Could this be the CD cover?

Yes it is pretty windy today. I can’t figure out where this came from.

I am getting more and more obsessed with RPM as each day moves on.  What the hell am I going to do on March 1st?

Anyway, as stated, last night’s two songs bring me to 10 which is the goal for the project.  I think I’m up around 39 minutes which is also above the goal for the project.  I do not have everything finished yet, and there are at least two more that I am optimistic will end up on the A list.  But lets forget about the A/B/C list scenario for now.  If I had to mail in today, what would the track list be?

I would think this:
Debut
The Day it All Went to Pieces
Fight or Flight?
Showdown at Canobie Lake Park
Heartland Denies the Obvious Truth
Ready for It
RPM Blues
Where My Heart Lives
Throw Away
Quiet Lazy Song

There are two schools of thought regarding sequencing a demo/album like this.  If it is a demo (which this definitely is) then it should be ordered from best song to worst song with the best song first.  That way it’s front loaded with all of your best stuff.  You don’t want to make the listener wait for the good parts, just bash him/her over the head right away. The other idea is to have it flow.  Don’t put two heavy songs next to each other, and don’t put two slow songs next to each other, and don’t put two soft songs next to each other, and yadda yadda. 

In this case I did both.  1-5 are what I feel are the strongest songs.  6-10 are weaker songs but arranged so two like feels are not together.

Another method for sequencing tracks is to use the Derek and the Dominoes method.  The Layla album is ordered from the first song they worked on to the last song they worked on.  That’s it.  My three RPM failures, when finally completed, all follow that method.  Unfortunately this time I’m not sure what the original order was.  Garageband for iPad gives each song a name, “My Song X” where X is a number.  When I started I had some old stuff that I didn’t want to keep.  After a few songs were underway I deleted the unwanted songs.  At that point the files were named starting at 1.  I can’t remember which song I actually did first.  Was it My Song 2 or My Song 3?  I can’t remember.  Who cares.  I’m having way too much fun with this dumb project to worry about crap like that.

Hopefully there will be more completes tonight!

WOOHOO!

It was snowing a minute ago.  While I was walking into the building this morning I saw the biggest snow flake ever.  I swear it was half an inch in diameter.  It was a hugh-munga snow flake.

Of course the temperature is in the high 30’s, low 40’s on the old Fahrenheit scale so no snow is going to be sticking around today.

Note to adobe acrobate reader.  When I click to open a file, that is not the same thing as asking to print it.  Print != Open.  Just saying.

I waited until everyone was sound asleep last night and then I snuck into the cellar and finished two more songs.  That’s 10, kids.  I could mail in a finished album to RPM headquarters right now if I wanted to.  I’ve still got five more to finish.  Hopefully by Monday I’ll be mailing a sucker in.  Hopefully.

The Bruins beat the Blues the other night, despite blowing an early 2-0 lead.  The game was in St Louis where the Blues have been dominant, and we beat them.  Brad Marchand scored twice.  It was a good game against a good team.  Tonight we play in Buffalo.  Buffalo is not a good team.  We tend to play down to our opponent.  Hopefully tonight they will correct that problem and stomp all over the Sabers. 

Go Bruins

So FAWM requires 14.5 songs (translating into English, that is 15 songs) and RPM requires 10.  That represents a luxury I am not used to having on these silly album projects.  I will have more songs available than I actually need.  That means I can skip over those that I don’t like, and hopefully the complete album is the better for it.

There are eight songs completely finished right now.  I’ve been listening to them in the car on the way to and from work.  None of them are very good, and at least one is absolutely horrible, but they are starting to fall into three different categories in my tiny little mind.  One category (let’s call it the A List) is songs that I will definitely include on the final album.  Another, (let’s call it the B List, are you seeing the pattern?) is songs that aren’t as good, but aren’t awful and could be used on the final album, although in a perfect world I’d drop them.  The final category (C List maybe?) is songs that utterly suck and won’t be going anywhere… either that or they are the ones that don’t sound they way I had originally envisioned them.

A List
The Day it all Went to Pieces
Debut (As of right now this might end up as track one)
Showdown at Canobie Lake Park (As of right now this will be the album’s title song)
Heartland Denies the Obvious Truth

B List
Ready for It
RPM Blues

C List
Where My Heart Lives (This one waffles between the B and C Lists, but as of right now it’s a C)
Throw Away (This song is horrible)

I’ll add to this as more songs are finished.  I highly doubt I’ll end up with 10 A List songs, and even if I do I might throw on the B List anyway.  Who knows?

Also, assuming the album keeps the current title of Showdown at Canobie Lake Park, which do you think would make a better cover?

or

I’m leaning toward the first one.  They just happen to be the only pictures of Canobie Lake Park that I have that don’t include the kids.  I might drive past the front gate tomorrow and take a camera phone picture there.  We’ll see.

I finished two more songs tonight. They should be available in the RPM player I posted this morning. One of them is relatively decent. The other is one of, if not the, worst songs I’ve ever written. I knew it was awful the minute I started messing with it, and normally I would have scratched it, but this is February and all ideas must be pursued in order to get to the album-in-a-month goal. As of now it is part of the album, but once I top the 10 song mark it will be the first one dropped.

Sometimes when you’ve lived a few decades you start to take little things for granted without realizing it. I learned of one such thing tonight.

I have this little boom box in the cellar. It’s a CD/cassette/AM/FM deal with little maybe 3 or 4 inch speakers. If memory serves I bought it in maybe 1998 or so.

Tonight my step son and I went down cellar to watch the Bruins while the girls stayed upstairs watching Survivor. He saw the boom box and got really into it. I figured it was probably his first tape player and he was curious about that. He asked to play a tape, but I don’t have any in the house. That wasn’t the big deal though.

Much to my surprise, it was the radio that grabbed him. I had to talk him through how to turn it on and tune it, and after a few seconds of fiddling he found the Bruins game.

He went NUTS! He was so excited! He cranked up the volume and literally dashed up the stairs to tell his mother all about it.

It was so funny. I never would have imagined that something as silly as tuning a radio could light him up like that, but why not? He’s probably never dealt with a tuner outside of a car or his iPod nano, and I don’t expect he’s ever actually played with one in a car, and I don’t think he’s gotten around to the tuner in his iPod.

Knowing how to use a radio is something I took for granted. My step son taught me different and showed me how cool it can be.

I absolutely love being a step dad.

Here’s the demo player from my RPM account:

Now you that the four new songs are posted here you can continue to not listen to them by choice.  hehe  Just kidding.

Oh, and I quit my band today.  I feel like a tool for missing out on so much family time.  At some point in the near future the kids aren’t going to want me around at all.  Maybe when that day comes I’ll try starting another band. 

I’ve no doubt that I’m the only person alive who gives a shit about any of this but…

More big RPM progress today. Two more songs written, including vocals. That brings me up to my goal of 15. I also recorded acoustic guitar on a couple of songs, and added saxophone solos to two as well. After 15-20 minutes worth of noodling on the sax my jaw and my lips were pretty much dead to me, and I had a major headache.

Still, I pressed on and managed to finish four more songs. That brings the done-count to six. Eight more to go.

I’m starting to think a little about an official RPM CD. Part of the project is supposed to be mailing a finished disc into RPM headquarters in Portsmouth. I’ve never wanted to do that at all. Just posting it to alonetone was enough for me. This year there is an actual risk of finishing on time though.

If I do put together a CD it probably won’t have all 15 songs on it. There are at least three (including one I finished today) that are much lamer than my usual lame. I’ll post them to alonetone, but if I mail in a disc I will leave them off.

I need to start thinking about cover art too. Damn, it’s weird being way ahead of schedule!