Tag: Guitar

Once We Got Home

We went out tonight. It was terrifying and wonderful at the same time. That’s not what this post is about though.

I put rhythm guitar onto two songs and leads onto another. I now have two songs ready to mix. Sweet.

50/90 Update

I was going to do these daily, but naw. One week into the project and here’s where I stand.

12 songs in progress.
No mixes yet.
One song has all of the tracking done and is ready to mix.
One has vocals and is ready for lead guitar.
Five have rhythm guitars and lyrics and melody written and are ready for vocals (car music in the morning, maybe?).
Five have their song format and the bass and drums finished and are ready for rhythm guitars.

Not bad for the first week. I don’t know how this pace compares to the other two times I finished 50 songs. Who knows.

And now for the obligatory guitar pics.

2021 5090 – Day 2/90

There should be car music tomorrow. We will see how I feel in the morning.

How’d we do today? One new song under way for a total of six. All have rhythm guitars and three have lyrics. Not bad for day two.

I usually don’t stress over melodies. These shitty songs are lucky they get any melody at all. Tonight though I found myself trashing something. I was working over a riff that has some really weird syncopation and I was playing a pretty simple melody. Shortly after wrapping up the phrase it started feeling familiar. I eventually placed it… it was a song from this year’s RPM Challenge.

Stupid melody. Stupid, stupid melody.

Take a Holiday

Yesterday was the 4th of July. Independence Day in the USofA. Today is the 5th of July which, thanks to the 4th falling on a Sunday, is the day we celebrate the holiday and have a day off from work. Amen to that, brothers and sisters in the American workforce.

I haven’t really done anything. I unclogged a drain in the bathroom sink. I finished watching Black Summer. I put guitars onto a couple of new song ideas. I’m up to six songs now.

I haven’t spent much time with heavier “rawk!” sounds with the new guitar. That changed today. I had some crunchy goodness going on. The bridge pickup on the new guitar is kind of in love with the Bassbreaker 15. The neck pickup is jealous of that love and therefore kinda bitchy. They aren’t playing all that nicely together. I’ll work it out. If not there will be a new pickup. Something swanky and boutique. Probably not until the kids are done with college though. Money? What’s that?

How about a little love for leather guitar straps. I’ve never owned one before but when the new guitar came (I still can’t believe Jen bought me a Les Paul for my birthday. Best birthday gift ever) I needed a new strap and I found a reasonably priced one on amazon.

One thing I learned, the cloth straps I’ve been using since day one back in 1987 play nicely with clothing. Meaning that when I need to adjust the strap’s position relative to my shoulder, it will slide around easily and not try to bunch up my shirt. Not so with the leather strap. The leather strap grabs hold of my shirt and drags it along with it everywhere it goes. I never thought of that before. No one was more surprised than me.

Anyway, are you having a happy long weekend? I am having a happy long weekend.

On a sadder note, Mary Weinrib passed away at the age of 95. Who is Mary Weinrib? Well pop culturally speaking, she’s Geddy Lee’s mother. Now giving birth and raising the greatest bass player in history and the frontman for the greatest rock band in history is a legendary accomplishment. That’s great. It’s also not the most amazing thing she’d ever done. Mrs Weirib, as a young woman, survived the Holocaust. She survived Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, among others. Rest in peace Mary Weinrib. Your kid done good.

I should also mention that I did not mention when Neil Peart’s father passed away a couple of weeks ago. Sorry about that.

2021 50/90 Day 1/90

Game on!

Today was a big opening day for this year’s 50/90 idiocy. At midnight I kicked off the first song idea. Hooray! I don’t know if I’ve ever stayed up until midnight for one of these before but now I have.

As bed time on day one approaches a quick look at the Trello board shows me five songs underway. All have drums and bass and the full song form. Two have rhythm guitars. Crazy! That’s a lot to get done on the first day. It totally helps when day one is a Sunday and you are trapped at your parents’ house and can’t leave and can’t do pretty much anything else.

Day two tomorrow will hopefully give us the rhythm guitar parts for the other three songs and maybe a new song idea or two. And maybe if time allows… a lyric or two? That’s just crazy talk.

50 songs in 90 days.

Game on!

The Summer Rig

Okay, I’ve got the guitar rig for the summer in place. Welcome back to my sweet little 15 watt Fender Bassbreaker.

Dusting faux tweed is hard.

Just add a shiny new Les Paul and we are on our way.

Addendum: My iPhone autocorrected “on our” to “In-N-Out”. WTF, I ask you. W. T. F?

All Signed Up

I signed up for this year’s 50/90 today. We’ll see how long it takes before I burn out on it. Initial plans are to swap out the Vox amp for one of the Fenders and to keep using the same 3-4 pedals I’ve been using over the last few months. I will start the first day (Sunday the 4th) at my parents’ house. I won’t have much to do outside of Nana Sitting duties so maybe I can get a good jump on things. I have a Trello board setup, but we only get five freebies now so I will probably delete it when I’m done. Whatever. I used to have a Tumblr account that I used for daily check ins on recording projects. I might do that again too. Anything to manufacture some phony BS motivation.

I am up to date on Loki now. Episode four was totally worth the wait. I will be up to date on The Bad Batch in about six minutes when the episode I am watching right now ends. Disney+, I am keeping up with your mad pace.

What else is going on? Right now? Not much. It’s Friday and this weekend is a three day weekend. Glorious. Quitting time is in about nine hours. I can make it that far. Just hold on, fat boy. You can make it that far.

The Last June Song (Probably)

50/90 starts next weekend so I probably shouldn’t be using up new song ideas now. Oh well.

Written on Saturday, recorded on Saturday and Sunday, and mixed before work on Monday. Not a bad little weekend tune.

Sort of a New Song, Kind Of

I think I already wrote a bit about this. The first song I worked on this month was based on a guitar riff I came up with back in May. On the day I recorded the vocals I started work on another song and, accidentally and totally without realizing it, used almost exactly the same guitar riff. It was slower by quite a bit, but for the most part it was the same thing.

Oops.

Now the question is, which song is better? Here’s Part One:

Now here is Part Two:

I am leaning toward part two, but that might just be because I’ve been listening to it all day.