Category: Music

Tomorrow

What do I want to do tomorrow? Besides the 0.75% of a band practice. I don’t know.

Visit my mother? I could use a little of that. I saw dad today but it’s been a week since I’ve seen mom.

Work on the 50 songs in 90 days thing? Maybe. Probably not.

Get up at sunrise and mess around with cameras again? That would be fun, but where would I go? I’ve hit my favorite spots in town. Maybe downtown Lowell? Maybe the river walk in Lowell? Maybe the Shawsheen river in Tewksbury? I know a couple of good spots, but if the Shawsheen there is as dry as the Spicket here it might not be worth it. Boston? Too far away.

Stay in bed constantly refreshing eBay all day? I’m still the highest bidder but there are 22.5 hours remaining.

Pet the kitty all day?

Finish Umbrella Academy and start Stranger Things or Orville or Westworld or….

I don’t know. In the immortal words of Traffic, from their second record, Who Knows What Tomorrow May Bring?

New Strings Day: Addendum

After seeing everyone post pictures of their new stuff I have made the guitar player command decision that I will be bringing my Vox AC15 and using that for no reason other than no one in the band has heard it before. It, along with my Les Paul Standard, is a Covid Lockdown acquisition. Further, I’m bringing the big pedal board because the Ryra The Klone pedal and the Cry-Baby wah are also Covid purchases.

Rock and roll, kids. Groovy.

Lizardfish? Please?

That picture was taken on February 1, 2020. It was the last time the band got together.

The other day I told the guys that if I didn’t have a band practice soon I was going to die. The bass player, Mike, said he was free on Sunday. I said I was too. Today, the drummer, Kevin, suggested 5:00 or 6:00. Mike and I both said sure. A few minutes ago the singer, Greg, said he was in too.

I am not getting ahead of myself here. There’s always the chance it could fall through, but… Oh thank the merciful fates, the band could be getting back together again this weekend.

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Tuesday July 5, 2022

The long weekend is over. It was nice, even though July 4th is now meaningless. Mostly Jen and I just hung out, but I also visited mom a few times and bought some clothes that fit (for now) and took a shit load of pictures on both Dad’s camera and my camera. We also went for a random drive to enjoy the nice weather yesterday. It was a pretty good weekend.

And now it’s over. We have a couple of contractors coming today to give estimates on fixing a potentially huge issue in the new bathroom. We’re pretty much guaranteed to lose the shower in there, which makes me sad. It is a walk in shower and I always wanted a walk in shower. Unfortunately there is a leak somewhere and there is evidence that the wall behind the shower stall is rotting so… buhbye walk in shower. Not sure what we’ll do with the space once it’s cleaned up. A linen closet? Maybe?

As for everything else. I did not get a chance to work on any music last night. I’ve been so hung up on the photography stuff lately that I haven’t been thinking music much at all. Time to find a middle ground where I can obsess over both topics. Music needs to be written, guitars need to be played, thrift stores need to be combed for inexpensive old film SLR cameras. Lizardfish needs to reunite. I sent a chat to the band yesterday saying if we don’t practice soon I am going to die. Here’s hoping they can save my life.

Okay. Get to work.

Fifty Songs Time

Today is July 4th. It’s a national holiday even though there is nothing left to celebrate here.

There is that summer music challenge thing that I’ve done the last couple of years. Write fifty songs in ninety days. That one. I am not signing up for this on their website because last year another user pissed me off. So I am doing the 50/90 thing but not officially. I guess I am doing a Faux 50/90.

I have one song under way. It’s just bass and drums, it’s in 7/8 times and it might possibly be a 2:55 rocker. We’ll see. I have no idea when I am going to get to play the guitar again, and my voice has still not really recovered from whatever happened a few weeks ago. I need to seriously hydrate on car music days. Things are different now and I have to learn how to do everything again.

While I am on the subject of music… I think I am going to ask the guys in Lizardfish if they want to get together. I’ll let you know how that goes.

Sort of Back to Normal

It’s amazing how going into the office used to be the norm, and now going in one day just murderlizes my entire routine.

Wednesday night I packed up everything I needed for the day in the office (except my headphones, damn it) and put out my clothes for the next day and all that fun stuff. On Thursday I got up super early and did my 30 minutes of exercise, made my lunch, did the rest of my morning stuff and left (without my headphones).

That doesn’t seem like a lot, but it really is. It’s like throwing a giant monkey wrench into the whole day.

Fortunately I am back in my home office today. I’d like to say I feel like everything is back to normal, for the most part it is, but I slept really late today. Not late enough that I didn’t have time for my morning exercise and all of that, but I did start work before I made breakfast (scrambled eggs, yum). I generally prefer not to do that.

Today is going to be a little weird here at the home* too. I went in to work yesterday, and Jen is going in today. Actually… not to the office? Not sure of the details, but she’s going to see people today. After work we’re planning on doing some grocery shopping. This is going to sound selfish of me, but I really enjoy that Jen and I have been doing that together. It’s silly, but I like it.

Best of all, on the Friday front, Harry will be coming over after work and he’ll be here for the whole next week. Excellent. We are still a few weeks away from Bellana coming home from Europe, but it’s one step closer to having the whole family together.

On unrelated notes, I am listening to the new Porcupine Tree album, which was finally released today, and I’m giving it five stars and two thumbs up and all of the accolades. It’s a great record. CLOSURE/CONTINUATION (yes, the album title is in all caps), check it out. I am planning to visit my mother a couple of times over the weekend. I’m not sure if I will get over to see my father too, but we’ll see. We talked about watching the Obi-Wan Kenobi series in its entirety in one sitting this weekend. I think maybe after Harry comes home from work on Sunday? I came up with a goofy project for the film camera. I’m thinking of trying to take the same picture with Dad’s camera and my camera and comparing the results. I’d like to use exactly the same settings, but my camera can be a little bit of a bitch to setup manually, and Dad’s seems to have a different labeling system for the aperture settings? I’ll have to consult the manual on that.

Okay, ladies and germs. Time to get to work. Those customers aren’t going to support themselves!

*Here at the Home is the title of the first album by one of the great Boston bands from the late 80’s/early 90’s, Tribe. When I went to my parents house the other day it was to pick up all of my old records that I hadn’t brought to the house already. There were a whole bunch of Tribe records in the pile.

I Broke My Voice

I am not sure what I did, but my voice is definitely broken. I worked through half of one song this morning but there weren’t any real high notes so I was able to reach everything, it was just a little off key and I felt like I was struggling. I stopped for the day the first time I hit a part that was even a little bit high and I could not physically get to it.

Was I just tired? Was there something wrong? Does it matter? Back at it tomorrow, right?

Then I was driving to my mothers for a visit and I put some U2* up on the ol’ iTunes and as I tried singing along to Sunday Bloody Sunday it became clear that it wasn’t just a bad morning. It’s like the top of my range was reduced by 75%. I was fine if I stayed low, but as soon as something high came on… toast.

So in summation, there will be no car music for a couple of days while my pitch pipes rest up.

*Harry was watching an episode of Friends the other day and a U2 song was playing in the background and it just sent me straight down the rabbit hole. I know Joshua Tree is one of the biggest albums in history but I am still really disappointed by it. I loved the four records they made before it, but I just didn’t like Joshua Tree. War and The Unforgettable Fire might be among the best albums I’ve ever heard, I listened to my cassette copy of Live Under a Blood Red Sky so many times back in the early 80s that it was stretched and mangled, and Actung Baby is a friggin masterwork… but Joshua Tree? Not for me.

Despite that, I almost never find myself listening to U2. I think this might be the first deep dive I’ve taken in the music streaming age. I was happy to see deluxe editions of all of my favorite records, and thrilled to finally hear the original studio version of 11 O’Clock Tick Tock.

Music Fail

I tried to car music today and it was a dismal failure. I was pretty dehydrated last night and I think it carried over to this morning a little. My voice just didn’t work. I couldn’t hit pitches and I was cracking all over the place. I got half a song done. I think I’ll try again tomorrow, or maybe Monday.

Remix

You know how each of the last two nights I wrote a post about how I mixed a song? Neither of the audio embeds will work anymore. I deleted the uploads and replaced them with remixed versions of the songs. I changed the reverbs on all tracks on both songs from plates to rooms. I feel a tiny bit better about the universe now.

ADDENDUM: Scratch that. I went back and fixed the two previous posts. I linked to the remixed versions of both songs. That’s better.