Category: Music

Clothing Issues and Lunchtime Musings

I mentioned yesterday that I have lost 50 pounds in the last five weeks and that my clothes don’t fit. That may have been a slight exaggeration. They are definitely too big, but I can still wear them. It’s not an emergency yet.

Last night I was in my closet looking for something to wear today. There are some old collared shirts that were too small for me prior to the surgery. I pulled one out. I’m wearing it right now. It fits fine.

Part of me feels like nothing has changed. Another part of me feels like everything has changed. I have so far to go though. I’ve barely scratched the surface. Here’s hoping I can continue to ride it out with old clothes for a while. In a way, that might sort of connect me to… me.

No new info on my mother yet today. My sister is at the hospital with her. It’s brutal. I need to do more.

The 2022 50/90 Challenge is less than a month away. I am not going to do it in an official way. I will not be signing up on their website or anything like that. One user ruined the whole thing for me last year and I don’t want to deal with that again. I didn’t sign up for FAWM back in February either. FAWM and 50/90 are different log ins, but it’s run by the same people and has many of the same users. I just don’t wanna.

Having said that, I will probably still try to write 50 songs between July 4th and October 1st. I’ll still do the challenge, I just won’t do it in any official capacity. Ain’t I a stinker? No, I am not. I just like doing goofy music challenges. What can you do?

Did I mention that the Red Sox are three games above .500 and are sitting in the last playoff spot? There are three wild card slots this year and all three AL slots are held by teams in the AL East. Sucks to be the rest of the league.

The Bruins fired their coach. Patrice Bergeron is likely to retire (please, no!). Half of the team is in the middle of off season surgery. Now we’re hearing that Pasternak might be wanting out. He has a year left on his contract and the rumors are that he won’t sign an extension. Shit.

Okay. I need to finish my 3.1 ounces of canned chicken lunch and get back to work.

Until later, friends.

Volume Seven Lives!

Quarantine Tunes was going to end at volume six, but here we are with the first song from volume seven! It’s like when Kiss goes on a farewell tour and then a year later goes on a comeback tour! WOOHOO

This is my favorite song from February’s RPM Challenge. It’s a little faster, has a couple of new sections, some really awful lead guitar playing, and everything is tuned down a half step.

Volume seven lives!

Better but Still Bad

I worked on guitars for two songs tonight. Rhythm on one and lead on the other. Just like last night the rhythm went okay but the leads sucked. My sense of timing is all out of whack. I’m just not feeling it. Practice! I need to practice!

I swapped out the Keeley D&M drive for the Wampler Plexi Drive Mini. That pedal wasn’t doing it for me before but I tweaked the settings and finally got it to play nicely with the Klon KTR in front of it. It might stay on the board for a while.

Car Music Recap

I had three songs to work on for car music today. Technically I had four. One of the three is two old songs that I glued together to make one bigger song. It makes sense, I promise. I started with the two non-double songs and was just about to finish up the second song. I was feeling pretty good and was thinking about starting in on the double song. I had been out there for about an hour. My battery was holding out, so was my bladder and my water bottle. Why not?

As I was singing the last line on the second song something weird happened. The MIDI bass track went out of tune. You can do that in MIDI by pitch shifting, but it doesn’t happen magically on its own. You have to tell the track to do it. I did not.

Hearing the out of tune track, which was 100% definitely not out of tune when I recorded the guitars yesterday nor was it out of tune when I did a couple of practice run throughs today, threw me off completely and I had to go back and try a second take. This time the bass was not out of tune? What the hell? Not being out of tune threw me off again and I had to try another take. This time, the third try, it was out of tune again. What the fuck?? I just looped a few bars around the offending moment and let it run. It was out of tune every other playback.

Oh for crying out loud.

I didn’t start working on the double song. I totally lost whatever mojo I had and I had to stop for the day. Oh well.

Here’s the obligatory drive home photo. It is not out of tune, I promise.

Quick Musical Thoughts

Just jotting down a couple of quick music thoughts.

Car music tomorrow? I have three songs ready for vocals so why not? It’s the last day of my sick leave too so again, why not?

The day after tomorrow is the day I go back to work. I think it’s also the day I reach out to the guys in the band and tell them I’m feeling ready to get together. I mean that from both a recovery stand point and a Covid standpoint. I just think it’s time.

If a practice is in our future, I think I’ve changed my mind on what gear to bring. I was going to bring the new pedal board but now I think I’m going to bring the old one. I might add an extra dirt pedal or two as well. We shall see.

Okay, it’s time for bed. I need to get some sleep if I want to car music in the morning. G’night, folks.

I Am Just Awful (on guitar)

I worked on four songs today! Woohoo!

I put rhythm parts on two songs and it went okay. Certainly not good, but okay.

I put leads on two songs and oh my god was it awful! Just atrocious! Train wreck-esque. Wow. I might have to redo it all but I’ll probably just live with it.

What fun!

Music Tomorrow?

I’m thinking of getting up early tomorrow and doing some car music. It will be my first attempt at tracking vocals since the surgery. I’m hoping it doesn’t hurt at all. I have three songs ready to go so there’s plenty to work on.

Tomorrow is the last weekday of my sick leave. I should spend it on music as well as tracking liquids and food protein levels, right?

Tube Amps are Heavy

There was some talk between a couple of us in the band of trying to get everyone together sometime in June and seeing if we can have a band practice or something. I’m really hoping we can make that happen.

I started figuring out what to use for gear for this hypothetical jam. My new Les Paul is a given. The new pedal board I put together a few weeks ago is a given too. For the amplifier I was going to bring my AC15. There’s a problem with that though.

I’m under doctors orders to not lift anything heavy. I’m maxed at 25 pounds. That continues at the minimum through mid-June. Unfortunately tube amps, even little ones, are freaking heavy. My AC15 weighs about 50 pounds. Okay, so that’s out. I’m now planning on taking my MV50 and my Fender 1×12 cab. That’ll work.

Once we get into July I’ll bring the AC15. I want to bring my Deluxe Reverb home from the rehearsal room so I can use it on home demo goofiness. That amp is even heavier, so it’s going to stay where it is for now. I could use that at the first practice, but I’m afraid something might have happened during the 2+ years it’s been sitting and I don’t want to rely on it.

So NuTubes it is.

Lester Lives

I played my new Les Paul today. First time in over two months. I had two songs to work on and I only got to one, but it was awesome. I love that guitar. I celebrated a wedding anniversary with the woman who bought me that guitar for my 50th birthday last year and somehow that makes it all that much cooler.