I just came home from my first car music of the 50/90 season. I had three songs to do. I did two of them. The mic was dropping out and distorting and sounding awful again. I had to do everything over and over again because of it. I’m about 95% sure it’s the mic cable. I will test that the next time I do a car music. I am Nana Sitting tonight which means I can’t do it tomorrow. Thursday or Friday maybe? Probably more like Sunday. We’ll see.
There should be car music tomorrow. We will see how I feel in the morning.
How’d we do today? One new song under way for a total of six. All have rhythm guitars and three have lyrics. Not bad for day two.
I usually don’t stress over melodies. These shitty songs are lucky they get any melody at all. Tonight though I found myself trashing something. I was working over a riff that has some really weird syncopation and I was playing a pretty simple melody. Shortly after wrapping up the phrase it started feeling familiar. I eventually placed it… it was a song from this year’s RPM Challenge.
Stupid melody. Stupid, stupid melody.
Game on!
Today was a big opening day for this year’s 50/90 idiocy. At midnight I kicked off the first song idea. Hooray! I don’t know if I’ve ever stayed up until midnight for one of these before but now I have.
As bed time on day one approaches a quick look at the Trello board shows me five songs underway. All have drums and bass and the full song form. Two have rhythm guitars. Crazy! That’s a lot to get done on the first day. It totally helps when day one is a Sunday and you are trapped at your parents’ house and can’t leave and can’t do pretty much anything else.
Day two tomorrow will hopefully give us the rhythm guitar parts for the other three songs and maybe a new song idea or two. And maybe if time allows… a lyric or two? That’s just crazy talk.
50 songs in 90 days.
Game on!
When the clock struck midnight on July 4th I opened up my MacBook and launched GarageBand and noodled out the first idea. At the time I was awake and feeling all right. Now, 25 minutes later, I can’t keep my eyes open. I also have a two and a half minute long bass and drum track.
Game on, folks!
My Nana Sitting shift has begun. The doors are alarmed and the pills have been distributed. She’s okay right now, she’s dishing out some ice cream for herself, but I know pain is a bit of an issue.
I was planning on putting the Red Sox game on with the volume down and then streaming something on my laptop through headphones but the USA Network is running a slew of Marvel movies. Harry, Jen, and I watched Antman this afternoon (on Disney+, not USA). When I got here Age of Ultron was on and now Captain America Civil War is on. Okay, so it’s a Marvel night. That works for me.
50/90 starts in under four hours. I had this idea to write a series of songs that have all of the verses and choruses written as haikus. Anything to force a little creativity, right?
Okay, I’m going to sign off and watch some super heroes and be sad that I am not at home. Until next time (which, knowing how Nana Sitting goes will probably be three or four more times before I go to sleep).
Okay, I’ve got the guitar rig for the summer in place. Welcome back to my sweet little 15 watt Fender Bassbreaker.
Dusting faux tweed is hard.
Just add a shiny new Les Paul and we are on our way.
Addendum: My iPhone autocorrected “on our” to “In-N-Out”. WTF, I ask you. W. T. F?
50/90 starts next weekend so I probably shouldn’t be using up new song ideas now. Oh well.
Written on Saturday, recorded on Saturday and Sunday, and mixed before work on Monday. Not a bad little weekend tune.
I think I already wrote a bit about this. The first song I worked on this month was based on a guitar riff I came up with back in May. On the day I recorded the vocals I started work on another song and, accidentally and totally without realizing it, used almost exactly the same guitar riff. It was slower by quite a bit, but for the most part it was the same thing.
Oops.
Now the question is, which song is better? Here’s Part One:
Now here is Part Two:
I am leaning toward part two, but that might just be because I’ve been listening to it all day.
I did vocals for two songs first thing this morning, and now I put leads on those songs too. Tracking is done for both. I’m trying to make myself love the Blues Breaker clone pedal. I used it as a boost yesterday and as a light drive pushing a huge Klon Klone boost today. I like it. It’s just not… I don’t know. It’s not love. It makes me sad, though why? It’s just a friggin’ guitar pedal, right? Stupid red head.
I did some car music today. It went much better, gear wise, than last time. I had three songs ready to go and I got to two of them, but I was in a bit of a time crunch. Also, it was super hot in that car and the MacBook Pro was actually almost too hot to touch so… yeah. Call it.
The digital drop out problem was sort of addressed. At least I attempted to address it. I changed the USB cable and the USB to USB-C adapter. I had some problems early on that lead me to believe the mic cable might be the source of the fails. Next time I’ll use a different cable. I am really hoping it’s not the mic or the interface itself because those kids are expensive.
I did both of the songs that I started working on in the last week. I hope to put leads on them today and then mix them while I’m Nana Sitting tonight. That would mean one song was started on Saturday night and finished on Sunday night. 24 hours from the first idea to the finished mix. Cool.
In closing, here’s the obligatory “I drove through the center of town” pic. This time it has a groovy old timey filter because… why the hell not, yeah?
Inside the Red Head's Head 