Frozen Solid

I just got home from some car music. I think it was a success. I’m not sure though because I am literally frozen solid and can’t tell if I am even alive or not. It is soooo freaking cold out right now.

I spent about an hour and a half in the car in the (mostly) empty movie theater parking lot, singing my lungs out while trying to keep my extremities safe from frost bite. It is tough to use a laptop while wearing winter gloves, but I sort of made it work. I put vocals onto seven RPM Challenge songs all while the temperature topped out at 19 degrees Fahrenheit (that’s -7.2 or so for our metric, Celsius using friends).

Right now I am sitting in my living room, hoping that the feeling will return to my toes soon. Once it does, I will go down cellar to my music nook and start recording lead guitar tracks. Today is Music Day, boys and girls, and it is off to a cracking good start.

Morning Music and a Quest

I screwed up my morning routine today and I don’t know how I am going to recover. No details needed, as they are neither important nor really noteworthy, but I did manage to straighten it out enough to get a couple of things done.

First things first, car music. I put vocals on four 50/90 challenge songs. I was hoping to get to five, but I didn’t have time to add another song. I didn’t do particularly well today, and a couple of the melodies were a bit more complicated than my no-talent self usually gets. We’ll see how it comes out when the songs are done.

After the car music was complete I went on a quest. My father asked me to bring him a newspaper. I had a paper route back in the 80’s. Long time ago. I tried to remember the last time I bought one… given that the newspaper industry is effectively dead and the fact that they still exist is laughable. The last time I bought one was… I think… 2007? When the Red Sox won the World Series I bought a Boston Globe. I think I did it in 2007. I know I did in 2004. Let’s just say it’s going on 20 years.

Where the hell do people buy newspapers? The one my father wanted isn’t one that you could ever regularly find near my home (we’re in Lawrence Eagle Tribune country and he wants a Lowell Sun). I went to my old home town, Tewksbury, thinking there were a couple of stores where I might be able to find one. The first store I went to does not carry newspapers anymore. Big surprise. The second… is now a dentist office. Again, not a surprise. I finally decided to just hit any grocery store or convenience store I saw and I found one.

Quest complete. Newspaper acquired.

Now some random pictures… just because…

This place sold me a newspaper because it’s still 1980

Finally… cats.

First Time in Ages

When was the last time I drove to an empty parking lot to record myself singing for one of my dumb songwriting project demos? February? Maybe?

Well, we’re back. I did it this morning. I had an annoying interruption, but I still managed to record very bad, terrible even, vocals onto five songs.

I started here:

Oh, did I mention it was pouring rain? As I was finishing up the first song a truck pulled up near me. It looked like a landscaper. Then a security truck pulled up. Then another car. Everyone got out and just stood around looking at each other. Then another car. Then another car. What the hell?

I moved. I just drove to the other side of the parking lot.

From there I finished up four more songs. I could have maybe done one or two more (the battery on my MacBook Pro is legendary) but I had to pee so incredibly bad that I had to drive home. Oh well. Hopefully we’ll be able to do some more tomorrow.

Driving Out to Car Music

I don’t think I’ve ever used Flickr to host a video here. Does it work? I had this idea of a post about me driving somewhere for some early morning car music today but then I didn’t post it until I got home after finishing the car music. Oh well.

I put vocals on four songs today. That means there are only five songs left to write and record the vocal parts for. 15 songs have their vocal tracks finished. Excellent!

No pics of the clock downtown today. I didn’t take the long way home, I took the fastest route possible. There are tons of things going on today and I didn’t want to delay my return home for even a minute or two.

Things unrelated to music projects that were in the planning, semi-hypothetical stage 24 hours ago have ramped up to the imminent and stressful stage. Bring it on! Roll with the changes, as the song goes.

Like Some Kind of Lame Canary

I did some RPM Challenge work this morning after finishing my exercise and my breakfast and my daily writing prompt. What did I do? Vocals. I drove off to an empty parking lot in town and recorded the vocal tracks for four songs while sitting out in the cold. I really wish I wasn’t so shy about recording myself singing. It would be so much easier to just do this at home. The negative then would be all the noise I make and how annoying it would be to my wife, rather than me just being a wimp who is too shy to sing when other people can hear me. I’m fine singing with the band, but in those cases there is enough noise that I can trick myself into thinking I am hiding behind it. Also, I am playing guitar at the same time and for some illogical reason that makes a difference. Why? Who knows.

The only interesting thing about today’s car music is that I only had three songs prepared with a melody and lyrics. After I cranked out the vocal tracks for those three songs I wrote the lyrics and melody to the fourth song while I was recording. I wouldn’t say I improvised the vocal parts, but they are lame enough that you might think they were improvised. Who cares. I sure don’t. This means I have 11 songs with vocals, and the RPM Challenge definition of an album is 10 songs or 35 minutes… which means that even if I don’t record another vocal track for the rest of the month, I can still finish a full album. Nice.

Here are some pics from my “studio” for today.

Can you guess where the snowplows dump the snow when they clear the mall parking lot? I can.

Also, here’s the obligatory down town clock, because reasons…

Also, because I can’t resist, I happened to catch the cats sitting together on the old cat tree just before I left the house, so you get that picture too.

Car Music

Car music happened this morning. I recorded vocals for four songs while sitting in the car in an empty parking lot next to a giant snow bank.

Obligatory clock pic:

Bonus Fenway Park scoreboard mural thing on the liquor store wall pic:

Hopefully I’ll be able to get out and record more vocals in the car before work tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

Long Day Alert

Wow… Wednesday… am I right or am I right?

It’s a work-in-the-office day. I woke up nice and early, though about half an hour later than I was hoping. I had a lot of meetings on my work calendar today, the first of them being very early in the day. I wanted to make sure I could get through my whole morning routine, including 45 minutes of jogging (pronounced yogging) in place and making lunch and packing emergency protein snacks and all of that stuff while still leaving enough time for me to get to work a little early.

Unfortunately when I got out of bed I saw that we got a dusting of snow overnight. Not a lot, but enough to cover everything and guarantee a terrible morning commute. I was hoping to get out onto the road by 7:15. I made it by 7:20, but I had to cut my exercise in half to pull off that feat. That means I am going to have to yog tonight when I get home and I really do not want to do that. I wasn’t late to work, but it did take me an hour and a half to drive the 40 miles.

Now that it’s about 2:30 in the afternoon, I have survived two big meetings and I have a third coming up in half an hour. I’m stressing out, big time, but once I get through today I will not have to worry about this sort of thing for a while and I am happy about that idea.

Tomorrow and Friday I will be working from home. I am optimistic that I will be able to get a lot of music done before work both days. Fingers crossed for some guitar playing and car vocals and fun stuff like that. I’m also thinking it would be nice to mix a song or two over the weekend. Doesn’t that sound like fun?

For now though, I am really tired and can’t wait to get through my next meeting so that I can relax a little. Maybe if I can get my exercise finished right after dinner tonight I might be able to go to bed early and enjoy not having to stress over a work project for the first time in a couple of weeks. Fingers crossed, right?

My Morning in Pictures

Here’s what I did this morning… in Hipstamatic pictures… Because… I don’t know why…

Frustration, Jen’s prescription wasn’t ready, so I have to go back later.

And there you have it. My morning excursion in pointless photographs.

Saturday Morning Music

Car music happened this morning. I drove to the movie theater parking lot and put vocals on four songs. Three of them were written beforehand, one was written on mic. I don’t do that very often anymore, but I had run out of tracks to sing and wasn’t quite ready to stop so I threw it together on the spot. Sweet.

I was originally thinking of spending some time playing guitar today but I don’t think I will have quite enough time, what with our plans to go to Vermont to visit the kids this afternoon. Instead the goal is to write some more lyrics so I can have another successful car music tomorrow, and set up some song forms so that I can have a lot of songs ready for rhythm guitars tomorrow as well.

The goal is 50 songs by October 1st. 27 songs are done, 46 are in progress. It doesn’t look good, but it’s still doable. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Friday Morning Car Music

I recorded some vocals this morning. Three songs worth. I drove to the movie theater parking lot so no one could hear me, which is how I do things because I am such a wimp. Here’s the view:

I was only out for about half an hour and I did cut things off early. I had three songs ready to go that were written in August and two more that were written in July. I did the three August songs and was about to start one of the July songs when I opened up the GarageBand file and found there were a lot of lyrics to sing. I just didn’t have the energy and decided to save the two July songs for a weekend session.

I have changed up my workflow a little. Mostly in terms of standards. I am thinking of quick and dirty demoes now, due to flaking off for three weeks and falling so far behind the 50/90 pace. Last night when I wrote the melodies and lyrics for the three songs I recorded this morning I purposely decided to use the same parts in multiple places. Meaning I wrote one verse part and used it 2-3 times. I usually do that with chorus sections but I’m doing it more often now. I also purposely did not write a lot of harmony parts. One or two here and there but nowhere near as many as I usually write. I’m also lowering my standards for what is a useable take. That goes for vocals and guitars. I’m going to be much sloppier than usual and much less nitpicky. Is nitpicky a word?

I want finished demoes from here on out, rather than quality demoes. Know what I mean?

Anyway, here’s the obligatory downtown Methuen clock from the drive home pic:

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