I didn’t have time to record a vocal this morning. I did manage to write a lyric and a melody though. I used my Apple Ear Pods. I listened through the headphones while recording a guide track with the built in mic.
It wasn’t much of a nerd moment, but it sufficed for the day.
A new April song.
A song about cats.
No really. The lyrics are about cats. I am being 100% honest.
I need a lyricist, badly.
I wanted to keep this one simple but I ended up with all sorts of soupy sauce everywhere and I compressed the hell out of it. I also ended up duplicating tracks and splitting takes across multiple tracks to have effects on parts but not on others. I made a bit of a mess.
Tempest Fero Lives again!
My first real band was called Tempest Fero. We shoulda rethought that name. Anyway, this was one of the first four or five songs we wrote. There should be keyboard, but I don’t have the skill or the patience to try and pull it off.
Recordingly speaking, there are things to note about this turkey. First, it is the first time I ever used the tempo track in Garageband. There is a bonafide tempo change in this one that I didn’t cheat my way through by recording two separate files and then editing them together.
Second, all three of my electric guitars make an appearance. The rhythm guitar is my Les Paul Custom. The first half of the guitar solo during the slow section is my Stratocaster. The second half is the Les Paul Custom again. The two solo breaks toward the end should have been keyboards, but instead they are my ES 335 Pro. The guitarmonies at the very end are actually all three guitars. They weren’t part of the Tempest Fero arrangement, but I thought it would be fun to have all three gitters in harmony.
As for the old days in T.F., this song was monkeyed with often. I believe this is the arrangement (sans keys) we stuck with the most, but there were others. I remember at one point the slow section opened the song. I only found one old (ancient) tape of the song and I could not for the life of me figure out the lyrics in the last verse. What I have here is close, but probably not 100% right.
As for the lyrics, well… we never had a chance. It was 1987 or 88. I was really into Deep Purple. Our drummer was into White Snake and Iron Maiden. We all loved Led Zeppelin. At some point we were going to write a hooker song. None of us would have known a hooker if we had one sitting on our lap, but there was no way around it. We were going to write a hooker song.
I clearly recall three, maybe four, of us sitting in a fast food joint working on the lyrics. We created the character and threw the lyrics together while snaking on McD’s, or Burger King. I’m also pretty sure we got there on a high school band bus. It was a stop along the way on some competition or trip or something. I also seem to remember thinking it was pretty funny. Really, it was just kinda sad.
Ah, the 80’s.
I finished the leads on two March songs today. They are now on the ready to mix list.
One displays nerdiness on an epic scale…
Three part guitarmonies with a different guitar playing each part.
Just
Dripping
Nerdiness
I recorded the rhythm guitar on this song on Sunday. I recorded the vocals and the lead guitars tonight.
Why is that important? Because I bought the Fender Strat on Saturday. All of the guitars you hear on this song are Fender. There isn’t even a single note played on a Gibson. That has never happened to me before. Also, I used the whammy bar near the end. I have never recorded myself using one of those ridiculous things before. There are firsts all around on this one!
What isn’t unique is that the lyrics are utterly meaningless. You can’t tell me what they mean because I was there and I know they mean nothing. The rhyming dictionary site I use more or less wrote this one for me.
I have one song recorded that includes Fender guitars exclusively. A first. I also just recorded the use of a whammy bar for the first time. What a strange world we live in.
I mixed a song tonight. A little gift to the universe (gift?) before hitting the sack for the night.
I was listening to the two Jack Bruce/Robin Trower records from 1981. I was sort of digging the whole aging-white-guys-making-a-show-of-being-funky vibe and decided to steal it. The result is this cheese ball of a 12-bar.
In GarageBand terms, I have been trying to keep the different projects kind of similar in that each month is using the same bass sound and drum sound (mostly, as March is using the Drummer function on 9 of the 10 songs). As I was mixing this one though I suddenly felt really, really bored with the sounds I’d picked for April. I switched the muted bass to an upright bass (which I used across the board back in November) and went for a little more of a smaller, more vintage drum sound. The results, again, aren’t that great. I don’t care.
The lyrics are another @floridaman story. This time the drunken fool made death threats to the arresting officers before sobering up a little and changing his tune to bribery in terms of offers to pressure wash their houses. Really. Check out @floridaman. You cannot make this shit up.
I mixed two songs tonight. Both include the sound of the new Fender guitar.
The first is from March. It’s called “The Universe Next Door” because I can never sound pretentious enough. The title came from a news story I read back in March. I wrote the name down, but not the link to the story. Sorry. I don’t know what any of the lyrics are actually about. Paranoia? How rock and roll!
http://alonetone.com/robertjames1971/tracks/the-universe-next-door.mp3%20The second song is from the April list, but it is actually ancient. It was written in my bedroom back in 1993. Maybe 1992. I guess it might have been 1994. Who the hell knows! It’s old! It was played by all of the short lived bands that came after Tempest Fero but before Prime Meridian. Maria the drummer didn’t like it (I think… it’s been a really freakin’ long time) so Mike and I agreed to drop it. Almost immediately we wrote another yipppeee dance song to replace it. That one might be included in the next album in a month batch.
http://alonetone.com/robertjames1971/tracks/falling-star-1.mp3%20I put rhythm guitars onto the one song left that needed them, and I added leads to two additional songs. I now have five that are ready to mix.
I used the new Strat for everything today. I haven’t changed the strings yet, and those that are on now are heavier than I’m used to.
Ouch.
I have three April songs that are now ready to mix. I recorded leads on all three, and re-recorded some of the rhythm parts on one. I only have two more to finish from April. March is another story.
Now the Bruins have to win tonight. That is all.
Inside the Red Head's Head 