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What Next?

Here’s the obligatory post-RPM Challenge post.

Now that my musical month of February is in the past, what’s next?

Well, I think I’m just going to do it again. Not the same songs, and not the longer FAWM based album, but a new recording of either 10 songs or 35 minutes. Call it RPMarch.

I’ve still got four things that I was tinkering with in January, and there was the 15th song idea from RPM that I never got to. There is also the missing Tempest Fero song that I took a listen to this evening. Those six plus four more? There is also the three unfinished things from the 2008 failure. Maybe I’ll save those for April.

Any one else want to take a shot at RPMarch?

Bose

Now that the whole music project is finished, we found ourselves at the mall today.  My wife wanted to get a set of bluetooth headphones for work.  She ended up getting a pair of Beats by Dr Dre.  They are really nice.  I thought they were a little heavy on the low end, but they were sweet.  I accidentally ended up buying a pair of Bose AE2W Bluetooth Headphones.  The Sennheiser HD 280 Pro headphones I used to mix my project are excellent, but these Bose babies… Wow.  When it comes to sound systems, I kneel at the alter of Bose.

Back to Reality

Each morning over the last two plus weeks I presented myself with a question:

You can either shave today, or spend an extra five minutes working on RPM.

Each day I chose RPM.  Well, RPM is over now.  I did not have to pose the question today.  I have finally shaved the shag carpet that was causing my whole face to be an unbearably itchy mess.

I feel much better.  Oh what a relief!  When we go to our weight watchers meeting tomorrow and weigh in I expect to be at least 15 pounds lighter than I was when I woke up this morning.

Ahhhhh!

Cassettes

I am visiting my parents’ house tonight.  I just went up to my old room because I know I have more good stuff on vinyl than I found the last time I looked.  I have a white label promo copy of Tales from Topographic Oceans by Yes.  I really wanted to find that little bastard.  So I took another look.  I found it.  I also found my copy of Rush Through Time, although I can’t find the @$%@$ing sleeve.  I found a Rush picture disc that I think I listened to once.  It came out in ’87 or so.  I also found a couple of Genesis records that never sounded as good on CD.  More important, I found a copy of Bloom County’s Billy and the Boingers Bootleg, although the floppy record that came with it is still MIA.  Most important though… I found some Tempest Fero music on cassette.  That one song I was looking for last year when I was re-recording Tempest Fero songs?

Two different versions of it.

There will be more 80’s music brought back to life.

In the Mail

I mailed my RPM CD today at lunch.  The post office in Westwood is a teeny tiny little corner of a teeny tiny little strip mall and I drove past it twice before I found it, but the disc is in the mail.

Now the question is, what do I do with myself now that I don’t have RPM hanging over my head?

The first thing is to shave.  My face is so damn itchy!

RPM Challenge – Day 28 – FINISHED

The clock struck midnight as I was typing this. My MacBook battery is down to 13%.

The last songs are finished. I even added a new song while I was waiting for the kids to get out of karate. It’s just a really silly 90 second long 12-bar that I probably should have left off the final CD but didn’t.

Here’s the playlist at alonetone. I’ll get it to bandcamp and add it to my music page some other time.

ADDENDUM:
The alonetone playlist is displaying but it’s not playing, so here is the same playlist on soundcloud. This will be deleted eventually, but the alonetone one will live forever (so long as the site stays up).

RPM Challenge – Day 27

Something happened last night that sort of sums up this year’s challenge for me.  I went to bed after finishing the lead guitars on the last two songs.  While sleeping, I had a dream.  I was digging around in my ear for ear wax.  I found something else though.  I was able to grab it and pull.  What came out?  Dust.  A dust bunny about the size of a quarter.  When I woke up my first thought was, so that’s why everything sounds like crap this year.

I mixed two more songs before work this morning.  There are only two left.  I will finish them both tonight if it kills me.  Then I need to figure out a running order, burn a CD, and mail it off.

Here is one of this morning’s mixes. It’s the 7/8 rocker with the terrible leads.
http://alonetone.com/robertjames1971/tracks/bad-guy.mp3%20

The other song is in 6/8. It was an eighth note kinda morning. It was supposed to be the big quiet/loud/quiet thing but the loud parts are kinda pointless.
http://alonetone.com/robertjames1971/tracks/that-certain-someone.mp3%20

It is February 27th. The end is upon us.

RPM Challenge – Day 26

I have finished recording all of the parts I need. I have four more songs to mix. I’m going to finish on time and have something in the mail by noon on Saturday. It just won’t be all that good.

The music is repetitive and clunky, the lyrics are crap as usual, the singing is worse than ever, and the lead guitar playing (which is normally weak at best) has been at times dreadful. I just don’t have it in me this month. I could probably take four or five of these and combine them with three or for from November and end up with a decent collection of songs, but this one on its own is pretty pathetic.

I mixed two more last night, for a total of 10 finished songs. I’m not going to post one of them because the vocal performance is the worst of my life, and despite recording the whole thing multiple times (dumbing down the melody each time) I still can’t pull it off.

The second mix from last night is better though.

http://alonetone.com/robertjames1971/tracks/yes.mp3%20

My hands are too tired to perform, my voice is too tired to perform, and I think my ears are too tired to perform too. Everything just sounds sort of… mushy.

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