Category: Music

Guitar Streak

Eight days in a row babie, the guitar has been played for eight days in a row. I suck more today than I did on day one but who cares, it’s eight days in a row, babie!

I did the same thing as yesterday. The night before I threw together a new song idea and then put two tracks of rhythm guitar on it in the morning. The difference here is that yesterday’s song was super easy yet fun and might actually turn out to be a good song. Today’s song was super easy but not fun, instead it is boring and dumb and will likely turn into a terrible, awful song.

Who cares!

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Nutubes totally aren’t a gimmick, right? All the dust is totally a gimmick though, but not the Nutube… right?
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Focus was on the pedal. The King of Tone pedal I waited over five years for but am now totally loving
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Whoops! This is what happens when you accidentally tap the touch screen on the Nikon Z5 while you’re rolling across the floor on your office chair. Whoops, indeed.

Okay, time to go get ready for work. Happy Thursday, kids!

Success and Failure

The days playing guitar streak has hit seven! One full week, babie! I added a new song idea last night. It was short and super easy. I put rhythm guitars on it this morning after finishing my faux jog (yog) in the cellar. I didn’t plan it that way, it just worked out. I finished the one song with enough time to take a picture and write this post.

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That’s the successful part of the morning. What’s the failure? Is it senility in my old age? I say that with a tiny percentage of seriousness after witnessing what my mother went through over her last decade.

Last night I put up a to do list for this morning. It included taking the trash out to the street. Today is Wednesday. Our trash pick up is Tuesday. How did I get that wrong? How did I screw up the days like that? I was already worried that our outside barrel was too full, now it has to go a whole second week. Shit. Also, today is recycling pick up. That means the recycling has to go a whole two extra weeks. What the fuck, Robert?

Okay. Time to pack up the lunch for work and get showered and dressed. I don’t think I can fuck those two things up. At least I played a little. Focus on that, you moron.

Six Days and Counting

The consecutive days of guitar playing streak is up to six days. I didn’t get any playing in last Wednesday as it was a commuting day and I didn’t get up early enough. The following six days, including this morning, I played at least a little bit. I used my SG to put leads on two songs from May. I played especially poorly. I don’t think it was rust this time, I think it was physical impairment. Specifically, my finger tips didn’t work correctly, in part because the calluses are gone but the pre-callus blisters are coming in. Ouch. When I took a shower after I finished my crappy playing the hot water hitting my fingers stung like a mutha.

Oh well. Hopefully I’ll get up early enough to get a little playing in tomorrow, given that it is another commute day. It would be nice to have the streak hit the full week mark.

The playing was bad today and so were the obligatory pointless pictures. I had to take a second batch because the first batch was crap.

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Nutube, babie!
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New Song for June

The Record Every Month Challenge: June Edition is a success! May was an epic fail, but June is a win.

Here’s the first of what will hopefully be a whole big bunch of new songs this month. Just in case you were wondering what my Les Paul Standard into an Analog Man King of Tone pedal into a Vox MV50 Nutube amp’s direct output with cabinet simulation sounds like. It sounds half decent to me, I guess. Not as good as it would sound through an actual speaker, or through my Fender Deluxe Reverb at about 100 decibels. This works though.

The Streak is Alive

I should go back through the blog and figure out how many days in a row I have played guitar now. I think it’s five. Maybe four. Probably five. I don’t know.

I put lead guitar parts onto two songs this morning. Both are pretty bad, but not too bad… if you know what I mean.

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The Musical Weekend Continues

I stuck to my guns and played some guitar today. Again. That is like four days in a row or something like that. My playing isn’t improving, but that’s okay, right? I put lead guitars onto one song and rhythm guitars onto another. That means I have one song completely tracked. There will be a song submitted for Record Every Month this month. Pat yourself on the back, Robert.

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hehehehe nerd

Sunday Car Music

I over slept by quite a bit this morning, but I still managed to sneak out for some singing in the car. I had two songs ready to go, both from May. I was thinking of writing the melody and lyrics for a June song while on mic, the way I always used to do it back in the old days, but when the time came I just decided to go home.

Here’s the view from my “mobile studio” today. Same as yesterday. Literally. I was in the same parking spot.

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Also, a couple of random pics from the drive home.

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More Music

I only had a little bit of time to play guitar today, and my hands felt pretty dead. Not sure what’s up with that, but it’s probably just down to me playing more than I’ve been accustomed to and I am WAY out of playing shape. Just a couple of tired hands is all. I put rhythm guitars on one song. Now I just need to write some more lyrics and do another car vocals tomorrow morning. Sounds like a plan-ish.

I didn’t go direct today. I played through my Deluxe Reverb and it was happiness.

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Car Music

Car music was sort of successful. I put vocals on three songs. All of them are June songs. I’m prioritizing June songs over May songs because reasons, or something. I probably could have done a forth song but my voice got tired quickly, my water bottle was almost empty, and my bladder was beginning to ask for attention.

My goal today is to clean the kitchen, catch that friggin’ mouse, record some more guitars, write some more lyrics, and get myself ready for more car music tomorrow.

Here’s my studio view:

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That laptop on the lap thing there? I couldn’t do that before the gastric bypass surgery. Crazy new world, eh?

Two Hours to Go

The weekend is about two hours away. 123 minutes, to be exact. I’m finding motivation a little tough to come by this afternoon but I will get everything that needs to be done today done today as far as work goes.

Jen is planning on spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. How good does that sound, right? I will go grocery shopping afterward. I’m a little behind on my protein intake for today so I may need to eat something substantial after I get home. I am ahead of the game on hydration though. My post-lunch one hour pause before having anything to drink will end in about three minutes and I’ve got a 20 ounce bottle of Gatorade Zero upstairs in the fridge with my name on it. After that my daily liquid intake goal will be obliterated nicely.

I put out four mouse traps in the cellar. The cats don’t come down here so it should be okay. Let me rephrase, the cats are not allowed down cellar. They very much want to come down here, I just don’t let them. One trap went off but I think that was due to a ghost, or an Earthquake or something. No mice were involved. I did see one running past the base of the stairs. I was upstairs and opened the door to come down and there it was. Asshole. Was it the same mouse I saw earlier? How the hell should I know, it was a mouse. I wasn’t checking for identifying details. Sheesh.

Reminder to myself: Write lyrics tonight. Record vocals in some random empty parking lot tomorrow morning. Maybe take the cameras to the ocean for sunrise on Sunday. The forecast at Salisbury Beach looks promising. We’ll see. Sunrise would be great, but music is what’s important. I also need to clean the kitchen and do a little work straightening out the kids rooms this weekend. That’s important too, but a different kind of important, you know? Health and well being and happiness vs musical mental health. Simple. Speaking of, when’s the next band practice?

Okay, Robert. Go get that Gatorade Zero and finish your work projects. You’ve got this, red head. No problem. 110 minutes until the weekend.

Post script: There was just a blast of thunder outside that was loud enough to shake the walls a little. It didn’t set off any of the mouse traps though. That’s good.