Category: Music

No March Music?

I am supposed to be working on the Record Every Month challenge. Why hasn’t there been any new music?

I have two songs in progress. They are both ready for vocals. It’s March 29th. What’s the delay?

Well, the main delay has been that there is always something going on in the morning right now. I haven’t been able to eek out any time for car music to put the vocals onto those two songs. I was hoping to get it in tomorrow morning, but my doctor’s appointment was just rescheduled from 10:30am to 8:00am. I might be able to do it after the appointment. Then I would have Wednesday and Thursday evenings to put down the lead guitars and throw together a mix.

I think I can pull that off. It’s been so long since I listened to these two songs that I am not even sure how they go anymore. We’ll have to see tomorrow, right?

I’m still planning on more re-recordings. I am much more interested in that project idea than Record Every Month, but I haven’t had time or energy to work on any of that either. I have one song in progress but I haven’t even recorded the rhythm guitars yet. There is just too much going on. It’s a little nuts.

So to sum up, musically speaking… let’s see what happens.

The Last Genesis Show

Genesis ended their reunion tour with a show in London the other night. Phil Collins announced from the stage that it would be the final Genesis show ever. Not surprising given the mess he’s in health wise.

He also announced that Peter Gabriel was in the audience and wondered if he was the guy yelling out requests for Supper’s Ready. I like to think Pete would have been requesting The Knife, or maybe Twilight Alehouse instead.

It doesn’t sound like Steve Hackett or Anthony Phillips were there. Hackett just had to postpone a bunch of shows due to someone in his band catching Covid. Maybe he was quarantined?

I always hoped the five of them would play together one more time, but Phil can’t play the drums anymore and if he can’t play then it’s not the real thing. That makes me a little sad, but we still have those records.

Sleepy

I stayed up really late last night. I didn’t want to, but I was so busy all day that I never had a chance to do some of the things I wanted to do (laundry) and I ended up doing it all after Jen fell asleep. I finally fell asleep around 1:00am and given that I can say without any hesitation that I am ridiculously tired right now.

While I was up last night Harry sent me a text saying that he listened to a Rush album and really liked it. It was Moving Pictures, of course. It was one of the happiest moments of my life. Harry could be a Rush fan, oh glorious day!

He sent me a text a few minutes ago asking me which Rush records to listen to next.

My response was a 100,000,000 word essay.

As I said earlier, oh glorious day!

Here’s a summary of what I told him:

  • You’ve listened to Moving Pictures, now go to Permanent Waves. They both had a similar focus on trying to shorten their songs without sacrificing any musical craziness.
  • Most people who don’t think Moving Pictures is the best album think that 2112 is. It’s heavy and Geddy screams a lot, but it’s pretty much perfect.
  • For 80’s synth Rush go with Power Windows. I wish I could say Hold Your Fire, but the last two songs don’t really cut it.
  • For the 90’s they got heavy again. Go with Counterparts.
  • Clockwork Angels might be my favorite of all Rush albums.
  • Fly By Night is mostly a straight ahead rock record.
  • Hemispheres is amazing end to end, but it’s worth it just for La Villa Strangiato.

Mom’s Second Day

My mother’s having another rough day. She’s still in the hospital. Last time we went through this it took five days before they discharged her. My sister was with her yesterday, my brother today, and I’ll be there tomorrow. I had to juggle some things at work but everyone is being very helpful. I appreciate it. I work with good people.

The contractors are working like crazy in the kitchen. The end is in sight. At least for the stuff we contracted out. There’s stuff that we’re planning to do on our own and we haven’t been able to start yet. That should be fun and chaotic and fun.

I have two Record-Every-Month songs ready for car vocals. One of them is pretty bad. The other is really bad. I also started on volume seven of the ol’ Great Re-Recording Project of 2015 today. Bass and drums for one song. Bring on the guitar.

I learned something about the protein shakes I’ve been having for breakfast. Normally I make a shake in the morning using my little single serving electric mixer. When it’s done I put the mixer and the glass I drank it out of into the dishwasher. The next morning they are both sparkling clean. With all of the kitchen fun, we currently don’t have a hooked up dishwasher, or a hooked up kitchen sink, or a hooked up kitchen faucet. So I used the mixer on Monday and then didn’t get around to washing it until this morning. I tried washing it in the bathroom sink, but I couldn’t. The dregs of the protein powder had morphed into a cement like solid. Note to self, get that thing into the dishwasher each day, Stat.

Okay, back to work.

What Am I doing?

Remember in that last post when I mentioned doing another round of re-recordings of older songs?

I have literally lost my mind.

How about two more rounds?

I picked out a handful of songs to think about re-doing. Most were from the last couple of RPM Challenges but I poked around through other projects looking to fill out the numbers. When I got to the 2020 50/90 playlist I thought about how I made a whole 10 song project out of songs written for the 2021 50/90 and I thought… do it again?

Sure enough, I have 10 songs from various places and projects, that will be round seven. I also have 10 songs just from the 2020 50/90, and that will be round eight.

Robert… come on… what are you doing?

Realize that this is just me trying to be a 50 year old schmuck who is following social distance protocols up to and beyond their maximum who still wants to play the guitar a lot and who also likes to think that part of him is still that 22 year old kid who went to school to learn how to operate a recording studio.

So… yeah. That’s happening.

It might be a while before I get too deeply into it as I still haven’t started doing the laundry. I’ll get to it though.

Busy Sunday

Jen and I spent our Sunday morning prepping the kitchen and the dining room both for the next week’s worth of contractors and for what comes after the contractors are done. Mostly we just talked about redesigning things and cleaning up some of the places that require changes. We also built the first piece of pre-fab kitchen furniture. The ball is rolling and it is out of control.

The Bruins traded for a new defenseman and the Red Sox signed a new infielder (I think). I don’t know either of them because I am completely out of touch, but they both received long term contracts so maybe they’re both pretty good? I hope so. I missed the last couple of Bruins games so I didn’t hear that Bergeron is injured. Shit.

I may have made a decision about music last night and it may result in more annoying blog posts. Duck and cover kids. It was well after midnight and I should have been asleep but I was wide awake. I started poking through my Alonetone account. I listened to a few things from the last couple of re-recording projects. I thought to myself… do I want to do another one? I have six “albums”, do I want to do a seventh? There are two or three songs from last month’s RPM Challenge that might be worth another look. There’s also a couple of songs from the previous RPM that might be worthwhile too. Shit… I think I am starting to put together Quarantine Tunes Volume Seven. Just when you thought it was safe to listen to music again.

Spring officially began about an hour and 10 minutes ago. We survived another Winter. Now we just need to avoid any unscheduled Spring snow. That would be nice, right?

Okay. I need to do some laundry. I’ll talk to you later.

Finally Played Guitar Again

It’s been almost a month since I played the guitar at all. Finally I got some noodling in today. I kicked off a couple of song ideas for the Record Every Month challenge thing and I put rhythm guitars on them. They both suck pretty hard, but it’s okay. Something is better than nothing, I hope.

My new Les Paul through the Klon KTR into the Keeley D&M Drive into the Vox AC15. That’s a happy noise.

As always, forgive the dust.

Calm Down

Given the hectic nature of the last two weeks, it is almost unsettling to have a Saturday with nothing going on. I started work on two songs for Record Every Month. I watched a Star Trek Discovery episode, and I am about to start a second.

Jen and I have talked over some plans for redesigning the rest of the kitchen and the dining room. We were thinking of going to IKEA tonight but the idea of the crowds and the Covid risk and what not is steering us away. We might try to go shortly before close on a weeknight this week to cut down on the human interactions.

I am going to play guitar today. Bank on it.

I Need to Practice

I haven’t touched a guitar in 20 days. I need to carve out some time this weekend. I have been thinking about bringing my Vox AC15 amplifier to the next Lizardfish practice, whenever that is, and I need to see how loud I can get it before the tone breaks up. I know my other 15 watt amp, the Fender Bassbreaker 15, can’t get terribly loud before it distorts. I think the AC15 handles it better, but if I can’t get it loud enough to compete with a drummer while still staying clean, then I can’t use it at practice. Really, I just want to bring my Fender Deluxe Reverb home again.

Speaking of Lizardfish, Mike the Bass Player is in Cleveland today. He sent us a bunch of pictures from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. To quote Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member Alex Lifeson, blah blah blah. Mike sent me a picture of the BB King display. It’s awesome. Thanks, Mike!

At our last discussion, Mike said he’d be away for a couple of weeks. After that we can try to set up a rehearsal date. I really want to play. I really want to play. I’m still scared shitless of getting sick, but I really want to play.

It’s going to be a couple of weeks before the kitchen updates are finished. Once that’s all done I am going to start looking for a guitar tech to hire to work on my stuff. I’ll go with the ES-335 first. Check the frets, check the neck joint, rewire the whole friggin’ thing. Four new pots, a new jack, maybe a new pickup switch, and all new wiring. Don’t touch the pickups, they are gold and need to live forever. Everything else that lives under the covers, replace.

I’m worried about the neck joint. It’s clearly pulling away from the body, but it’s been doing that at a glacial pace for at least 22 years. I’m worried, but I’m not that worried. I am really worried about the frets. I’ve never had a guitar refretted. If they need to be replaced, is it still going to feel the same way it did before? No, clearly, but will it be so different that I will fall out of love with one of my two favorite musical instruments on Earth*? I hope not. Especially given that the frets on my other favorite musical instrument, my Les Paul Custom, are in worse shape. We’ll find out.

Right. Lunch break over. Time to read that huge email a coworker just sent me. I’ve got some back story to get filled in on.

*Technically I should say it’s one of my three favorite musical instruments. My ’78 Les Paul, my ’79 ES-335, and the Selmer Mark VII tenor saxophone I played in high school. I haven’t seen that instrument since 1989. That sucker was in bad shape when it came to me, but it was glorious. Epically glorious. I loved that horn. It was brass magic.