Category: Song Writing

COVID Blues

246/365

Three songs in the pipeline right now. I put guitars on all of them. Two of the songs seem okay so far. The third is a sloppy awful mess. It’s a 12-bar blues. Should I call it The Covid-19 Blues?

The Stir Crazy Files – Episode 27

The mailman came today.  He brought a letter that was obviously junk.  It had the most ridiculously official sounding yet utterly meaningless name on the return address.  I was going to write something that made fun of it.  I figured I’d cover my ass and Google it first and… it is an actual Federal agency.  It is something that is some how related to the Coast Guard, if the two links I read were accurate.  The letter was totally bullshit and fake as fake can be, but knowing there is a real agency took all the fun out of it for me.

I just logged into my 12:00 Zoom meeting only to realize it is a 2:00 meeting, not 12:00.  Did you know that 12:00 and 2:00 are different things?  Crazy!

Now that the April Bonus Edition RPM Challenge is over, the powers that be are putting on an online listening party.  Everyone who finished the project submitted a song.  You can listen to it all right now at this link.  It’s all live and stuff.  Well, the broadcast is live, but the music is recorded.

I sure hope they don’t play my song because my song is Lame with a capital Lame.

 

May Gear

I finished my April music project last night so obviously I’m sitting here thinking about what gear to use for May.

In February I used all three of my Gibson guitars, both Bassbreaker amps, and my full Lizardfish gigging pedal board.  Basically I used everything I had in the house.  In March I restricted myself to just the SG and the 15 watt amp.  No pedals.  It was awful (not really, just being an overly dramatic pedal nerd).  For April it was the 15 watt amp for everything with the SG and the low gain side of the D&M Drive for rhythm parts and the Les Paul and the high gain side of the D&M for leads.

I think I might be tired of overly restricting myself.  For May I want to use the gigging pedal board again.  I miss my wah pedal.  For the amp… I don’t think I can get the 18/30 watt Bassbreaker to play quiet enough to not annoy the crap out of everyone in the house.  I might try it though.  I think I might plan to use the 30 watt channel until someone complains, then switch to the 18 watt channel until someone complains, then switch back to the 15 watt amp.  Either that or I’ll just use the 15 watt amp.  I’m starting to really miss my Deluxe Reverb.  It’s at Mike’s house and it would sure be fun to play with right now.

I’m going to have to change my strings on both guitars at some point too.  Yikes.

April Tracking is Done

Tracking for the April Bonus RPM Challenge is done.  Sort of.  I have seven songs mixed and complete and three more ready to mix.  I say sort of because there is an 11th song.  It has a melody and lyrics but I didn’t record the vocals and frankly I’m not gonna.  If time allows I am going to record the melody with a guitar (or two… or three) and call it an instrumental.

For now though, I have everything I need to finish the COVID-19 RPM Bonus Challenge thingie.

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April Music Lives Again

I went three whole days without doing any work on the April Bonus RPM Challenge.  I had four songs needing lyrics and those plus two others needing vocals and leads.  I was stuck on the lyrics.  On Monday I was able to come up with a melody for song number eight but I was coming up dry for words.  Each night on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday I set aside time in my schedule to try again and ended up doing something else.

That changed last night.  I finished #8 and picked off #9.  Today I did the same for #’s 10 and 11.  All the lyrics are done and I have a melody for everything.  That means tomorrow…

Singing in the car, babie!

The music is alive once more!