After I finished recording guitars this morning I was left with four songs that were ready to mix down and mark as finished. I have mixed two of them.

Oddly, the two songs, which were kicked off within just a few days of each other are creepily similar. The tempos are different and one has a bunch of key changes that sort of mask some of the similarities but they are close. Particularly the outros. Those are nearly identical.

But you know, it’s an internet based song writing challenge and they don’t ask how they only ask how many so… yeah. I never claimed to be original. I also never claimed to be any good at this shit. I just do it because I enjoy it.

Here’s one. This is actually the second song that was written but the first of the two that was finished.

And here’s the other. Again, the tempos are different and the vibe is different but the riffs are oh so very similar.

Why do I feel like the count of days in the title of this post is wrong? I don’t think it is, but I think it is, you know?

I have already written about everything I did yesterday but I’ll do it again in summary because that’s somehow been part of the workflow this year and I’d feel like I was missing something if I didn’t.

I put vocals on four songs. That’s all. Given that I haven’t been getting much time for car music during the work week I have to say I am really pleased with this occurrence.

That was yesterday. Today, day 59, will hopefully include a blitz of guitar tracking and mixing as it’s the last day of August. Best of luck to all of my fellow participants.

What did I do? I can’t remember. Let me think…

First I added lyrics and melody to one song. Next I started a brand new song and finished the form and the MIDI (ie fake) bass and drums. Then I did something unusual as far as my assembly line is concerned. I wrote the melody and the lyrics for this new song. I usually wait on that until the rhythm guitars are done, but what the hell, right? Later that night I put a MIDI (ie fake) guitar track down to use as a guide. Then I mixed the one song I had left that was ready to mix. That brings the finished song count up to 35. The 50 songs in 90 days challenge is now 70% complete and there is still a month and two days left to go.

I put rhythm guitars onto one song. That’s it. There wasn’t time for anything else.

Without having much time for anything yesterday, I managed to sneak in two mixes. That’s it, but pretty good under the circumstances.

34 songs down, 16 to go. The 50 songs in 90 days challenge is 68% complete.

I spent the bulk of day 54 (yesterday) in the hospital with my father and still managed to make a little progress. I mixed two songs. Look at me being all productive and shit. No idea what day 55 (today) will bring.

32 songs finished. The challenge is 64% complete.

I mixed one song. That’s all. 30 songs down, 20 to go. The 50 songs in 90 days challenge is 60% complete.

If I take the songs written during this project and pick a handful that are not terrible and edit them and update them and rewrite what needs to be rewritten and then re-record them all so that they sound better than they do now, the song I mixed last night would not only make the cut but it would likely be the first song on the album. It is far from perfect, but I like it.

I worked out one new song idea while sitting in the hospital with my father. Full song form, phony bass and drums tracks complete. I thought that was going to be it for the day but then when I was too tired to think straight I started working on lyrics and melodies instead of going to sleep. I got through all five songs that were in the ready-for-lyrics bucket on the Trello board.

I can’t wait to actually read them while I’m awake and see how terrible they are.

Car music today before the hospital? Could be.

Two songs worth of lead tracks. That’s it.

I was hoping I’d get to sneak in some more before bed but I was just too tired.