux Thanksgiving and then retired to the cellar where I put rhythm guitars (with amp sims, sadly) onto two songs and then came up with a third song. That brings the NaSoAlMo pipeline up to eight songs, all of which have rhythm guitars (though only three used a real amp).

Now I’m sitting at my desk typing this masterpiece, waiting for Jen to call me upstairs to start cooking the five-day-early-feast.

It’s been a pretty decent morning so far, wouldn’t you say? I might need a nap today.

Oh, I’d post some guitar pictures, and a couple of quick point-and-shoot snaps I took at my two photo shoot destinations this morning, but both my DSLR and my point-and-shoot are on the charger. The DSLR was about to die and the point and shoot did die. I could use my iPhone but… aw, hell, I’ll take one with my iPhone…

The pedals are on, but the amp is not. Sad face.

Aht

I tooks me an ahtsy photo today for the photo a day fun.

80/365
80/365. I’m 21.9% done.

Isn’t that loverly?

My dad gave me a scare tonight but everything seems to be okay. Bellana will be home tomorrow and we’re having pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving. It was supposed to be a mini-Thanksgiving but there’s a turkey in the fridge that says otherwise. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I can’t wait.

On a musical note, I added another song idea to the NaSoAlMo queue and it brought me over the 29:09 goal. Maybe I will push myself to finish. Maybe there will be some car music this week.

I might need to go to bed early so that I can wake up super early and get my exercise and breakfast finished before the turkey fun begins.

Direct Input

I said in a post from earlier today that I was thinking about just saying screw it and recording some guitar tracks via direct input into Garageband so that I could play while people were sleeping… and then I did it. I added guitars to two NaSoAlMo songs. They sound okay. I am so rusty that the playing was just bad. Who knows, if I get a burst of energy at a time when I can make noise I might redo the tracks from today through the glory that is my Deluxe Reverb. Until then, this will do.

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June 24, 1977

Saving this for later. It sounds like an FM broadcast of a Genesis show in London on Steve Hackett’s last tour and it includes “Inside and Out”. The mix sounds really good. A little too much Phil maybe? A little too little Mike? Just enough Steve and Tony and Chester. Well… is there ever enough Steve in the mix? Nope. Never enough Steve.