Category: Music

Sunday Morning

First:

Wordle 344 2/6

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Now that that’s out of the way, there are no lingering effects from last night’s nausea adventure. I had some scrambled eggs for breakfast and apart from feeling a little gun shy there were no issues. I’m about 20 minutes away from being able to have a drink. I’ll probably have a protein shake and get that puppy out of the way.

Music. What’s up with that? I have four songs I’m working on, all for the next round of re-recordings. I’m dumping the record every month song. It is too lame even for me. Two of the four songs are ready for vocals. Am I ready for car vocals? Are my innards ready? Am I going to be able to push enough air to hit the high notes? I don’t know.

What else? This weekend is Memorial Day Weekend. Tomorrow is Memorial Day. It’s also our 13th wedding anniversary. It’s going to be a pretty fantastic day. We are hoping to try a mini cookout for lunch. Jen wants to try turkey burgers. I’ll probably try to have half a patty without bread or condiments or anything, I’m looking forward to it. I’m looking forward to everything,

My goal for today is simple. Take smaller portions when I eat, and take significantly smaller bites as I go. Let’s not have a repeat of the nausea adventure, m’kay?

Happy Sunday.

Musical Progress

I put rhythm guitars onto two songs tonight! The playing was rotten but I feel so good about it I could burst! It’s been too long. Way too long.

I played my SG through my new pedal board. I also tuned down to Eb for some reason. It felt good.

The Les Paul might come out tomorrow. We will see.

Rest in Peace Alan White

A couple of days ago, Yes announced that Alan White would not be joining them on their upcoming tour. They’ve been bringing an understudy drummer out with them for a while now, but this time Alan was going to stay home.

Today they announced that he has passed away. He was 72 years old.

He has been the drummer for Yes since joining in 1972, just a few days before the start of a US tour to support Close to the Edge. Bill Bruford left to join King Crimson at the last minute and White was his replacement. There were stories of Chris Squire threatening to throw him out of a hotel room window if he didn’t accept the offer, but those probably were just jokes. Probably.

The band he was joining played some of the most complicated and difficult music in the business at that time and he only had three (I think) days to learn the set. He pulled it off because he was an absolute kick ass professional, as well as being good enough to handle it all. There were tales of Jon Anderson turning around and more or less conducting him through some of the show, but regardless, White’s accomplishment was beyond legendary.

I only saw him once, back in 1991. It was in that weird time when there were effectively two versions of Yes. Alan White was in the Los Angeles based arena rock band (Yes West). I was much more into the London based proggie rock band (Yes East), but at that time someone waved enough money at them to get them all to tour as one band. I saw them at the Worcester Centrum. They played in The Round with a revolving stage in the middle of the arena. It was one of the most amazing performances I’ve ever seen any band give. I swear that night’s rendition of Awaken is still reverberating around the rafters to this day. It was stunning.

I should also mention that prior to Yes he was in another notable band. A little combo called The Plastic Ono Band. That’s right, he was John Effin’ Lennon’s drummer. He played on a bunch of things include Imagine. He also played on George Harrison’s first record, specifically My Sweet Lord.

Rest in Peace, Alan White.

Get with it Robert

Two nights in a row.

Two nights in a row I had the opportunity to play the guitar and work on some recording. Harry was at work, Jen was in the office playing World of Warcraft. I could have gone downstairs and mic’d up my AC15 and tracked some guitar parts. I have one record every month song and three great re-recordings going. There’s plenty to do.

I didn’t play though, I just stayed upstairs watching television. I very much want to play. I very much want to get back into the swing of it. I very much want to start being me again. I very much want to be musical and creative again.

If the opportunity arises tonight, I will try and make myself go for it.

Straight In

I played a little today. Nothing serious. I just plugged straight into an amp and noodled. I did do a small experiment. I am thinking of taking my Vox AC15 to the next Lizardfish practice (whenever that might be) but I have never really pushed the volume. Is it loud enough to compete with the rest of the band? More importantly, if I get it up to band practice volume, is the tone still clean?

I dimed the master volume and then brought the channel volume up a little at a time. I got up to 92 decibels (according to my AppleWatch) and it was still clean as a bell. The band does get louder than that, but my channel volume (I was using the amp’s Normal channel, not the Top Boost) was only on about four, so there is still some room available. I don’t know when that channel starts breaking up, but I wasn’t even close. I think my band practice plans are good to go.

The question then is, do I use the Normal channel or the Top Boost channel? That’s still undecided.

Record Every Month

Remember the RPM Challenge’s Record Every Month challenge thingie that I did all last year but failed to finish anything in March or April this year?

I just threw together a simple, quick, and dirty little thing that could end up being a May submission.

Lerxst

So I’m driving from my weight loss surgery class to the Supercuts in Tewksbury and I’m listening to the Envy of None record.

Spy House is playing and it gets to that moment when the guitar launches out from under the mix and Alex Lifeson reminds us that he’s the greatest guitarist ever. That moment.

I may be in a fragile state right now and that might explain why I got super emotional and a smile lit my face and my eyes grew damp and I literally asked myself who would I even be without Alex Lifeson?

Yeah. That moment. Let’s all give thanks that Alex keeps blessing us with his presence.